Which is the best CMS for Astro? Markstage compared
The best CMS for Astro depends on your team: who edits, where content lives and what you want to run. Here is where Markstage, a visual editor that keeps content in git, fits next to WordPress, Ghost, Prismic and other hosted and git-based CMSs, and where each one leads. Markstage is not affiliated with any of them.
The short verdict
Pick WordPress
if you want its very large ecosystem of themes, plugins, hosts and people who know it, or a familiar admin for content that Astro reads by API.
Pick Ghost
if the site is a publication: newsletters, memberships and paid subscriptions are built in 97, with its own editor and themes, self-hosted or on Ghost(Pro). Its code is under the MIT licence 95.
Pick Prismic
if you want a hosted page builder with nothing to run, and your developers build the sections ("slices") 71.
Pick Markstage
if writers should edit on the Astro site's own design, content should stay as files in git, and staging, roles and single sign-on should come included on your own server. Markstage is pre-release; WordPress and Ghost have many years of production use and much larger communities.
Markstage in one table
| Question | Markstage |
|---|---|
| Where content lives | Markdown, MDX and JSON files in your git repo |
| How writers edit | On the site’s real page design, in the browser |
| What a save is | A clean git diff of only the blocks that changed; with the Markstage server, a commit by the person who saved |
| Hosting | Self-hosted: your computer (astro dev) or your server |
| Framework | Astro today; a framework-free core |
| Price | Free to self-host (Elastic License 2.0) |
| Team features | Sign-in, roles, 2FA, single sign-on, releases, staging |
| AI today | An MCP server: AI agents draft as the person whose token they hold, and publish only when an owner allows it, through the site’s checks and rules. AI suggestions for alt text, search titles and descriptions, translation drafts, the promotion summary and better words for a selection, which a person reads, changes and saves. Anthropic, any OpenAI-compatible endpoint or Ollama |
Markstage vs WordPress, Ghost and Prismic
The three people weigh most often, beside Markstage. Each fact is the same, with the same source, as in the full comparison.
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Markstage
Visual editor
A visual editor for Astro: writers edit on the site’s real design; content stays Markdown and JSON in git.
-
WordPress
Publishing platform
A publishing platform with a very large ecosystem of themes and plugins; headless with Astro.
-
Ghost
Publishing platform
A publishing platform with newsletters, memberships and paid subscriptions built in; headless with Astro.
-
Prismic
Hosted CMS
A hosted page builder: nothing to run, and your developers build the sections (slices).
- Yes
- Partly
- No
- Not confirmed
- Does not apply
| Feature | Markstage | WordPress | Ghost | Prismic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Editing | ||||
| Edits on the site's own design | Yes The site's own components and CSS 4 | No Headless: written in WordPress's admin 93 | No Headless: written in Ghost's own editor 97 103 | Partly Page Builder: drag sections, live preview 71 |
| Content and git | ||||
| Content as files in git | Yes 3 | No Read by REST API 93 | No MySQL database, read by the Content API 100 101 | No Hosted, read by API 70 |
| Astro | ||||
| Guide in Astro's own CMS docs | No Not listed yet 1 | Yes 93 | Yes 103 | Partly Community resources only 72 |
| Team and workflow | ||||
| Roles | Yes Five built in, plus custom roles 11 | Yes Six roles 92 | Yes Contributor, Author, Editor, Administrator, Owner 98 96 | Partly From Medium ($150); custom on Enterprise 70 |
| Single sign-on | Yes OpenID Connect, included 12 | Not confirmed 91 | Partly Custom plan on Ghost(Pro) 96 | Partly Enterprise 70 |
| Environments or staging | Yes Local, staging, production; free 7 | Not confirmed 91 | Not confirmed 96 | Partly Paid option on Platinum ($675); 2 on Enterprise 70 |
| Releases (publish many changes at once) | Yes With a preview and share links 14 | Not confirmed 91 | Not confirmed 97 | Yes 71 |
| Forms inbox | Yes 13 | Not confirmed 91 | Not confirmed 97 | No 70 |
| WordPress import | Yes A WordPress export or the REST API: posts, pages, media, authors, categories, tags, SEO fields and old addresses as redirects; a dry run first; proven on a real 148-post site's export (SVG pictures stay at their old address) 19 17 | Does not apply | Yes Built-in importer for a WordPress XML export 102 | Partly A general Migration API 70 |
| Hosting and price | ||||
| What you run | One Node server next to your static site 8 | A WordPress site (PHP with MySQL or MariaDB) 93 94 | A Ghost server (Node.js and MySQL 8), or Ghost(Pro) 100 96 | Nothing; hosted 70 |
| Self-host | Yes 8 | Yes 93 | Yes Ubuntu with Ghost-CLI, or Docker (preview) 99 | No 70 |
| Price to start | Free 3 | Free software; you pay for hosting 91 | Free software; Ghost(Pro) Starter $18/mo ($15 yearly) 96 | Free; Starter $10/mo per repository, yearly 70 |
| Licence | ||||
| Licence | Elastic License 2.0 Source-available, free to self-host 20 | GPLv2 or later 91 | MIT 95 | Closed, hosted service 70 |
No product of this kind is in this table. Choose All to see it again.
