Storyblok vs. Sanity - A Comparison of Two Leading Headless CMS Platforms

Selecting a headless CMS comes down to your unique needs, from flexibility and user experience to scalability and third-party integrations. In this article, we compare two popular solutions - Storyblok and Sanity. Both offer a powerful set of features, and we'll break them down so you can decide which one suits your project best.

According to recent G2 research, both platforms continue to lead the headless CMS market in 2025, with Sanity ranking #1 out of 85 CMS platforms on G2, while Storyblok maintains its strong position as a category leader.

G2 Grid® for Headless CMS

Based on the latest market data, we'll evaluate both platforms across key factors:

• Ease of use
• Content modeling
• Integration capabilities
• Scalability
• Localization support
• Developer-friendliness
• Security features
• Support and documentation
• Pricing and licensing
• AI integration

As an official integration partner for both Storyblok and Sanity, FocusReactive can guide you through each step of the process from initial setup to complex customizations.

Ease of Use

Storyblok continues to shine with its intuitive visual editor that makes content management accessible to technical and non-technical users alike. The recent launch of Storyblok Labs in January 2025 offers a playground where users can test-drive innovative features before fully integrating them into their workflows.

Sanity maintains its reputation for flexibility with a highly customizable interface that can be tailored to specific workflows. Their 2025 updates further enhance the platform's customization options, allowing teams to create precisely the content environment they need.

Content Modeling

Storyblok's structured approach to content modeling, powered by its visual editor, remains one of its strongest selling points. The system makes it straightforward to create and maintain content models without extensive technical knowledge.

Sanity continues to offer unmatched flexibility in content structuring, with recent improvements to its schema system providing even more control. Their "Content Operating System" approach gives developers extensive freedom to design content structures that perfectly match project requirements.

Integration Capabilities

Storyblok's plugin ecosystem has grown significantly, offering even more integrations with frontend frameworks, APIs, and third-party services. Their eCommerce integrations, particularly in the Business plan, have been enhanced to meet growing enterprise demands.

Sanity maintains its developer-focused approach with solid APIs and integrations that enable smooth connection with virtually any tech stack. Their commitment to being a "Content Operating System" rather than just a CMS continues to attract technically-minded teams seeking full control.

Scalability

With its cloud-based infrastructure, Storyblok handles high-traffic situations and growing content needs effectively, as demonstrated in numerous enterprise case studies. Their architecture continues to evolve to support demanding enterprise requirements.

Sanity's flexible architecture scales smoothly for projects of any size, from small startups to global enterprises. Their real-time capabilities and content infrastructure approach provide reliable performance even as content needs expand.

Localization

Storyblok offers advanced built-in multilingual capabilities that simplify content management across multiple languages and regions. Their localization tools have become increasingly powerful, making them a go-to choice for global brands. For practical implementation tips, check our detailed guide on Storyblok localization best practices.

Sanity's customizable approach to localization continues to provide flexibility for organizations with complex international content requirements. Teams can build precisely the localization system that matches their specific regional needs.

Developer Experience

Storyblok provides developers with clear documentation, framework-specific guides (Next.js, Vue, Nuxt, React, Astro), and a wide range of APIs. The platform balances developer flexibility with an intuitive content editor, making it accessible for technical and non-technical team members.

Sanity continues its developer-first approach with extensive customization options, powerful APIs, and a code-centric philosophy. Its flexible content modeling, GROQ query language, and active Slack community make it particularly appealing to teams who prioritize technical control and customization.

Security

Both platforms have strengthened their security measures for 2025's evolving threat landscape.

Storyblok Security

Storyblok prioritizes enterprise-grade security through:

• Solid Infrastructure: Hosted on AWS with ISO 27001 certification
• Data Protection: Encryption in transit and at rest with regular backups
• Access Controls: Monitored access with authentication via SSH key pairs
• Threat Protection: Web application firewall (WAF) against XSS and other attacks

Sanity Security

Sanity offers a thorough security approach with:

• Granular Access Control: Fine-grained permissions through user roles
• Authentication Options: Support for OAuth2 and SAML SSO
• Data Protection: Secure token management
• API Security: Secure patterns for content submission and validation

Support and Documentation

Storyblok offers well-organized documentation alongside a growing community with Discord, GitHub, and YouTube channels. Their Ambassador program and regular webinars offer additional learning opportunities.

Sanity maintains detailed documentation with an active Slack community where developers can get quick answers to technical questions. Their extensive learning resources continue to serve developers at all skill levels.

Pricing and Licensing

Storyblok offers a 14-day free trial and a tiered pricing model tailored for teams of different sizes and levels of complexity. Each plan includes a visual editor and collaboration tools, with add-ons for team members and traffic as needed.

