# Headless CMS comparison: free tiers, languages and operations

Published: 2026-11-01 | Updated: 2026-11-01 | URL: https://blog.genko.me/en/headless-cms-comparison

> Compare microCMS, Newt, Contentful, Sanity, Strapi and genko.me on free tiers, API limits, localization, scheduling, exports and official MCP servers, including Newt's shutdown.

A useful headless CMS comparison considers delivery limits, translation models and maintenance ownership alongside free pricing. microCMS Hobby includes 20GB of monthly transfer; Contentful Free allows 100,000 monthly API calls and is restricted to learning and testing. Newt no longer allows new spaces and is scheduled to shut down on November 24, 2026 at 13:59. The official sources below explain these conditions.

## Six headless CMS options compared

The free-tier baseline is each product's Free or Hobby plan, and self-hosted Community for Strapi. Features such as scheduling identify the required plan. The API row lists major constraints, rather than every endpoint's limits. Prices and terms can change; check the official pages again before subscribing.

| Criterion | microCMS | Newt | Contentful | Sanity | Strapi | genko.me |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Hosting | SaaS | SaaS, scheduled to close | SaaS | Hosted Content Lake; [choice of Studio hosting](https://www.sanity.io/docs/studio/deployment) | Self-hosted or Cloud | SaaS |
| Free tier | [Hobby: 3 members, 5 APIs, 10,000 entries](https://microcms.io/pricing) | [Existing Free: 1 member, 10 models](https://www.newt.so/plan); no new spaces | [Free: 10 users, 2 locales](https://www.contentful.com/pricing/); [commercial use prohibited](https://www.contentful.com/help/admin/usage/usage-limit/) | [Free: 20 seats, 10,000 documents, public datasets only](https://www.sanity.io/pricing) | [Community: free license](https://strapi.io/pricing-cms); infrastructure costs extra | [Free: 3 members, 5GB storage](https://docs.genko.me/studio/plans); no API-count or entry-count cap |
| API and delivery limits | Unlimited calls; stops above 20GB/month. [GET: 60/second per service, excluding edge-cache responses](https://document.microcms.io/manual/limitations) | Free: 1 million calls and 100GB transfer/month; stops on overage | Free: 100,000 calls and 50GB CDN bandwidth/month; no overages allowed | Free: 250,000 API and 1 million API CDN requests/month; 100GB bandwidth | Self-hosted: no product call quota, constrained by infrastructure. [Cloud Starter: 100,000 calls/month](https://strapi.io/pricing-cloud) | Delivery: 300 requests/minute/key; bandwidth and transfer subject to fair use |
| Localization | [Design separate entries, APIs or fields by language](https://help.microcms.io/ja/knowledge/multilingual-site) | Dedicated locale feature not verified in official documentation | 2 locales on Free, 3 on Lite | [Unlimited locales; field-level or document-level modeling](https://www.sanity.io/docs/studio/localization) | [Locale management through i18n](https://docs.strapi.io/cms/features/internationalization) | [Free: main language plus 1 secondary; unlimited secondary languages on Plus and Pro](https://docs.genko.me/guides/multilingual-content) |
| Scheduled publishing | [Start/end scheduling](https://document.microcms.io/manual/edit-content), including Hobby | [Schedule publish/unpublish operations](https://www.newt.so/docs/schedule) | Lite and above | [Scheduled drafts on Growth and above](https://www.sanity.io/docs/studio/scheduled-drafts) | [Releases on CMS Growth and Enterprise](https://docs.strapi.io/cms/features/releases) | Included on Free; configurable per language |
| Editing approach | [Rich editor delivering HTML](https://document.microcms.io/manual/rich-editor-usage) | [Rich text](https://www.newt.so/docs/richtext-editor) and [Markdown](https://www.newt.so/docs/markdown-editor) | [Structured Rich Text with entry and asset embeds](https://www.contentful.com/developers/docs/concepts/rich-text/) | Customizable Studio, real-time editing | [Model-based forms and Blocks editor](https://docs.strapi.io/cms/features/content-manager) | [Schema-based forms and rich text](https://docs.genko.me/studio/content) |
| Data export | Retrieve through API; [dashboard CSV on Team and above](https://document.microcms.io/manual/csv-export) | [API data saved as JSON; bulk asset ZIP](https://www.newt.so/docs/how-to-export) | [Official CLI exports content and models](https://www.contentful.com/developers/docs/tutorials/cli/import-and-export/) | [Dataset Export API and CLI](https://www.sanity.io/docs/http-reference/export) | [CLI exports data, relations, local files and more](https://docs.strapi.io/cms/features/data-management/export) | [CSV/JSON; excludes file binaries and history](https://docs.genko.me/studio/import-export) |
| Official MCP server | [Available, hosted beta](https://document.microcms.io/mcp-server/microcms-mcp) | No official announcement verified | [Available, remote and local](https://www.contentful.com/developers/docs/mcp/model-context-protocol-mcp-server/) | [Available, hosted](https://www.sanity.io/docs/ai/mcp-server) | [Built in from 5.47.0; enable in configuration](https://docs.strapi.io/cms/features/strapi-mcp-server) | [Available, hosted with OAuth](https://docs.genko.me/ai/mcp) |

“Not verified” does not mean a feature is absent. Without an official specification establishing Newt's locale or MCP support, those capabilities should not count as satisfied requirements. The editor row describes what to test, rather than ranking usability.

