Friday, April 11, 2025
Sanity vs Hygraph: A Comprehensive Headless CMS Comparison
Sanity and Hygraph are both modern headless CMS platforms, but they're built for different operational realities. Sanity gives teams deep customization and flexible content modeling through its open-source studio and GROQ query language. Hygraph takes a GraphQL-native, federated approach that unifies content from multiple sources into a single API layer. Choosing between them isn't about which platform has more features; it's about matching architecture to how your team actually creates, manages and delivers content.
This comparison breaks down where each platform excels, where it falls short and which team profiles fit each option best. By the end, you'll have a decision framework grounded in operational fit rather than feature checklists, so you can invest in CMS infrastructure that scales with your growth instead of against it.
Platform Architecture and Core Philosophy
The architectural decisions baked into a CMS shape everything downstream: how your team models content, how developers build integrations and how marketers publish day-to-day. Before comparing features, it's worth understanding the core philosophy each platform is built on, because this single distinction drives nearly every practical difference between them.
Sanity
A code-first, document-based architecture means schemas are written as JavaScript or TypeScript that integrates directly into version control and CI/CD pipelines. This schema-as-code approach enables version-controlled content models alongside application code, programmatic schema validation and developer-friendly iteration through standard Git workflows. The open-source studio provides a fully customizable editing environment powered by React, with real-time collaborative editing and GROQ (Graph-Relational Object Queries) as its native query language. Everything is designed to be extended, overridden or rebuilt to match your team's specific workflows. The underlying assumption: your CMS should adapt to your team, not the other way around.
Hygraph
A GraphQL-native architecture with a visual schema builder automatically generates GraphQL schemas, queries and mutations from content models. Non-developers can manage content models directly through the UI, and the automatic API generation reduces developer bottlenecks during initial setup. A content federation engine can pull data from external systems into a single GraphQL API, positioning the platform as a unifying layer across distributed content sources. The underlying assumption: your CMS should be the connective tissue between all the places content already lives.
Key Distinction
Both platforms align with MACH principles (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless), but they implement those principles differently. Sanity's code-first approach offers maximum flexibility for complex content architectures, with schema-as-code and native real-time collaboration that suits engineering-heavy organizations coordinating across multiple development teams. Hygraph's GraphQL-native design provides standardized API patterns and visual tooling that suits hybrid teams prioritizing rapid marketing independence, though teams requiring simultaneous multi-user editing should account for Hygraph's sequential editing workflows.
Content Modeling and Flexibility
Content modeling is the foundation of scalable content operations. How a CMS lets you define, structure and relate content types determines whether your site can evolve without constant rearchitecting. Get this wrong and you'll feel the friction every time your team tries to launch a new page type, product line or campaign.
Sanity
A schema-as-code approach gives developers full programmatic control over content models. Teams can define custom field types, build nested object structures and create complex references between content types. Portable Text treats rich text as structured data that travels cleanly across channels, meaning the same content block can render differently on your website, mobile app and email without reformatting. The tradeoff: modifying content models requires developer involvement.
Hygraph
A visual schema builder lets teams configure content models through a UI-driven interface. It supports components, enumerations and union types through its GraphQL layer. Non-developers can create and adjust content types without writing code, which speeds up initial setup. The tradeoff: the visual builder introduces guardrails that limit the depth of customization available for complex modeling scenarios.
Key Distinction
Sanity offers more modeling depth for complex, multi-product B2B sites where content structure itself is a competitive advantage. Hygraph offers faster initial setup with less developer overhead, which works well for teams with straightforward content architectures that need to move quickly.
Developer Experience and Technical Integration
Developer experience isn't just a hiring perk. It directly impacts how fast your marketing team can get new pages, features and campaigns live. A CMS that slows developers down creates bottlenecks that ripple across every team that depends on the website.
Sanity
GROQ serves as the native query language, with GraphQL available as a secondary option. The React-based studio is fully open source and extensible: developers can build custom input components, workflow tools, dashboards and live preview environments. Strong CLI tooling, TypeScript support and a growing plugin ecosystem round out the developer surface area, making it one of the deepest in the headless CMS market for teams willing to invest in customization.
Hygraph
GraphQL is the primary and only query language. The API is auto-generated from schema definitions, which reduces boilerplate code and speeds up initial development. Content federation allows developers to query external APIs (REST, GraphQL or database sources) alongside CMS content in a single request, reducing the integration code teams need to write and maintain. The customization surface is narrower, but teams already fluent in GraphQL can onboard quickly.