Storyblok Pricing (April 2025)

• Growth – €99/month
  Includes:

  • 5 user seats (up to 10, €15/month per additional user)
  • 1 Space
  • 400GB traffic/month (additional 250GB for €75)
  • Visual Editor, Collaboration tools, Storyblok Labs

• Growth Plus – €349/month
  Includes:

  • 15 user seats (up to 20, €15/month per additional user)
  • 1TB traffic/month (additional 250GB for €75)
  • Single Story Scheduling
  • Access control via Standard Roles
  • 97% Uptime SLA

• Premium – Custom pricing

  • Custom number of user seats
  • Includes all self-service features
  • AI SEO, GraphQL, Custom Roles & Workflows
  • Release management, SSO, 99.9% Uptime SLA
  • Advanced support and usage-based billing

• Elite – Custom pricing

  • All Premium features +
  • Unlimited Stories, Assets, and Version Retention
  • Priority Support, Frequent Backups
  • Access Token Scopes, Custom IP restrictions
  • 99.99% Uptime SLA

Storyblok pricing

Sanity Pricing

Sanity continues to use a transparent usage-based model. Its plans scale with your needs, from free personal projects to large-scale enterprise solutions.

• Free – up to 20 users
• Growth – $15/user/month
• Enterprise – custom pricing with SLAs, security, and scaling

The Growth plan also supports optional add-ons such as:

• SAML Single Sign-On
• Dedicated support
• Increased quotas and project limits
• Additional datasets and usage analytics

Sanity pricing

AI Integration

Both platforms have embraced AI in ways that genuinely transform how teams create and manage content, not just as flashy add-ons but as practical productivity boosters.

Storyblok AI Features

Storyblok's AI toolkit tackles real-world content challenges:

• AI Translation: No more copy-paste nightmares between translation tools. Translate content naturally across languages using DeepL integration, working at both folder and field levels to maintain your content structure.
• AI Image Generation: Need a custom image but don't have a designer on hand? Create it yourself with DALL-E right inside Storyblok's interface.
• AI-Powered SEO: Stop guessing what Google wants. Let AI generate meta tags and optimize your content for better search visibility.
• AI Search: Find exactly what you need with enhanced semantic search through Algolia integration, understanding intent beyond just keywords.

Storyblok isn't just talking about future AI - they're letting you play with it today through Storyblok Labs, their innovation playground launched in January 2025. It's like getting early access to features that will shape tomorrow's content management.

We've seen firsthand how AI can transform content workflows, which is why our team at FocusReactive built an open-source AI SDK for Storyblok. It supercharges Storyblok with OpenAI-powered contextual translation that understands your content's structure, preserving everything from rich text formatting to complex nested folders.

Sanity AI Capabilities

Sanity takes a different but equally powerful approach, focusing on AI that understands your content's context and structure:

• AI Assist: Their official plugin isn't just a bolt-on feature - it's deeply integrated to help with everything from drafting and editing to translating and optimizing.
• Multilingual Translation: Say goodbye to translation bottlenecks. Sanity's AI can translate entire documents or just specific fields while keeping your formatting intact.
• Content Generation: Whether you need to create long-form content from scratch or generate multiple variants for A/B testing, Sanity's AI tools have you covered.
• Vector Search: Find related content based on meaning, not just keywords, with built-in semantic search capabilities.
• Practical AI Guidance: Sanity doesn't just give you AI tools - they show you how to use them:
  • Get step-by-step best practices for implementing AI in your workflows
  • Developers can find specialized AI resources and code examples

What makes Sanity's approach stand out is how they build context into every AI interaction. Their system includes thoughtful features like shareable AI prompts (no more reinventing the wheel for common tasks), permission-based guardrails to prevent AI mishaps, and simple rollback options when AI-generated content needs human refinement.

As AI integration experts, we've helped dozens of teams implement custom AI solutions on both platforms. Whether you need semantic search capabilities, natural language processing, or tailored AI model integrations, we can help you move beyond generic AI features to solutions that understand your specific content ecosystem.

Comparison Table

Conclusion

In 2025, both Storyblok and Sanity stand out as top headless CMS options, each with their own strengths. Your choice ultimately depends on what matters most for your specific project.

• Storyblok shines with its visual tools and ready-made features - perfect for teams who need to hit the ground running without a steep learning curve.
• Sanity works best for development teams who want to fine-tune every aspect of their content system and aren't afraid to get their hands dirty with code.

As partners officially recognized by both Storyblok and Sanity, our team at FocusReactive knows these platforms inside and out. We can help you navigate whichever system fits your needs.

To speed up your headless CMS development, we've built CMS-Kit – an open-source toolkit that works with both platforms. This GitHub project comes packed with ready-to-use content schemas, modular page-building components, and streamlined setup processes. It makes headless CMS development simpler and faster for everyone on your team, technical or not.

We’re a specialist Storyblok agency and Sanity agency, helping teams transition to modern content platforms with clean architecture, scalability, and editorial control. If you’re planning a replatform or building from scratch, get in touch — or book an intro call with our team.