Payload CMS vs Wagtail
Both are self-hosted content management systems (cms) projects. This page compares how well each one is actually maintained — the part you cannot see from a feature list.
| Payload CMS | Wagtail | |
|---|---|---|
| Health score | 91/100 | 91/100 |
| Commits (11 mo) | 1640 | 1341 |
| Commits (last 3 mo) | 431 | 608 |
| Stars | 45k | 21k |
| Latest release | 24 Sept 2026 | 25 Aug 2026 |
| Licence | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Built with | Nodejs | Python |
| Typical RAM | 2 GB | 1 GB |
Payload CMS
Developer-first headless CMS and application framework.
High commit volume, frequent releases and growing activity.
Commit activity more than 87% of tracked projects; popularity more than 96%. How this is calculated.
Commits, last 11 months
Wagtail
Django content management system focused on flexibility and user experience.
High commit volume, frequent releases and growing activity.
Commit activity more than 84% of tracked projects; popularity more than 88%. How this is calculated.
Commits, last 11 months
How to read this
Everything above is measured, not opinion: commit counts and release dates come from the public repositories, and the health score ranks each project against all 1352 projects we track. Read the full method.
What this comparison deliberately does not do is tell you which has the better feature set. Maintenance health tells you which project will still be receiving security fixes in two years. Decide that first, then compare features on the projects that survive the filter.
See every option in this category: self-hosted content management systems (cms).