head to head · open source
Strapi vs decap-cms
Strapi has 73,425 GitHub stars, 10,050 forks, 558 open issues and last shipped yesterday. decap-cms has 19,461 stars, 3,139 forks, 593 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Strapi leads on adoption by 277% (73,425 vs 19,461 stars). Strapi is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; decap-cms is written in JavaScript under MIT. Strapi has attracted 14% 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 | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 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
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 decap-cms
Documentation: decapcms.org A CMS for static site generators. Give teams a simple way to edit and add content to any site built with a static site generator. Decap CMS is the new name of Netlify CMS since February 2023. Join us on Discord for community chat. How It Works Decap CMS is a single page app that you pull into the /admin part of your site. It presents a clean UI for editing content stored in a Git repository. You setup a YAML config to describe the content model of your site, and typically tweak the main layout of the CMS a bit to fit your own site. When a user navigates to /admin/ they'll be prompted…
read the full decap-cms overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Strapi or decap-cms more popular?
Strapi has 73,425 GitHub stars and decap-cms has 19,461. 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 (73,425 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose decap-cms if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.