Astro CMS Comparison: Markstage and 21 CMSs, Sourced

An Astro CMS comparison with a source for every cell: editing, content and git, Astro output, team workflow, hosting, price and licence, checked on 2026-11-03.

A note on the names in this document. WordPress, Ghost, Prismic, TinaCMS, CloudCannon, Decap CMS, Sveltia CMS, Keystatic, Pages CMS, Front Matter CMS, Outstatic, Sitepins, EmDash, StudioCMS, Storyblok, Sanity, Contentful, Builder.io, Payload, Strapi, Statamic and Astro are trademarks of their owners. We name them only to compare. Markstage is not associated with, affiliated with or endorsed by any of them. Many of them are excellent, and this page says where each one fits better than Markstage. If a fact is out of date, please open an issue.

How Markstage, a visual editor for Astro sites whose content is Markdown and JSON files in git, stands beside the editors and content systems people use with Astro. A short version is in the README.

Facts about other products come from each vendor's own website, pricing page, docs or code repository, and from Astro's own docs, all checked on 2026-11-03 (Ghost's on 2026-11-04). No review sites or third-party lists were used as a source. Markstage's column claims only what is in this repository's code and docs on that date. Every cell links its source in the footnotes. Prices are the list prices shown on that date, monthly unless the cell says otherwise; they change often, so check the vendor's page before you buy.

Mark	Means
✓	Yes
◐	Partly, or only on some plans or as an add-on (see the note in the cell)
✗	No, or not found where the vendor lists its features
?	Not confirmed on the vendor's own pages
–	Does not apply

Status. Markstage is pre-release and in active development (README). Most products below have years of production use and much larger communities. Weigh that as well as the features.

The short answer

Astro has no editor of its own. Its docs describe a CMS as a separate tool that "lets you write content and manage assets outside of your Astro project", and list 45 of them ¹. Content collections give Markdown, MDX, YAML and JSON files a schema and type safety, but no screen for a writer ².
Markstage is for a team that wants all of these at once: writers edit on the site's own design; a save changes only what was edited (a clean git diff) and, with the Markstage server, is committed as the person who saved; no database server holds the content; staging and release rules are included; and it all runs on your own server for free.
WordPress, Ghost and Prismic are the three people weigh most often. WordPress and Ghost are mature publishing platforms with large communities; with Astro, both are used headless (Astro reads their content by API, and writers work in their own admin). Prismic is a hosted page builder. The next section puts the three side by side with Markstage.
The closest products are CloudCannon (git-based, edits on a preview of your built site, hosted only, from $55 a month), TinaCMS (git-based, click-to-edit on Astro pages, hosted or self-hosted), and Storyblok, Sanity and Prismic (visual editing on a hosted content database).

Markstage vs WordPress, Ghost and Prismic

The rows a team usually decides on. Each cell is the same, with the same source, as in the full tables below.

Yes
Partly
No
Not confirmed
Does not apply

Markstage vs WordPress, Ghost and Prismic
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

How to choose among these four:

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.
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.
Prismic if you want a hosted page builder with nothing to run, and your developers build the sections ("slices") ⁷¹.
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.

Group A: git-based editors

These keep content as files in a git repository, like Markstage.

