Every European headless CMS tool reviewed
Utrecht, Netherlands
Community €0; Flex €299/month; Enterprise on request
Demo on request
Best for: Marketing teams in B2B and commerce who want tests and personalization without buying another product
Prepr is a headless CMS from Utrecht that treats the choice of content variant as part of the content layer. Customer segments, adaptive content and A/B split testing run inside the same account as the content API, and the visual editor includes AI assistance for drafting. Five segments come with the free Community plan; Flex removes the cap.
The vendor is Prepr B.V., registered with the Dutch chamber of commerce under number 54506034, and its general terms name that company as the contracting party. Community costs €0 and Flex €299 per month, and monthly add-ons such as premium support or extra locales raise the total. Prepr gives no founding year and no hosting region on the pages we checked.
What Prepr does well
- Segments, A/B tests and adaptive content come with the CMS
- Euro limits published for Community and Flex
- KvK number stated in the general terms
- Flex covers up to 10 locales
- AI help inside a visual editor
Where Prepr falls short
- Entry price of €299 for Flex is above Squidex and Umbraco Heartcore
- Hosted only
- No hosting region on the pages checked
- Support, search sync and bandwidth are billed as add-ons
Standout feature. Prepr runs segment-based variants and A/B tests inside the CMS, a job every other tool here leaves to a second product.
Stuttgart, Germany
Free; Growth $49/month; Enterprise from $1,499/month
Demo on request
Best for: Agencies and developer teams with many client projects who want editors working in the same document
Caisy is a Stuttgart headless CMS from cyclus.digital GmbH, a company that says it began as an agency. Its structure follows agency work: unlimited projects can be grouped in organisations, and a partnership programme shares revenue. Developers get a GraphQL API and a fully typed SDK, and UI extensions can be written in any language.
The free plan allows three users, two locales and 5,000 entries without overage billing. Growth costs $49 per month and Enterprise starts at $1,499, adding custom roles, audit log, workflows, SSO, a 99.9 percent uptime SLA and hosting in your own datacenter, with SEPA payment for EU customers. The imprint gives the register entry HRB 771199 at Amtsgericht Stuttgart. The cloud hosting region is not stated.
What Caisy does well
- Several people can edit one document live
- GraphQL API with a typed SDK
- Projects are unlimited and grouped by organisation
- No overage billing on the free plan
- Enterprise can be hosted in your own datacenter
Where Caisy falls short
- Dollar prices appear first, with a switch to euros
- Audit log, workflows and SSO need Enterprise
- Cloud region not named on the pages checked
- Paid plans bill overage beyond their limits
Standout feature. Caisy combines live co-editing of a single document with an Enterprise option to run the CMS in your own datacenter.
Offenburg, Germany
Starter free; Basic €19, Professional €49, Business €99 per month; managed server from €80
Demo on request
Best for: Developers who want MIT-licensed code, a Frankfurt cloud and a record of every content change
Squidex is a headless CMS run by Squidex UG in Offenburg, with Sebastian Stehle named as its representative. It can be used three ways: the vendor cloud, a rented managed server, or Docker and Kubernetes images you install yourself. The source is MIT-licensed.
The back end stores each change as an event, which the vendor says provides a dependable audit log and loads a content item as it was earlier.
Cloud plans run from a free Starter, which asks for a Squidex label on your site, to Basic at €19, Professional at €49 and Business at €99 per month; a managed server costs €80 per month in beta. Languages are unlimited with fallback chains. The company is tiny, and the editor is functional rather than visual.
What Squidex does well
- MIT source with images for Docker and Kubernetes
- Cloud in Frankfurt, Germany
- Audit log and earlier states come from event storage
- No limit on languages, with fallback per language
- Paid cloud tiers start at €19 a month
Where Squidex falls short
- One named managing person stands behind it
- The free tier demands a Squidex label
- Managed cluster is still listed as coming soon
- Editing is not visual
Standout feature. Squidex stores every change as an event, so a content item can be loaded as it stood at an earlier point.
Linz, Austria
Founded 2017
Free tier / from about EUR 99/month for teams / enterprise on request
Demo on request
Best for: Marketing teams publishing in many languages who want to edit on the page they will publish
Storyblok is an Austrian headless CMS, founded in 2017 and run as Storyblok GmbH in Linz. The editing screen shows the rendered page, and clicking an element selects the matching content block, while developers receive structured JSON through REST and GraphQL for Next.js, Nuxt, Astro or other front ends.
Content is built from components that developers define once, which makes multi-language and multi-market publishing a native function: field-level translation, per-market variation and folder-based language structures. The tool page lists EU data residency as the default for European customers, a free tier and teams from about EUR 99 per month. It offers no self-hosting, and costs grow with team size and API traffic.
