Payload CMS Has a Free Headless CMS — Self-Host Your Content With TypeScript

The CMS Problem in 2026 Contentful charges per user. Sanity charges per dataset. Strapi needs a separate server. WordPress is... WordPress. You want a CMS that is free, self-hosted, type-safe, and does not feel like it was built in 2010. Payload: Code-First CMS That Lives in Your Next.js App Payload is a headless CMS that runs inside your Next.js application. Not next to it. Inside it. Free and Open Source 100% open source (MIT license) Self-hosted — no per-seat pricing, no API call limits Runs in Next.js — one deployment, not two PostgreSQL or MongoDB — your choice Config as Code // payload.config.ts import { buildConfig } from ' payload ' export default buildConfig ({ collections : [ { slug : ' posts ' , fields : [ { name : ' title ' , type : ' text ' , required : true }, { name : ' content ' , type : ' richText ' }, { name : ' author ' , type : ' relationship ' , relationTo : ' users ' }, { name : ' publishedAt ' , type : ' date ' }, { name : ' status ' , type : ' select ' , options