DatoCMS

DatoCMS is a headless CMS from Milan with a genuinely usable free plan: two editors and 300 records with 10GB of traffic and 100,000 API calls a month, permanently, not a time-limited trial.

Content is delivered through a GraphQL API, and the modelling tools, image and video handling, and localisation are built for a developer shipping a marketing site or a small product catalogue without first negotiating a contract. The catch is that the free plan is a hard ceiling rather than a soft one: DatoCMS says plainly that exceeding the monthly limits breaks the service rather than quietly billing an overage.

The publisher is DATO SRL, registered in Milan, which makes DatoCMS one of the few Italian entries in the European CMS market.

Paid usage starts at Professional, about €149 a month billed annually or €199 monthly, covering ten collaborators and 100,000 records, with Enterprise quoted separately and extra projects available as an add-on from about €39 a month; a 50% discount applies for education and non-profits.

There is no self-hosting option at any tier, and DatoCMS did not publish its founding year or a specific hosting region on its own pages, so buyers with strict data-residency requirements should confirm that directly before committing.

What DatoCMS does well

• Permanent free plan, not a time-limited trial
• GraphQL-based content delivery API
• Italian company, EU jurisdiction
• Discounts for education and non-profit users
• Straightforward per-collaborator, per-record pricing tiers

Where DatoCMS falls short

• Free plan enforces hard limits rather than graceful overage
• No self-hosting option at any tier
• Hosting region not specified on the vendor's own pages
• Founding year not published

Standout feature. The only Italian entry added here: DatoCMS pairs a permanently free starter plan with published, per-collaborator pricing on the tier directly above it.