Group A: git-based editors
Feature	Markstage	TinaCMS	CloudCannon	Decap CMS	Sveltia CMS	Keystatic	Pages CMS	Front Matter CMS	Outstatic	Sitepins
Editing
Edits on the site's own designThe writer sees the real page while editing	Yes The site's own components and CSS; text and rich text typed on the page, other fields in a side panel. Components mark their fields with a helper ⁴	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	Yes Editable regions on a preview of your built site; Astro components re-render live ²⁸ ²⁹	Partly Form with a real-time preview pane; custom preview templates and styles ³⁰ ³⁴	Partly Two-pane editor with live preview, scroll sync and click-to-highlight ³⁸	No Admin UI with fields and a WYSIWYG editor ⁴²	No Forms with a rich-text editor ⁴⁸	Partly Site preview inside VS Code ⁵¹	No Dashboard editor ⁵⁴	No WYSIWYG over your files; "not a page builder" ⁵⁹
Media library	Yes Upload, paste or drop; alt text required; images re-encoded ⁴	Yes Repo-based media ²⁴	Partly Connect outside asset stores (DAM) on paid plans ²⁷	Yes Drag-and-drop uploads ³⁰	Yes Asset library, stock photos ³⁸	Partly Cloud Images on Keystatic Cloud Pro ⁴³	Yes Media manager ⁴⁸	Yes Media dashboard ⁵¹	Not confirmed ⁵⁴	Not confirmed ⁵⁷
SEO checks while writing	Yes Counters, search preview, checks run on the built HTML; publishing stops on real errors ¹⁰	Not confirmed ²¹	Not confirmed ²⁷	No ³⁰	No ³⁸	No ⁴²	No ⁴⁸	Yes ⁵¹	Not confirmed ⁵⁴	Yes Search preview and tips ⁵⁷
Content and git
Content as files in git	Yes ³	Yes ²⁵	Yes GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket ²⁷	Yes GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket and more ³²	Yes ³⁷	Yes Local or GitHub ⁴²	Yes GitHub only ⁴⁸	Yes Your local files ⁵¹	Yes GitHub ⁵⁵	Yes GitHub, GitLab ⁵⁹
A save is a commit by the person who saved	Yes Only the changed blocks are rewritten; open and save with no edit changes nothing ⁶	Yes To GitHub, through TinaCloud or a self-hosted backend ²⁶	Yes ²⁷	Yes ³²	Yes ³⁷	Partly In GitHub mode ⁴⁴	Yes ⁴⁸	Does not apply You commit yourself ⁵¹	Partly Email or Google sign-ins commit as the Outstatic Bot ⁵⁵	Yes Through your connected git account ⁵⁹
Markdown with front matter	Yes ⁴	Yes ²⁵	Yes ²⁹	Yes ³⁶	Yes ⁴⁰	Yes ⁴²	Yes ⁴⁸	Yes ⁵¹	Yes ⁵⁴	Yes ⁵⁹
MDX	Partly Words and simple component settings edited; code kept as written; components shown as cards, not rendered, on the canvas ⁵	Yes ²⁵	Not confirmed Its docs have an article on MDX component snippets ²⁸	Not confirmed ³²	Not confirmed Formats listed: Markdown, YAML, JSON, TOML ⁴⁰	Yes MDX and Markdoc fields ⁴⁴	Not confirmed ⁴⁸	Not confirmed ⁵¹	Yes ⁵⁵	Not confirmed ⁵⁹
