Payload CMS
Shares rank 8 of 9 content management systems by recommenders
Free, open-source headless CMS people recommend for custom sites; critics say it has fewer plugins than WordPress and ties you to Next.js.
Free, open-source headless CMS people recommend for custom sites; critics say it has fewer plugins than WordPress and ties you to Next.js.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 71%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Fewer plugins than WordPress
“PayloadCMS is FOSS (until Figma changes their mind), but doesn’t have the huge amount of plugins / extensions / themes wordpress does.”
Comment from 12 Feb 2026 in “Lines of Markdown, a Claude Code Sensation” Less capable than Wagtail or Craft
“It is not as capable as something like Wagtail, Payload, or Craft.”
Comment from 28 Nov 2025 in “Pocketbase – open-source realtime back end in 1 file”
Other content management systems people recommend
The four most recommended other content management systems, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress | 194 | 326 | 37% | 12 | 15 yrs25 owners | — |
| EmDash | 67 | 91 | 42% | 7 | — | — |
| Drupal | 30 | 48 | 38% | 9 | 6 yrs3 owners | — |
| Wagtail CMS | 11 | 1 | 92% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Payload CMSThis page | 5 | 2 | 71% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
All 8 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“just bolt your SSG onto the many CMS backends that are available”
“It was always painful, I've never enjoyed it, but something I had to do”
“It’s tested in controlled env for 10Gbps+ but have not been able to test that over WAN just yet.”
“you are locked into nextjs”
“I made a custom Payload CMS block that allows to create and update excalidraw diagrams within the CMS.”
“PayloadCMS is FOSS (until Figma changes their mind), but doesn’t have the huge amount of plugins / extensions / themes wordpress does.”
“It is not as capable as something like Wagtail, Payload, or Craft.”
“But I am using it in user space successfully with no packet forging.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.