Strapi is a great open-source headless CMS. pylo gives your whole team one hosted backend: data model, permissions, flows, admin UI, forms and analytics, with schema changes live in production and hosting in Germany.

TL;DR

Strapi is a Node.js headless CMS. You define content types in the Content-Type Builder, Strapi generates a REST API and, with a plugin, GraphQL, and editors work in the admin panel. Business logic lives in controllers, services and lifecycle hooks you write in code, and schema changes are a development task followed by a redeploy. pylo is a hosted backend platform where data model, permissions, flows, admin UI, forms, events and AI access are one system, and schema changes go live without a deploy. If you run a website or app with editorial content, Strapi is a strong choice. If the data in your system is orders, customers, devices or bookings that processes act on, aside from pure content-data, pylo is the better fit.

What is pylo?

pylo is a Backend-as-a-Service platform from Germany that you can use to build the operating system for your company. You model entities, fields and relations in the admin panel or through the API, and pylo generates a typed GraphQL API instantly. The same permission model governs that API, the admin UI, forms, flows and the MCP server. pylo flows run business processes and automations on top of your own data model and connect to the tools you already use. With pylo you build apps, automations and products on one coherent data base across your whole team.

What is Strapi?

Strapi is an open-source headless CMS written in Node.js and TypeScript. It runs on PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB or SQLite. You build content types, components and dynamic zones in the Content-Type Builder, and Strapi generates REST endpoints; a GraphQL plugin adds queries and mutations. The admin panel gives editors a Content Manager with drafts, publishing and internationalization. The Community Edition is MIT-licensed and free to self-host with unlimited seats. Strapi, Inc. also sells a self-hosted Growth plan, Enterprise licenses and Strapi Cloud for managed hosting.

At a glance

Data modelling without a deploy

Strapi's Content-Type Builder is pleasant to use, with relations, reusable components and dynamic zones that are ideal for page layouts. It only runs in development mode, though, because it writes the schema to files on disk and restarts the Node process, so every new field goes through local development, a commit and a deploy before it exists in production.

In pylo you add an entity, a field or a relation in the admin panel and the typed GraphQL API updates at once, in production, without a migration or redeploy. Field types include relations, enums, JSON, public or private files, rich text, dates, booleans and number/text formatters, with validation built in. You filter across relations and group aggregations by any field, even across deeply nested data structures. You can also model page content with the pylo data model, though it is not as opinionated for this type of content.

Permissions that follow the data everywhere

Strapi has two permission systems. The Users & Permissions plugin controls which roles may call which API actions, and the admin RBAC controls what editors can do in the panel, with field-level checkboxes and conditions such as "only entries I created". Rules on individual records for API users are usually custom policies or middleware you write.

pylo has one permission model. It separates tenants at the row level, and inside a tenant any entity can act as the requester (ARO) and any entity as the requested object (ACO), with hierarchies and field-level rules. Every path into the data is GraphQL, so the same rules apply to the API, the admin panel, forms, flows and MCP.

pylo flows compared to Strapi's code-based logic

In Strapi, logic lives in code: controllers, services, policies, middlewares and lifecycle hooks, plus cron tasks in a config file. That's flexible for a Node team, and every change is a deploy. Webhooks fire on entry and media events. Review workflows with stages for approvals are an Enterprise feature.

In pylo you build automations in a visual workflow engine called pylo flows. Any event in pylo can start a flow, and so can cron schedules and incoming webhooks. Flows include retries, custom rate limiting, error handling and full event logs, and everything is statically typed. pylo ships integrations for email sending and a growing set of third-party systems, and you write your own flow actions in TypeScript. They slot into the builder like the built-in ones, without hosting or redeploying anything.

Admin UI and forms

For editorial work, Strapi is ahead of pylo. The Content Manager has drafts and publishing, unlimited locales, live preview and releases that publish many entries at once. What it doesn't have is a way to collect data from customers or partners: forms are something you build in your own frontend.

pylo's admin UI is built for operations work: you compose list and detail views from predefined components, decide who sees what and show or hide fields depending on a record's state. The pylo form builder maps forms directly to your entities, including relations, with public or authenticated access, hidden fields, conditional rendering and submission limits per form or per user.

Events and dashboards built in with pylo analytics

Strapi keeps content history for 14 days on the Growth plan and 30 to 90 days on Enterprise. Audit logs are Enterprise only, with 90 days retention by default. Reporting on business data is a separate tool.

In pylo, every create, update and delete emits an event with the full before and after state, which you can enrich with your own event data through the API. On top of your events and regular pylo data you build dashboards next to your data and workflows. Event data and the change history of your entities are kept for as long as your account exists, on every plan.

