SHSelfHostIndex

Bolt vs Keystone

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted content management systems options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
BO Bolt Lightweight and simple CMS built on Symfony VS KE Keystone Headless CMS framework with a powerful GraphQL API
FeatureBoltKeystone
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score80 · Excellent93 · Excellent
CategoryContent Management SystemsContent Management Systems
LicenseMITMIT
LanguagePHPTypeScript
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentbare-metal, source, dockerdocker, bare-metal, source
GitHub stars★ 590★ 9,977
First released20122013
ReplacesWordPress, ContentfulContentful, Strapi

What are Bolt and Keystone?

Bolt

Bolt is an open-source content management tool built on the Symfony framework that strives to be straightforward for editors and flexible for developers. Content types are defined in YAML and rendered with Twig templates.

  • YAML content types
  • Twig templating
  • Symfony foundation
  • Clean editor UI

Keystone

Keystone is an open-source headless CMS and Node.js framework that lets developers define schemas in code and automatically get a GraphQL API and admin UI. It is well suited to content-driven applications.

  • Schema-as-code data modeling
  • Auto-generated GraphQL API
  • Customizable admin UI
  • Flexible field types

Read the full Keystone guide →

Bolt vs Keystone: key differences

Bolt is written in PHP, while Keystone is built with TypeScript. Keystone has the considerably larger community, at 9,977 GitHub stars versus 590.

Why pick each one

Choose Bolt if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Written in PHP
  • Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Bolt details

Choose Keystone if…

  • Strong TypeScript support
  • Flexible and extensible

Watch out for

  • Headless only
  • Smaller community than Strapi
Keystone details

Frequently asked questions

Is Bolt or Keystone better?

Neither is universally better. Keystone has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Bolt and Keystone free and open-source?

Yes. Bolt is licensed under MIT and Keystone under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Bolt and Keystone with Docker?

Bolt: yes. Keystone: yes.

Related comparisons