JSON and YAML data files	Yes JSON pages edited on the page; reads and writes Keystatic's JSON with zero diff ⁶	Yes ²⁵	Yes Data editor ²⁹	Not confirmed ³²	Yes ⁴⁰	Yes ⁴²	Not confirmed ⁴⁸	Yes Data dashboard ⁵¹	Not confirmed ⁵⁴	Not confirmed ⁵⁹
Database to run	No database server Content in git; one SQLite file holds people, sessions, the inbox, drafts in progress, trash, releases, the media index and the audit log ³	Partly Self-hosting needs a database adapter (e.g. MongoDB, Postgres) as a cache ²³	Does not apply Hosted for you ²⁷	None Decap Turbo adds a hosted store ³⁵	None ³⁸	None ⁴²	Partly Self-hosting needs PostgreSQL ⁴⁹	None ⁵¹	None ⁵⁴	None for content ⁵⁹
Astro
Guide in Astro's own CMS docs	No Not listed yet ¹	Yes ²⁶	Yes A featured CMS partner ²⁹	Yes ³⁶	No Says it works with Astro ³⁷	Yes ⁴⁶	Yes ⁵⁰	Yes ⁵³	No Names Astro on its site ⁵⁴	Yes ⁶⁰
Astro integration package	Yes `@markstage/astro`: the editor inside `astro dev` ⁴	Yes `@tinacms/astro` ²²	Yes `@cloudcannon/editable-regions` ²⁹	No An admin page you add ³⁶	No ³⁷	Yes ⁴⁶	No ⁵⁰	No A VS Code extension ⁵³	No ⁵⁴	No ⁶⁰
The live site can stay fully static	Yes Editor markup only in editor mode; the production build is byte-identical ⁴	Partly Visual editing wants `output: 'server'` and an adapter, or every region wrapped in `<TinaIsland>` ²²	Yes Builds and serves the static output ²⁷	Partly Off Netlify, sign-in needs your own OAuth routes on an adapter ³⁶	Yes No server ³⁸	Partly Pages stay static; its admin routes are rendered on demand, which needs an adapter ⁴⁶ ⁴⁷	Yes ⁴⁸	Yes ⁵¹	Not confirmed ⁵⁴	Yes ⁵⁹
Team and workflow
Sign-in for people without a git account	Yes Email and password, two-step sign-in ⁴	Yes TinaCloud, or Auth.js when self-hosted ²³	Yes ²⁷	Partly Your own auth, or Decap Turbo ³⁵	No OAuth with the git host ⁴¹	Partly Keystatic Cloud ⁴³	Yes Email invites ⁴⁸	Does not apply ⁵¹	Partly Pro: email and Google ⁵⁵	Yes Invite by email ⁵⁷
Roles	Yes Five built in, plus custom roles ¹¹	Partly 3 roles; custom roles on Enterprise (beta) ²¹	Partly Default roles; custom permissions from Team ²⁷	Partly Turbo: owner, member, full access; custom roles €19 add-on ³⁵	Not confirmed ³⁸	No Access is per team ⁴³	No "Soon" ⁴⁸	Does not apply ⁵¹	Partly Pro ⁵⁵	Yes ⁵⁷
Single sign-on	Yes OpenID Connect, included ¹²	Partly Enterprise ²¹	Partly SSO/SAML on Enterprise ²⁷	No ³⁵	No ³⁸	No ⁴³	No ⁴⁸	Does not apply ⁵¹	Partly Google sign-in on Pro ⁵⁵	Not confirmed ⁵⁷
Review before going live	Yes Send to staging for review; approve; promotion rules ⁷	Partly Editorial workflow: protected branches and pull requests, on TinaCloud Team and up ²⁴ ²¹	Partly Branching workflows on Team ²⁷	Yes Editorial workflow: a branch and pull request per entry ³³	Yes Editorial workflow (GitHub, GitLab, Gitea/Forgejo) ³⁹	Not confirmed ⁴²	No ⁴⁸	Does not apply ⁵¹	Partly "Team workflows" on Pro ⁵⁵	Yes Branch previews, review and revert ⁵⁷
