cmsspot vs Sanity
Sanity or cmsspot? It depends on what your content is
Sanity stores content as structured documents in a hosted database, and you build the frontend yourself against its API. cmsspot adds editing to a PHP or HTML site that already exists. Both can let an AI assistant work on the content. They are not two answers to the same question; they are answers to two different ones.
Where Sanity is the right choice
Sanity is the right choice when the content is data rather than pages: two thousand products that also feed an app, a price feed and a newsletter; authors with many articles; categories, variants and suppliers linked by references; five languages with translation flows; a team of editors working in the same documents at once with roles, scheduled releases and approval. Its AI is the deepest in the field: Agent Actions and Content Agent know the schema and work across all content, and the hosted MCP server at mcp.sanity.io gives Claude and other assistants the same reach. If the "site" is really a web app in Next.js or Astro, content from an API is the natural fit.
Where a hand-built site with cmsspot is the right choice
cmsspot is the right choice when the content is pages: a company site of five to forty pages, a few articles, a team, a price list, a contact page. In both cases the agency builds the frontend, so that is not the difference. The difference is what you build and what you keep running. With cmsspot you build a plain PHP site on an ordinary web host, and that is the whole delivery; nothing else exists. With Sanity you build a schema, deploy the Studio, build a frontend app, and host it somewhere that can run it. For a company site, the first is a day; the second is a project, and it stays a project for as long as the site lives.
| cmsspot | Sanity | |
|---|---|---|
| What the content is | Pages: HTML or PHP files on your server, with headings, text, images and links as fields. | Structured documents in a hosted database (Content Lake), with references between them, queried with GROQ. |
| What the agency builds | A PHP or HTML site, as it would anyway. cmsspot is added afterwards and asks nothing of the site. | A schema, the Studio editor (open source, deployed by you) and a frontend app in Next.js, Astro or similar that fetches from the API. |
| Hosting | Any PHP web host, from a few euros a month. | App hosting for the frontend (Vercel, Netlify or similar) plus Sanity itself. The database cannot be self-hosted. |
| Works with an existing site | Yes, as it is. | No. The site is rebuilt as a frontend app against the API. |
| Ongoing upkeep | None. Files do not go out of date. | Frontend dependencies, a build that can fail, a schema to maintain as content changes shape. |
| Several editors, roles, approval | Several users per site, one editing a page at a time, with a conflict check. No approval step. | Real-time collaboration in the same document, roles, version history per document, Content Releases, and workflows in prerelease. |
| Several languages, several channels | One site per language. One channel: the site. | Built in: localisation, and any number of frontends and feeds from the same content. |
| SEO | Title, description and schema per page with lengths in colour, a preview and a schema check, in the editor. Sitemap on request. | Fields you define in the schema; the frontend renders them. Good patterns exist, you build them. |
| AI | Built-in MCP for one site at one of three levels, with hidden files and a log. Made so a client can use it safely. | Agent Actions and Content Agent in the editor, plus a hosted MCP server with schema-aware access. The deepest AI layer in a CMS today. |
| Price | Free to start. | Free tier with an AI credit allowance; paid plans priced per seat. |
| Exit | Remove cmsspot and the site keeps working, unchanged. The files are the site. | Content can be exported as JSON. The frontend does not work without Sanity, and the database cannot move to your own server. |
Based on Sanity's own documentation and pricing page in October 2026. Features and prices change; check sanity.io for the current state.
What cmsspot actually solves
Count what the content is. If it is pages people read in a browser, with a few repeated blocks, a PHP site with cmsspot gives the owner the editing they want at a fraction of the build, the hosting and the upkeep, and the site works without any vendor. That covers most company sites.
If it is data that has to go several places, hang together through references, and be edited by a group, a PHP site will crack within a year, and Sanity is the right tool. We say so on this page because the honesty is what makes the rest of it worth reading.
Common questions
Does the agency have to build the frontend in both cases?
Yes. The difference is what kind: a plain PHP site on a web host with cmsspot, or a frontend app plus a schema and a Studio deployment with Sanity. The first is what most agencies build already; the second is a different stack with different skills and different hosting.
Which has better AI?
Sanity, if the question is depth: schema-aware agents that work across all content, semantic search, and workflows on the way. cmsspot, if the question is "can my client safely let an AI edit their existing PHP site": one site, three levels, hidden files, a log, and nothing installed on the server.
Can I use cmsspot for a webshop?
No. A shop with a catalogue, variants and orders is structured content and needs a system built for it. Use a shop platform, or Sanity with a commerce integration, and keep cmsspot for sites that are pages.
Can I move from cmsspot to Sanity later?
Yes, but it is a rebuild, because the frontend changes from PHP pages to an app against an API. Nothing in cmsspot locks the content; it is HTML you can read into any model.
Other comparisons: WordPress · Squarespace · Wix · Drupal · The alternatives · What is a headless CMS? · Why hand-built sites win
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See it on your own pages
Connect a site you already have. cmsspot reads it as it is, and nothing is rebuilt.