Head to head
Contentful vs Directus
Both platforms are scored with the same methodology and the same category rubric. Nothing on this page is influenced by advertising.
57/100Higher score | 47/100 | |
|---|---|---|
| Category rank | #4 | #5 |
| Confidence | High confidence | Medium confidence |
| External Reputation | 71 | 70 |
| AI Authority | 61 | 31 |
| Web Authority | 21 | 18 |
| Expert Assessment | 66 | 63 |
| TOP10 User Score | — | — |
| Pricing | $300/month (Lite) · free tier: Free $0/forever: 10 users, 2 roles (Admin, Editor), 2 locales, 100,000 API calls/month, 50 GB CDN bandwidth/month, 1 Starter Space, 50 MB asset uploads, community support only, hard usage caps instead of overages | $499/mo on annual commitment ($5,988/year); $599/mo rolling monthly · free tier: Core — $0/mo: 3 user seats (hard limit), 25 collections, 5 flows, AI Assistant, advanced RBAC, community support, 30-day activity log and revision history; no SSO and SSO cannot be purchased as an add-on. Separately, the Open Innovation Grant gives the full uncapped software free (self-hosted) to orgs under $5M revenue and under 50 employees, plus individuals, hobbyists and non-profits. |
| Pricing model | Subscription with usage overages and paid add-ons | Freemium subscription with seat and collection overages; free uncapped grant for qualifying small orgs |
| Best for | Mid-market and enterprise teams with dedicated in-house developers, multi-brand or multi-channel content, high API volumes and an actual content-governance function — especially those wanting personalization and experimentation native to the CMS. | Developer-led teams with an existing SQL database who want an admin UI and auto-generated APIs over data they keep — especially orgs under $5M revenue and 50 employees, who get the entire uncapped product including SSO free when self-hosting. |
| Avoid if | You are a startup, small business or single-site project on a budget, need more than three locales without jumping to Enterprise, have no developer resource, or require guaranteed support response times without an Enterprise contract. | You are building a competing commercial product on top of it (forbidden by the MSCL Competing Use clause), you have a strict OSI-approved-licence procurement gate, you are a small team just over the grant thresholds facing a $499/mo minimum, you need SSO on a budget, or you are a non-technical editorial team wanting turnkey publishing. |
| Markets | Mid-Market, Enterprise, SMB (limited fit), Agencies | SMB, Startups, Agencies, Enterprise, Non-profits, Developers |
| Founded | — | — |
| Headquarters | — | — |
A higher TOP SCORE means more of the evidence favours that platform on this methodology — it is not a recommendation, and it does not account for your specific requirements. Advertisers are never declared the winner of a comparison.