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About Strapi
Strapi is the leading open-source headless CMS: 100% JavaScript, extensible, and fully customizable.
The project receives frequent investments from large companies. Extremely easy and quick to start a project.
The migration of code from v3 to v4 codebases was painful.
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Filter reviews (63)
Strapi - a great API builder and a bad site builder
Comments: Generally Strapi is a great tool with the aim to be a robust CMS for large projects. I have use it to build/manage site which include live streaming, media portals and ecommerce. The "managing" part is fine, but most of the advanced functionality has to be coded additionally.
Pros:
Strapi - as the name suggest - is an API builder tool which helps you to manage data that is being consumed by frontends and other apps. This functionality is done very well. Strapi provides hooks and cycles to modify data coming in and out of it. But these need to be programmatically configured. Good thing is the Strapi authentification layer and CDN for images.
Cons:
As Strapi does not provide you with a Frontend it is hard to get the initial concept and add functionality. Every change in the Admin triggers a restart of Strapi and basically means downtime. Sometimes the database gets vacuumed while you try to work with endpoints. This can very frustrating. Same as the responses from Strapi which include nested objects and those are hard to orientate in while consuming the data.
Alternatives Considered:
Strapi is a super flexible, low startup cost solution
Comments: Absolutely love it, once I found the answers to some key questions it all just worked, and I could build my first website very rapidly. Strapi was in fact the easiest thing to learn!
Pros:
- The self-hosted option is simply incredible, especially for smaller companies or in our case, non-for-profit - Easy to setup, does what you need without being complicated - Third party integrations make Strapi an extremely flexible solution for many project types - The API is really easy to use, from setup to a working site in mere minutes
Cons:
- Documentation could be improved, especially around production deployment and a few more common use examples in the filtering/populate space ahead of the real complex examples already there e.g. relationships or depth - A type reference to explain how to use or access for example TypeScript types for things like Rich text (blocks). Shouldn't need to find solutions outside Strapi to do this. - This is the same for all CMSs. Cloud hosted plans for small businesses / non-for-profit / infrequently updated sites.
Alternatives Considered:
Promising but difficult to deploy and use
Comments: While I was very positive about trying Strapi the Docker image problem soured it and I found alternatives that worked better.
Pros:
Open source, we can host it ourselves, active community, lots of features and extensions.
Cons:
The Docker image is one major version behind but this is not made clear until you've spent hours trying to get it all working and then check the forums.
Fantastic Open Source CMS
Comments: Overall experience with strapi is simply awesome
Pros:
It is very user friendly and most important part is plugins. I love those plugins. Even there is a way for me to create a plugin. API customization is one another plus I would say and it is easier too. I was using strapi from 3.x.x till now. I'm really liked the way it evolved.
Cons:
Review workflow is part of enterprise plan, which atleast I believe should be given in free plan with restriction, completely removing is kind of making the opensource user to completly staying away from the feature.
Great for Landing pages
Comments: I have been using Strapi for 3 years and it is a product that I am trying to push to others everytime they need a solution. I mainly use Strapi for frontend site and I rarely use it as an API to an app. But for content management, Strapi beats products like Contentful and Sanity in my eyes because it is open source and you can host it anywhere you want.
Pros:
To be able to create an API for landing pages in a matter of hours. I created many types of section for my landing and I could start integrating my frontend the next day. My site grew ever since and Strapi made it super easy to add more sections and evolve with time.
Cons:
One of the main thing I don't like about Strapi is the fact that it doesn't have a good way to be updated easily. I am using a deployment system and I wish I could update it from the admin panel itself. I need to use the command line and to redeploy everytime there is an update. Updating something frequently should not be something negative, but it is with Strapi because I am always in need to keep it up to date. The only other thing, is the lack of Responsive on the admin panel.
Saves me tons of time
Pros:
Easy setup, complete API manager. It saves you sooo much time compared to a "normal" node backend application.
Cons:
The fact that Strapi has a "quick and dirty" image (and name) makes it harder to sell or mention it as part of a solution to a customer. Even though he/she may greatly benefit from it, it takes more than an average amout of convincing them Strapi can easily be considered to be coroporate grade material.
I'm saving hours daily
Pros:
Earlier I used to create my APIs on ExpressJS and it used to take hell lot of time in creating and testing them. But with Strapi I can create any sort of APIs in just 5-10 minutes. It's that easy!Role Based Access Control, that too in the free plan is a super-power to any business or developer. I really loved it. And now as a freelancer I can create almost any type of web-apps - be it CRM, HRM, Hotel Management system or anything with ease.
