Strapi vs Payload vs Directus: the licence change that settles it

In May 2026 Directus stopped being the thing most comparison posts still say it is. The licence changed, the free tier now stops at 3 editor seats and 25 collections, and running it needs a registration key. If you read a Strapi vs Payload vs Directus comparison written before that, the cost column in it is wrong.

Here is our answer before you scroll.

The short answer

For most of the client sites we build, we do not reach for any of these three. We ship on Laravel and Filament, with Atelier giving the client a visual editor over their own pages. One codebase, one deploy, no second system to keep alive.

A headless CMS earns its place when one of two things is true: the frontend is Next.js and you want the content layer inside it, or the same content has to feed more than one thing, like a website and a mobile app off one source.

When that happens, we reach for Payload. It is MIT licensed with no seat limit, it installs into the Next.js app instead of sitting beside it, and since Figma acquired the team the project has real money behind it.

Strapi is the pick when the editors matter more than the developers. Directus needs a reason now, and "it is open source" is no longer that reason.

What actually changed with Directus

Directus moved off the Business Source License in May 2026, at version 12. The new one is called the Monospace Sustainable Core License. Three parts of it change how you budget.

The free tier has hard numbers on it. A self-hosted instance with no licence key runs on the Core tier: 3 user seats and 25 collections. A seat is any active Studio user with app or admin access. API-only users do not count. Collections include your translation and junction tables, which is the part people miss when they estimate.

There is a way to stay free above that. The Open Innovation Grant gives a free commercial licence to organisations with under $5M in annual revenue and fewer than 50 employees, covering up to five activations across local, dev, staging and production. You register for a key. It is not an honour system any more.

Above those thresholds, self-hosted Team is $499 a month billed annually, or $599 monthly, for 50 collections and 10 SSO seats. Extra seats are $50 each per month. Extra collections come in 25-packs at $100.

Two things worth saying in Directus's favour, because the reaction to this change has been noisier than the change deserves. Every version becomes GPLv3 four years after release, automatically. And enforcement never deletes data: when you cross a limit, Directus deactivates resources or blocks endpoints, it does not touch what is in your database. The SDKs stay MIT.

Still, if you are an agency, the maths is what it is. A client with four people who need to edit content is a client who cannot use free Directus.

Strapi in 2026

Strapi 5's Community edition is MIT licensed and self-hosted, with unlimited entries, unlimited API calls and unlimited seats. Postgres, MySQL or MariaDB. You get REST and GraphQL out of the box, internationalisation, draft and publish, a media library, webhooks, dynamic zones, the blocks editor, API tokens, custom fields, role based access control and TypeScript support, without paying anything.

That is a fuller free tier than most people assume, and it is the reason Strapi is still the safe answer for a content team.

The paid line starts at $45 a month for Growth, which includes 3 seats and charges $15 for each one after. What you are buying is live preview, unlimited content releases, 30 days of content history and 1,000 AI credits a month. Single sign-on is a separate $150 a month add-on, which stings. Enterprise adds review workflows, audit logs and SOC 2 reports.

Where Strapi loses to Payload is architecture. It is a second application. Second deployment, second set of environment variables, second thing that can be down at 2am, and every content read is an HTTP call from your frontend.

Where it wins is the admin panel. Editors who have used WordPress find Strapi familiar within an hour. That is worth more on a client project than most technical arguments.

Payload in 2026

Payload 3 is the one that changed shape. It installs into a new or existing Next.js app, so the admin panel, the REST and GraphQL APIs, auth, access control and file storage all come from one config file in one codebase you deploy once. MongoDB or Postgres.

The part that matters in practice is the local Node API. A React server component can query content directly, in process, with no HTTP round trip to a separate CMS. On a content-heavy page that is a real difference, not a benchmark trick.

Licensing is the simplest of the three: MIT, no restrictions on personal or commercial use, no seat cap. Payload sells SSO, dedicated support, a customer success manager and SLAs on top, and none of it gates the CMS itself.

