Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Contentful VS Umbraco

Compare Contentful VS Umbraco and see what are their differences

Contentful logo Contentful

You don't need another CMS. You need a better way to manage content — unified, structured, and ready to deploy to any digital channel.

Umbraco logo Umbraco

Umbraco is the leading open source Microsoft ASP.NET CMS. You can start using Umbraco in 2 minutes, by taking a free trial of Umbraco Cloud.
  • Contentful Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-07
  • Umbraco Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-07-22

Contentful

$ Details
-
Release Date
2013 January
Startup details
Country
Germany
State
Berlin
City
Berlin
Founder(s)
Paolo Negri
Employees
250 - 499

Contentful features and specs

  • Scalability
    Contentful is designed to handle high traffic and large volumes of content, making it a suitable choice for enterprise-level applications.
  • Flexibility
    Contentful provides a headless CMS solution that allows you to deliver content across multiple platforms including websites, mobile apps, and IoT devices.
  • API-first approach
    Contentful's robust API enables developers to easily fetch, manage, and deliver content programmatically.
  • Customizable content models
    Users can define their own content types and relationships, offering great flexibility in how content is structured and managed.
  • Multi-language support
    Contentful natively supports multiple languages, which is beneficial for global businesses needing localized content.
  • Extensive integrations
    Contentful can be easily integrated with various third-party services, enhancing its functionality and adaptability.
  • User-friendly interface
    The platform offers an intuitive admin interface that makes it easy for non-technical users to manage content.
  • Strong community and support
    Contentful has a large community of developers and provides extensive documentation and support resources.

Possible disadvantages of Contentful

  • Cost
    Contentful can be expensive, especially for small businesses or startups, as its pricing scales with the amount of content and API calls.
  • Complexity
    The initial setup and customization can be complex, requiring a good understanding of both the platform and RESTful APIs.
  • Dependence on developers
    While the platform is user-friendly, leveraging its full potential often requires significant developer input, particularly for custom integrations and advanced features.
  • Limited built-in features
    Contentful focuses on being a pure headless CMS, which means it lacks some built-in features like website themes or e-commerce functionalities that are present in other CMS platforms.
  • Performance issues
    Some users have reported performance issues when managing a very large number of content entries or making a high volume of API requests.
  • Learning curve
    There is a learning curve, particularly for users new to headless CMS architecture and API-centric content management.

Umbraco features and specs

  • Open Source
    Umbraco is an open-source platform, which means it is free to use and has a large community contributing to its continuous improvement and support.
  • User-Friendly
    The CMS has an intuitive and user-friendly interface, making it easy for non-technical users to manage content efficiently.
  • Highly Customizable
    Umbraco is highly flexible and customizable, allowing developers to create tailored solutions to fit specific business needs.
  • Extensive Documentation
    The platform offers extensive documentation and resources, including tutorials and forums, which can be very helpful for developers.
  • Strong Developer Community
    A robust community of developers and contributors provides valuable plugins, packages, and support, enhancing the platform's capabilities.
  • Scalability
    Umbraco is scalable, making it suitable for projects of all sizes—from small websites to large enterprise applications.
  • Integration Capabilities
    The CMS easily integrates with various third-party tools and services, expanding its functionality and adaptability.
  • SEO Friendly
    Umbraco provides multiple SEO tools and options to help improve search engine visibility and performance of your website.

Possible disadvantages of Umbraco

  • Learning Curve
    Although the interface is user-friendly, there can be a learning curve for those new to the CMS or less tech-savvy users.
  • Performance
    For very large and complex sites, performance optimization may require additional attention and expertise.
  • Cost for Advanced Features
    While basic usage is free, some advanced features or support plans may require additional fees, which can add to the overall cost.
  • Dependency on .NET
    Umbraco is built on the .NET framework, which could be a limitation if your development team is not familiar with .NET technologies.
  • Plugin Quality
    The quality of third-party plugins and packages can vary, and some may not be as well-maintained or compatible with the latest version of Umbraco.
  • Limited Out-of-the-box Features
    Compared to some other CMS platforms, Umbraco may offer fewer out-of-the-box features, potentially requiring more initial setup and configuration.
  • Hosting Requirements
    Due to its dependency on the .NET framework, hosting options may be more limited or specific, potentially increasing hosting costs.

Contentful videos

Bits & Bytes Ep. 1 - What is Contentful?

More videos:

  • Review - A Quick look at contentful | #CodingPhase
  • Review - Gatsby And Contentful - The Headless CMS Approach - Episode 1

Umbraco videos

Wordpress Vs Umbraco

More videos:

  • Review - What is so good about Umbraco?
  • Review - ipso Educated | Umbraco vs. Wordpress - Media Library Comparison

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Contentful and Umbraco)
CMS
77 77%
23% 23
Blogging
75 75%
25% 25
Blogging Platform
68 68%
32% 32
Headless CMS
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Contentful and Umbraco

Contentful Reviews

  1. Eleanor Bennett
    · Digital Marketing Specialist at Logit.io ·
    Very generous free plan

    The free plan of Contentful is generous enough to allow us to run a successful technology blog without having to pay for any overheads to run it. We used them as an alternative to the previously used Ghost. We have experienced a lot of growth since this migration.

