Craft CMS
The agency editor's CMS: structured content, Matrix fields, live preview, native localisation, GraphQL and a UK region on Craft Cloud. Pro is a $399 per-project licence renewing at $99 a year, or Craft Cloud Pro at $220 a month on annual billing with the licence included. What to know: the code is source-available, not open source, a developer builds and maintains everything, there are no native forms or commerce (Craft Commerce is a $1,199 licence), no first-party MCP server, no Trustpilot presence and a Cloud SLA only on Enterprise.
How we testCraft CMS is made by Pixel & Tonic, a private company in Bend, Oregon founded by Brandon Kelly, with no outside investors we could find. The vendor states 150,000 sites built and 8,000 Discord accounts. We found no Russian or Chinese link in ownership or engineering. The code is public on GitHub but production use needs a commercial licence, so it is source-available rather than open source.
Prices are in US dollars with no VAT statement, read on 16 September 2026. Self-hosted, Solo is free for one user, Team is $279 per project with five users and one user group, and Pro, the plan we score because it is the only tier with unlimited user groups for role separation, is $399 per project including a year of updates, renewing at $99 a year; lapsing a renewal keeps your installed version running but stops updates. Craft Cloud, the vendor's own hosting, bundles the licence: Team at $110 a month on annual billing or $120 monthly with two environments and 10 GB of assets, Pro at $220 or $240 with three environments and 20 GB, Enterprise on quote with a 99.99 percent SLA. Regions are the US, Canada, Germany, Sweden, the UK and Australia, so a UK region is a real choice. Craft Commerce is a separate $1,199 licence renewing at $299. Self-hosting needs PHP with MySQL or Postgres on a server of about £20 to £25 a month.
Editing is where Craft earns its reputation: a form-based control panel built from custom fields, Matrix blocks with nested entries and card views, live preview with shareable links, multi-site and per-field localisation included, detailed user groups and permissions, and a plugin store for what is missing. There is no drag-and-drop canvas and no template gallery: a developer writes Twig templates, which also means every SEO control and every byte of output is yours. Forms are plugins (Freeform, Formie), commerce is the paid plugin, AI features were not found, and there is a native GraphQL API for headless delivery with no first-party REST API confirmed. MCP support exists only through third-party plugins. Craft Cloud adds a global CDN, Cloudflare firewall, nightly backups kept 30 days and SOC 2-compliant access procedures. Support is developer support with the licence, Discord and a knowledge base; no phone and no UK hours. There is no Trustpilot listing; G2 shows about 4.2 on 48 reviews.
Not yet tested by Saaskly: assessed on published pricing, vendor documentation, the vendor's own help centre and status pages, and third-party reviews.
Pros
- +The best structured editing in the category: Matrix fields, live preview, unlimited content types, native localisation and detailed permissions
- +Per-project licence with cheap renewals, a UK region on Craft Cloud, and a GraphQL API for headless builds; you hold the database
- +No vendor-injected scripts, no page caps, no branding, and full control of every SEO signal
Cons
- −A developer builds and maintains everything; no visual editor, no templates, no native forms, and commerce is a $1,199 licence
- −Source-available rather than open source, US dollars only, and Craft Cloud's SLA applies to Enterprise only
- −No first-party MCP server, no Trustpilot presence, no phone support and no AI features found
Pricing
Minimum commitment: $220 ($220/mo × 1 seat × 1 months). The least you can spend before walking away; excludes numbers, minutes and add-ons.
Craft Cloud Pro
$240/mo · month-to-month
$220/mo on an annual commitment
Month-to-month costs 9% more
- ✓$220 a month on annual billing, $240 monthly, USD, VAT not stated (read 16 Sep 2026). Pro licence included, 3 environments, 20 GB assets per environment, 500 GB bandwidth, global CDN, Cloudflare firewall, UK region available. Team at $110 or $120 with 2 environments and 10 GB.
Pro licence (self-hosted)
$399one-time
- ✓$399 per project including a year of updates, renewing at $99 a year for updates; unlimited users and user groups. Team $279 with 5 users; Solo free for one user. Craft Commerce $1,199 plus $299 a year. Self-hosting on PHP with MySQL or Postgres at about £20 to £25 a month.
