head to head · open source
Payload vs Craft CMS
Payload has 45,624 GitHub stars, 4,384 forks, 1,127 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Craft CMS has 3,623 stars, 712 forks, 529 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Payload leads on adoption by 1,159% (45,624 vs 3,623 stars). Payload is written in TypeScript under MIT; Craft CMS is written in PHP under a custom or non-standard licence. Payload has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Craft CMS 20%. Craft CMS was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (cms, content-management, graphql), 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
| Payload | Craft CMS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 3.6K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.4K | ⑂ 712 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Payload if
- You weight community size — 46K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Craft CMS if
- You want the Craft CMS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Craft CMS fits your workflow better
About Payload
Explore the Docs · Community Help · Roadmap · View G2 Reviews [!IMPORTANT] Star this repo or keep an eye on it to follow along. Payload is the first ever Next.js native CMS that can install directly in your existing /app folder. It's the start of a new era for headless CMS. Benefits over a regular CMS It's both an app framework & headless CMS Deploy anywhere, including serverless on Vercel for free Combine your front+backend in the same /app folder if you want Don't sign up for yet another SaaS Payload is open source Query your database in React Server Components Both admin and backend are 100% extensible No…
read the full Payload overview →
About Craft CMS
About Craft CMS Craft is a flexible, user friendly CMS for creating custom digital experiences on the web and beyond. It features: An intuitive, user friendly control panel for content creation and administrative tasks. A clean slate approach to content modeling that doesn’t make any assumptions about the content you need to manage. A fast and flexible templating system based on Twig. An auto generated GraphQL API for building headless applications. A powerful ecommerce platform for building bespoke ecommerce experiences. A built in Plugin Store with hundreds of free and commercial plugins. A robust extension…
read the full Craft CMS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Payload or Craft CMS more popular?
Payload has 45,624 GitHub stars and Craft CMS has 3,623. Payload has the larger community by that measure.
Are Payload and Craft CMS free?
Both are open source. Payload is licensed under MIT, and Craft CMS has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Payload and Craft CMS?
Payload is written in TypeScript and Craft CMS in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Payload or Craft CMS?
Choose Payload if you want the larger community (45,624 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Craft CMS if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.