6 free alternatives to Contentful

Prismic's free tier gives you 1 user account, 4 million API calls per month with no overages, 100 GB of built-in CDN bandwidth per month with no overages, 2 locales, Visual Page Builder access, unlimited documents, unlimited types, unlimited assets, image optimization and processing, and Migration API access. That is a much looser API and bandwidth ceiling than Contentful, while still keeping a usable headless CMS workflow. It falls short on collaboration, since the free tier is limited to one user account and does not offer Contentful's broader team setup. Switch if your bottleneck is traffic or API volume, not team size.

• Beats Contentful: Much higher API and CDN bandwidth caps
• Falls short: Only 1 user account on the free tier
• Who should switch: Switch to Prismic if you mainly need headroom for delivery volume and can work solo.

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Squidex's free Starter plan includes 20,000 API calls per month, 2 GB traffic, 500 MB storage, 2 contributors, Contents CDN, Assets CDN, and a powered-by label requirement. It is a compact free tier for a smaller content footprint, and the open-source angle can suit teams that want a CMS with a self-hosting path later. It falls short of Contentful on scale, especially because the free quotas are far tighter on API calls, traffic, and storage, and the powered-by requirement adds a public constraint. Choose it if you want a lean CMS and can live with small quotas.

• Beats Contentful: Open source with a self-hosting path
• Falls short: Much lower API, traffic, and storage limits
• Who should switch: Switch to Squidex if open source matters more than free-tier headroom.

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Storyblok's free Starter plan includes 1 space, 1 user seat included, up to 2 user seats total, 100GB traffic per month, 100,000 API requests per month, 2 locales, and 25,000 AI credits. It is a close fit for small editorial teams that want a visual editor and structured content in one place, with a bit more traffic headroom than Contentful and built-in AI credits. It falls short on collaboration, since the free tier tops out at 2 seats total and matches Contentful's locale count rather than exceeding it. Pick it if your team is tiny and you want visual editing built in.

• Beats Contentful: More traffic headroom with visual editing
• Falls short: Only 2 seats total on the free tier
• Who should switch: Switch to Storyblok if you want a visual editor and a very small team.

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Hygraph's free Hobby plan includes 2 locales, 3 seats, 2 standard roles, 10 components, unlimited asset storage, 50MB per asset upload size, live preview, commenting and assignment workflow, 1,000 entries, 500,000 API calls, 100 GB asset traffic, 5 uncached requests per second, 1 environment, 5 webhooks, 3 API tokens, 100,000 AI tokens, 2 content stages, and 2 models. That gives you a broader set of workflow and content limits than Contentful's free tier, especially for entries, API calls, and preview-oriented collaboration. It falls short on team size and locales, staying below Contentful on seats while matching locales. Use it if you need more content volume and workflow tools on a free plan.

• Beats Contentful: Higher API calls and richer workflow features
• Falls short: Only 3 seats and 2 locales
• Who should switch: Switch to Hygraph if content volume and workflow depth matter more than team size.

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Cosmic's free plan includes 1 bucket, 2 team members, 1,000 objects, 1 agent plus 1 workflow, 1 project, 50 object types, 300k AI tokens per month split across input and output, 10k non-cached API requests per month, 100k cached API requests per month, 1GB API bandwidth per month, 1,000 media files, 1GB media storage, 1M media requests per month, 1GB media bandwidth per month, 100K Cosmic Insights events per month, and 30 days of retention. It gives you a lot of built-in content and media structure, but the raw delivery limits are smaller than Contentful's and the team cap is tighter. Choose it if your workflow leans toward AI-assisted content operations and small projects.

• Beats Contentful: Built-in AI and workflow features
• Falls short: Lower API and media bandwidth limits
• Who should switch: Switch to Cosmic if you want AI workflow features more than free delivery scale.

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Sanity's free tier includes up to 20 user seats, 2 permission roles, 2 public datasets, unlimited content types and locales, Content Agent for AI-assisted content operations, Agent Context, Compute and Agent Actions, a hosted real-time content database, and live previews with visual editing tools. It is the most flexible free option for modeling and collaboration, especially because it does not cap content types or locales the way Contentful does. It falls short on roles and dataset structure, and the free tier description does not list API or CDN quotas the way Contentful does. Pick it if you want the most room for content modeling and team growth before paying.

• Beats Contentful: Unlimited content types and locales
• Falls short: Only 2 roles and 2 public datasets
• Who should switch: Switch to Sanity if content modeling flexibility matters more than fixed delivery quotas.

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