Introduction
The purpose of this Headless CMS comparison page is to outline the differences between the Cosmic Headless CMS and a traditional installed CMS. By comparing technology, maintenance, security, features, and cost analysis, it is our goal to show you the benefits and tradeoffs to help you decide if the Cosmic Headless CMS is the right solution for your team.
Cosmic vs Traditional CMS
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Technology
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MongoDB database, serverless Node.js Lambda functions. | LAMP: Linux, Apache, MySQL database, PHP. |
Scalability
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All components are infinitely scalable. Built on Serverless technology. | Does not scale easily. Limited by your servers, hosting provider, and budget. |
Security
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We manage the security for you. Data encryption at rest with 256-bit SSL encryption in transit. Two-factor authentication included free. | You manage the security yourself. No default data encryption at rest or in transit. |
CMS maintenance
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We maintain everything for you so you can focus on what matters most: building great content and user experiences. | You deploy, host, and maintain everything yourself. Along with your application and content, you need to maintain updates and security for your CMS system. |
Global caching
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High-performance global caching layer included. (Fastly) | No caching included out of the box. |
Media CDN
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Global media CDN included. (Cloudfront) | No CDN included out of the box. |
Image processing
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Image optimization and processing service included. (imgix) | Manually manage your own image sizes and optimizations. |
Extendability
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Apps and extensions. | Themes and plugins. |
Front end
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BYOFE (Bring your own front end) Front end code is decoupled from CMS. | Front end is coupled with backend CMS. |
Number of projects
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One login, unlimited projects. | One login, one website. |
Costs
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Save time and money on developer resource spending. Consider us your outsourced CMS team. Team plans start at $99/month. |
You will need to hire developer resources. Average salary of a full-stack developer is $111,600 per year. You may need to hire 1-3 developers to maintain the CMS. |
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Starting at $1,188 per year |
Average $223,200 per year |
Feature comparison subject to change. Contact support@cosmicjs.com to report any needed updates.
Uptime you can depend on
Don't fear downtime on cloud or Enterprise plans. Enterprise plans start at a 99.95% uptime guarantee. Check our status page for historical uptime on our serverless, cloud infrastructure.
Cosmic drives results for industry leaders
See how Cosmic helps teams deliver amazing content-powered products faster.