Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Wagtail VS Contentful

Compare Wagtail VS Contentful and see what are their differences

Wagtail logo Wagtail

Wagtail is a mobile community for dog lovers.

Contentful logo Contentful

You don't need another CMS. You need a better way to manage content — unified, structured, and ready to deploy to any digital channel.
  • Wagtail Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-06
  • Contentful Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-07

Contentful

Release Date
2013 January
Startup details
Country
Germany
State
Berlin
City
Berlin
Founder(s)
Paolo Negri
Employees
250 - 499

Wagtail features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Wagtail offers a clean and intuitive admin panel that makes content management straightforward even for non-technical users.
  • Flexibility
    It provides developers with the flexibility to customize and extend functionality, enabling tailored solutions for specific project requirements.
  • Django Integration
    Built on Django, Wagtail inherits all of its scalability, security, and robustness, making it a powerful choice for developers familiar with Django.
  • Strong Community Support
    Wagtail has a growing community and active development, providing users with access to support, plugins, and regular updates.
  • SEO Friendly
    It includes features that assist with search engine optimization, such as customizable page titles and metadata.

Possible disadvantages of Wagtail

  • Learning Curve
    For those unfamiliar with Django, there can be a steep learning curve when first starting with Wagtail due to its reliance on Python and Django principles.
  • Limited Built-in Features
    While customizable, Wagtail doesn’t come preloaded with as many out-of-the-box features as some other CMSs, potentially requiring more development for complex sites.
  • Installation and Setup
    Setting up a Wagtail project can be more complex compared to some lightweight CMS options, particularly for developers without Python experience.
  • Performance Concerns
    For extremely large and complex sites, Wagtail may require additional optimization to maintain high performance.

Contentful features and specs

  • Scalability
    Contentful is designed to handle high traffic and large volumes of content, making it a suitable choice for enterprise-level applications.
  • Flexibility
    Contentful provides a headless CMS solution that allows you to deliver content across multiple platforms including websites, mobile apps, and IoT devices.
  • API-first approach
    Contentful's robust API enables developers to easily fetch, manage, and deliver content programmatically.
  • Customizable content models
    Users can define their own content types and relationships, offering great flexibility in how content is structured and managed.
  • Multi-language support
    Contentful natively supports multiple languages, which is beneficial for global businesses needing localized content.
  • Extensive integrations
    Contentful can be easily integrated with various third-party services, enhancing its functionality and adaptability.
  • User-friendly interface
    The platform offers an intuitive admin interface that makes it easy for non-technical users to manage content.
  • Strong community and support
    Contentful has a large community of developers and provides extensive documentation and support resources.

Possible disadvantages of Contentful

  • Cost
    Contentful can be expensive, especially for small businesses or startups, as its pricing scales with the amount of content and API calls.
  • Complexity
    The initial setup and customization can be complex, requiring a good understanding of both the platform and RESTful APIs.
  • Dependence on developers
    While the platform is user-friendly, leveraging its full potential often requires significant developer input, particularly for custom integrations and advanced features.
  • Limited built-in features
    Contentful focuses on being a pure headless CMS, which means it lacks some built-in features like website themes or e-commerce functionalities that are present in other CMS platforms.
  • Performance issues
    Some users have reported performance issues when managing a very large number of content entries or making a high volume of API requests.
  • Learning curve
    There is a learning curve, particularly for users new to headless CMS architecture and API-centric content management.

Wagtail videos

Comparing Wagtail, Django CMS and Mezzanine

More videos:

  • Review - DjangoCon US 2018 - Wagtail CMS - Making Django More User (and Developer) Friendly by Sara Heins
  • Demo - Wagtail Demo & Ecover Review by Wayne

Contentful videos

Bits & Bytes Ep. 1 - What is Contentful?

