Directus vs Contentful: Choosing Your Headless CMS
Two powerful headless CMSs. One costs $54K/year at scale, runs only in the cloud, and locks you in. The other starts free, runs anywhere, and gives you direct database access. Here's what matters when choosing.
Saved per year on Directus vs Contentful Enterprise
Contentful median enterprise spend: $54K/year. Directus Team plan: $7K/year. The gap widens as teams scale.
See the full pricing breakdownDirectus vs Contentful: Side-by-side
Pricing as of Nov 2026. Contentful data from Oct 2026 pricing analysis. Directus Cloud and self-hosted options differ; Team plan quoted is Cloud yearly billing.
Architecture: Database-First vs Schema-as-a-Service
Directus wraps any SQL database (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, MS SQL, or others) with instant REST and GraphQL APIs. Your data stays in your database. You own it.
Contentful is schema-as-a-service: a proprietary data model hosted exclusively on Salesforce infrastructure. Your content lives inside their system. Exporting means rebuilding integrations.
Pricing: Flat vs Metered
Directus charges per seat and per collection pack. Add a user: +$50/month. Add 25 collections: +$100. Scaling is predictable.
Contentful charges per API call, per locale, per environment. Hit a record limit? Upgrade the tier (e.g., Free to Lite still caps at 10K records; moving to Premium is the first step that increases capacity). Overages spike costs: $5 per 1M extra API calls/month, $0.15/GB extra bandwidth/month.
Self-Hosting: Free vs Impossible
Directus self-hosted is free software. No licensing fee. You pay only for infrastructure (Hetzner, AWS, your own server). Thousands of teams run this way.
Contentful is SaaS-only. No self-hosted option. No on-premise install. Cloud is the only path.
Data Ownership & Lock-In
Directus: Direct SQL access means you can export your data, rewrite integrations, and move to any other platform. Zero lock-in from a data perspective.
Contentful: API-only access. Exporting content is possible but requires rebuilding front-ends and custom tooling. Switching is costly, which Salesforce knows.
Migrating From Contentful
Does it sound painful? It isn't. Export Contentful JSON, map your content model to Directus collections, and import. Field types translate. Relationships become foreign keys. Teams report this takes days, not months. Opsily's migration scripts page walks you through it step-by-step.
Why Directus + Opsily Managed Hosting?
Directus is powerful. Adding Opsily removes the DevOps tax.
Zero infrastructure overhead
We handle backups, monitoring, updates, and scaling. You focus on content. Daily encrypted backups, automatic failover, and OS patching included. Deploy once, never think about it again.
German data residency, GDPR by default
Your data stays in EU data centers (ISO 27001 certified infrastructure). Compliance is built in. No region negotiation, no hidden jurisdictions. GDPR audits check the box.
Costs stay fixed, forever
No per-API-call surprises. No tier upgrades that double your bill when you add one more user. Pay for servers you actually need. Directus licensing is transparent; Opsily hosting adds predictable infrastructure cost.
Built for teams who need reliability
Migrate from Contentful to Directus in 4 Steps
The path is shorter than you think. Teams typically complete it in 1-2 weeks.
Use Contentful's export tool or API to pull all content as JSON. Fields, entries, relationships, assets.
Contentful's content types become Directus collections. Linked entries become foreign key relationships. Locales map to language codes.
Run our migration scripts to automate the transformation. Review your content. Fix any field type mismatches. Opsily's team is here to help.
Use Contentful's export tool or API to pull all content as JSON. Fields, entries, relationships, assets.
Contentful's content types become Directus collections. Linked entries become foreign key relationships. Locales map to language codes.
Run our migration scripts to automate the transformation. Review your content. Fix any field type mismatches. Opsily's team is here to help.
Export your Contentful content
Use Contentful's export tool or API to pull all content as JSON. Fields, entries, relationships, assets.
Map your schema to Directus
Contentful's content types become Directus collections. Linked entries become foreign key relationships. Locales map to language codes.
Import and verify
Run our migration scripts to automate the transformation. Review your content. Fix any field type mismatches. Opsily's team is here to help.
Cut over your front-end
Update API endpoints from Contentful URLs to your Directus instance. Most front-ends need no code changes (REST API is REST API). Go live.
Directus Managed Hosting Plans
Start free. Scale predictably. No surprises.
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Security & Compliance
Your data, your control, protected.
GDPR Compliant
All data stored in EU, processed under GDPR requirements. No US data transfer.
Open Source
38.7K GitHub stars, 14,001 commits, transparent development. Audit the code yourself.
German Data Residency
Your data resides exclusively in German data centers with enterprise-grade security, automated failover, and 99.9% uptime.
No Vendor Lock-In
Direct SQL access means you export your raw data anytime. Not trapped by proprietary APIs.
Daily Backups
Encrypted backups every 24 hours. Point-in-time restore available if needed.
Common Questions
The core steps are straightforward: export your content as JSON from Contentful, map your content types to Directus collections, and import using our migration scripts. Relationships (linked entries) become foreign keys; locales map to language codes. Most teams do this in 1-2 weeks. Opsily's migration guide and scripts automate the field transformation, and our team is available to answer schema questions. Your front-end code may not need changes at all—both systems serve REST APIs.
Ready to break free from Contentful's pricing?
Migrate to Directus on Opsily. Start free, scale on your terms, keep your data.