Staging and production as separate places	Yes Local, staging and production, each a branch plus a server; content and code promoted together; sync down by merge ⁷	Partly Branches with preview links ²⁴	Partly Branch sites on Team ²⁷	Partly Deploy preview links ³³	Not confirmed ⁴¹	Not confirmed ⁴²	No ⁴⁸	Does not apply ⁵¹	Not confirmed ⁵⁵	Partly Branch previews ⁵⁷
Live co-editing (cursors)	No today Planned Locks and a three-way merge instead ³	Not confirmed ²¹	Not confirmed ²⁷	No ³⁰	No ³⁸	No ⁴²	No Comments "soon" ⁴⁸	Does not apply ⁵¹	No ⁵⁴	Yes Live cursors and avatars ⁵⁷
Forms inbox for site visitors	Yes Forms post to Markstage; Inbox, alerts, thank-you mail ¹³	No ²¹	Yes Form inboxes ²⁷	No ³⁰	No ³⁸	No ⁴²	No ⁴⁸	No ⁵¹	No ⁵⁴	No ⁵⁷
Translations	Yes Per-language status: missing, outdated, done ¹⁵	Not confirmed ²¹	Not confirmed ²⁷	Not confirmed ³⁰	Yes First-class i18n ³⁸	Not confirmed ⁴²	Not confirmed ⁴⁸	Not confirmed ⁵¹	Not confirmed ⁵⁴	Not confirmed ⁵⁷
AI agents through MCP	Yes Agents draft as the person whose token they hold; publish only if an owner allows it ¹⁶	Not confirmed ²¹	Not confirmed ²⁷	No ³⁰	Partly Agent Skill and llms.txt ³⁷	No ⁴²	No ⁴⁸	No ⁵¹	Partly AI completion on Pro ⁵⁵	Partly A setup skill ⁵⁷
Hosting and price
Self-host	Yes One docker run with the server image, Docker Compose, or systemd and nginx ⁹ ⁸	Yes "Some features are not available" ²³	No No self-hosted version listed ²⁷	Yes ³⁵	Yes A single-page app; no server ³⁸	Yes ⁴²	Yes ⁴⁹	Does not apply Runs in your editor ⁵¹	Yes ⁵⁵	Yes ⁵⁹
Hosted plan	No Self-host only ³	Yes TinaCloud ²¹	Yes Hosted only ²⁷	Partly Decap Turbo hosts auth and a proxy ³⁵	Does not apply ³⁸	Partly Keystatic Cloud for sign-in and images ⁴³	Yes app.pagescms.org ⁴⁹	Does not apply ⁵¹	Yes Pro ⁵⁵	Yes Sitepins Cloud ⁵⁸
Price to start	Free to self-host ³	Free (2 users); Team $29/mo ²¹	Standard $55/mo ($49 yearly), 3 users ²⁷	Free; Turbo Pro €19/mo ³⁵	Free ³⁷	Free; Cloud Pro from $10/mo ⁴³	Free ⁴⁸	Free ⁵¹	Free self-hosted; Pro $9.99/user/mo ⁵⁵	Free self-hosted; Cloud $12/mo ⁵⁸
Per-seat or per-user fees	None ³	$9 to $18 per extra user ²¹	$10 per extra user ²⁷	Turbo €6 per extra seat ³⁵	None ³⁷	Cloud: $5 per user beyond 3 ⁴³	None ⁴⁸	None ⁵¹	Pro is per user ⁵⁵	Users per plan ⁵⁸
Licence
Licence	Elastic License 2.0 Source-available, free to self-host ²⁰	Apache 2.0 ²⁵	Closed, hosted service ²⁷	MIT ³¹	MIT ³⁷	MIT ⁴⁵	MIT ⁴⁹	MIT ⁵²	FSL-1.1-ALv2 Source-available; becomes Apache 2.0 two years after each release ⁵⁶	AGPL-3.0 ⁵⁹