    🏁 Competitors: Ghost

21 Headless CMS Platforms That You Should Check Out
Contentful integrates with many tools and helps you create your content quickly. It is mostly used for e-commerce websites.
Source: popupsmart.com
Best Headless CMS in 2022
Contentful is an API-driven headless CMS that focuses on content and the backend. It is considered one of the best systems for small to medium enterprises. You can edit content anywhere by any smart device and integrate it with other services such as Dropbox.
Source: flatlogic.com
Best Headless CMS for 2020
Yes, hosted providers, such as Contentful would be easier to use but it literally comes with a price...
Source: dev.to
11 Headless CMS to Consider for Modern Application
It uses RESTful API development kits for all popular languages. Contentful is welcoming newcomers, so anyone can quickly create data entries.
Source: geekflare.com
34 Headless CMS That Should Be On Your Radar
Founded in 2013, Germany-based Contentful offers an API-driven headless CMS. Contentful’s RESTful API gives developers full programmatic control of content, digital assets, and translations. The platform also takes advantage of caching techniques as well as external CDN integrations to enable the delivery of API payloads in the sub-100ms range.
Source: www.cmswire.com

Umbraco Reviews

We have no reviews of Umbraco yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Contentful should be more popular than Umbraco. It has been mentiond 10 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Contentful mentions (10)

  • How to connect nextjs app to contenful cms - 2025
    First, you need to register on the Contentful website and create an account. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • My blog post workflow
    Next, I’ll copy and paste the draft text to my CMS. I’ve been using Contentful since working there in 2021. I use Rich Text rather than Markdown for my posts and what’s great about this is that copying and pasting from Notion preserves hyperlinks and formatting. If I’m including anything else like code samples, images and other embedded media, I add those as separate linked entries manually whilst working through... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • How to Style Markdown in Next.JS Using React-Markdown and SASS
    If you have a blog or website with articles or long text documents, markdown is your friend. It makes authoring documents so much easier and more intuitive than straight HTML. Markdown has a far smaller learning curve than HTML and can easily be taught to non-tech-savvy writers. Markdown editors are also built-in to headless CMSs like Contentful. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Looking to Create a Wordpress Style Website with Python / Flask
    It depends on the requirements, but this might actually call for a headless CMS like Forestry.io or Contentful coupled with a Static Site Generator like Hugo. The CMS will manage users/permissions/data hierarchy and provide a simple frontend for users to add content, lay out pages, etc. And then when they save a change, the SSG will re-run and render everything to static HTML/CSS/JS. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • How to Create a Blog Using Next.js and Contentful CMS
    Contentful is a headless content management system (CMS). Headless simply means there is no front-end to display the content to the consumer. It's basically a database, but much easier to setup and maintain than a traditional relational database. Contentful provides a very easy-to-use API for fetching and managing content. They also support GraphQL queries if you're into that. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
View more

Umbraco mentions (6)

  • Understanding Content Management Systems (CMS): A Comprehensive Guide
    Umbraco.com. (n.d.). Umbraco: The friendly CMS. Retrieved from https://umbraco.com/. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • CMS where you can use c#/ razor code directly in the cms
    As /u/transhumanist2000 said, the only other one I've seen that looked heavily supported and had a sizable following are dot net nuke, and I'd add, Umbraco (https://umbraco.com/). Unfortunately I haven't heard the best of feedback about these cmses. Source: over 2 years ago
  • What’s your favorite CMS?
    I really like Umbraco (https://umbraco.com/), It has a decent community, and is on DotNetCore these days makes it very easy to use. You can setup most basic things yourself, but since it exists as a satellite to your site. You can integrate with it as deeply or not as you want. Plus the workflow for defining content is nice, the customer-facing UI is also slick, and adding custom elements to it and extending is... Source: over 2 years ago
  • Why making Umbraco headless makes sense
    Because of this, the Umbraco HQ created the Umbraco Heartcore project that builds upon the existing Umbraco CMS by adding a headless integration in GraphQL. The only problem with this solution is the pricing. Because Umbraco CMS is open-source and free to use, you might see this product solution as a barrier to entry. It also makes it impossible to use your infrastructure to manage your CMS as they require the... - Source: dev.to / about 3 years ago
  • WordPress plugin vulnerability opened up one million sites to remote takeover
    Umbraco is the one I was thinking of in terms of popularity and being free and open (the self hosted version at least, they have a paid for cloud solution as well). Source: over 3 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Contentful and Umbraco, you can also consider the following products

WordPress - WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

Strapi - Manage any content. Anywhere. The leading open-source headless CMS. 100% JavaScript / TypeScript and fully customizable.

Drupal - Drupal - the leading open-source CMS for ambitious digital experiences that reach your audience across multiple channels. Because we all have different needs, Drupal allows you to create a unique space in a world of cookie-cutter solutions.

Joomla - Joomla! is the mobile-ready and user-friendly way to build your website. Choose from thousands of features and designs. Joomla! is free and open source.

Sanity.io - Sanity.io a platform for structured content that comes with an open-source editor that you can customize with React.js.

django CMS - Enterprise Content Management with Django The open-source CMS used by thousands of websites since 2007