### Newt belongs in a migration plan, not a new shortlist

The [official shutdown FAQ](https://www.newt.so/notice/newt-close-faq) says new space creation ended on May 20, 2025, and all services end on November 24, 2026 at 13:59. The dashboard and APIs will become unavailable, and content, assets and other data will be deleted without recovery. An existing service still running does not make it available for new adoption.

Existing users should preserve content, images and attachments while evaluating replacements. See [how to choose a Newt alternative](https://blog.genko.me/en/newt-alternatives) for migration planning.

## Three traps when comparing free CMS plans

### Calls, transfer and storage measure different things

Unlimited microCMS calls do not remove transfer or per-second limits. genko.me's 5GB is storage, not a monthly delivery allowance; personal and free team workspaces with the same owner share capacity under its documented rules. Sanity counts regular API and API CDN requests separately. The pricing and limits pages linked in the table establish these distinctions.

As a worked example, 10,000 monthly fetches returning 100KB each transfer roughly 1GB of content. Measure images, rebuilds and cache hit rates separately. Treating page views as API calls can produce the wrong capacity estimate.

### Check permitted use and dataset visibility

Contentful's [usage limits](https://www.contentful.com/help/admin/usage/usage-limit/) restrict Free to learning and testing and prohibit commercial use. A small commercial site does not qualify simply because its traffic is low. Sanity Free allows public datasets only. If an operation involves drafts or sensitive information, examine the public/private behavior before adopting it.

### A free Strapi license is different from free operations

Self-hosted Community still needs servers, a database, backups and someone responsible for updates. Read [CMS pricing](https://strapi.io/pricing-cms) separately from [Cloud pricing](https://strapi.io/pricing-cloud). The Cloud page lists Starter, Pro and Business; older descriptions of a free Cloud tier should not be treated as current terms. Also check the CMS subscription for scheduled Releases separately from hosting.

## How to compare multilingual CMS support

Beyond the number of languages, compare translation granularity, missing-translation responses and independent publishing. microCMS's official guide describes splitting entries, APIs or fields; Sanity requires a field-level or document-level localization design. To evaluate a built-in language-version workflow, start with the documented behavior of Contentful, Strapi and genko.me.

genko.me gives language versions their own publication states and schedules, but changes to the source do not automatically synchronize translations. Translated content consumes storage. Test the languages you actually need, including languages beyond Japanese and English, and the fallback behavior in its [multilingual guide](https://docs.genko.me/guides/multilingual-content).

For a comparison test, publish Japanese content while keeping another language in draft, then request that language through the API. Publish and update only the translation next, checking effects on other languages and cache invalidation. If automatic translation is required, treat translation processing and storage of language versions as separate requirements.

## Which CMS fits which situation?

These are selection guidelines inferred from the specifications above. Narrowing the field to two options that meet mandatory requirements makes a practical trial easier than choosing a universal winner.

- **Connect an existing site to HTML content:** consider microCMS. If its editing workflow already works for your team, moving to a suitable plan may require less effort than migration.
- **Evaluate structured content with configured locales:** consider Contentful. For commercial work, budget for the necessary paid terms and locale count rather than assuming Free is suitable.
- **Build a tailored editor and translation model:** consider Sanity. Include Studio and schema maintenance time alongside its flexibility.
- **Control the CMS server and data placement:** consider self-hosted Strapi. Without a maintenance owner, compare Cloud and other SaaS options too.
- **Try language-specific publishing, exports and MCP with a small team:** include genko.me. Test against Free's 3-member limit, shared 5GB storage, one secondary language and delivery rate.
- **Already operate Newt:** prioritize exporting and switching before shutdown over evaluating it for new adoption.

For a deeper two-product analysis, see [genko.me and microCMS compared](https://blog.genko.me/en/compare-microcms). For Hobby planning, see [microCMS free-plan limits](https://blog.genko.me/en/microcms-free-plan-limits).

Finally, take the same article through saving, previewing, scheduling, publishing and export in each shortlisted CMS. Check whether content, referenced IDs, translations and image binaries can be recovered. Record the time until changes reach the live site and the manual work editors perform. Once the specifications pass, use these results and maintenance costs to decide.

## FAQ

### Can a free plan support a commercial site?

A free price alone does not establish permitted use. Contentful Free specifically prohibits commercial use. Check each candidate's terms, capacity limits and required publishing features before selecting it.

### Is support for more languages always better?

After meeting the required language count, compare translation granularity, publication states and missing-translation responses. Unlimited languages still involve translated-content storage and maintenance work.

### Do official MCP servers expose the same operations?

Operations, authentication and permissions differ by product. Separate documentation search from content updates and publishing, and verify the required operations with your chosen MCP client. For a side-by-side look at each vendor's official MCP server, see [official CMS MCP servers compared](https://blog.genko.me/en/cms-mcp-server).

### Does export support mean a complete backup?

It depends on what the export includes. For example, genko.me CSV and JSON exports omit file binaries and history. Preserve data, images and schemas, then test whether another environment can read them back.