Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Prismic VS Contentful

Compare Prismic VS Contentful and see what are their differences

Prismic logo Prismic

prismic.io is a web software you can use to manage content in any kind of website or app. API-driven.

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.
  • Prismic Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-19
  • Contentful Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-07

Prismic

Website
prismic.io
Release Date
2013 January
Startup details
Country
United States
State
California
Founder(s)
Guillaume Bort
Employees
10 - 19

Contentful

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

Prismic features and specs

  • Content Modeling Flexibility
    Prismic offers a highly flexible content management system where users can create custom content types, known as ‘Custom Types’. This allows for extensive control over the structure and fields of content, making it adaptable to various project needs.
  • Developer-Friendly API
    Prismic provides a robust and well-documented API that developers can use to fetch content easily. This includes support for GraphQL, RESTful APIs, and client SDKs, simplifying integration with various front-end frameworks and platforms.
  • Rich Text Editor and Slices
    It includes a rich text editor and 'Slices,' which are reusable content components. This allows for modular content creation, enabling marketers and content creators to build and manage dynamic pages without developer intervention.
  • Multi-Language Support
    Prismic offers strong multi-language support, making it easy to manage content in different languages and locales. This is ideal for businesses operating in multiple regions.
  • Versioning and Previews
    With built-in versioning, users can revert to previous versions of content easily. Additionally, Prismic offers a preview feature that allows users to see changes before they go live, ensuring greater content accuracy and quality.
  • SEO-Friendly
    Prismic lets users manage SEO-related settings like meta tags, canonical URLs, and alt text for images, enabling better control over search engine optimization.

Possible disadvantages of Prismic

  • Learning Curve
    While powerful, Prismic's interface and custom types can have a steeper learning curve for new users unfamiliar with headless CMS or structured content models.
  • Pricing
    Prismic's pricing can be relatively high compared to some other CMS options, especially for small businesses or personal projects. The cost scales with advanced features and higher traffic levels.
  • Limited In-Built Features
    Unlike traditional CMS platforms, Prismic doesn't include in-built features for things like e-commerce, forms, or complex workflows. These functionalities usually require third-party integrations or custom development.
  • Dependency on API
    Since Prismic is a headless CMS, the front-end is entirely decoupled, making it heavily dependent on the API. Any downtime or slow response times from the API can directly impact the user experience.
  • Complex Integration for Non-Developers
    Although Prismic is designed with developers in mind, this can make integrations and customizations challenging for non-developers. Basic features might require technical knowledge to implement effectively.
  • Scalability Limitations
    For extremely large projects or enterprises with complex needs, Prismic may not scale as effectively as some other enterprise-level CMS platforms.

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.

Prismic videos

Setup a blog with Gatsby and Prismic in less than 10min

More videos:

  • Review - Quick overview of a Next.js website project with Prismic and Now

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

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Prismic and Contentful)
CMS
36 36%
64% 64
Blogging
42 42%
58% 58
Blogging Platform
42 42%
58% 58
Headless CMS
29 29%
71% 71

User comments

Share your experience with using Prismic and Contentful. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

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

Prismic Reviews

Best Headless CMS in 2022
Prismic is a SaaS headless CMS trusted by many big companies such as Google, Netflix, and others. The product allows you to choose the technology, framework, and language and thereafter easily manage and deliver the content. It supports native integrations with eCommerce platforms.
Source: flatlogic.com
Best Node.js CMS platforms for 2022
Prismic is a headless CMS for editing online content. We can use Prismic to build everything from simple, editorial, and corporate websites to ecommerce stores.
11 Headless CMS to Consider for Modern Application
With Prismic CMS, teams of developers and marketers can launch websites, also allowing front-end developers to customize the front-end and use any programming language.
Source: geekflare.com
34 Headless CMS That Should Be On Your Radar
San Francisco-based Prismic is a SaaS headless CMS that comes with a visual editor, custom type builds, multi-language support, and full revision history. As well as native integrations with eCommerce platforms like Shopify and Magento, Prismic comes with a scheduling and project management tool to enable collaboration and workflow management.
Source: www.cmswire.com

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

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Prismic should be more popular than Contentful. It has been mentiond 34 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.

Prismic mentions (34)

View more

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 / 3 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

What are some alternatives?

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

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

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.

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

Storyblok - API-based content management system for multi-device online publishing

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.

Croct - Dynamic and high-performance component-based headless CMS that simplifies product optimization and helps product teams scale experimentation without over-relying on developers.