The Fastest Headless CMS
100x faster cold starts than Strapi. Free tier vs their $99/month.
Edge-native CMS built on Cloudflare Workers. Deploy globally in seconds.
npx create-sonicjs my-app
Benchmarked Against the Competition
0-5ms
Cold Start
vs 500-2000ms (Strapi)
15-50ms
API Response
vs 1-4s typical (competitors)
300+
Edge Locations
vs 1 region (competitors)
$0
To Start
100k requests/day free
How SonicJS Compares
| Metric | SonicJS | Strapi | Payload | Directus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cold Start Time | 0-5ms | 500-2000ms | 100-300ms | 300-1000ms |
| API Response (with relations) | 15-50ms | 1-4s | 1-6s | 1.5-5s |
| Cross-Region Latency | 30-60ms | 300-800ms | 250-600ms | 300-800ms |
| Memory Under Load | Auto-scaled | 500MB-2GB | 1-13GB | 500MB-2GB |
| Dev Server Startup | 2-5s | 10-30s | 15-60s | 5-15s |
| Cloud Hosting | Free* | $99+/mo | $35+/mo | $99+/mo |
*Cloudflare free tier: 100k requests/day, 5GB D1 storage, 5M reads/day. $5/mo for higher traffic.
Competitor times are typical real-world values from GitHub issues—see our comparison blog posts for sources.
Why Developers Switch to SonicJS
😰Strapi v5 Migration Hell
"Upgrading default Strapi code and data migration alone took approximately 40 hours" with 50+ breaking changes documented.
SonicJS: Semantic versioning with no surprise breaking changes.
🐢Payload Query Performance
"Fetching 1,000 documents using payload.find takes 4 seconds vs 600ms with raw Mongoose. That's 15x slower."
SonicJS: 80-150ms for 1,000 items with built-in caching.
💸Strapi Feature Gating
Live Preview requires the $99/month Growth plan. Roles limited to 3 on free tier.
SonicJS: All features included. No paywalls. Ever.
🌍Single-Region Lock-in
Traditional CMS deploys to one region. Users in Asia hitting a US server see 200-500ms latency.
SonicJS: 300+ edge locations. Sub-50ms globally.
Lightweight Core, Powerful Plugins
🧩
Plugin Architecture
15+ core plugins included. Build your own with the fluent PluginBuilder SDK.
🤖
AI Search
RAG-powered semantic search with Cloudflare Vectorize. Natural language queries.
📝
Form Builder
Drag-and-drop form builder with Turnstile bot protection and Google Maps.
🔐
Flexible Auth
Password, OTP, and Magic Link authentication. Role-based access control built-in.
⚡
Three-Tier Cache
Memory → KV → D1 caching. 50-100x faster queries. Automatic invalidation.
📊
Content Workflow
Draft → Review → Published workflow. Version history with one-click restore.
📘
TypeScript Native
🖼️
Media Library (R2)
📈
Built-in Analytics
🛡️
Turnstile Protection
✉️
Email Templates
✍️
Rich Text Editor
📅
Scheduled Publishing
🌐
Auto Migrations
Define Schema. Get API. Deploy Globally.
Three steps to production:
Define Your Schema
// Define your data model
const schema = {
name: 'products',
fields: {
title: { type: 'string', required: true },
price: { type: 'number' },
inStock: { type: 'boolean', default: true },
category: { type: 'reference', table: 'categories' }
}
}
RESULT Instant REST API
// Auto-generated endpoints GET /api/products GET /api/products/:id POST /api/products PUT /api/products/:id DELETE /api/products/:id // With filtering, sorting, pagination GET /api/products?category=electronics&sort=-price
Get Started in 60 Seconds
Installation
# Create a new SonicJS application
npx create-sonicjs my-app
cd my-app
# Start the development server
npm run dev
# Your CMS is now running at http://localhost:8787
Visit the Quickstart guide for detailed instructions.
Stop Overpaying for Your CMS
Strapi Cloud
$99/mo
- ✗ 3 roles limit
- ✗ Preview requires paid
- ✗ Single region
Payload Cloud
$35+/mo
- ✗ 13GB RAM dev server
- ✗ 4s query times
- ✗ Single region
Contentful
$300+/mo
- ✗ Usage-based billing
- ✗ Content type limits
- ✗ $60k/yr enterprise
RECOMMENDED
SonicJS
$0-5/mo
- ✓ 100k req/day free
- ✓ All features included
- ✓ 300+ edge locations
Built For Speed-Critical Applications
🚀
Startups
Ship MVPs fast
🏢
Enterprise
Scale globally
📱
Mobile Apps
Lightning APIs
🎮
Gaming
Low latency
"SonicJS cut our API response times by 80%. We're now serving millions of requests daily without breaking a sweat."
- Engineering Team at Streamline Analytics
Ready to Go Supersonic?
Join thousands of developers building the future of web APIs
Recent Updates
📢 Latest Changes
View Full Changelog →
v2.8.0LATEST2026-01-29
✓Forms System - Comprehensive forms with Turnstile bot protection
✓Component Plugin Settings - Component-based plugin settings architecture
✓91% Test Coverage - Dynamic-field, admin-layout, cache, auth, and telemetry tests
✓Next.js 16 - Upgraded from Next 15 to Next 16.1.5
v2.7.02026-01-24
✓Fixed cache plugin routes not registering in admin UI (#461)
✓New CMS comparison blog posts (Strapi vs Directus vs SonicJS)
v2.6.02026-01-22
✓AI Search Plugin - RAG-powered intelligent search using Cloudflare Vectorize
✓Test Coverage 80% - Improved from 56% to 80% code coverage
v2.5.02026-01-15
✓Slug Auto-Generation - Auto-generates URL-friendly slugs from titles
✓Content Blocks UI - New content blocks and repeatable fields interface
Actively maintained
•3,683+ commits•7 years of developmentFull Changelog →
Resources
Community
Built with ❤️ by developers, for developers • MIT License - Free Forever