head to head · open source
Strapi vs decap-cms
Strapi has 73,184 GitHub stars, 9,875 forks, 558 open issues and last shipped yesterday. decap-cms has 19,386 stars, 3,129 forks, 593 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Strapi leads on adoption by 278% (73,184 vs 19,386 stars). Strapi is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; decap-cms is written in JavaScript under MIT. Strapi has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, decap-cms 16%. Strapi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 5 topic tags (cms, content-management-system, headless-cms, jamstack), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Strapi | decap-cms | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 73K | ★ 19K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 3.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Strapi if
- You weight community size — 73K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick decap-cms if
- You want the decap-cms feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and decap-cms fits your workflow better
About Strapi
Strapi is an open source headless content management system built entirely in JavaScript and TypeScript. It provides a customizable admin dashboard and automatically generates REST and GraphQL APIs for any content structure defined through its visual Content Type Builder. Strapi lives in the JavaScript ecosystem and targets developers who need to deliver content to diverse frontends—including web, mobile, and IoT applications—without being locked into a specific presentation layer.
read the full Strapi overview →
About decap-cms
Decap CMS is a Git based content management system for static site generators, distributed as an npm package and released under the MIT License. It is a single page application that a site owner pulls into the /admin part of an existing site, where it presents a clean interface for editing content stored in a Git repository. The project lives in the JavaScript ecosystem and is built with React, and it is the software formerly known as Netlify CMS, renamed in February 2023. It carries the jamstack , headless cms , git based cms , and static site generator topics, and its documentation lives at decapcms.org.…
read the full decap-cms overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Strapi or decap-cms more popular?
Strapi has 73,184 GitHub stars and decap-cms has 19,386. Strapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are Strapi and decap-cms free?
Both are open source. Strapi has no licence declared in this registry, and decap-cms is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Strapi and decap-cms?
Strapi is written in TypeScript and decap-cms in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Strapi or decap-cms?
Choose Strapi if you want the larger community (73,184 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose decap-cms if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.