Key Distinction
Sanity rewards teams willing to invest development time in building a tailored CMS experience. Hygraph rewards teams already committed to a GraphQL-first technical stack who want to reduce integration complexity rather than maximize customization. Neither platform provides truly native marketing automation integrations; both require custom development or middleware for HubSpot, Marketo and Pardot. Sanity holds an advantage in Salesforce environments with an official SFCC integration, while Hygraph offers stronger out-of-the-box analytics with native applications for Google Analytics and Segment.
Content Federation and Multi-Source Management
Content federation is an emerging differentiator in the headless CMS space. B2B companies rarely store all their content in one system: product data lives in a Product Information Management (PIM) tool, commerce content sits in a separate platform, documentation runs on its own stack and marketing content lives in the CMS. The question is whether your CMS can unify those sources or whether your team has to build that unification from scratch.
Sanity
There is no native federation layer. Instead, the platform relies on the flexibility of its API and GROQ query language to connect with external systems. Teams can build middleware, custom API routes or serverless functions to aggregate content from multiple sources. The outcomes can be similar, but the engineering effort is higher and the maintenance burden falls on your team rather than the platform.
Hygraph
Content federation is a first-class feature. The federation engine lets teams pull content from external systems, including product databases, commerce platforms and legacy CMSs, into a single GraphQL API without migrating that content into Hygraph. A single query can return CMS-managed marketing copy alongside product data from a PIM or pricing from a commerce backend. For B2B teams managing content across five or more tools, this capability eliminates significant middleware development.
Key Distinction
Hygraph treats federation as a core product capability. Sanity treats it as a build-it-yourself pattern. If your content architecture spans multiple systems and you want the CMS to handle unification, Hygraph has a structural advantage. If your content is primarily CMS-managed with occasional external data pulls, Sanity's API flexibility may be sufficient.
Editorial and Marketer Experience
The editorial experience determines how fast non-technical teams can publish, iterate and optimize. A CMS that requires developer involvement for routine content updates creates bottlenecks that slow marketing velocity. For B2B teams treating their website as growth infrastructure, the speed at which marketers can act independently is a direct input to pipeline performance.
Sanity
A fully customizable editing environment through Sanity Studio gives teams native simultaneous editing, with presence indicators showing active editors and live commenting for real-only users, so multiple team members can work on the same content at the same time. The studio can be tailored to match exactly how your team works: custom dashboards, guided workflows, role-specific views and context-aware editing. For distributed B2B teams across time zones, this real-time collaboration is one of the most operationally significant capabilities the platform offers. The tradeoff is that this customization requires upfront development investment of 8-16 weeks, and the GROQ learning curve adds 2-4 weeks for basic competency. Without that investment, the out-of-the-box experience can feel developer-oriented and unintuitive for marketing teams.
Hygraph
A clean, structured editing interface with a more conventional CMS feel gets marketing teams productive in 1-2 weeks for GraphQL-familiar teams and 3-4 weeks for newcomers. Built-in content stages (Draft, Published and custom stages on Enterprise) with configurable approvals, stage transition permissions and scheduled publishing provide workflow management out of the box. The tradeoff is that Hygraph does not support native real-time collaboration; simultaneous multi-user editing requires external infrastructure like webhooks to Pusher or Ably, which means distributed teams need to coordinate around sequential editing workflows.
Key Distinction
Sanity can become the best editorial experience your team has ever used, but only with deliberate investment in studio configuration. Hygraph delivers a solid, functional editorial experience faster and with less configuration overhead. The right choice depends on whether your team values a tailored workflow (and has the developer resources to build it) or a reliable default experience that works immediately.
Pricing and Total Cost of Ownership
Sticker price is a fraction of what a CMS actually costs. The total cost of ownership includes developer hours for setup and customization, training time for editorial teams, ongoing maintenance and the scaling costs tied to API consumption as your site grows. Evaluating pricing without factoring in these operational costs leads to surprise budgets down the road.
Sanity
A free tier covers small projects, with the Growth plan running $15/user/month and scaling based on API usage, datasets and user seats. Overage rates for API calls and bandwidth remain undisclosed, requiring vendor quotes for accurate budgeting. This opacity creates uncertainty that complicates preliminary evaluation and CFO approval processes, especially for high-traffic B2B sites with dynamic content rendering. The larger cost consideration, however, is developer time. Building a customized studio, configuring content models and maintaining integrations requires ongoing engineering investment that doesn't show up on the platform invoice.