What Storyblok does well
- Editing happens on the rendered page
- Translations and market variants are handled natively
- EU region is the default for European customers
- REST and GraphQL with framework SDKs
- A free tier covers small projects
Where Storyblok falls short
- Only run as a managed service
- Price grows quickly with seats and traffic
- Poor component design is costly to undo later
Standout feature. Storyblok lets an editor click an element on the live page to open the content block behind it.
Milano, Italy
Free plan (2 editors, 300 records) / Professional from about €149/month (annual) or €199/month (monthly) / Enterprise on request
Demo on request
Best for: Developers building a marketing site or a small catalogue who want to start without a sales contact
DatoCMS is a Milan headless CMS published by DATO SRL, with content delivered through a GraphQL API and tooling for modelling, images, video and localisation. The permanent free plan covers two editors and 300 records, with 10 GB of traffic and 100,000 API calls a month.
The vendor is explicit that exceeding those limits stops the service instead of producing a bill. Professional costs about €149 per month on annual billing or €199 monthly and covers ten collaborators and 100,000 records; extra projects start from about €39 per month, and education and non-profit users get 50 percent off. There is no self-hosting, and the pages we checked give no founding year or hosting region.
What DatoCMS does well
- The free plan does not expire
- Content served over GraphQL
- Italian company under EU jurisdiction
- Half-price terms for education and non-profits
- Tiers priced per collaborator and per record
Where DatoCMS falls short
- Free usage stops at the limit, no overage billing
- Cannot be self-hosted on any plan
- Vendor pages do not name a hosting region
- No founding year published
Standout feature. DatoCMS keeps a free plan permanently and states openly that it stops at the cap rather than charging overage.
Odense, Denmark
Founded 2014
Starter €60, Standard €300, Professional €1,100 per month; Enterprise on request
Demo on request
Best for: .NET agencies that know Umbraco and want a hosted, API-only back end
Umbraco Heartcore is the managed headless edition of the Umbraco CMS, sold by Umbraco A/S of Odense, Denmark, registered in 2014. The vendor says the Umbraco back office has been used on more than 730,000 websites, and Heartcore runs that interface as a service that exposes content only through APIs.
Plans are priced in euros: Starter €60, Standard €300 and Professional €1,100 per month, with Enterprise on request. Starter has one environment, one language and one user role, and higher plans lift those limits. REST and GraphQL endpoints, a preview API and webhooks are included, delivery goes through Cloudflare, and hosting is on Umbraco Cloud on Azure with the region unstated. The general terms identify the contracting entity.
What Umbraco Heartcore does well
- Euro prices for each published plan
- REST and GraphQL endpoints
- Editors preview unpublished content through an API
- Derived from the established open-source Umbraco CMS
- Contracting company named as a Danish A/S
Where Umbraco Heartcore falls short
- Only offered as a hosted service
- Starter allows one language and one role
- €300 to €1,100 is a large jump between tiers
- Cloud region unstated on the pages checked
Standout feature. Umbraco Heartcore carries the familiar Umbraco back office into a hosted, API-only product.
Berlin, Germany
Free Hobby plan / Growth from $199/month / Enterprise on request
Demo on request
Best for: Developer teams that work in GraphQL and need to combine content from several systems
Hygraph, formerly GraphCMS, is a Berlin vendor whose content API is designed around GraphQL from the start. Remote sources federate content from other systems into one API, and that is available on the free Hobby plan, which needs no credit card and allows two locales, three seats and 1,000 entries with 500,000 API calls a month.
Hygraph GmbH is registered in Berlin, and the company says its infrastructure is ISO 27001 certified without listing the regions that hold customer data. Growth begins at $199 per month for ten seats and 10,000 entries, with overage billed per million API operations and per gigabyte of asset traffic. Enterprise adds SSO, audit logs and multi-tenancy. The pages show dollars and no founding year.
What Hygraph does well
- API designed on GraphQL, not added to REST
- Hobby plan without a credit card
- ISO 27001 infrastructure per the vendor
- Remote sources can be federated from the free level
- Registered as a German GmbH
Where Hygraph falls short
- No hosting region named on its own pages
- Prices appear in dollars
- No founding year published
- Usage above Growth limits is billed as overage
Standout feature. Hygraph allows content federation from remote sources on its free plan, before any payment.
Buxtehude, Germany
Core free; Pro add-ons, see website; 50% off for non-profits
Demo on request
Best for: Developers and public bodies who want a content API they host themselves
Cockpit is a self-hosted headless content platform built by Agentejo in Buxtehude and run by Artur Heinze. You download it, put it on a server and use it without an account; the vendor states the core is MIT-licensed, and the imprint lists a German tax ID with copyright since 2011.
