Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Sulu VS Contentful

Compare Sulu VS Contentful and see what are their differences

Sulu logo Sulu

Sulu is a content management platform based on Symfony, ideal for business websites and web-based software.

Contentful logo Contentful

You don't need another CMS. You need a better way to manage content โ€” unified, structured, and ready to deploy to any digital channel.
  • Sulu Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-29
  • Contentful Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-07

Sulu

Website
sulu.io
Pricing URL
-
$ Details
Release Date
-

Contentful

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

Sulu features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Sulu offers a highly intuitive and user-friendly interface, making it accessible for users with varying levels of technical expertise. This ease of use helps teams quickly adopt and start leveraging the platform.
  • Flexible and Extensible
    Built on Symfony, Sulu is highly flexible and extensible, allowing developers to customize it to meet specific business needs. This flexibility makes it a great choice for businesses with unique requirements.
  • Scalability
    Sulu can efficiently handle a wide range of projects from small websites to very large-scale applications, making it a scalable solution as your business grows.
  • Strong Multi-language Support
    Sulu has robust support for multi-language content, which is beneficial for organizations operating in multiple countries and catering to diverse linguistic audiences.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source platform, Sulu allows for ongoing contributions and improvements by its community, ensuring security, regular updates, and a wide range of plugins and extensions.

Possible disadvantages of Sulu

  • Complex for Simple Projects
    Due to its extensive features and level of customizability, Sulu might be considered overkill for smaller or simpler projects, where a more straightforward CMS could suffice.
  • Learning Curve
    While Sulu is user-friendly for general content management, developers may face a steep learning curve initially, especially if they are not familiar with the Symfony framework.
  • Limited Out-of-the-Box Features
    Compared to some other CMS platforms, Sulu might require additional development work or the integration of third-party tools for features that are not available out of the box.
  • Community Size
    Although Sulu is open source, its user and developer community is smaller than that of other popular CMS platforms, which may affect the availability of immediate support and community-driven resources.
  • Complex Setup for Non-Developers
    For non-developers looking to deploy Sulu, the initial setup may be daunting and may require professional assistance to get started effectively.

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.

Analysis of Contentful

Overall verdict

  • Contentful is generally considered a good choice for organizations that require a modern, scalable solution for managing and distributing content across various channels. Its strong API capabilities, flexibility with front-end technologies, and support for collaboration between technical and non-technical users make it a worthwhile consideration. However, it might not be the first choice for smaller projects or users seeking an all-in-one CMS with tightly integrated front-end presentation capabilities.

Why this product is good

  • Contentful is a headless content management system (CMS) that is popular for its flexibility and scalability. It decouples the back-end management of content from the front-end presentation, enabling developers to deliver content across multiple platforms and devices with ease. The platform supports seamless content integration through its robust API, which is a key advantage for businesses looking to create a consistent experience across web, mobile, and other channels. Additionally, Contentful offers a user-friendly interface for non-technical users to manage content, making it both versatile and accessible.

Recommended for

  • Organizations with complex content distribution needs
  • Businesses looking for a headless CMS solution
  • Development teams seeking API-first architecture
  • Brands aiming for multi-platform content delivery
  • Enterprises requiring scalable content management solutions

Sulu videos

Anupama Chopra's Movie Review of Tumhari Sulu

More videos:

  • Review - Tumhari Sulu - Movie Review
  • Review - Tumhari Sulu | Not A Movie Review | Sucharita Tyagi

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 Sulu and Contentful)
CMS
12 12%
88% 88
Blogging
13 13%
87% 87
Blogging Platform
15 15%
85% 85
Web Content Management
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 Sulu and Contentful

Sulu Reviews

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

Contentful Reviews

  1. Eleanor Bennett
    ยท Digital Marketing Specialist at Logit.io ยท
    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.

    ๐Ÿ 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. Contentfulรขย€ย™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

Contentful might be a bit more popular than Sulu. We know about 10 links to it since March 2021 and only 7 links to Sulu. 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.

Sulu mentions (7)

  • What's the best way to allow a non-developer to write landing pages for an application developed with Symfony 5?
    Https://sulu.io/ or https://kunstmaancms.be/ if you want to stay with symfony. Both solid options. Source: over 2 years ago
  • 2023โ€™s Challenging yet Achievable(?) New Tech Goals for my Symfony-based Sites
    I want to try Sulu first because it is Symfony-based. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • best php-based cms/tech choice
    Another usecase are Framework based CMS System. Beside Drupal, Typo3 using example Symfony components, still are not Full Stack Symfony and don't use Symfony based folder structure and are so very different then using Symfony Full Stack based CMS. In this area other CMS like Sulu, Bolt, .. Are placed which do not hide Symfony Full Stack and are more for the web applications which are not typical just a Website but... Source: almost 3 years ago
  • What technologies for these requirements?
    PHP Headless Or you go with a Headless PHP CMS. Some options for that are Bolt CMS, Suru, Twill and ExpressionEngine. A Headless CMS doesn't have any frontend. It can provide you with a REST API or you create it in their template engine and integrate your JS stuff there. There are so many, I can't count them all. You can also search for Cockpit and Strapi. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Modern php cms or ssg
    If you like Symfony Framework have a look at Sulu CMS: https://sulu.io/. Source: over 3 years ago
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 / 8 months ago
  • My blog post workflow
    Next, Iโ€™ll copy and paste the draft text to my CMS. Iโ€™ve been using Contentful since working there in 2021. I use Rich Text rather than Markdown for my posts and whatโ€™s great about this is that copying and pasting from Notion preserves hyperlinks and formatting. If Iโ€™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 / over 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 / almost 3 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: about 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 / over 3 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Sulu and Contentful, 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.

Craft CMS - Content management system built on Yii PHP Framework

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

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.

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

HubSpot Website Platform - HubSpot Website Platform is a content management system that enables marketers to build websites personalized for every visitor.