Group B: content databases and APIs

These keep content in a database, their own or a hosted one, and Astro reads it through an API or an integration.

Group B: content databases and APIs
Feature	Markstage	WordPress	Ghost	Prismic	EmDash	StudioCMS	Storyblok	Sanity	Contentful	Builder.io	Payload	Strapi	Statamic
Editing and content
Edits on the site's own design	Yes 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	Partly "Inline visual editing" in its README; the docs we read edit in the admin ⁶¹ ⁶²	No Dashboard ⁶⁵	Yes Visual Editor: click a component on your site, its block opens ⁶⁸	Yes Presentation tool with overlays, on a server-rendered Astro site ⁷⁴	Not confirmed ⁷⁷	Yes Drag-and-drop visual editor on a preview page of your site ⁸¹	Partly Live Preview in an iframe; a Visual Editor is "coming soon" for Enterprise ⁸⁴ ⁸⁵	Partly Live Preview on Growth and up ⁸⁹	Partly Live Preview ¹⁰⁵
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	No SQL database ⁶¹	No libSQL, MySQL or PostgreSQL ⁶⁵	No Hosted, read by API ⁶⁷	No Hosted Content Lake ⁷³	No Hosted, read by SDK ⁷⁸	No Your Builder space ⁸¹	No MongoDB, Postgres or SQLite ⁸³	No Read by API ⁹⁰	Yes Flat files; git automation on Pro ¹⁰⁵ ¹⁰⁴
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	The Astro site on Cloudflare Workers, or Node with SQLite ⁶¹	Astro in server mode, plus a database ⁶⁵	Nothing; hosted ⁶⁷	Nothing for content; hosted ⁷³	Nothing; hosted ⁷⁸	Nothing; hosted ⁷⁹	A Next.js app and its database ⁸² ⁸³	A Strapi server, or Strapi Cloud ⁸⁷	A Laravel (PHP) app ¹⁰⁵
Astro
Guide in Astro's own CMS docs	No Not listed yet ¹	Yes ⁹³	Yes ¹⁰³	Partly Community resources only ⁷²	Yes ⁶³	Yes ⁶⁶	Yes ⁶⁹	Yes ⁷⁶	Yes ⁷⁸	Yes ⁸¹	Yes ⁸⁶	Yes ⁹⁰	Yes ¹⁰⁶
Official Astro integration	Yes ⁴	No REST API ⁹³	No Content API client, `@tryghost/content-api` ¹⁰³	No ⁷²	Yes Built on Astro ⁶¹	Yes Built for Astro ⁶⁴	Yes `@storyblok/astro` ⁶⁹	Yes `@sanity/astro` ⁷⁶	No Contentful SDK ⁷⁸	No A preview page you add ⁸¹	No An example project ⁸⁶	No A wrapper you write ⁹⁰	No REST or GraphQL API, on Pro ¹⁰⁶ ¹⁰⁴
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	Yes Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor ⁶¹	Not confirmed ⁶⁵	Partly Custom roles on Premium and Elite ⁶⁷	Yes 2 roles free, 5 on Growth, custom on Enterprise ⁷³	Not confirmed ⁷⁷	Partly Admin only on Free and Pro; four roles on Team; custom roles and RBAC on Enterprise ⁷⁹	Yes Granular access control ⁸²	Yes Role-based access in the free edition ⁸⁷	Partly Core: one admin; Pro: unlimited users and roles ¹⁰⁴
