Sanity, Strapi or AEM?
An honest, side-by-side comparison, including where Sanity is not the right choice.
Sanity vs Strapi vs AEM
An honest comparison for CodeLand projects. Sanity wins on developer speed, structured omnichannel content, real-time editing and zero operations; it loses where data must live on our own infrastructure or where enterprise governance is needed below Enterprise pricing.
| Dimension | Sanity | Strapi | AEM | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hosting model | Content Lake is SaaS only; the Studio can be self-hosted | Fully self-hosted (MIT) or Strapi Cloud | AEM as a Cloud Service, or 6.5 on-prem / AMS | Depends |
| Data residency | Managed by Sanity on Google Cloud; EU regions | Full control: your database, your region | Full control on-prem; Adobe regions in the cloud | Strapi |
| Content modelling | TypeScript schemas in git | UI builder that writes schema files | Templates, dialogs, Content Fragment Models | Sanity |
| APIs | GROQ, GraphQL, CDN and Live API | REST and GraphQL | GraphQL/OpenAPI for Content Fragments, Sling | Depends |
| Page / visual editing | Click-to-edit on your own frontend (you build the site) | Live Preview (Growth) | Page Editor and Universal Editor: core strength | AEM |
| Real-time co-editing | Native, with presence | Not native | Page locking | Sanity |
| Localisation | Plugins, unlimited locales, AI translation | Built-in i18n, AI localisation (Growth) | Language copies, MSM, translation connectors | AEM |
| Workflows & releases | Scheduled drafts (Growth); Releases (Enterprise, worked on our trial); Workflows in beta | Releases (Growth); Review Workflows (Enterprise) | Mature workflows and Launches | AEM |
| DAM | Image pipeline on all plans; Media Library on Enterprise | Media Library (new version in beta) | AEM Assets: full enterprise DAM | AEM |
| AI | Content Agent (all plans), Functions, Agent Actions, MCP | Strapi AI (Growth), MCP | Adobe AI features (separate products) | Sanity |
| Operations | Very low: no servers or database to run | Ours: database, backups, scaling, patches | High on-prem; lower on AEMaaCS | Sanity |
| SSO & custom roles | Enterprise only | Custom roles in all tiers; SSO add-on | Adobe IMS, enterprise ACLs | Strapi |
| Entry price | Free → $15 per seat/month → Enterprise | Free self-hosted → $45/month; Cloud from $35/month | Enterprise licence | Strapi |
| Lock-in & export | Data exports freely (NDJSON + assets); GROQ is Sanity-specific | Low: open source, your database | High: platform-specific skills and structure | Strapi |
Sources: vendor documentation and pricing pages checked on 23 September 2026 (see docs/research.md). AEM rows to be reviewed by the CodeLand AEM team.
When to recommend Sanity
When should we recommend Sanity?
Omnichannel, structured content; teams that want real-time collaboration and AI-assisted operations; React/Next.js frontends; zero CMS operations.
When not?
When content must stay on the client’s own infrastructure, or when SSO, custom roles and releases are needed without an Enterprise budget.