AI and MCP with guardrails

Strapi 5 ships a built-in MCP server that can create, update, publish and delete entries, scoped by the permissions of the admin token. Writes apply directly, without an approval step. Strapi AI on the Growth plan helps with content types, translations and alt texts.

pylo's MCP server is made for developers who use agentic coding and for team members who want to analyze their data. The AI gets exactly the connected user's read permissions, nothing else. pylo never applies an AI's writes directly: they arrive as proposals that a human accepts or declines inside pylo, whatever AI client someone uses.

File handling

Strapi's media library creates responsive image sizes, optimizes uploads and connects to S3 or Cloudinary, and Strapi Cloud adds a global CDN.

pylo stores any file type in EU-hosted object storage with public or private links, a file library and no file size limit. You can build file processing as custom pylo flow actions.

Agencies and multi-tenant work

Agencies typically run one Strapi project per client, either on their own servers or as a Strapi Cloud project, and transfer ownership at handover. Every instance needs updates, and the step from v4 to v5 was a major migration for many teams.

With pylo, agencies run many client workspaces from one user account. Each workspace is its own tenant separated by RLS, and one login switches between them, with unlimited users on every plan and nothing to update.

Pricing

For a content API, Strapi is cheap to start with, and free if you host it yourself. Features like review workflows, audit logs and SSO move you to Enterprise, and hosting, updates and backups are your work unless you use Strapi Cloud.

pylo's price already includes hosting, flows, the admin UI, forms, analytics and personal onboarding. Every plan has every feature and unlimited users. Plans differ only in included usage for records, flow actions and file storage.

Hosting, compliance and reliability

All pylo content data, data models and databases live in data centres in Germany. Our subprocessor list is public and names every non-EU parent company openly. A GDPR data processing agreement is part of the terms, and we never use customer data to train AI models. Paid plans come with a 99.5% availability SLA, hourly encrypted backups kept for 30 days at a separate German location, and support from the team that builds the product.

Strapi, Inc. is a US-registered company with French roots. Strapi Cloud offers US, Europe and Asia regions, fixed when you create a project, and Strapi states SOC 2 certification and GDPR compliance. Backups run weekly on Pro and daily on Business, and an uptime SLA of 99.9% starts at the Business plan. If you self-host, hosting, backups and compliance are in your hands.

Where Strapi is the better choice

We would rather tell you than have you find out later:

• Strapi is MIT open source and free to self-host with unlimited seats. pylo can't be self-hosted.

• It is a mature editorial CMS with drafts, releases, live preview, unlimited locales, components and dynamic zones.

• You can change anything in code, and there is a large plugin ecosystem and community.

• Your schema lives in files in git. pylo has no schema versioning yet.

If you build websites and need a content editing experience only, Strapi is excellent. pylo is for teams whose backend runs business processes, not pages.

Where pylo is a great Strapi alternative

We think these are the main reasons to pick pylo over Strapi:

• Nothing to operate. No Node server, database, upgrades or backups to run yourself, and no major-version migrations.

• Schema changes without a deploy. Add an entity or field in production and the typed GraphQL API is live immediately.

• Permissions that hold everywhere. API, admin panel, forms, flows and MCP all go through the same permission layer, with hierarchies and field-level rules.

• Business logic without code deployments. Event, cron and webhook triggers with retries, rate limiting, typed actions and full logs, and custom actions in plain TypeScript that you don't host yourself.

• Forms built in. Public or authenticated forms mapped directly to your entities, with conditional fields and submission limits.

• Analytics you don't have to instrument. pylo records every change as an event with before and after state, on every plan.

• AI access that's safe for production. MCP runs with the connected user's exact read permissions, and every write goes through human approval in pylo as a proposal.

• No per-seat or per-request pricing. Unlimited users and API requests and all features on every plan. Only three meters are billed: flow actions, records, and file storage/traffic.

• German hosting from a German company. pylo hosts user data in Germany and the DPA is part of the terms. You get a 99.5% SLA from the first paid plan, hourly backups with 30-day retention, and personal support from the people who build the product.

FAQs - Questions and answers about pylo

• Can I use pylo as a headless CMS? Yes, for structured content with rich text, files and relations. If you need drafts, releases and live previews, Strapi is the better tool, and some teams use both.

• Does pylo have a REST API? No, pylo's API is GraphQL, generated from your schema, plus incoming and outgoing webhooks.

• Is pylo open source? No, but you can export all data at any time as CSV or JSON or through the API. The data models, flow definitions and generated SDK code are yours to keep, even after you leave.

• Can I self-host pylo? No, but if you need specific hosting options, we can discuss them as part of the Enterprise plan.

• Does pylo scale? Yes, production workspaces of our customers already run with millions of records today.

• Where exactly is my data? Content data is in data centres in Germany and backups are kept at a different German location.

• Can I get access now? pylo is currently in private beta. Request access and we will set up your first entities with you on a call and onboard you personally for your first project.