Single sign-on	Yes OpenID Connect, included ¹²	Not confirmed ⁹¹	Partly Custom plan on Ghost(Pro) ⁹⁶	Partly Enterprise ⁷⁰	No Passkeys, OAuth and magic links; no single sign-on listed ⁶¹	Not confirmed ⁶⁵	Partly Premium and Elite ⁶⁷	Partly SAML on Enterprise ⁷³	Not confirmed ⁷⁷	Partly Enterprise ⁷⁹	Partly Enterprise feature ⁸⁵	Partly $150/mo add-on ⁸⁷	Not confirmed ¹⁰⁴
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	Not confirmed ⁶¹	Not confirmed ⁶⁵	Partly Premium and Elite ⁶⁷	Partly 2 datasets; more at $999 each a month ⁷³	Not confirmed ⁷⁷	Not confirmed ⁷⁹	Not confirmed ⁸⁵	Not confirmed ⁸⁷	Not confirmed ¹⁰⁴
Releases (publish many changes at once)	Yes With a preview and share links ¹⁴	Not confirmed ⁹¹	Not confirmed ⁹⁷	Yes ⁷¹	Not confirmed ⁶¹	Not confirmed ⁶⁵	Partly Premium and Elite ⁶⁷	Partly Content Releases on Enterprise ⁷³	Not confirmed ⁷⁷	Not confirmed ⁷⁹	Not confirmed ⁸⁵	Partly Growth and up ⁸⁹	Not confirmed ¹⁰⁴
Real-time collaboration	No today Planned Locks and a three-way merge ³	Not confirmed ⁹¹	Not confirmed ⁹⁷	Not confirmed ⁷⁰	Not confirmed ⁶¹	Not confirmed ⁶⁵	Not confirmed ⁶⁷	Yes Real-time content database; comments and tasks on Growth ⁷³	Not confirmed ⁷⁷	Not confirmed ⁷⁹	Not confirmed ⁸²	Not confirmed ⁸⁷	Not confirmed ¹⁰⁴
MCP server for AI agents	Yes ¹⁶	Not confirmed ⁹¹	Not confirmed ⁹⁷	Yes Claude and ChatGPT plugins ⁷⁰	Yes ⁶¹	Not confirmed ⁶⁵	Not confirmed ⁶⁷	Yes ⁷³	Not confirmed ⁷⁷	Partly Built-in MCP servers from Pro; custom ones on Team ⁷⁹	Not confirmed ⁸²	Not confirmed ⁸⁷	Not confirmed ¹⁰⁴
Forms inbox	Yes ¹³	Not confirmed ⁹¹	Not confirmed ⁹⁷	No ⁷⁰	No ⁶¹	Not confirmed ⁶⁵	No ⁶⁷	No ⁷³	Not confirmed ⁷⁷	Not confirmed ⁷⁹	Not confirmed ⁸²	No ⁸⁷	Yes Core: one form ¹⁰⁴
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 ⁸	Does not apply	Yes Built-in importer for a WordPress XML export ¹⁰²	Partly A general Migration API ⁷⁰	Yes Import wizard ⁶¹	Not confirmed ⁶⁵	Not confirmed ⁶⁷	Not confirmed ⁷³	Not confirmed ⁷⁷	Not confirmed ⁷⁹	Not confirmed ⁸²	Partly General data import ⁸⁷	Not confirmed ¹⁰⁴
Hosting, price and licence
Self-host	Yes ⁸	Yes ⁹³	Yes Ubuntu with Ghost-CLI, or Docker (preview) ⁹⁹	No ⁷⁰	Yes ⁶¹	Yes ⁶⁵	No ⁶⁷	No Content is hosted ⁷³	No ⁷⁸	No ⁷⁹	Yes ⁸²	Yes ⁸⁷	Yes ¹⁰⁴
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	Free ⁶¹	Free ⁶⁴	Free Starter; Growth $99/mo ⁶⁷	Free; Growth $15 per seat/mo ⁷³	Not confirmed Its pricing page refused our checks (HTTP 429) ⁷⁷	Free; Pro $24 per user/mo ⁷⁹	Free ⁸²	Free; Growth $45/mo ⁸⁷	Core free; Pro $349 per site, then $99 a year ¹⁰⁴
Licence	Elastic License 2.0 Source-available ²⁰	GPLv2 or later ⁹¹	MIT ⁹⁵	Closed, hosted service ⁷⁰	MIT ⁶¹	MIT ⁶⁴	Closed, hosted service ⁶⁷	Studio: MIT; Content Lake hosted ⁷⁵	Closed, hosted service ⁷⁸	SDKs: MIT; service closed ⁸⁰	MIT ⁸²	Community Edition: MIT; Enterprise paid ⁸⁸	Commercial licence; Core free ¹⁰⁴

