Two lenses, one public site
Both produce the same fast, SEO-clean pages your visitors see. The difference is the editor experience, price and lock-in — not the output. Both lenses are live in this demo, rendered by the same components from two different CMSs: Sanity site · Contentful site.
Sanity
Best Next.js developer experience, flexible billing, real live preview — what you are clicking through right now.
- Code-defined schema + typed queries (typegen)
- Real Visual Editing / live preview
- No per-locale pricing cliff for en/de/es+
- No first-party AI-agent suite
- Content Lake is still a hosted dependency
Contentful
Mature market leader with the strongest AI/governance story — but priced and locked for the enterprise.
- AI Actions + official MCP server (66 tools)
- Enterprise governance: SSO, custom roles, audit
- Polished editorial workflows
- Multilingual + EU residency both force opaque Premium
- Lossy export; engineering-first (SEO built by the agency)
| Dimension | Sanity | Contentful |
|---|---|---|
| Model | SaaS backend + open-source (MIT) Studio you can embed in the app | Proprietary SaaS — no self-hosting offered |
| Editor experience | Code-defined schema, real-time, embedded Studio (this demo) | Polished web app: entries, content types, workflows |
| Live preview | Presentation / Visual Editing — click-to-edit, instant (used here) | Mature Live Preview SDK + draft mode (on-demand revalidation is DIY) |
| Entry pricing | From ~$15/seat, flexible usage-based billing, generous free tier | Free (2 locales) → Lite $300/mo (3 locales) → Premium “contact sales” |
| Localization | Modelled in schema — no per-locale price jump | >3 locales forces the opaque Premium tier |
| EU data residency | Configurable; not gated behind the top tier | Premium-only, as a separate EU organisation, via Sales |
| AI tooling | Solid, but no first-party agent suite | Strongest: official MCP server (66 tools) + AI Actions (on-brand copy, SEO, translate) |
| Governance | Roles & SSO on higher tiers | Enterprise-grade: SSO/SAML, custom roles, audit (Premium) |
| Lock-in / exit | Medium; schema & types are code (typegen) | High; export is lossy (workflows, app config, webhook secrets, roles) |
| Next.js DX | Best-in-class: next-sanity, GROQ, typed queries, revalidation | Good toolkit + live-preview; ISR-on-publish built by you |
What this means for Bixter
Contentful’s two most expensive triggers both land on Bixter’s exact profile:
So we lean Sanity for the content-shell — same public result, lower cost, less lock-in. Contentful becomes compelling only if a CMO dashboard, personalization and AI Actions become a core part of the value proposition.
Sales-enablement artifact — “how it would look”. Bixter has not chosen a CMS or vendor. Comparison facts verified in research (2026-06-01); Premium pricing is opaque (third-party estimates ~$20K–$179K/yr) and should be confirmed with a vendor quote before estimating.