Where Hygraph's free tier stops
Hygraph Hygraph's Hobby plan is useful, but it stops at 2 locales, 3 seats, 2 standard roles, 10 components, 1,000 entries, 500,000 API calls, 100 GB of asset traffic, 5 uncached requests per second, 1 environment, 5 webhooks, 3 API tokens, 100,000 AI tokens, 2 content stages, and 2 models. Asset storage is unlimited, and asset uploads can be up to 50 MB, so storage is not the main limiter. The practical ceiling is collaboration size, content modeling depth, and monthly delivery capacity.
Switch table
| Hygraph | Contentful | Prismic | Storyblok | Squidex | Cosmic | Sanity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| seats | 3 seats | 10 users | 1 user account | Up to 2 user seats total | 2 contributors | 2 Team members | Up to 20 user seats |
| locales | 2 locales | 2 locales | 2 locales | 2 locales | Not listed | Not listed | 2 public datasets |
| api calls per month | 500,000 API calls | 100K API calls per month | 4 million API calls per month | 100,000 API requests per month | 20,000 API calls per month | 10k non-cached API requests per month | 250k API requests per month |
| traffic or bandwidth per month | 100 GB asset traffic | 50 GB CDN bandwidth per month | 100 GB CDN bandwidth per month | 100GB traffic per month | 2 GB traffic included | 1GB API bandwidth per month | Not listed |
| content limit | 1,000 entries | 1 Starter Space included | Unlimited documents | 1 space | Not listed | 1,000 Objects | Not listed |
| modeling or structure limit | 2 models | Structured content | Unlimited types | Component-based content structures | Not listed | 50 Object types | Unlimited content types and locales |
| Card required | - | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| First paid tier | - | Lite, $300/month | Starter, $10/month per repository, paid annually | Growth, $99.00/mo | Basic, €19,00 per month / €190,00 per year | Builder, $49/month | Growth, $15 per seat / month |
The alternatives
Contentful
FTV 64 / 100Contentful's free plan gives you access to 10 users, 2 roles, 2 locales, 100K API calls per month, 50 GB of CDN bandwidth per month, and one included Starter Space. It also includes structured content, developer tools, and the editorial experience, so it fits teams that want a conventional headless CMS with a familiar content-space model. The free tier is most useful for small projects and evaluations, but it is still monthly-capped and requires a credit card to create the account.
- Beats Hygraph: User capacity, with 10 users on free versus Hygraph's 3 seats.
- Falls short: API volume, with 100K API calls per month versus Hygraph's 500K.
- Who should switch: Switch here if you need a more established space-and-user model and your team count matters more than API headroom.
Prismic
FTV 61 / 100Prismic's free plan includes 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, unlimited documents, unlimited types, unlimited assets, image optimization and processing, and Migration API access. It is a strong fit for content-heavy sites that want lots of headroom on API usage and content volume while keeping the plan free. The tradeoff is tighter collaboration, since it only allows one user account.
- Beats Hygraph: API calls, with 4 million per month on free versus Hygraph's 500K.
- Falls short: Collaboration, with only 1 user account versus Hygraph's 3 seats.
- Who should switch: Switch here if you are more worried about request volume and content scale than about multi-user editing.
Storyblok
FTV 62 / 100Storyblok's free Starter plan includes 1 space, 1 user seat included with up to 2 user seats total, 100 GB traffic per month, 100,000 API requests per month, 2 locales, and 25,000 AI credits. It is a good match for teams that want a visual editor and a component-driven workflow without paying upfront. The plan is perpetual, but the free limits are smaller than Hygraph's in several areas, especially seats and API throughput.
- Beats Hygraph: Traffic headroom, with 100 GB per month on free, matching Hygraph's traffic allowance while also offering a visual editing workflow.
- Falls short: Seats, with up to 2 user seats total versus Hygraph's 3 seats.
- Who should switch: Switch here if your team wants a visual editor and can live with tighter collaboration limits.