Licences are as each project's GitHub repository states them; the licence of Markstage itself is the Elastic License 2.0 (source-available).

Where Markstage leads

Each line names the capability and which of the 21 products above have it, as checked on 2026-11-03 (Ghost on 2026-11-04).

Editing on the site's own design, from your own server, with no database server. Of the 21 products, those that edit on the real page are TinaCMS, CloudCannon, Storyblok, Sanity and Builder.io; Decap CMS, Sveltia CMS, Front Matter, Prismic, Payload, Strapi, Statamic and EmDash do it partly (a preview beside a form, or on some plans). Of those, CloudCannon, Storyblok, Sanity and Builder.io are hosted services, and self-hosted TinaCMS needs a database adapter as a cache. Markstage keeps content in git and its own working data (people, sessions, the inbox, drafts in progress, releases) in one SQLite file.
The live site stays static. Markstage's editor markup appears only in editor mode, so the production build is byte-identical ⁴. TinaCMS visual editing wants server output or <TinaIsland> wrappers, Keystatic keeps pages static but needs an adapter for its admin routes, and EmDash and StudioCMS run the site as a server.
Staging and production for content and code together, free. A promotion is a git merge, so templates, models and chosen pages move together, and content syncs back down by merge, not by overwrite ⁷. Storyblok and Prismic sell environments on their top plans, Sanity charges $999 a month per extra dataset, and CloudCannon has branch sites on its Team plan ($350 a month).
Surgical saves. Opening and saving changes nothing; a save rewrites only the changed blocks (a clean git diff) and, with the Markstage server, is committed as the person who saved ⁶. JSON written by Keystatic stays byte-identical when Markstage saves it.
A site's back office in one tool. Forms inbox, media, menus, moved addresses, translations status, SEO checks, releases with share links, backups and rollback, single sign-on and custom roles, all included ³ ¹³ ¹² ¹¹. Among the git-based editors only CloudCannon also has a forms inbox.

Where others go further

Hosted, nothing to run. CloudCannon, TinaCloud, Storyblok, Prismic, Sanity, Contentful and Builder.io run everything for you, and Ghost(Pro) hosts Ghost ⁹⁶. Markstage needs a server you look after.
Newsletters and paid memberships. Ghost has newsletters, memberships and paid subscriptions built in ⁹⁷. Markstage has none of these.
No server at all. Decap CMS and Sveltia CMS are a single page that talks to your git host; Front Matter runs inside VS Code. Markstage needs Node and git on a server.
MDX. TinaCMS, Keystatic and Outstatic edit MDX and have done so for longer. Markstage's MDX support is new: it edits the words and a component's simple settings, keeps the code as written, and shows components as cards on the canvas rather than as the site renders them ⁵.
Live co-editing. Sanity's real-time content database and Sitepins' live cursors let people edit together. Markstage uses locks and a three-way merge.
Size and age. WordPress and Ghost are mature publishing platforms used by very many sites. Strapi (73.4k GitHub stars), Ghost (55.7k), Payload (45.6k), Decap CMS (19.4k), EmDash (14.1k) and TinaCMS (13.9k) have large communities ¹⁰⁷. WordPress, Contentful and Sanity have big partner and plugin ecosystems, and Ghost has a theme marketplace ⁹⁶. Markstage is pre-release.
Other frameworks. Most products here also serve Next.js, Hugo, Eleventy and others. Markstage has one adapter today, Astro; adapters beyond Astro are on its roadmap.

Who should use what

If you want	Look at
Writers editing on your Astro site's real design, content in git, run on your own server for free	Markstage
A familiar admin with a very large plugin and theme ecosystem, read by Astro as a headless CMS	WordPress
A publication with newsletters, memberships and paid subscriptions built in	Ghost
A hosted page builder with sections your developers make, nothing to run	Prismic
The same idea, fully hosted, with hosting and a CDN included	CloudCannon
Click-to-edit on Astro pages with MDX, hosted or self-hosted	TinaCMS
No server at all: a single admin page over your git host	Sveltia CMS, Decap CMS
A typed admin for Markdown, Markdoc or MDX inside your Astro project	Keystatic
A content database built into Astro, WordPress-style	EmDash, StudioCMS
A hosted visual CMS with a large team and many locales	Storyblok, Prismic, Sanity, Contentful
A full application backend as well as a CMS	Payload, Strapi

Also checked, not in the tables

Astro's CMS list names 45 products ¹. Most of the rest (ButterCMS, Caisy, Cosmic, DatoCMS, Directus, Hygraph, Kontent.ai and others) are hosted or database CMSs that compare to Markstage as Contentful does. Crafter CMS is git-based but is not in Astro's list.