Cons:
I wish there were in built aggregator functions in Strapi. That will help developers write custom services and controllers very easily. Additionally, there should be some extra options to change Strapi Branding. Right now we can only change the logo. We should be able to update the color scheme, Brand name and login page template. These additions will be really great!
Yekta's Review
Pros:
Automatic creation of API endpoints based on content types, Role Based Access Control, Authentication, Querying and Media Library features reduces the time of app development.
Cons:
Some parts of the Strapi documentation are not clear. It may be necessary to search the forum and the internet for things that can be easily explained with an additional sentence in the documentation.
Strapi is great for the open source community
Pros:
Strapi could easily paywall their entire software like many do, but instead contributed an amazing software to the open source community. There are also many starter projects to get started quickly, tutorials, blog posts, and tons of documentation.
Cons:
At the moment, Strapi doesn't work on Vercel. This is unfortunate, but that shouldn't stop anyone from using it. Surely it will be supported in the future!
Strapi wins the HeadlessCMS war
Comments: Absolutely amazing Open-Source product. I often recommend it to colleagues and friends.
Pros:
- Perfect product for any developer or entrepreneur jumping from idea to testing. - Quick setup and launch - Awesome Dashboard that gives you a great overview of your db & data. - Ready-made Auth-system
Cons:
- Customization can be quite challenging and documentation on Services & Controllers needs to be improved. - Lots of free plugins available from the community but few are maintained or updated.
Alternatives Considered:
Strapi Review
Pros:
Ease of use and that it was JavaScript native.
Cons:
The fact that every time a change is saved, it takes a long time for the server to restart. It needs to restart much much faster.
Great open source CMS product!
Pros:
Easy to configure and use for content mgmt (blog articles)
Cons:
I wish I could add/insert/embed images within the content.
Life Saver
Pros:
Easy to use and easy to setup and looking forward to continue using for a long time
Cons:
We need to host strapi separately so it is a disadvantage
Alternatives Considered:
Probably the best CMS for developers
Comments: Overall very good, have built many custom implementations powered by Strapi and never lets me down, do wish it was easier to update an older site, but overall very happy!
Pros:
Strapi is highly configurable and very extendable, if you know Node.js there isn't much you cant make it do, I like it for this reason. its also got very good documentation.
Cons:
Upgrading between major versions is very hard, but this is true of most software. Because its free, support isn't really there
A good core product with numerous small downsides.
Comments: I used it self-hosted for a couple of personal projects on v3. I had a really good time during setup and for a short time after. The migration to v4 was painful. v4 itself doesn't feel like a big enough upgrade or a robust enough product for it to have been worth it, and each update brings some sort of breaking change.
Pros:
It's really easy to create a data model and have a usable API and admin panel for it. This feature is so good that it's almost worth putting up with all the snags.
Cons:
The migration of code from v3 to v4 codebases was painful. It took several months for basic tooling (like database migration) to be available, and over a year later it is still not as good as it should have been.Migration between versions is not easy (upgrade versions of several dependencies, then find blog posts about migrations, which often ask you to run scripts on your code/ database). This could be automated, surely. Documentation for features often covers only one usecase, and is written in blogpost style. Even on their own documentation (not the guides)Plugins are not simple to write and the documentation on it is not clear. You can allegedly use TypeScript to write plugins but the plugin interface types are not well defined, so you're kind of on your own.You can't use Yarn v3+ with it.Deployment is not straightforward, I guess this is an incentive to use their paid service.
KangSan
Pros:
Easy to integrate with another software.
Cons:
I dont think there is and disadvantage up to niw
"Best Customizable CMS platform."
Comments: This software has a broad range of benefits and it is quite flexible for applications. In addition to this, this software has the best API and is very flexible for configuring the MacOS integrations. So, the premium user interface and easy to install features make it more demanding. The tool contains an intuitive display with the best functionality. All in all, the software is best for use and has multiple advantages. Thus, you will get the best headless CMS with open sources. So, the tool makes it easy for you to control a wide range of monetizing operations.
Pros:
There are multiple benefits of Strapi and the most important one is the backend settings. This software has improved many features and allows the best website interface along with customizable modes. So, you can create the best graphic designs and other routes using this impeccable tool.
Cons:
One of the worst drawbacks of Strapi is the inability of this software to support internalization. Moreover, all alt-tags couldn't be used and it is complicated to use this software. The user should have proper skills to manage the features and keys of this tool. The utmost important modifications that Strapi software needs are the backend setting. The tool doesn't support the typescript backend language which is quite disappointing. So, the documentation process also gets difficult here and the Strapi system needs instant updates that they usually don't provide. Thus, the creators should look upon these issues.
Simplest headless CMS to setup, install and deploy
Comments: We've used Strapi for a number of projects from CMS to website manager and ML pipeline. Strapi's API is easier to expose to third-party integrators.
