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Keystone vs Tina CMS

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?
KE Keystone Headless CMS framework with a powerful GraphQL API VS TI Tina CMS Git-backed content management with visual editing
FeatureKeystoneTina CMS
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score93 · Excellent94 · Excellent
CategoryContent Management SystemsContent Management Systems
LicenseMITApache-2.0
LanguageTypeScriptTypeScript
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, sourcedocker, source
GitHub stars★ 9,977★ 13,803
First released20132021
ReplacesContentful, StrapiContentful, Sanity

What are Keystone and Tina CMS?

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 →

Tina CMS

Tina CMS is an open-source, Git-backed content management system that adds visual editing to web projects. Its self-hosted backend stores content in your repository and provides a live, in-context editing experience.

  • Git-backed content
  • Visual in-context editing
  • GraphQL content API
  • Markdown and JSON support

Keystone vs Tina CMS: key differences

Both projects are written in TypeScript. Licensing differs — MIT for Keystone versus Apache-2.0 for Tina CMS. Keystone is the more established project (first released 2013), while Tina CMS arrived in 2021.

Why pick each one

Choose Keystone if…

  • Strong TypeScript support
  • Flexible and extensible

Watch out for

  • Headless only
  • Smaller community than Strapi
Keystone details

Choose Tina CMS if…

  • Content lives in Git
  • Visual editing for editors
  • Works with static site frameworks

Watch out for

  • React-focused
  • Self-hosting setup effort
Tina CMS details

Frequently asked questions

Is Keystone or Tina CMS better?

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

Are Keystone and Tina CMS free and open-source?

Yes. Keystone is licensed under MIT and Tina CMS under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Keystone and Tina CMS with Docker?

Keystone: yes. Tina CMS: yes.

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