head to head · open source
Strapi vs Craft CMS
Strapi has 73,425 GitHub stars, 10,050 forks, 558 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Craft CMS has 3,623 stars, 712 forks, 529 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Strapi leads on adoption by 1,927% (73,425 vs 3,623 stars). Strapi is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Craft CMS is written in PHP under a custom or non-standard licence. Strapi has attracted 14% 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
| Strapi | Craft CMS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 73K | ★ 3.6K |
| License | Custom / other | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 712 |
| 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 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 Strapi
Open source headless CMS, self hosted or Cloud you're in control. The leading open source headless CMS, 100% JavaScript/TypeScript, flexible and fully customizable. Docs · Strapi Cloud · Roadmap · Discord · Discussions Strapi is an open source, self hosted headless CMS that lets developers build content APIs fast while giving content creators a friendly editing interface. Define your content models and Strapi generates a full API, ready to consume from any frontend, mobile app, or IoT device. Design content structures visually with the Content Type Builder , no code required Auto generated REST & GraphQL APIs…
read the full Strapi 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 Strapi or Craft CMS more popular?
Strapi has 73,425 GitHub stars and Craft CMS has 3,623. Strapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are Strapi and Craft CMS free?
Neither Strapi nor Craft CMS declares a licence in this registry, so check each project's own repository before relying on either for a commercial use. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Strapi and Craft CMS?
Strapi 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, Strapi or Craft CMS?
Choose Strapi if you want the larger community (73,425 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Craft CMS if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.