| Evaluation Criteria | 3rd | 4th | 1st | 2nd |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CONTENT MANAGEMENT CAPABILITIES | ||||
| API Quality & Performance | 5 Modern REST APIs with TypeScript support, good performance | 3 REST API functional but can be slow; WPGraphQL improves this significantly | 5 REST and GraphQL APIs, customizable, good caching capabilities | 5 Excellent GROQ queries, real-time APIs, CDN optimization |
| Content Modeling Flexibility | 4 Good field types and relationships, TypeScript schemas | 2 Custom post types and fields work fine, but can get complex and do not guarantee consistency | 5 Dynamic content types, components, flexible field system | 5 Extremely flexible schema design, portable text, references |
| Multi-site Management | 4 Good multi-tenant capabilities with shared collections | 2 WordPress Multisite allows for multiple sites to be hosted on the same instance, but do not provide for sharing of content or content types | 4 Multi-tenant architecture, shared content types | 5 Excellent dataset management, cross-project references |
| Media & Asset Management | 4 Good media handling, upload capabilities, cloud storage integration | 3 Basic media library, needs plugins for advanced features, images are processed on upload and is very hard to provide contextual alternatives | 4 Good media library with plugins for advanced features | 5 Advanced asset pipeline, image transformations, CDN integration |
| USER EXPERIENCE & WORKFLOW | ||||
| Content Editor Experience | 4 Clean admin interface but newer, smaller community | 5 Classic Editor, updated Gutenberg editor, extensive plugins, easy for non-technical users | 4 Good admin panel, customizable, user-friendly interface | 5 Outstanding Sanity Studio, real-time collaboration, intuitive |
| Workflow & Governance | 3 Basic approval workflows, would need custom development | 3 Basic workflow with plugins, user roles, revision history | 4 Role-based permissions, workflow plugins, review processes | 4 Good workflow capabilities, scheduling, draft/publish states |
| Real-time Collaboration | 2 Basic collaboration, real-time editing on the roadmap for enterprise offering | 2 No real-time features, only single-user editing, alpha collaboration in Gutenburg only | 3 Some collaboration features, but not as advanced as Sanity | 5 Excellent real-time collaboration, live cursors, instant updates, tagging and commenting in platform |
| Team Learning Curve | 3 Modern interface but newer platform, smaller community | 5 Most teams already familiar, extensive documentation | 4 Familiar admin concepts, good documentation, active community | 4 Intuitive interface, good documentation, different paradigm |
| SCALABILITY & ARCHITECTURE | ||||
| Headless/API-First Capability | 5 Built as headless-first CMS with excellent API design | 2 REST API available, GraphQL with plugins, but not native headless | 5 Headless-first design, flexible API generation | 5 Native headless CMS, API-first architecture, CDN optimized |
| Performance at Scale | 4 Good performance, designed for modern hosting | 3 Can scale but requires optimization, caching strategies | 4 Good performance with proper caching and hosting | 5 Excellent performance, global CDN, real-time optimizations |
| Third-party Integrations | 3 Growing ecosystem but smaller than WordPress | 5 Massive plugin ecosystem, integrates with everything | 5 Extensive plugin marketplace, webhook system, integrations | 4 Good integration options, webhooks, API connections |
| Developer Ecosystem | 3 Growing but smaller ecosystem, modern TypeScript focus | 5 Largest CMS ecosystem, extensive themes, plugins, community | 5 Large open-source community, active development, good plugins | 4 Strong developer community, good tooling, active development |
| COST & RISK FACTORS | ||||
| Licensing & Cost | 5 Open source core, hosting costs | 4 Open source, only hosting and premium plugin costs, however with WordPress's performance issues, hosting costs often scale with traffic | 5 Open source, only hosting costs, enterprise support available | 3 Subscription model, scales with usage, can get expensive |
| Vendor Lock-in Risk | 4 Open source but smaller ecosystem, good data portability | 5 Open source, portable, many hosting options, data export | 5 Open source, excellent data portability, self-hostable | 2 Vendor platform but good export capabilities, standard APIs |
| Support & Community | 3 Growing community, good docs, but smaller support network | 5 Massive community, extensive documentation, forums, tutorials | 4 Active open-source community, enterprise support available | 4 Good support team, active community, responsive help |
| Security & Maintenance | 4 Modern security practices, smaller attack surface | 3 Frequent updates needed, plugin security varies, target for attacks | 4 Good security practices, self-managed or cloud options | 5 Managed platform, excellent security, automatic updates |
| TOTAL SCORE | 62/80 | 58/80 | 73/80 | 72/80 |