Every other product, grouped
The other 18 products of the comparison, by what they are. WordPress and Ghost are publishing platforms and Prismic a hosted CMS; they are above.
Git-based editors 9
Content stays as files in a git repository, like Markstage. They differ in where writers edit and what you have to run.
-
TinaCMS
Git-based editor
A git-based CMS with click-to-edit on Astro pages, hosted (TinaCloud) or self-hosted.
- Edits on the real page
- Yes Click a region of the Astro page; its field opens in a sidebar form and the page updates live. Each page is set up with a data loader and an island or server route 22
- Content in git
- Yes 25
- Self-host
- Yes "Some features are not available" 23
- Price to start
- Free (2 users); Team $29/mo 21
- Licence
- Apache 2.0 25
-
CloudCannon
Git-based editor
A hosted git-based CMS that edits regions on a preview of your built site.
-
Decap CMS
Git-based editor
A single admin page that talks to your git host; no server of its own.
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Sveltia CMS
Git-based editor
A single-page admin over your git host, with a live preview beside the form.
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Keystatic
Git-based editor
A typed admin for Markdown, Markdoc or MDX inside your Astro project.
-
Pages CMS
Git-based editor
Forms with a rich-text editor over a GitHub repository, with email invites.
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Front Matter CMS
Git-based editor
A CMS inside VS Code, over the files on your own computer.
-
Outstatic
Git-based editor
A dashboard editor for Markdown and MDX that commits to GitHub.
-
Sitepins
Git-based editor
A WYSIWYG editor over your git files, with live cursors.
Hosted visual CMSs 4
Content lives in the vendor’s hosted database and Astro reads it by API. Nothing to run, and you pay as the team grows.
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Storyblok
Hosted CMS
A hosted visual CMS: click a component on your site and its block opens.
-
Sanity
Hosted CMS
A customisable Studio on a hosted, real-time content database.
-
Contentful
Hosted CMS
A hosted content platform that Astro reads through its SDK.
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Builder.io
Hosted CMS
A hosted drag-and-drop visual editor on a preview page of your site.
Self-hosted CMS apps 5
A CMS you run yourself as its own app, most with a database next to it.
-
EmDash
Self-hosted CMS app
A content database built on Astro, WordPress-style, with an admin.
-
StudioCMS
Self-hosted CMS app
A CMS built for Astro, with a dashboard and its own database.
-
Payload
Self-hosted CMS app
A Next.js app that is a CMS and an application backend, with its own database.
-
Strapi
Self-hosted CMS app
A headless CMS server with an API, self-hosted or on Strapi Cloud.
-
Statamic
Self-hosted CMS app
A Laravel (PHP) CMS that keeps its content in flat files.
What’s coming
Markstage is pre-release. The marks above are what it does today; a badge beside a mark says a change is on the way. Shipping today: an MCP server, so an AI agent drafts as the person whose token it holds and publishes only when an owner allows it, and AI suggestions for alt text, search titles and descriptions, translation drafts, the promotion summary and better words for a selection.
Planned, later
Packages on npm Planned
Install @markstage/astro from npm, without a clone of the repository.
