Craft CMS vs Statamic

Craft CMS and Statamic are both self-hosted, freemium CMS platforms from small companies with a free single-user tier and paid per-project or per-site…

Best for Craft CMS: Craft CMS suits agencies building multi-site, multi-language marketing sites or storefronts that want first-party managed hosting (Craft Cloud) and a bundled e-commerce product (Craft Commerce with Stripe integration).
Best for Statamic: Statamic suits Laravel developers who want the flexibility to start in flat-file mode and later move to a database, and who value the Bard block editor for building flexible page layouts.

At a Glance

 Craft CMSStatamic
Primary categoryCMSCMS
RatingNot documentedNot documented
Pricing modelFreemium / One-time license + subscription (Craft Cloud)freemium (free Core tier, paid Pro licenses)
Starting priceFree (Solo); Team from $279, Pro from $399Free (Core); Pro from $349 per site first year, $99/year renewal
Free planYesYes
Free trialNot documentedNot documented
PlatformsWebWeb
Team collaborationNot documentedNot documented
AI featuresNot documentedNot documented
Public APIYesYes

Key Differences

Content Storage Model

Craft CMS: Craft CMS's documented feature set (Twig templating, GraphQL API, built on the Yii framework) describes a database-driven architecture with no flat-file mode mentioned.

Statamic: Statamic explicitly supports both flat-file and database-backed storage modes, letting a project choose based on scale.

Flat-file support lets small sites run without provisioning or maintaining a separate database server.

Headless API Access

Craft CMS: Craft CMS documents Twig templating and a GraphQL API as a core feature description, without stating that API access is gated to a paid tier.

Statamic: Statamic gates REST API and GraphQL access entirely behind the paid Pro license ($349/site first year, $99/year renewal).

Teams planning a headless or decoupled front end need to know upfront whether API access requires the top-tier license.

Managed Hosting

Craft CMS: Craft offers first-party Craft Cloud managed hosting with push-to-deploy workflows and a global CDN, billed separately at $120–$240/month per project.

Statamic: Statamic's facts don't document an equivalent first-party managed hosting product.

First-party managed hosting removes the need to separately source and configure infrastructure.

Licensing Cost Structure

Craft CMS: Craft's Team and Pro self-hosted licenses cost $279 and $399 per project (first year), then $99/year renewal.

Statamic: Statamic Pro costs $349 per site (first year), then $99/year renewal.

Similar renewal cost but different first-year entry pricing and a per-project vs per-site framing affects budgeting for multi-site portfolios.

Content Editing Approach

Craft CMS: Craft CMS's flagship editing features are in-context Live Preview and an image editor, alongside content versioning and scheduling.

Statamic: Statamic's flagship editing feature is the Bard block-based rich content editor with fly-out previews for building flexible page layouts.

A block-based editor changes how content editors structure flexible page layouts compared to a more traditional field/template approach.

Feature-by-Feature

Content Modeling & Editing

FeatureCraft CMSStatamic
Block-based rich content editorNot documentedAvailable
Flat-file storage optionNot documentedAvailable
Live PreviewAvailableAvailable
Content versioning/revisions & schedulingAvailableLimited

Headless/API & Multi-site

FeatureCraft CMSStatamic
GraphQL APIAvailableLimited
REST APINot documentedLimited
Multi-site supportAvailableLimited
Admin/control panel translated into many languagesAvailableNot documented

Pricing & Hosting

FeatureCraft CMSStatamic
Free self-hosted single-user tierAvailableAvailable
First-party managed cloud hostingAvailableNot documented
E-commerce companion productAvailableNot documented
Git integration for content changesNot documentedAvailable

Pricing Compared

Starting price reflects the lowest paid tier, not the full cost for every team size or usage level.

Craft CMS

Solo — Free N/A
Team — $279 (first year), $99/year renewal annual
Pro — $399 (first year), $99/year renewal annual
Enterprise — Custom custom

Statamic

Core — Free N/A
Pro — $349 per site (first year), $99/year renewal annual
Enterprise — Custom custom

Pros & Cons

Craft CMS

Pros

  • Highly flexible content modeling suited to custom, design-driven websites
  • Free Solo edition available for personal projects and evaluation
  • Source-available codebase allows full inspection and extension
  • Team and Pro licenses become free when hosted on Craft Cloud
  • Strong plugin ecosystem and GraphQL API for headless use cases

Cons

  • Not free for production use beyond the single-user Solo edition
  • Requires PHP development expertise, unlike no-code website builders
  • License renewal fees apply annually for continued updates
  • Smaller plugin and developer ecosystem than more widely used CMS platforms like WordPress

Statamic

Pros

  • Free Core tier with no cost for single-admin, single-site use
  • Flat-file storage enables true Git-based content version control
  • Built on Laravel, appealing to PHP and Laravel developers
  • Polished, modern control panel that non-technical editors can use comfortably
  • Flexible headless API options for decoupled front-end architectures

Cons

  • Pro tier requires a per-site license fee, which can add up for agencies managing many sites
  • Smaller plugin and theme ecosystem compared to WordPress
  • Requires PHP and Laravel familiarity to extend or customize deeply
  • Flat-file storage can become harder to manage at very large content scale

Use Cases

Choose Craft CMS: Craft CMS suits agencies building multi-site, multi-language marketing sites or storefronts that want first-party managed hosting (Craft Cloud) and a bundled e-commerce product (Craft Commerce with Stripe integration).
Choose Statamic: Statamic suits Laravel developers who want the flexibility to start in flat-file mode and later move to a database, and who value the Bard block editor for building flexible page layouts.
Need both: There's no realistic single-project scenario for running both — an agency would more plausibly standardize on one platform per client relationship, maintaining expertise in both only to match whichever CMS a given client already has installed.

Craft CMS

  • Custom agency websites — Digital agencies building bespoke, design-driven websites for clients with unique content structures.
  • Headless content delivery — Organizations using Craft's GraphQL API to power decoupled front ends built with frameworks like Next.js.

Statamic

  • Agency client websites — Web agencies use Statamic's white-label Pro tier and Git-based workflows to build and maintain marketing sites for multiple clients.
  • Developer-controlled content sites — Laravel developers use Statamic's flat-file storage to keep content under version control alongside application code.
  • Headless content delivery — Teams building decoupled front ends use Statamic Pro's REST and GraphQL APIs to serve content to custom applications.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can either CMS run without a database?

Statamic supports a flat-file storage mode as an alternative to a database. Craft CMS's documented architecture (Twig templates, GraphQL, built on Yii) is database-driven with no flat-file option mentioned.

Do both offer first-party managed hosting?

Craft CMS does, through Craft Cloud, priced at $120/month per project (Team) or $240/month (Pro). Statamic's facts don't document an equivalent first-party hosting product.

How do the free tiers compare?

Craft's Solo edition (self-hosted, one user account) and Statamic's Core edition (one admin user, one content form) are both free forever, but each requires upgrading to a paid tier for multi-user teams.

Which is cheaper for a small team's first year?

Craft's Team license costs $279 per project versus Statamic Pro at $349 per site, though both renew at $99/year afterward.

Is either platform open source?

Neither is documented as OSI-approved open source. Craft's source code is publicly viewable on GitHub but distributed under a proprietary Pixel & Tonic license, and Statamic's licensing isn't documented as OSI-approved either, though its Core edition is free forever.

Does either include e-commerce functionality out of the box?

Craft CMS documents a companion Craft Commerce product with Stripe integration. Statamic's facts don't document a comparable native commerce add-on.

Read the full Craft CMS review · Read the full Statamic review