More videos:

  • Review - A Quick look at contentful | #CodingPhase
  • Review - Gatsby And Contentful - The Headless CMS Approach - Episode 1

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Wagtail and Contentful)
CMS
9 9%
91% 91
Blogging Platform
14 14%
86% 86
Blogging
12 12%
88% 88
Web Content Management
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Wagtail and Contentful

Wagtail Reviews

We have no reviews of Wagtail yet.
Be the first one to post

Contentful Reviews

  1. Eleanor Bennett
    · Digital Marketing Specialist at Logit.io ·
    Very generous free plan

    The free plan of Contentful is generous enough to allow us to run a successful technology blog without having to pay for any overheads to run it. We used them as an alternative to the previously used Ghost. We have experienced a lot of growth since this migration.

    🏁 Competitors: Ghost

21 Headless CMS Platforms That You Should Check Out
Contentful integrates with many tools and helps you create your content quickly. It is mostly used for e-commerce websites.
Source: popupsmart.com
Best Headless CMS in 2022
Contentful is an API-driven headless CMS that focuses on content and the backend. It is considered one of the best systems for small to medium enterprises. You can edit content anywhere by any smart device and integrate it with other services such as Dropbox.
Source: flatlogic.com
Best Headless CMS for 2020
Yes, hosted providers, such as Contentful would be easier to use but it literally comes with a price...
Source: dev.to
11 Headless CMS to Consider for Modern Application
It uses RESTful API development kits for all popular languages. Contentful is welcoming newcomers, so anyone can quickly create data entries.
Source: geekflare.com
34 Headless CMS That Should Be On Your Radar
Founded in 2013, Germany-based Contentful offers an API-driven headless CMS. Contentful’s RESTful API gives developers full programmatic control of content, digital assets, and translations. The platform also takes advantage of caching techniques as well as external CDN integrations to enable the delivery of API payloads in the sub-100ms range.
Source: www.cmswire.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Contentful seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 10 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Wagtail mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Wagtail yet. Tracking of Wagtail recommendations started around Mar 2021.

Contentful mentions (10)

  • How to connect nextjs app to contenful cms - 2025
    First, you need to register on the Contentful website and create an account. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • My blog post workflow
    Next, I’ll copy and paste the draft text to my CMS. I’ve been using Contentful since working there in 2021. I use Rich Text rather than Markdown for my posts and what’s great about this is that copying and pasting from Notion preserves hyperlinks and formatting. If I’m including anything else like code samples, images and other embedded media, I add those as separate linked entries manually whilst working through... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • How to Style Markdown in Next.JS Using React-Markdown and SASS
    If you have a blog or website with articles or long text documents, markdown is your friend. It makes authoring documents so much easier and more intuitive than straight HTML. Markdown has a far smaller learning curve than HTML and can easily be taught to non-tech-savvy writers. Markdown editors are also built-in to headless CMSs like Contentful. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Looking to Create a Wordpress Style Website with Python / Flask
    It depends on the requirements, but this might actually call for a headless CMS like Forestry.io or Contentful coupled with a Static Site Generator like Hugo. The CMS will manage users/permissions/data hierarchy and provide a simple frontend for users to add content, lay out pages, etc. And then when they save a change, the SSG will re-run and render everything to static HTML/CSS/JS. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • How to Create a Blog Using Next.js and Contentful CMS
    Contentful is a headless content management system (CMS). Headless simply means there is no front-end to display the content to the consumer. It's basically a database, but much easier to setup and maintain than a traditional relational database. Contentful provides a very easy-to-use API for fetching and managing content. They also support GraphQL queries if you're into that. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Wagtail and Contentful, you can also consider the following products

django CMS - Enterprise Content Management with Django The open-source CMS used by thousands of websites since 2007

WordPress - WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

Strapi - Manage any content. Anywhere. The leading open-source headless CMS. 100% JavaScript / TypeScript and fully customizable.

Drupal - Drupal - the leading open-source CMS for ambitious digital experiences that reach your audience across multiple channels. Because we all have different needs, Drupal allows you to create a unique space in a world of cookie-cutter solutions.

Craft CMS - Content management system built on Yii PHP Framework

Sanity.io - Sanity.io a platform for structured content that comes with an open-source editor that you can customize with React.js.