Cockpit Next vs Keystatic
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted content management systems options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Cockpit Next | Keystatic |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 81 · Excellent | 83 · Excellent |
| Category | Content Management Systems | Content Management Systems |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | PHP | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, source, docker | source, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 747 | ★ 2,408 |
| First released | 2021 | 2023 |
| Replaces | Contentful, Strapi | Contentful, Netlify CMS |
What are Cockpit Next and Keystatic?
Cockpit Next
Cockpit Next is the rewritten generation of the Cockpit headless CMS, providing a content API, structured content management, and asset handling without dictating a presentation layer. It is designed to serve content to websites, apps, and other services.
- Headless content API
- Structured content models
- Asset manager
- Lightweight footprint
Keystatic
Keystatic is an open-source, Git-based content management system for content authored in Markdown, YAML, and JSON. It provides an editing UI that commits directly to your repository, working well with modern static site frameworks.
- Git-based content
- Markdown and structured data
- Editing UI commits to repo
- Framework integrations
Cockpit Next vs Keystatic: key differences
Cockpit Next is written in PHP, while Keystatic is built with TypeScript. Cockpit Next is the more established project (first released 2021), while Keystatic arrived in 2023. Keystatic has the considerably larger community, at 2,408 GitHub stars versus 747.
Why pick each one
Choose Cockpit Next if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in PHP
- Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
Choose Keystatic if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (2.4k GitHub stars)
- Written in TypeScript
Watch out for
- Best with specific frameworks
- Younger project
Frequently asked questions
Is Cockpit Next or Keystatic better?
Neither is universally better. Keystatic has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Cockpit Next and Keystatic free and open-source?
Yes. Cockpit Next is licensed under MIT and Keystatic under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Cockpit Next and Keystatic with Docker?
Cockpit Next: yes. Keystatic: yes.