Specifications
| Rating | 3.0 |
| Shape | Developer CMS |
| Scored plan* | $220/mo annual · $240/mo monthly (Craft Cloud Pro) |
| Month-to-month | $240/mo (+9%) |
| Free plan | Limited free plan |
| Visual editor | No |
| Custom code | Full theme code |
| Blog | ✓ |
| Forms | No |
| Commerce | Add-on or higher plan |
| Memberships | Not offered |
| Multilingual | Included |
| SEO controls | Full |
| API | ✓ |
| Headless | ✓ |
| MCP server | No |
| Export your site | Full |
| Open source | No |
| UK or EU hosting | ✓ |
| Owned in** | US-owned |
| Russian or Chinese link | None found |
| Phone support | No |
| Scored plan name | Craft Cloud Pro |
| VAT basis | Excluding VAT |
| Licence | Per-project licence (Pro $399, renews $99 a year); free on Craft Cloud |
| Self-hostable | ✓ |
| Vendor hosting | ✓ |
| Free trial (days) | 0 |
| Entry plan | $110/mo (Craft Cloud Team) |
| Top plan | Enterprise (contact sales) |
| First-term promotion | No promotion; 15% non-profit discount on licences |
| Monthly price only at checkout | No |
| Domain free first year | No |
| Domain renewal | Bring your own |
| Editor seats | Unlimited |
| Page and item limits | No limits |
| Storage and bandwidth | Craft Cloud Pro: 20 GB assets per environment, 500 GB bandwidth |
| Reference hosting | Self-hosting on a 2 vCPU / 4 GB PHP server at about £20 to £25 a month, or Craft Cloud as priced |
| Price changes | Not captured |
| Editor | Form-based control panel with Matrix fields and live preview; front end in Twig |
| Switch template after launch | No |
| Form submissions | Plugins (Freeform, Formie) |
| Scheduling | ✓ |
| Roles and approvals | ✓ |
| Bookings | No |
| AI site generator | No |
| AI content tools | No |
| Accessibility tooling | ✓ |
| Redirects | ✓ |
| Structured data control | ✓ |
| Image optimisation | ✓ |
| CDN included | ✓ |
| Injected scripts | None |
| Performance | Depends on your templates and host; Craft Cloud adds a CDN and static caching |
| Payment providers | Craft Commerce ($1,199 licence) with its gateways |
| UK VAT handling | No |
| Webhooks | No |
| MCP server note | Third-party plugins only (stimmt/craft-mcp, Editor MCP) |
| CRM integrations | Plugin store |
| Zapier or Make | No |
| App market | Craft Plugin Store; count not published |
| Export note | You hold the database and files; Craft Cloud keeps nightly backups 30 days and gives dump access |
| Import tooling | Community tools only |
| Domain transfer out | Not applicable |
| HQ | US |
| Owner | Pixel & Tonic (independent) |
| Data location | Your host, or Craft Cloud in US, Canada, Germany, Sweden, UK or Australia |
| Link evidence | None found |
| Governance | Founder-owned private company; source-available licence |
| GDPR tooling | No |
| SOC 2 | No |
| ISO 27001 | No |
| Status page | ✓ |
| Major incident on record | No |
| Incident note | Minor Craft Cloud incidents in August and September 2026 (404s, build failures), minutes long |
| Live chat | No |
| UK support hours | Developer support with the licence; Discord; no phone |
| Security updates | You update; renewal required for new versions |
| Community | 8,000 on Discord; 3,600 GitHub stars |
| Support channels | Developer support, Discord, Knowledge base |
*Scored plan: the business plan the score is set on (the cheapest plan with a custom domain and no vendor branding, contact forms, basic SEO controls and room for a fifty-page site; for a managed WordPress host, one production site with staging and daily backups), per month on annual billing at the renewal price, then per month billed monthly where that is offered, in the currency the vendor shows a UK visitor on the research date. Developer CMSs show the licence plus a stated reference hosting cost. See each profile for the VAT basis, first-term promotions and what the plan above adds.
**Owned in: where the company that owns the vendor answers to. A US-owned vendor is subject to US law (including the CLOUD Act) wherever the site is hosted. "Russian or Chinese link" records ownership, management or engineering links found on the research date, with the evidence on the profile; Saaskly marks these down in the score by editorial rule and says so.
Researched and drafted with AI assistance; reviewed and approved by Tim Meredith. How we use AI
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