Hygraph
A free tier is also available, with the Growth plan starting at $199/month and transparent overage rates: $0.20 per 10,000 API operations and $0.20 per GB of asset traffic. This pricing transparency makes budget forecasting straightforward, which matters for board presentations and CFO approval. Content federation, one of the platform's primary differentiators, is gated to higher-tier plans. Teams that choose Hygraph specifically for federation should expect to be on a premium plan from the start.
Key Distinction
Sanity's biggest cost driver is developer investment in customization and maintenance. Hygraph's biggest cost driver is tier-gated access to its most differentiated features. Both platforms can be cost-effective, but the cost profile looks different depending on whether your team has more developer capacity or more budget.
Regardless of platform, plan for hidden TCO components:
- Development and integration typically cost 2-3x first-year license fees
- CDN bandwidth runs $200-500+ monthly depending on provider and migration engineering requires 2-6 months of dedicated resources
Decision Framework: Which CMS Fits Your Team?
The right CMS depends on your team's composition, content complexity and technical environment. Feature comparisons can only take you so far because two teams with identical feature requirements can have entirely different experiences based on how those features map to their operational reality.
Choose Sanity If
Your team has strong developer resources, manages complex content models across multiple product lines and needs deep customization of the editorial experience. Sanity is the stronger fit for B2B teams building sophisticated web experiences where content modeling flexibility, native real-time collaboration and a tailored editing workflow are competitive advantages. Teams that invest in studio configuration tend to see compounding returns as their content operations scale. Sanity also holds an edge for organizations requiring Salesforce Commerce Cloud integration, unlimited locale support or an uptime SLA of >99.9%.
Choose Hygraph If
Your team is already committed to a GraphQL-first technical stack, manages content across multiple external systems and values out-of-the-box usability over deep customization. Hygraph is the stronger fit for B2B teams that need to unify distributed content sources without migrating everything into a single platform, and that want a functional editorial experience without extensive development work. Hygraph also provides advantages for organizations requiring ISO 27001 certification (in addition to SOC 2 Type 2), Segment analytics integration, transparent budget forecasting or a tighter uptime SLA of 99.95%.
Consider a Third Option If
Neither platform aligns with your team's technical stack, content complexity or editorial workflow requirements. Platforms like Contentful, Storyblok and Builder.io each bring different strengths to the table, and the best CMS decision starts with understanding your team's needs rather than narrowing to two finalists prematurely.
Sanity vs Hygraph at a Glance
| Category | Sanity | Hygraph |
|---|---|---|
| Core Philosophy | CMS adapts to your team through deep customization | CMS unifies content across systems through federation |
| Content Modeling | Schema-as-code with full programmatic control; requires developer involvement | Visual schema builder with UI-driven configuration; faster setup, less depth |
| Query Language | GROQ (native) with GraphQL as secondary option | GraphQL only, auto-generated from schema |
| Developer Experience | Extensible open-source studio, plugin ecosystem, broad customization surface | Streamlined GraphQL workflows, less customization, faster onboarding |
| Content Federation | No native federation; build-it-yourself through APIs and middleware | First-class federation engine pulls from external systems into a single API |
| Real-Time Collaboration | Native simultaneous editing with presence indicators and live commenting | No native real-time collaboration; requires external infrastructure |
| Editorial Experience | Highly tailored with 8-16 week investment; out-of-the-box can feel developer-oriented | Productive in 1-4 weeks; built-in content stages and approval workflows |
| Pricing Model | $15/user/month Growth plan; undisclosed overage rates require vendor quotes | $199/month Growth plan; transparent overage rates ($0.20/10K API ops) |
| Key Integrations | Official Salesforce Commerce Cloud; HubSpot via middleware | Native Google Analytics and Segment; HubSpot via middleware |
| Compliance | SOC 2, GDPR, >99.9% uptime SLA | SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, 99.95% uptime SLA |
| Best Fit | Teams with strong dev resources, complex content models and real-time collaboration needs | GraphQL-first teams unifying distributed content with budget predictability priorities |
Operational Fit Beats Feature Lists
The choice between Sanity and Hygraph isn't about which platform is objectively better. It's about which architecture matches your team's content operations, developer resources and growth trajectory. Sanity gives teams the tools to build a deeply customized content infrastructure. Hygraph gives teams the connective layer to unify content across multiple systems. Both are strong platforms, but they solve different problems for different teams.
Feature comparisons only get you so far. Operational fit, how a CMS maps to the way your team actually works, determines whether your content infrastructure becomes a growth asset or a source of ongoing friction. The best CMS decision isn't the one with the most checkboxes filled; it's the one that matches your team's reality.
Ready to choose the right CMS for your team? Talk to Webstacks.