The real page on the server, too Planned
The built editor on a server draws each article inside its real page, as astro dev does today.
More than one server process Planned
Sign-in and share-link limits shared between processes, so one data dir can run on several.
Adapters beyond Astro Planned
The core has no framework in it; more site generators after Astro.
Live co-editing Planned
Several people in one page at once, with live cursors, beside today's locks and three-way merge.
AI translation of a whole site Planned
Draft every page of a site in another language in one run, for people to review.
A stable 1.0 Planned
After deeper quality, security and performance work.
How it fits
WordPress, Ghost and Prismic come first: they are the three people weigh most often. Facts about other products come from each vendor's own website, pricing page, docs or code repository, checked on 2026-11-03 (Ghost's on 2026-11-04). The full matrix, with a source for every cell and 13 more products (Sveltia CMS, Pages CMS, Front Matter CMS, Outstatic, Sitepins, EmDash, StudioCMS, Sanity, Contentful, Builder.io, Payload, Strapi and Statamic), is in docs/COMPARISON.md.
WordPress and Ghost are mature publishing platforms with large communities. With Astro, both are used headless: writers work in their own admin and Astro reads the content by API. Ghost also has newsletters, memberships and paid subscriptions built in, which Markstage does not. Prismic is a hosted page builder: nothing to run, and your developers build the sections. Markstage differs from all three in where writers work (on the Astro site's own design) and where content lives (files in your git repository).
Astro gives content collections (Markdown, MDX, JSON and YAML with a schema) but no editor of its own; its docs send you to a CMS. Markstage is that editor for teams who want writers to work on the site's real design, every save to change only what was edited (with the Markstage server, a commit by the person who saved), and staging, roles, single sign-on and a forms inbox included, all on their own server for free. CloudCannon is the closest hosted product: also git-based, with editing on a preview of the built site, from $55 a month. TinaCMS gives click-to-edit on Astro pages and has edited MDX for longer; Markstage's MDX support is new. Decap CMS needs no server at all and Keystatic runs inside your Astro site, but with both, writers fill in forms rather than editing the page itself. Markstage is pre-release; most products here have years of use and bigger communities.
Where others lead (honestly)
- MDX. Markstage edits MDX files' words and simple component settings and keeps the code as written, but it shows components as cards, not rendered, and its MDX support is new (docs/MDX.md). TinaCMS, Keystatic and Outstatic have edited MDX for longer.
- No server at all. Decap CMS and Sveltia CMS run in the browser against your git host. Markstage needs Node.js
for a team (sign-in, publishing, the inbox); alone on your computer it runs inside
astro dev. - A hosted service. Prismic, Ghost(Pro), CloudCannon, TinaCloud and Storyblok run it for you. Markstage is self-hosted only.
- Publishing and memberships. Ghost has newsletters and paid subscriptions built in; WordPress has a very large ecosystem of themes and plugins.
- Years of use. Most of these products have been in production for years, with bigger communities and plugin ecosystems. Markstage is pre-release.
- Frameworks other than Astro. Markstage's core has no framework in it, but it has one adapter so far, Astro; more are planned (see the Roadmap).
The same comparison on the website, with one page per alternative: spcaeo.github.io/markstage/compare/full/.
Markstage as an alternative to
- A WordPress alternative for Astro sites
- A Ghost alternative for Astro sites
- A Prismic alternative for Astro sites
- A Builder.io alternative for Astro sites
- A self-hosted CloudCannon alternative for Astro
- A Contentful alternative for Astro sites
- A Decap CMS alternative for Astro sites
- EmDash vs Markstage: which fits your Astro site?
- A Front Matter CMS alternative for Astro teams
- A Keystatic alternative for Astro sites
- An Outstatic alternative for Astro sites
- A Pages CMS alternative for Astro sites
- A Payload alternative for Astro content sites
- A Sanity alternative for Astro sites
- A Sitepins alternative for Astro sites
- A Statamic alternative for Astro sites
- A Storyblok alternative for Astro sites
- A Strapi alternative for Astro content sites
- StudioCMS vs Markstage: which fits your Astro site?
- A Sveltia CMS alternative for Astro sites
- A TinaCMS alternative for Astro sites