Stop guessing which one. Put them side by side.

The grid says what these tools are. This says what builders did about it — one decision per person, changeable whenever you change your mind.

# Tool comparison — Strapi vs Keystatic vs MDX

Source: Kbaise, a directory of tools that work with Lovable projects.
Pick one and tell me why before writing any integration code.

## Strapi (strapi)
- URL: https://strapi.io
- Category: CMS & content infrastructure
- Cost: mixed — Community self-hosted free (MIT, unlimited seats). Growth $45/mo (3 seats, +$15/seat). Strapi Cloud $35 / $90 / $450 per mo. Enterprise custom.
- What it is: Strapi is an MIT-licensed Node.js headless CMS with an auto-generated admin panel, REST and GraphQL APIs, and a plugin system. The self-hosted Community edition is free with unlimited seats; Strapi Cloud starts at $35/mo for 100k API requests and 50GB storage.
- Why builders pick it: The default when you want a conventional admin UI plus full control of the database and hosting. Large plugin ecosystem and a well-trodden migration path off WordPress.
- Trap: Editorial extras — review workflows, audit logs, SSO — sit behind Growth or Enterprise. Cloud overages run $1.50 per extra 25k API requests. Native MCP is still in development; today's options are community plugins.
- Wiring: npx create-strapi@latest
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/strapi

## Keystatic (keystatic)
- URL: https://keystatic.com
- Category: CMS & content infrastructure
- Cost: free — Free and MIT-licensed with no seat limits. Keystatic Cloud is an optional free add-on for GitHub auth and image handling.
- What it is: Keystatic from Thinkmill is an MIT-licensed CMS that makes Markdown, MDX, JSON and YAML in your repository editable through a React admin UI. There is no database. It runs against the local filesystem in development and against GitHub in production.
- Why builders pick it: Zero cost and zero vendor lock-in — the schema is a TypeScript file and content stays as plain files you can grep and diff. Ships integrations for Next.js, Astro and Remix.
- Trap: Smaller community and slower release cadence than Tina or Payload. No official MCP server, no built-in scheduling, and no multi-stage editorial workflow or approval chain.
- Wiring: npm create @keystatic@latest
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/keystatic

## MDX (mdx)
- URL: https://mdxjs.com
- Category: CMS & content infrastructure
- Cost: free — Free, MIT-licensed open format.
- What it is: MDX is a format that lets you write JSX inside Markdown, so an article can embed live React components — charts, interactive figures, embeds — between paragraphs of prose. It compiles to a React component and is supported by Vite, Next.js and Astro.
- Why builders pick it: The reason a technical publication can ship an interactive explainer inside an ordinary article. Every file-based tool here — Tina, Keystatic, Outstatic, Velite — speaks it natively.
- Trap: MDX is a compiler, not a CMS: no editor, no media library, no workflow, no roles. Non-technical writers will not author raw MDX, so pair it with an editing layer.
- Wiring: npm i @mdx-js/rollup
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/mdx

## Quick read

- Free with no card: Keystatic, MDX.

## Rules
1. Prefer the free tier when no budget was stated, and say what the ceiling is.
2. Read the full dossier before integrating.
3. Fetch /api/public/models before writing any AI model ID.

Agents can fetch the same thing: GET /api/public/compare?slugs=strapi,keystatic,mdx