Side by side

Contento vs KeystoneJS

Both stand on headless cms. Which one you can start free with, which one lets you read the code, and what each costs once you pay.

Contento

Free plan APIWeb

Contento combines content management and website-focused tools, with a free tier and defined capacity limits. The developer requirement and plan ceilings are key factors when choosing a tier.

Visit Contento

KeystoneJS combines a schema-driven CMS with backend capabilities, GraphQL, rich-text editing, and configurable permissions. Its free plan and flexible hosting suit developers, but migration management and database security policies remain outside Keystone.

Visit KeystoneJS

The facts

	Contento	KeystoneJS
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Open source	Not published	Not published
Runs on	API, Web	API, Self-hosted, Web
Lowest paid plan	Pro: $40 a month	Free or on request
Plans published	3	1
Maker	Not published	KeystoneJS
Website	contento.io	keystonejs.com
On headless cms	#24 of 34	#20 of 34

Contento: what it does well

Free plan includes five seats and 50 content types.
Provides REST API, localization, and visual previews.
Image API supports cropping, resizing, and quality changes.
Content types can be reused across multiple sites.
Google and GitHub single sign-on appear on all plans.

What to know first

A front-end developer is needed for setup and new pages.
Community is limited to 5,000 content records.
Plan limits block adding items until deletion or upgrade.

KeystoneJS: what it does well

Free forever and open source
Generates GraphQL API and management UI
Custom role permissions for fields and operations
Supports cloud or self-hosted deployment
Integrates with external APIs and microservices

What to know first

No content localization
No built-in content preview
No database-level security policies
Requires Node.js 20.19 or newer

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