Top 16 Headless CMS Tools — April 2026

In April 2026, the headless CMS list splits fast between tools with strong health and shipping scores and tools that trail once shipping falls away. Sanity, EmDash CMS, and Statamic sit clearly ahead of the pack on ToolVitals score.

This ranking uses ToolVitals score first, in descending order. GitHub stars are only a secondary popularity signal used to break ties when scores are close. All figures here come from the supplied April 2026 ToolVitals data for headless CMS tools.

Rankings

Rank	Tool	Health	Shipping	GitHub Stars	Score	Status
1	Sanity	97	100	6087	98	🟢 Excellent
2	EmDash CMS	95	100	10077	97	🟢 Excellent
3	Statamic	92	100	4794	96	🟢 Excellent
4	Changelog	94	86	0	90	🟢 Excellent
5	Lektor	86	73	0	80	🟢 Excellent
6	Pages CMS	76	80	3630	78	🟢 Good
7	Outstatic	83	70	0	77	🟢 Good
8	dotCMS	78	70	0	74	🟢 Good
9	Grav	84	56	15466	71	🟢 Good
10	Keystone	73	47	9869	61	🟢 Good
11	Craft CMS	77	24	0	53	🟡 Fair
12	Kirby	77	24	0	53	🟡 Fair
13	Markdown Site	68	0	613	37	🔴 Needs Attention
14	LeadCMS	67	0	33	37	🔴 Needs Attention
15	Microfeed	52	0	3971	29	🔴 Needs Attention
16	Cockpit CMS	36	0	5400	20	🔴 Needs Attention

Top 3 Highlights

Sanity ranks first with a ToolVitals score of 98, backed by a health score of 97 and a shipping score of 100. It also has 6,087 GitHub stars, but the top spot comes from the score, not popularity alone.

EmDash CMS is right behind at 97, with a health score of 95 and a shipping score of 100. It has 10,077 GitHub stars, the most among the top three, but still lands second because ToolVitals score comes first.

Statamic holds third place with a ToolVitals score of 96 and a perfect shipping score of 100. Its 4,794 GitHub stars sit below the two tools above it, and the ranking follows the higher ToolVitals scores ahead of it.

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