Compare

Moteur beside the others, checked on their own pages.

Eight content systems agencies ask us about, on the points that matter for client sites. We don’t win every row, and the tables say so. Each fact links to where it comes from.

Start a project Moteur for agencies

Eight at a glance

Eight points for each. The page for each one has eighteen.

	Moteur	Sanity	Strapi	Payload	WordPress	Contentful	DatoCMS	Storyblok	TinaCMS
Where the content lives	Plain JSON files in the project’s own Git repository	Sanity’s cloud (the Content Lake)1	Your own SQL database2	Your own database (MongoDB, Postgres or SQLite)3	Your own MySQL or MariaDB database4	Contentful’s cloud5	DatoCMS’s cloud6	Storyblok’s cloud7	Markdown, MDX and JSON files in your Git repository8
Who runs it	Moteur Cloud. Or host the open-source engine yourself, without the Studio	The editor can run anywhere. The content lives in Sanity’s cloud1	Host it yourself, or Strapi Cloud from $35 a project a month9	Host it yourself. New Payload Cloud projects are paused10	Host it yourself, or WordPress.com11	Hosted only5	Hosted only12	Hosted only7	TinaCloud, or host the backend yourself8
Open source	Engine: MIT. The Studio and Moteur Cloud: not open source	Editor (Studio): MIT. Content Lake: not open source13	MIT, with Enterprise code under its own licence14	MIT15	GPLv2 or later16	Not open source (its SDKs, CLI and MCP server are MIT)17	Not open source12	Not open source (its SDKs and CLI are)18	Apache-2.019
Free plan	1 person, 1,000 entries, 2,000 API requests a month	20 people, 10,000 documents, 3 days of history20	Community, self-hosted: no limits. No free Cloud plan for new projects since 1 July 202621	All of it, self-hosted, with no limits22	Self-hosted: free, with no limits. You pay for hosting11	10 people, 2 languages, 2 roles, 10,000 records5	300 records, 5 languages, 3 days of history12	1 person (up to 2), 2 languages, 1 day of history18	2 people, 2 roles23
First paid plan	Personal, $9 a month: 2 people, 10,000 entries	Growth, $15 per person a month20	Growth licence, $45 a month for 3 people, hosting apart21	No public price: Enterprise is by quote22	WordPress.com Personal, $4 a month billed yearly11	Lite, $300 a month: 20 people, 3 languages5	Professional, €149 a month billed yearly (€199 monthly)12	Growth, $99 a month ($90.75 billed yearly), 5 people18	Team, $24 a project a month, 3 people23
Review before publishing	Drafts and reviews on every plan. A reviewer or admin approves	Drafts on every plan. Approvals are early access, or built yourself24	Drafts free. Review stages on Enterprise25	Drafts and versions free. Approval workflows on Enterprise26	Draft and Pending Review in core. An editor approves by publishing27	Drafts on every plan. Approval workflows on Premium28	Drafts on every plan. Approval stages on Enterprise12	A default review workflow on every plan. Your own on Premium29	Paid plans: a save to a protected branch opens a GitHub pull request30
Working together	On Moteur Cloud: see who’s in which field, leave notes on fields, and no save overwrites another’s	Real-time co-editing with presence, on every plan31	No presence or co-editing in Strapi’s docs32	One editor at a time (document locking). Live co-editing: Enterprise, coming soon33	One editor at a time (post locking), and notes on blocks. Live co-editing was pulled from 7.034	Shows who’s in an entry or field35	Shows who’s there, and locks the record while someone edits36	Comments on fields and a conflict warning. No live presence in its docs37	Through Git branches and pull requests. No presence in its docs38
AI agents (MCP)	Official and hosted: agents draft, and a person approves before anything goes live	Official and hosted: reads, writes, and can publish with no approval step39	Official and built in: reads, writes and publishes, as far as the token allows40	Official plugin: reads and writes, as far as the API key allows41	Official MCP Adapter plugin: writes as the signed-in person, with no review step42	Official, remote and local: reads, writes and publishes, with no approval step17	Official and hosted (beta): asks before each write script, no review stage43	Official and hosted: reads and writes, asks only before deleting44	No official MCP server45

Sources

Checked 26 October 2026. From each one’s own pages. Contentful’s site turned our checker away, so its facts come from its pages as search engines show them. If something has changed, tell us and we’ll fix it here.

One by one

Each comparison in full

Sanity
Moteur and Sanity
Its cloud, or a folder you can clone.
Strapi
Moteur and Strapi
Your database, or a Git repository.
Payload
Moteur and Payload
Inside your app, or beside your site.
WordPress
Moteur and WordPress
Headless with plugins, or headless from the start.
Contentful
Moteur and Contentful
Built for big teams, or fit for a small site.
DatoCMS
Moteur and DatoCMS
Two hosted CMSs. One whose files you keep.
Storyblok
Moteur and Storyblok
A visual editor, or review and history.
TinaCMS
Moteur and TinaCMS
Both in Git. Who says yes differs.

How we compare

A reader asksWho checks these?

MoteurWe do, on each product’s own pricing pages, docs and licence files, never on reviews or lists. Every fact links to its page.

A reader asksHow current is it?

MoteurEach table shows the day it was checked. Prices and plans change. If you spot one that has, tell us and we’ll fix it.

A reader asksDo you ever lose?

MoteurOften, and each page says where. Twenty free seats, GraphQL, custom roles, a visual editor: some of them do these better, and we’d rather you knew.

A reader asksCan we move our content?

MoteurYes. Each page has a moving-day section: the rival’s own export, Moteur’s command line, and agents that read one and write drafts to the other. Importers are coming.

Keep reading

Try it on one site.

A free project costs nothing, and its files are yours from the first save.

Start a project Talk to us