Figma acquired the Payload team, announced at Config 2025, and said the project stays open source. Read that how you like. Our read is that an acquirer who sells design tools has an obvious reason to want the CMS layer healthy, and Payload has more engineering budget now than it did as an independent company in Grand Rapids.

The cost is that Payload is a Next.js decision. If your frontend is not Next.js, most of the reason to choose Payload evaporates and you are back to comparing it with Strapi on admin panel quality, where Strapi is ahead.

What each one costs with five editors

Five people who need to log in and edit content. A normal client, not a big one.

Hosting is roughly the same for all three: a small VPS or container, a managed Postgres, and object storage for media. That bill does not move much between them.

Who should pick what

You are an agency building client sites. Payload if the frontend is Next.js. Strapi if it is anything else and the client's team will do the editing. Directus only when the client already has a database you are not allowed to restructure, and you have counted the collections.

You are a solo founder shipping a product. Payload, and put it in the same Next.js app as the product. One deploy, one database, one thing to monitor. The seat question never comes up because you are the only seat.

Your team is already on Laravel. None of these three. Filament gives you an admin panel in the same app, and if the client needs to move sections around a page rather than fill in fields, that is what Atelier does. Adding a Node CMS next to a Laravel app means running two runtimes to serve one website, and somebody has to keep both patched.

You already run Directus and you are under the thresholds. Register for the Innovation Grant key and carry on. Nothing is broken. Just know what happens at the fiftieth employee.

Content has to feed a website and a mobile app. Any of the three works, and this is the case where the extra deployment actually pays for itself. Pick on your frontend, not on the CMS.

What to do now

Count two numbers before you pick anything. How many people will log in to edit content, over the life of this site, not on launch day. And how many collections the content model really needs once you add translations and join tables. Those two numbers decide the Directus question on their own, and they usually decide the Strapi versus Payload question too, because a team that needs eight editors needs an admin panel eight people can use.

Then pick on your frontend. Next.js means Payload. Anything else means Strapi. Laravel means neither, and you should read why we built Atelier before you add a second runtime to a working stack.

If you are earlier than that and still working out what you are building, start here instead. Picking a CMS before you have scoped the thing is how projects get rebuilt twice.

Frequently asked questions

Which headless CMS should I use in 2026?

For most teams, Payload or Strapi. Both are MIT licensed with no cap on editors, so the cost of running them is your server bill and nothing else. Pick Payload if your frontend is Next.js, because Payload 3 installs into the same app and shares its database. Pick Strapi if your editors need a mature admin panel and a plugin for everything. Directus is now a paid product for most commercial teams above three editors, so it needs a specific reason.

Is Strapi free to use in production?

Yes. The Strapi Community edition is MIT licensed, self-hosted, with unlimited entries, API calls and admin seats. You pay for hosting and nothing else. The paid Growth plan starts at $45 a month and adds live preview, content releases, 30 days of content history and AI credits, with extra seats at $15 each. Single sign-on is a $150 a month add-on. None of that is required to run a normal client site.

What is the real difference between Strapi and Payload?

Strapi is a separate application you run next to your frontend and talk to over REST or GraphQL. Payload 3 installs inside a Next.js app, so the admin panel, the API and your pages are one codebase and one deployment. Strapi has the larger plugin marketplace and the friendlier admin panel for non-technical editors. Payload gives you a local Node API, so server components can query content directly without an HTTP round trip.

Is Directus good for an e-commerce catalogue?

Technically yes, because Directus wraps an existing SQL database rather than defining its own schema, which suits a catalogue that already lives in a database another system writes to. Commercially it got harder in May 2026. The free Core tier allows 25 collections and 3 editor seats, and a real catalogue with products, variants, categories, brands and translations passes 25 collections quickly. Check the count before you commit.

Do I need a developer to run a headless CMS, or can a non-technical team manage content?

A non-technical team can manage content in all three once the site is built, and Strapi has the gentlest admin panel of the three. What none of them do without a developer is set up the content model, connect the frontend, and handle upgrades and hosting. If nobody on your side will own that, a headless CMS is the wrong shape, and you want a builder-style admin on top of your site instead.