Headless CMS in Switzerland: Sanity, Payload and Strapi compared in 2026

What is a headless CMS

A classic CMS (WordPress, Drupal, Joomla) combines two things: the database that stores your content, and the HTML/CSS rendering that displays it to visitors. It is a monolith.

A headless CMS separates the two. The CMS handles the back office and content editing. Display is handed over to a separate frontend framework (Astro, Next.js, etc.) that consumes the content through an API.

Advantages:

• Reusable content: the same text feeds the website, a mobile app or a physical screen, without entering it twice.
• Structured writing: fields are typed (title, summary, author, date), which avoids layouts cobbled together by hand.
• Fast frontend: rendering is optimised on the framework side, which is better for Core Web Vitals.
• Freedom of framework: change the frontend without rebuilding the editing tool.

Drawbacks:

• Longer setup than WordPress.
• Licence costs on some options (Sanity Pro CHF 99/month).
• A learning curve for writers used to WordPress.

For new projects in 2026, a headless CMS is our default recommendation at Voren.

The 4 main options compared

Sanity (recommended for most projects)

Features: real-time collaborative editing, flexible schema with Sanity Studio, queries via GROQ or GraphQL.

Writing experience: excellent. A customisable Studio, real-time preview, native multilingual management, version history one click away.

SEO: good control of fields (title tag, description, slug per entry). The API lets you generate a sitemap and clean tags. Fast frontend rendering helps your rankings.

Cost in 2026: a free tier (3 users, 2 datasets, 100,000 API requests/month) that is enough for most SMEs. Pro CHF 99/month (10 users, unlimited). Enterprise on quote.

Content ownership: full export of your content in JSON format at any time via the API. You stay in control of your data.

Who it is for: SMEs and scale-ups that want a modern setup with minimal configuration. The de facto standard in 2026 for Astro and Next.js sites.

Drawback: the free tier is capped at 2 datasets. A project with separate staging and production environments quickly moves up to the Pro tier.

Payload CMS (recommended for full control)

Features: an open source CMS written in TypeScript, with a PostgreSQL or MongoDB database. A modern admin interface built in React.

Writing experience: very good. A clean interface, decent media management, a clear draft-then-publish cycle.

SEO: fine-grained control of fields and URLs. The official SEO plugin handles the title, description and social media preview of each entry.

Cost in 2026: open source and free (community). You hold the code and the database, with no licence subscription.

Content ownership: total. The code and the database belong to you, and you do not depend on any third-party vendor.

Who it is for: Swiss SMEs that want complete control of their content, B2B projects with confidentiality requirements, regulated sectors.

Drawback: longer setup than Sanity. It requires development skills for the initial deployment.

Strapi (a mature open source alternative)

Features: a long-standing open source CMS (since 2015), Node.js, a PostgreSQL or SQLite database, a rich set of plugins.

Writing experience: decent, sometimes less polished than Sanity or a recent version of Payload.

SEO: a community SEO plugin is available, less integrated than Payload’s. Decent control of fields.

Cost in 2026: community edition free. Pro USD 350/month (enterprise edition: audit log, role management, advanced draft/publish cycle).

Content ownership: total on the community edition, the code and the database are yours.

Who it is for: projects that need a mature plugin ecosystem, or organisations that already run Strapi in-house.

Drawback: Strapi v5 has changed a lot since v3 and v4. The documentation can be confusing depending on the version.

Storyblok (recommended for multilingual sites)

Features: a visual editor (you edit in a clickable preview), designed for marketing teams.

Writing experience: excellent for non-technical profiles, thanks to the visual editor. Native multilingual management, among the best of the four.

SEO: dedicated SEO fields per entry, built-in redirect management on the paid tiers.

Cost in 2026: a free tier (1 user, 1,000 entries). Starter EUR 99/month (5 users). Business EUR 415/month (15 users and advanced features).

Content ownership: content export via the API. Backups possible at any time.

Who it is for: brands with a large marketing team that edits many pages, complex multilingual sites.

Drawback: more expensive than Sanity or Payload from the Starter tier onwards.

Decision matrix

Your situation	Recommendation
Swiss SME, standard Astro/Next.js project	Sanity (free tier, then Pro if needed)
Complete control of your content (regulated sectors)	Payload (open source)
Large marketing team that edits a lot	Storyblok
You already run Strapi in-house	Strapi
Simple documentation project	Astro Content Collections (markdown + Git, no CMS)

Important criteria in 2026

Real-time preview. Seeing what the content looks like while you edit it. Essential for writers in 2026. Sanity and Storyblok excellent, Payload good, Strapi decent.

Native multilingual support. If your site is in FR/DE/IT/EN, the CMS must handle it natively, without workarounds. Sanity and Storyblok ahead of the field, Payload good, Strapi via a plugin.

Flexible schema. Defining custom content types (articles, projects, services, FAQ) with precise fields. All 4 can do it, and Sanity and Payload go further than the others.

SEO control per entry. Editing the title, description and slug of each page from the CMS. Sanity, Payload and Storyblok offer it natively or via an official plugin, Strapi via a community plugin.

Rebuild on save. When a writer publishes, the CMS triggers a rebuild of the frontend site via a webhook. All 4 do it.

Image optimisation. The CMS must deliver lightweight images (WebP, appropriate sizes). Sanity and Storyblok ahead of the field with their built-in image service. Payload relies on an external integration (Cloudinary, ImageKit).

Version history. Going back to a previous version of a piece of content. Sanity excellent, Payload good, Strapi via a Pro plugin.

Total cost over 5 years

For a typical SME corporate site with 50 to 200 editorial pages and 2 to 3 in-house writers, over 60 months:

Sanity Pro: CHF 99/month × 60 = CHF 5,940 + initial setup CHF 2,000 to 5,000.

Payload (community): licence CHF 0, initial setup CHF 4,000 to 8,000. The cost is concentrated in the setup.

Storyblok Starter: EUR 99/month × 60 = EUR 5,940 + initial setup CHF 3,000 to 6,000.

Strapi (community): licence CHF 0, initial setup CHF 4,000 to 8,000.

The difference in subscriptions is small, so the choice comes down to qualitative criteria (content ownership, writing experience, ecosystem).

What Voren does

At Voren, our defaults are:

• Sanity for 70% of editorial and corporate projects.
• Payload for projects that require complete control of the content or a custom admin.
• Astro Content Collections (markdown + Git) for simple blogs and documentation, without a CMS.

All our sites can migrate from one CMS to another if your needs change, because we always keep the frontend and the back office separate.

Going further

See our business website service: a CMS chosen to fit your needs, included in the package.

See our e-commerce service: Sanity or Payload, depending on the project.

Find your project: see the full price, CMS included.