Payload

Payload is a CMS that lives inside your Next.js app, giving you full control over content management. Define your content schema in TypeScript, get a full admin panel, REST and GraphQL APIs, auth, access control, and file uploads. It's a CMS, application framework, and admin panel in one.

Fully free under MIT. No enterprise tier, no gated features, no cloud-only limitations. The entire feature set ships at $0. Payload makes money through Payload Cloud (managed hosting) but the self-hosted version is identical.

Self-hosting means running a Next.js app with a database (Postgres or MongoDB). If you're already deploying Next.js apps, you already know how to deploy Payload. Ops burden is trivial: it's just your app. Solo developers: this is the best free CMS for Next.js projects right now. Full-featured, MIT licensed, no gotchas. Small teams: the admin panel and access control are production-ready out of the box. Growing teams: Payload scales with your Next.js app.

The catch: Payload is Next.js-specific. If you're not using Next.js, look at Strapi or another headless CMS. Also, being embedded in your app means your CMS and application share the same deployment, this is a feature for small teams and a concern for large ones that want separation.