head to head · open source
Strapi vs sveltia-cms
Strapi has 73,184 GitHub stars, 9,875 forks, 558 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sveltia-cms has 2,845 stars, 212 forks, 54 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Strapi leads on adoption by 2,472% (73,184 vs 2,845 stars). Strapi is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; sveltia-cms is written in JavaScript under MIT. Strapi has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, sveltia-cms 7%. 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, content-management-system, headless-cms), 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 | sveltia-cms | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 73K | ★ 2.8K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 212 |
| 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 sveltia-cms if
- You want the sveltia-cms feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and sveltia-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 sveltia-cms
Sveltia CMS is Git based headless CMS for Jamstack sites. It is open source, MIT licensed, JavaScript single page web application served from CDN. Registry metadata lists JavaScript, MIT license, 2,837 stars, 208 forks, and four year repository age. Project positions itself as complete modern rewrite of Netlify CMS, now Decap CMS, and as successor to Netlify/Decap CMS. It targets content editors and developers.
read the full sveltia-cms overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Strapi or sveltia-cms more popular?
Strapi has 73,184 GitHub stars and sveltia-cms has 2,845. Strapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are Strapi and sveltia-cms free?
Both are open source. Strapi has no licence declared in this registry, and sveltia-cms is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Strapi and sveltia-cms?
Strapi is written in TypeScript and sveltia-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 sveltia-cms?
Choose Strapi if you want the larger community (73,184 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose sveltia-cms if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.