Choosing a headless CMS can be difficult when projects differ in their content model, administration experience, framework fit, and development activity. This August 2026 snapshot uses the supplied ToolVitals scores and project descriptions to provide a focused starting point for comparison.
The ranking includes OSI-approved open-source tools and orders them by ToolVitals score descending, with health and shipping used to break equal composite scores. GitHub stars are context only and do not determine the ranking.
Rankings
| Rank | Tool | Openness | License | Health | Shipping | GitHub Stars | Score | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Payload | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 100 | 100 | 44311 | 100 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 2 | Sanity | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 100 | 100 | 6283 | 100 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 3 | Strapi | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 100 | 100 | 72992 | 100 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 4 | Sveltia CMS | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 100 | 100 | 2737 | 100 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 5 | dotCMS | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-2.0 | 100 | 100 | 949 | 100 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 6 | Webiny | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 98 | 99 | 8032 | 98 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 7 | DNN Platform | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 98 | 96 | 1139 | 97 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 8 | TinaCMS | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 98 | 96 | 13748 | 97 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 9 | Enonic XP | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 96 | 95 | 211 | 96 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 10 | Atomic Server | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 95 | 98 | 1589 | 96 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 11 | Concrete | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 96 | 93 | 851 | 95 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 12 | Sulu | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 96 | 93 | 1349 | 95 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 13 | b10cks CMS | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 92 | 98 | 14 | 94 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 14 | pagible | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 92 | 98 | 582 | 94 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 15 | Keystone | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 94 | 91 | 9962 | 93 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 16 | OpenDXP | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 96 | 87 | 98 | 92 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 17 | Byline CMS | OSI-approved OSS | MPL-2.0 | 89 | 97 | 34 | 92 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 18 | CairnCMS | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 89 | 93 | 17 | 91 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 19 | Decap CMS | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 93 | 82 | 19306 | 89 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 20 | Gentics Mesh | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 91 | 85 | 593 | 89 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 21 | SonicJS | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 90 | 88 | 1686 | 89 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 22 | AWCMS | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 88 | 90 | 11 | 89 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 23 | Daptin | OSI-approved OSS | LGPL-3.0 | 85 | 91 | 1891 | 87 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 24 | Bolt CMS | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 89 | 81 | 591 | 86 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 25 | Contentful | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 89 | 81 | 1296 | 86 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 26 | content | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 87 | 74 | 3660 | 82 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 27 | Backdrop CMS | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-2.0 | 86 | 73 | 1043 | 81 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 28 | Archival | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 78 | 73 | 8 | 76 | 🟢 Good |
| 29 | Vrite | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 77 | 70 | 1992 | 74 | 🟢 Good |
| 30 | openblog | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 69 | 52 | 2 | 62 | 🟢 Good |
| 31 | Squidex | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 63 | 46 | 2509 | 56 | 🟡 Fair |
| 32 | mave-cms | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 59 | 34 | 7 | 49 | 🟡 Fair |
| 33 | MZinga | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 52 | 25 | 9 | 41 | 🟡 Fair |
| 34 | Twill | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 44 | 23 | 3975 | 36 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 35 | Pages CMS | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 32 | 16 | 3930 | 26 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 36 | DoraCMS | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 32 | 11 | 3542 | 24 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 37 | LinkBCMS | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 35 | 0 | 2 | 21 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 38 | BCMS | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 29 | 10 | 464 | 21 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 39 | FormCMS | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 22 | 12 | 268 | 18 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 40 | LeadCMS | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 21 | 10 | 36 | 17 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 41 | Blogifier | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 5 | 0 | 1295 | 3 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 42 | Content Flow | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 43 | VaahCMS | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 5 | 0 | 574 | 3 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 44 | Contentport | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 2 | 0 | 764 | 1 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 45 | Mixcore | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 2 | 0 | 887 | 1 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 46 | bhd-cms | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 47 | cms | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 2 | 0 | 3909 | 1 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 48 | Burdy | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 0 | 0 | 233 | 0 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 49 | Cockpit CMS | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 0 | 0 | 5395 | 0 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 50 | Contentive | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
Top 3 Highlights
Payload ranks first with a ToolVitals score of 100, plus health and shipping scores of 100. Its supplied description presents it as an open-source, fullstack Next.js framework with a TypeScript backend and admin panel, usable as a headless CMS or as a foundation for broader applications. Its openness_label is “OSI-approved OSS” and its license_label is “MIT”.
Sanity ranks second with a ToolVitals score of 100 and health and shipping scores of 100. The supplied description focuses on Sanity Studio and rapidly configured content workspaces powered by structured content, giving it a clear emphasis on structured-content management. Its openness_label is “OSI-approved OSS” and its license_label is “MIT”.
Strapi ranks third with a ToolVitals score of 100, alongside health and shipping scores of 100. Its supplied description identifies it as a JavaScript/TypeScript headless CMS that is fully customizable and developer-first. Its openness_label is “OSI-approved OSS” and its license_label is “MIT”.
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