Sources

Astro: Astro docs: Use a CMS with Astro
Astro: Astro docs: Content collections
Markstage: README
Markstage: Architecture
Markstage: MDX
Markstage: API contract
Markstage: Environments
Markstage: Deploying
Markstage: Docker
Markstage: SEO checks
Markstage: Custom roles
Markstage: Single sign-on
Markstage: Messages and forms
Markstage: Releases
Markstage: Translations
Markstage: MCP server
Markstage: Library and WordPress import
Markstage: Import API
Markstage: Importing a site from WordPress, Ghost or Prismic; tested on a real 148-post WordPress site's export on 2026-11-04 ("Proof on a real site" there)
Markstage: Licence
TinaCMS: pricing
TinaCMS: Astro guide
TinaCMS: self-hosting overview
TinaCMS: editorial workflow
TinaCMS: GitHub repository
Astro: TinaCMS and Astro
CloudCannon: pricing
CloudCannon: What is visual editing?
Astro: CloudCannon and Astro
Decap CMS: home page
Decap CMS: GitHub repository
Decap CMS: introduction
Decap CMS: editorial workflows
Decap CMS: custom previews
Decap CMS: Decap Turbo plans
Astro: Decap CMS and Astro
Sveltia CMS: GitHub repository
Sveltia CMS: features
Sveltia CMS: editorial workflow
Sveltia CMS: entry collections
Sveltia CMS: getting started
Keystatic: home page
Keystatic: Keystatic Cloud
Keystatic: Astro installation and field list
Keystatic: GitHub repository
Astro: Keystatic and Astro
Keystatic: its Astro integration's code (the /keystatic and /api/keystatic routes are injected with prerender: false)
Pages CMS: home page
Pages CMS: GitHub repository
Astro: Pages CMS and Astro
Front Matter CMS: home page
Front Matter CMS: GitHub repository
Astro: Front Matter CMS and Astro
Outstatic: home page
Outstatic: pricing
Outstatic: licence
Sitepins: home page
Sitepins: pricing
Sitepins: GitHub repository
Astro: Sitepins and Astro
EmDash: GitHub repository
EmDash: docs
Astro: EmDash and Astro
StudioCMS: GitHub repository
StudioCMS: getting started
Astro: StudioCMS and Astro
Storyblok: pricing
Storyblok: visual preview in Astro
Astro: Storyblok and Astro
Prismic: pricing
Prismic: Page Builder
Astro: Prismic and Astro
Sanity: pricing
Sanity: Astro docs
Sanity: GitHub repository
Astro: Sanity and Astro
Contentful: pricing (answered HTTP 429 to every check on 2026-11-03)
Astro: Contentful and Astro
Builder.io: pricing
Builder.io: GitHub repository
Astro: Builder.io and Astro
Payload: GitHub repository
Payload: database adapters
Payload: Live Preview
Payload: Visual Editor (Enterprise)
Astro: Payload and Astro
Strapi: pricing
Strapi: licence file
Strapi: Preview feature and plans
Astro: Strapi and Astro
WordPress: licence
WordPress: roles and capabilities
Astro: Headless WordPress and Astro
WordPress: requirements ("MariaDB version 10.11 or greater OR MySQL version 8.0 or greater"), checked 2026-11-04
Ghost: GitHub repository ("Released under the MIT license"), checked 2026-11-04
Ghost: Ghost(Pro) pricing (plans, staff roles, single sign-on on Custom), checked 2026-11-04
Ghost: features, checked 2026-11-04
Ghost: managing your team, checked 2026-11-04
Ghost: install options, checked 2026-11-04
Ghost: Ubuntu install guide (MySQL 8.0 or 8.4 "as the production database"), checked 2026-11-04
Ghost: Content API (read-only), checked 2026-11-04
Ghost: migrating from WordPress, checked 2026-11-04
Astro: Ghost and Astro, checked 2026-11-04
Statamic: pricing
Statamic: features
Astro: Statamic and Astro
GitHub: star counts read from each repository's GitHub page on 2026-11-03 (Ghost's on 2026-11-04)

Astro CMS comparison: Markstage beside 21 editors and CMSs