head to head · open source
Payload vs pagible
Payload has 45,624 GitHub stars, 4,384 forks, 1,127 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pagible has 602 stars, 15 forks, 9 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Payload leads on adoption by 7,479% (45,624 vs 602 stars). Payload is written in TypeScript under MIT; pagible is written in PHP under MIT. Payload has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, pagible 2%. Payload 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, content-management-system, 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 | pagible | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 602 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.4K | ⑂ 15 |
| 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 pagible if
- You want the pagible feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and pagible 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 pagible
PagibleAI CMS Simple as Wordpress, the power of Contentful! The easy, flexible and scalable API first PagibleAI CMS package for Laravel. Table of Contents About Features Tech Stack Architecture Project Structure Getting Started Selling access to restricted pages Configuration Maintenance Multi domain Multi tenancy MCP API Security Contributing What's Next License Acknowledgements Links About PagibleAI CMS is an API first content management system that can be installed into any existing Laravel application. It combines the ease of use of WordPress with the structured content management capabilities of Contentful…
read the full pagible overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Payload or pagible more popular?
Payload has 45,624 GitHub stars and pagible has 602. Payload has the larger community by that measure.
Are Payload and pagible free?
Both are open source. Payload is licensed under MIT and pagible under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Payload and pagible?
Payload is written in TypeScript and pagible 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 pagible?
Choose Payload if you want the larger community (45,624 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pagible if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.