Squidex
FTV 54 / 100Squidex'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 required powered-by label on each website page or mobile application. It is the lightest free option here and is useful when you want something simple, open source-friendly, and low-commitment. The free tier is clearly smaller than Hygraph on throughput and collaboration, but it keeps the product entry cost at zero.
- Beats Hygraph: None of the main quotas. Its main advantage is open source and self-hosting flexibility, not larger free limits.
- Falls short: API calls, traffic, and contributors, all far below Hygraph's free tier.
- Who should switch: Switch here only if open source and self-hosting matter more than free-tier size.
Cosmic
FTV 61 / 100Cosmic'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, 10k non-cached API requests per month, 100k cached API requests per month, 1 GB API bandwidth per month, 1,000 media files, 1 GB media storage, 1M media requests per month, 1 GB media bandwidth per month, 100K Cosmic Insights events per month, and 30 days of retention. It gives you a broad starter workspace with both CMS and AI features, but the raw API and collaboration limits are modest.
- Beats Hygraph: AI and workflow breadth, with agent and workflow features included for free.
- Falls short: API throughput, with 10k non-cached requests per month versus Hygraph's 500K API calls.
- Who should switch: Switch here if you want built-in AI workflows and a broader starter feature mix rather than maximum API headroom.
Sanity
FTV 48 / 100Sanity's free tier includes up to 20 user seats, 2 permission roles, 2 public datasets, unlimited content types and locales, Content Agent, Agent Context, Compute and Agent Actions, a hosted real-time content database, and live previews with visual editing tools. It is the broadest collaboration option in this set and is especially attractive for teams that need flexible modeling and AI-assisted content operations. The free tier stays capped on roles and datasets, but it leaves content modeling open-ended.
- Beats Hygraph: Collaboration, with up to 20 seats versus Hygraph's 3 seats.
- Falls short: Roles and datasets remain tightly capped, and the plan does not list Hygraph-style entry or request quotas here.
- Who should switch: Switch here if you need many collaborators and flexible content modeling more than strict Hygraph-style quota symmetry.
Two quick picks
Contentful
Contentful is the closest drop-in if you already think in terms of spaces, roles, locales, and API-delivered structured content. The content workflow is familiar, the free plan is straightforward, and the migration path is easier than moving to a more opinionated visual or AI-first CMS.
Sanity
Sanity gives the most free headroom for teams because it allows up to 20 seats and unlimited content types and locales. That combination leaves much more room to grow before you hit a paid threshold, even though some operational limits remain.
Frequently asked questions
Which alternative is best if I need more seats on the free plan?
Sanity is the best fit for more collaborators because its free tier allows up to 20 user seats. Contentful is next at 10 users, while the others stay closer to Hygraph's 3-seat range or below.
Which alternative gives the most API headroom for free?
Prismic stands out with 4 million API calls per month and no overages on the free plan. That is far above Hygraph's 500,000 API calls and is the clearest choice when request volume is the main concern.
Which option is closest to Hygraph if I want a standard headless CMS?
Contentful is the closest match for a conventional headless CMS workflow. It uses spaces, roles, locales, and structured content in a way that should feel familiar if you are already working with Hygraph.
Which free plan is best for content modeling flexibility?
Sanity and Prismic both stand out, but Sanity is the most flexible on the model side because it allows unlimited content types and locales. Prismic is stronger on unlimited documents and types, while Storyblok leans more into a visual component workflow.
Bottom line
For the most common Hygraph escape case, Contentful is the best first alternative because it keeps the same general headless CMS shape while giving a larger free user limit and a familiar structured-content workflow. If the main pain point is API volume instead of seats, Prismic is the better move. If you want the least disruptive switch overall, start with Contentful and only move to the more opinionated options if you need their specific free-tier strengths.
Read the full listing for Hygraph. Scores use the FTV methodology at /ftv. Browse more alternatives on /alternatives, or head-to-head comparisons on /compare.