October CMS vs Sanity

What October CMS is

October CMS is a self-hosted PHP CMS and application platform built on Laravel. Its source is public, but the platform is licensed under October's EULA rather than a standard permissive open-source license: each production website needs a project license, with development and staging environments for that same website covered. New accounts receive one complimentary license with one year of updates; an expired perpetual license keeps running but loses Update Gateway access. Hosting, database, deployment, backups and plugin governance remain the operator's responsibility.

What Sanity is

Sanity is the 'Content Operating System' that treats content as data. Its 'Sanity Studio' is a fully customizable, open-source editor built with React that developers can tailor to their specific needs. It features a 'Content Lake' architecture that allows for real-time collaboration and instant data updates across all platforms. Used by innovators like Nike and Sonos, Sanity is the choice for teams that want to move beyond static CMS limits and build truly dynamic digital experiences.

What October CMS is built to do

Laravel foundation

Uses Laravel 12, Composer dependencies and Artisan commands for development and operations.

Themes and plugins

Separates presentation and extensible application behavior into project-controlled packages.

Roles and permissions

Controls backend access with users, custom roles, permission inheritance and super-user boundaries.

Multisite management

Manages domain, locale, theme and content variations from one installation.

What Sanity is built to do

Sanity Studio

A fully customizable, React-based editor that you own and host anywhere.

Content Lake

A cloud-hosted, real-time database specifically designed for structured content.

GROQ

A powerful, open-source query language for filtering and fetching your data.

Portable Text

A JSON-based format for rich text that works on any platform, from web to print.

Choose October CMS if

• Custom content sites where Laravel-native development is an advantage
• Agencies that can standardize deployment, updates and plugin review across projects
• Multisite or multilingual builds after validating shared-installation and license boundaries

Skip October CMS if

• A fully managed SaaS CMS with vendor-operated backups and upgrades is required
• The organization requires an OSI-style permissive license without per-site production terms
• The team cannot maintain PHP, Composer dependencies, plugins, database migrations and recovery

Choose Sanity if

• Digital Agencies and Enterprise Product Teams.

October CMS: pros & cons

• Developer-oriented stack: Laravel, Composer, Artisan, Twig themes and plugins support code-first customization.
• Self-hosted ownership: Application code, configuration, content database and deployment environment stay under the operator's control.
• Editorial controls: Backend users, roles, permissions and multisite content support governed authoring workflows.
• Flexible deployment: Composer/SSH and an official no-shell Deploy plugin cover different hosting environments.
• Production licensing: Public source does not remove the per-website license and EULA requirements.
• Updates depend on renewal: The site keeps running after expiry, but gateway updates and Marketplace access require an active license.
• Self-hosted operations: PHP, database, web server, secrets, patches, backups and recovery are the customer's responsibility.
• Extension risk: Marketplace or custom plugins add separate maintenance, compatibility, security and license surfaces.

Sanity: pros & cons

• Total Customization: Build the exact admin panel your content team needs.
• Real-time Collab: Multiple editors can work on the same document simultaneously.
• Structured Content: Treats content like a queryable database, not just text blocks.
• Great Developer Experience: Modern tools and a powerful query language (GROQ).
• Dev Required: You absolutely need a developer to set up and configure the Studio.
• Learning Curve: GROQ query language takes time to learn if you are used to GraphQL/REST.
• Pricing: The costs for higher data traffic and advanced features can be high.