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Payload CMS vs Sanity

Trust Score comparison · March 2026

Payload CMS
52
Trust
Caution
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VS
Trust Score Δ
34
🏆 Sanity wins
Sanity
86
Trust
Good
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Signal Comparison

65k/wkWeekly npm downloads1.1M/wk
520GitHub commits (90d)280
32kGitHub stars5.4k
1.5kStack Overflow questions6k
Very ActiveCommunity healthVery Active
Payload CMSSanity

Key Differences

FactorPayload CMSSanity
LicenseMITMIT (studio) / Proprietary (hosted)
LanguageTypeScriptTypeScript
HostedSelf-hostedSelf-hosted
Free tier✓ Yes
Open Source✓ Yes✓ Yes
TypeScript

Pick Payload CMS if…

  • TypeScript project needing a code-first, self-hosted CMS
  • Running the CMS inside your Next.js app (Payload v3 is a Next.js plugin)
  • Avoiding vendor lock-in and monthly CMS fees

Pick Sanity if…

  • Teams that need real-time collaborative content editing
  • Complex content models with custom input components
  • Next.js projects with live preview and draft mode

Side-by-side Quick Start

Payload CMS
// payload.config.ts
import { buildConfig } from 'payload';
import { mongooseAdapter } from '@payloadcms/db-mongodb';
import { lexicalEditor } from '@payloadcms/richtext-lexical';

export default buildConfig({
  secret: process.env.PAYLOAD_SECRET!,
  db: mongooseAdapter({ url: process.env.MONGODB_URI! }),
  editor: lexicalEditor({}),
  collections: [
    {
      slug: 'posts',
      admin: { useAsTitle: 'title' },
      fields: [
        { name: 'title', type: 'text', required: true },
        { name: 'content', type: 'richText' },
        { name: 'publishedAt', type: 'date' },
        { name: 'author', type: 'relationship', relationTo: 'users' },
      ],
    },
  ],
});
Sanity
import { createClient } from '@sanity/client';

const client = createClient({
  projectId: process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_SANITY_PROJECT_ID!,
  dataset: 'production',
  useCdn: true,
  apiVersion: '2024-01-01',
});

// Fetch posts with GROQ
const posts = await client.fetch(
  `*[_type == "post"] | order(publishedAt desc)[0...10] {
    _id,
    title,
    "slug": slug.current,
    publishedAt,
    "authorName": author->name
  }`
);

console.log(posts);

Community Verdict

Based on upvoted notes
🏆
Sanity wins this comparison
Trust Score 86 vs 52 · 34-point difference

Sanity leads on Trust Score with stronger signal data across downloads and community health. That said, the other tool is worth considering if your use case matches its specific strengths above.