Strapi

Strapi is an open source, self-hosted headless CMS built entirely in JavaScript and TypeScript. It gives developers a code-first way to define content types and gives content teams a dashboard to manage that content, without locking data into a vendor's cloud. Teams that would otherwise pay for Contentful or Sanity get REST and GraphQL APIs, role-based permissions, and a media library out of the box, all running on infrastructure they control. Every incoming API request flows through a layered backend architecture of routes, middlewares, controllers, and services, which keeps custom backend logic organized as a project grows.

Key features

• Visual Content-Type Builder: define content models through a UI without writing schema code, and Strapi generates the database tables and API endpoints automatically.
• Auto-generated REST and GraphQL APIs: every content type ships with a ready-to-consume API, so frontend teams pull data with the query pattern they already use.
• Granular roles and permissions: control exactly which fields, actions, and content types each user or API token can access.
• Built-in media library, i18n, and Draft & Publish: manage images and files, translate content into multiple locales, and stage content before it goes live.
• First-class TypeScript support with flexible databases: works with SQLite, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MariaDB, and the whole codebase is typed.
• Extensible plugin system: extend the admin panel and backend logic with plugins, or write custom middleware, controllers, and services.
• Built-in AI layer: Strapi AI can assist with content modeling, generate media alt text, and handle translations directly inside the admin panel.

Ideal use cases

Strapi fits teams that need a content backend for a Next.js, Vue, or mobile frontend but don't want to build authentication, media handling, and an admin UI from scratch. It works well for marketing sites, e-commerce product catalogs, multi-language publications, and any application where non-technical editors need to update content independent of a developer's deploy cycle. Because content types are versioned as code, teams can move the same schema between staging and production environments and keep API contracts consistent across releases. Strapi's community is active on Discord and GitHub Discussions, and the project publishes a public roadmap where users vote on upcoming features.

Self-hosting and deployment

Strapi does not ship official Docker images since each project has its own dependencies, but the community-maintained @strapi-community/dockerize CLI generates a Dockerfile and docker-compose.yml tailored to a given project in one command. It can also be deployed to any Node.js host that supports the chosen database. Strapi Cloud is the official managed hosting platform for teams that prefer zero-DevOps deployment, and it includes a built-in database, media library, and CDN. The official LaunchPad template pairs Strapi with a Next.js frontend as a starting point for new projects.