Pros:
It goes without saying but Strapi atm is simplest to setup, install and deploy. Part of the reason is that Strapi has an admin UI that covers a lot of aspects of content and API management but still has room for customizations. Strapi is easy to extend on admin-level and plays nicely with other services due to it exposing the API, webhooks and easy extension on code-level.
Cons:
Limited roles on free/open-source version are only 3. With the newer Strapi versions, they've limit the number of roles and you need to pay even if it's self-hosted.
Strapi Experience
Comments: The overall experience was very nice , i used it get cms and backend in nodejs. very easy to use it . Best CMS.
Pros:
1. It gives nice and clean UI CMS 2. regular update and bug fixes 3. auth apis come inbuilt and easy to customize 4. docs are very helpful 5. community is very nice 6. backend is in nodjs and can be customized 7. so many options for plugins and easy to add 8. develop the apis fast
Cons:
1. No support for typescript we have to use javascript 2. no official plugins in vscode which helps in developing 3. the docs for publishing are not much helpful 4. Need some to get familier
API Framework / Headless CMS Made easy (and free)
Comments: Honestly this is by far the easiest solution for jumping into the headless CMS world and even better as an API framework to power whatever your needs are; Web, Mobile, Desktop, IOT, and even a smart toaster! The Strapi team is great and works hard to release feature and fix bugs as fast as they can.
Pros:
Strapi is extremely easy to setup Simple database configuration with many choices (Mongo, Postgres, and MySQL) Simple to modify the backend code Getting up and running from zero to a complete API with data in as little as 10 to 20 minutes
Cons:
I do think that more time needs to be spent on building a solid foundation (which the Strapi team are working on) More time needs to be spent testing bugs for all usecases (or some automation for the frontend testing needs to be implemented and I believe that is being done right now) While not an issue with the software itself, I do think that services like Heroku need to be put on the backburner and not pushed as heavily as Strapi is a service, Heroku and other "serverless" environments are not built to handle complex applications. At the same time more user involvment with Pull Requests are something that would greatly help development and bug fixing.
Alternatives Considered:
A great headless cms for your MVP
Comments:
I became a regular user.
There are few projects in which I do not use strapi, as it proves to be a rapid development helping in the evaluation of the features.
Pros:
It is open-source. It is Restifull but has support for GraphQL It provides the Playground to build and test your queries and mutations. Docker support. All data is yours, that is, you have full control over your database. The project receives frequent investments from large companies. Extremely easy and quick to start a project.
Cons:
Relationships in the database are still a critical and sometimes problematic point. It has no migrations of data. There is no 2FA. It does not delete unnecessary tables and columns from the database. Typescript is not supported.
Alternatives Considered:
Better open source option
Comments: Helped deliver some projects faster!
Pros:
I like that it brings ease and speed when creating api and content managers.
Cons:
I find it a little complex to move and customize yet!
The search is over
Comments: I'm very impressed overall with the simplicity and lack of fluff, bloat features. The ui is clean intuitive and doesn't require extensive understanding of the guys to get going super quickly. The core product gives you more than enough to launch your APIs and there is good documentation that explain how to extend it when needed.
Pros:
I'm building a running related platform that features unique running events around the world. I'm doing this as a part time "gig" because I have full time job. For the front end I settled on react which seems to do the trick. For the backend there were lots of options but my requirements were: easy UI for editors, configurable data model, graphql and an easy way to customize the functionality. In other words, I wanted something that would get me up and running in no time but that I could also fine tune down the road for custom features. After spending a significant amount of time researching hosted, self-hosted, open source and commercial offerings I found strapi. It ticked every one of my requirement boxes and then some. It's even able to run on postgres which is my favorite db. Now I'm working full speed to launch my website and figure out my content instead of spending months trying to build a backend and UI for it from scratch.
Cons:
Would be nice to have an easy launcher or AMI for AWS. Seems like deployment options could be better documented.
Well-rounded, flexible and fast
Pros:
The flexibility available in Strapi is fantastic, it's a pleasure to develop and build with. From the lifecycle hooks through to built in auth and a large variety of default field types. There's a really excellent community attached to Strapi too.
Cons:
No real complaints, but I am excited for v4 as the CMS does look a little dated (but still far from bad, and very functional).
Save time and money of building a REST API backend for your app
Comments: We built businesses with this tool by just using it as a simple CMS system. It's content type builder has a great intuitive user interface that helps design schemas really fast.
Pros:
1. You can get a production ready REST API backend for you super duper hit mobile or web app in mere 20 minutes. 2. Ease with which you can select different database types.
Cons:
User management module can have customer role user facing dashboard too.