Head to head
Directus vs Sanity
Both platforms are scored with the same methodology and the same category rubric. Nothing on this page is influenced by advertising.
47/100 | 63/100Higher score | |
|---|---|---|
| Category rank | #5 | #1 |
| Confidence | Medium confidence | High confidence |
| External Reputation | 70 | 84 |
| AI Authority | 31 | 78 |
| Web Authority | 18 | 11 |
| Expert Assessment | 63 | 65 |
| TOP10 User Score | — | — |
| Pricing | $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. | $15 per seat/month (Growth) · free tier: Free forever: up to 20 user seats plus free viewers, 2 public-only datasets, 10k documents, 1m API CDN requests/mo, 250k API requests/mo, 100GB assets and bandwidth, 1000 AI credits/mo, 500K function invocations/mo, community support only, no overage purchasing |
| Pricing model | Freemium subscription with seat and collection overages; free uncapped grant for qualifying small orgs | Subscription (per seat) with usage-based overages |
| Best for | 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. | Developer-led product and engineering teams on React/Next.js stacks who want the editing UI defined in code, plus freelancers and small agencies exploiting the 20-seat free tier with full AI features. |
| Avoid if | 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. | You are a marketing team without engineering support, need SSO/audit logs/SLA on a published budget, need many datasets or environments on a mid-market budget, have more than 50 editors, or require invoicing below Enterprise. |
| Markets | SMB, Startups, Agencies, Enterprise, Non-profits, Developers | SMB, Mid-market, Enterprise, Agencies, Freelancers |
| 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.