The core offers content models with conditional fields, localization, roles, revisions, and an asset manager with an image API, served over REST and GraphQL. Pro add-ons cover AI writing, Meilisearch search, content sync across environments, layouts, pages and personalization, and prices are not shown on the pricing page. Non-profits get 50 percent off. Because nothing is hosted for you, updates, backups and uptime are your job.
What Cockpit does well
- Core licensed under MIT, per the vendor
- Works without registration or subscription
- Content served over REST and GraphQL
- Optional modules for search, sync and AI
- Content stays on servers you choose
Where Cockpit falls short
- Patching and operation fall to you
- No hosted edition on the pages checked
- Add-on prices are not shown
- Community and ecosystem are small
Standout feature. Cockpit installs from a download with no account, so no outside party sits between you and your content.
Oslo, Norway
Founded 1996
Free for developers; Professional and Enterprise on request
Demo on request
Best for: Public bodies and enterprises in Norway and the Nordics that plan a content platform for a decade or more
Enonic is the Oslo company behind Enonic XP, which is published on GitHub under GPL-3.0 and can be run by the customer. Enonic AS has been registered since 1996 according to the Norwegian business register, and its About page puts the headcount at 18 and names Contentful, Optimizely and Sanity among its US competitors.
Editors use Content Studio with interactive previews, workflows and AI drafting. References include NAV, the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration, which moved to a headless set-up with Next.js, and DiBK, the Norwegian Building Authority. The managed SaaS has a Free developer plan with 5 GB and no backups, Professional at 99.5 percent uptime and Enterprise up to 99.99 percent. Paid prices are not published.
What Enonic does well
- Platform source under GPL-3.0
- Developer plan costs nothing
- Hosted plans state uptime commitments
- Company on the Oslo register since 1996
- Norwegian public agencies named as customers
Where Enonic falls short
- Professional and Enterprise prices unlisted
- About 18 employees
- Norwegian, so EEA rather than EU
- Few third-party integrations
Standout feature. Enonic offers one product both as GPL-3.0 software you run yourself and as a managed service with stated uptime tiers.
Skien, Norway
Founded 2018
Particle: free with pay-as-you-go metering (1 tenant, 100 items, 25 orders/month before overage); Atom: $949/month (5,000 items, 500 orders/month); Crystal: custom enterprise pricing with SSO and dedicated support
Demo on request
Best for: Engineering teams with content-rich catalogues, such as furniture, food or B2B products
Crystallize is a Norwegian platform from Skien, founded in 2018, that stores product information and commerce data in one GraphQL schema. This page includes it because it can serve as a content layer for product-led sites, though it is a commerce platform first and a poor fit for plain article publishing.
Pricing is metered and public: the Particle tier is free without a time limit and includes one tenant, 100 items and 25 orders a month before overage, Atom is $949 per month for 5,000 items and 500 orders, and Crystal is custom with SSO and dedicated support. It ships no storefront, so a team builds the front end against the API. Norway places the company in the EEA but not the EU.
What Crystallize does well
- Free Particle tier with no expiry
- One GraphQL schema for catalogue and checkout
- Public metered price list
- Built-in product information management
- Based in Norway, inside the EEA
Where Crystallize falls short
- Front end must be built from scratch
- Free-tier overage can grow unexpectedly
- Needs engineers on the team
- Ecosystem smaller than Saleor or Shopware
Standout feature. Crystallize keeps the product catalogue and the checkout in a single schema on a tier that never expires.
Brno, Czech Republic
Custom quote via configurator; no fixed prices published
Demo on request
Best for: Large editorial organisations with approval chains and compliance requirements
Kontent.ai is a CMS from Kontent CZ s.r.o. in Brno that pairs headless delivery with role-based workflows, approvals and governance. The vendor cites customers running one portal across 30 or more sites and teams of 100 marketers on 30 websites, and describes AI agents that handle audits, governance and localization.
The vendor states SOC 2, ISO 27001 and 27017, GDPR, HIPAA and GLBA compliance, plus CSA STAR recognition and a Trust Center, and includes 24/7 in-app chat support on every plan. Its terms name Kontent CZ s.r.o. as provider or another affiliated group company, and list Kontent US, LLC among possible affiliates, so confirm which entity signs. No fixed prices exist; a configurator produces an estimate and a form requests a quote.
What Kontent.ai does well
- Workflows and governance are the core of the product
- SOC 2 and ISO 27001 stated by the vendor
- Round-the-clock in-app chat on each plan
- Case of one portal serving many sites
- Provider registered in the Czech Republic
Where Kontent.ai falls short
- Price list not published
- Offered only as a hosted service
- A US affiliate could be the provider
- No hosting region on the pages checked
Standout feature. Kontent.ai puts approval workflows and governance first, and lists SOC 2 and ISO 27001 as vendor statements.
