Sanity
In our alternatives series, we help buyers identify the differences between Contento and other well known headless CMS' so you can decided which will be the better fit for your business.
Looking for an Alternative to Sanity?
When it comes to choosing a new modern (or Headless CMS) the choice can be overwhelming. Perhaps you’ve moved to Sanity and are now considering an alternative. The good news with Headless CMS is that the lego brick approach means you can more easily change providers than is the case with a traditional CMS.
But first a health warning.
This is not about bashing providers.
The aim here is to simply try and help buyers understand the differences between leading providers.
Finally, it is worth also remembering that software is a fast moving landscape and things change quickly. Hence some of the elements we identify here as bases for differentiation may have changed between when we’ve written this and the time you get to read it (October 2023).
Contento vs Sanity
While Contento and Sanity are both Headless CMS there are several crucial differences.
We’ve highlighted some of them below:
1- Blank Box v Website
Sanity is not designed for websites. Instead it is a blank box designed to manage content which can serve “multiple heads”.
Contento takes a very different approach - it is the only Headless CMS designed specifically for websites. This simple assumption makes a world of difference. Ranging from the workflows, to the feature-set to the product roadmap. Contento includes SEO, URL management and image optimization as core features - all because it is optimized for websites.
Contento SEO Module
2- Developer First v Marketing First
Sanity is a technical application. The learning curve is steep and the capability is powerful. Contento is easier to learn (by assuming it is for managing a website it reduces the need to cover all use cases).
3- Content Management Experience
Contento places a significant focus on non-technical users tasked with managing and maintaining the website, recognising that this is an area that has been neglected in many Headless CMS.
Sanity has over focused on developer experience rather than CMS user experience. And considering it's the end user (the client) who is most likely footing the bill, this is a problem.
— Source: Todd Padwick, Function and Form
Contento Live Preview
4- Developer Flexibility
Unrestrained access to the source code also has its downsides. Adjusting and maintaining the Studio is usually more time-consuming than with other solutions. Keeping track of all the source files as well as ensuring the Studio stays up-to-date gets increasingly difficult with large projects.
— Source: Bejamas
5- Support
As a relatively new entrant to the market Contento has doubled down on its support capability. New clients are added to dedicated Slack channels to facilitate immediate access to the development team (UK hrs 9-5). Sanity has well structured documentation but has been criticized for lacking a ticketing system for support.
Sanity's lack of dedicated ticketed support is pretty hard to ignore. With our previous CMS, which was $150 per year, we had dedicated email support; people who always responded within 24 hours and were incredibly helpful. Sanity does have a Github repository for submitting bugs and feature requests but unfortunately, most of the feature requests and bugs we’ve submitted so far, as of writing this, have been unanswered or unsolved.
— Source: Todd Padwick, Function and Form
6- Pricing
Headless CMS pricing can be difficult to unpack. One leading vendor offers almost 100 rows of features often described in one word. 10X price increases between tiers is also common with some vendors. Sanity offers a free tier, a $99 per project per month tier, a $949 per project per month tier and an enterprise tier.
Contento on the other hand offers a much more straightforward model, offering a small number of tiers where the jumps between the various tiers is more modest. New features tend to be available for most tiers save for the odd exception.
To unlock some pretty standard features most other CMS offer by default, you need to pay a whopping $949 per month.
— Source: Todd Padwick, Function and Form
Contento Pricing
Our customers says it best
Kevin Magee
CTO Zyte
“One of our goals was to ensure our Marketing team was not held up by the Engineering team on a daily basis. We achieved that and empowered Marketing to maintain the site at a speed aligned to our business requirements. Content creation and Engineering have been decoupled.”
Phillip Maucher
SaaS Network Ireland Coordinator
“We moved from Wordpress to Contento and have been delighted with the move. I no longer have to get developers to update the site - I reckon it's reduced my site 'admin time' by over 70%.”
Ryan Crowley
CEO Kore Systems
“The migration to Contento was seamless - the results have justified the decision to replatform to Headless.”
Making the Switch to Contento is a Breeze
We offer migration support from many of the other well known platforms. Get in touch to talk to one of our technical team.