Best CMS for Astro: what we use and why
Sanity, Keystatic, TinaCMS, Storyblok, Contentful and more for Astro sites, compared, plus when you don’t need a CMS at all, from our own builds.
- Written by
Matthew Bishop- Published
- Reading time
- 6 minutes
The best CMS for Astro depends on who edits the site. If developers or an AI assistant make the changes, Astro’s built-in content collections are often all you need. If your team wants a full editing app for content that changes often, use a headless CMS: we use Sanity on client sites. A Git-based CMS such as Keystatic or TinaCMS sits in between.
Astro’s own docs list more than 40 CMSs with guides (Astro), so the choice can feel open-ended. Here’s how we narrow it down, from building our own site and client sites in Astro.
Start with who edits
| Who makes most changes | What we’d use |
|---|---|
| A developer, or an AI assistant with a preview of every change | Astro content collections: no CMS |
| A small team happy to edit structured files, with changes saved to Git | A Git-based CMS: Keystatic, TinaCMS or Decap |
| A marketing team updating articles, events or listings every week | A headless CMS: Sanity, or Storyblok if visual page-building matters most |
A CMS is a second system to set up, pay for and keep in step with the site. It’s worth it when people outside the build will update content often. It isn’t when the people making changes already work in the code.
The options, compared
Prices are from each tool’s pricing page on 11 October 2026, in US dollars unless marked.
| Where content lives | Editing | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Content collections | Markdown or data files in the repository | Edit files, or ask an AI assistant | Free, built into Astro |
| Sanity | Sanity’s hosted Content Lake | Sanity Studio, a customisable editing app, with visual editing | Free plan; Growth US$15 per seat a month |
| Keystatic | Files in your GitHub repository | An editing app inside your site | Free, open source; Cloud Pro from US$10 a month |
| TinaCMS | Files in your GitHub repository | An editing app with visual editing | Free for 2 users; Team US$24 a month per project |
| Decap CMS | Files in your Git repository | An editing app inside your site | Free, open source; hosted Turbo plan free or €19 a month |
| Storyblok | Storyblok’s hosted service | A visual editor built around page blocks | Free starter; Growth US$99 a month |
| Contentful | Contentful’s hosted service | Contentful’s web app | Free plan for testing only; Lite US$300 a month |
| Payload | Your own database | An admin app you host yourself | Free, open source, self-hosted |
Free plans have limits, such as seats, documents or API requests, so check them against your content before you choose.
A few details that change the decision:
- Sanity’s free plan is genuinely usable: up to 20 seats and 10,000 documents, with visual editing and real-time collaboration (Sanity). Its official Astro integration can embed the editing app as a page of your site (Sanity).
- Git-based tools keep content with the code. Keystatic is an open-source project from Thinkmill, and collaborators need write access to the repository (Keystatic). TinaCMS now uses Astro as its default starter, the one it builds and tests against first (TinaCMS).
- Contentful’s free plan isn’t for live business sites. Its terms say it’s for testing and learning, not commercial use (Contentful).
- Payload is self-hosted. It’s open source and runs on your own Node.js server and database, and joined Figma in 2025 (Payload).
What we use, and why
Our own site: content collections, no CMS. Every journal post on this site is a Markdown file with checked fields: title, description, topic, dates and cover. Changes are made with Claude and reviewed on a preview before they go live. In August 2026 we trialled Sanity and then Keystatic on our own site, and went back to files both times: for a small studio site where the people writing are the people building, a separate CMS was one more step without a benefit (how we build with Claude Code).
Client sites: Sanity, for the content that changes. When a client’s team updates the same kinds of content every week, we model it in Sanity, so editing it is filling in a form. On Generate’s Astro site, the blog and the Summit’s speakers live in Sanity, so the team can add and update speakers from one year’s Summit to the next. For G Plus, we’re building an Astro site with its studios, classes, events, team and FAQs in Sanity. We don’t put everything in the CMS: one-off pages, like the Summit landing page, stay as code, where design changes are quicker and safer.
Everything else, through an AI assistant. For changes outside the CMS, Generate’s team asks an AI assistant, which follows written rules about how pages are built and makes the change on a preview copy. They check it there before it goes live.
How to choose
- List what changes, and how often. Articles weekly and a pricing page twice a year are different jobs. Put the frequent ones in a CMS; leave the rest as code.
- Decide who edits. Developers and AI assistants are happy with files. Marketing teams usually want an editing app.
- Check the free plan against your content. Seats, documents and API limits decide the real price.
- Keep the CMS small. Model the content your team actually updates, not every page.
- If your team wants to build whole pages itself, compare Webflow vs Astro: a visual platform may suit you better than any CMS.
Questions we get asked
What is the best CMS for Astro?
It depends on who edits. For developer- or AI-edited sites, Astro’s content collections. For teams who want a full editing app, a headless CMS such as Sanity, which has a usable free plan and an official Astro integration. For something in between, a Git-based CMS like Keystatic or TinaCMS.
Does an Astro site need a CMS?
No. Astro’s content collections store content as Markdown or data files with checked fields, which is enough when developers or an AI assistant make the changes. Add a CMS when people outside the build need to update content often.
Is Sanity free to use with Astro?
Sanity has a free plan with up to 20 seats and 10,000 documents, including visual editing, and paid plans from US$15 per seat a month as of October 2026. Its official integration supports Astro.
Can we add a CMS to an existing Astro site later?
Yes. Content collections can load from a CMS as well as from files, so you can start with files and move frequently updated content into a CMS when your team needs it.
If you’d like a site built this way, see our custom website development, or tell us about your project.
