9 Disadvantages of Contentful: Real users reveal the biggest issues

Highlights

You’ll learn about the cons of Contentful:

• Rigid content modeling: Complex references make scaling difficult
• Strict API rate limits: Can hinder CI/CD, migrations and large builds
• No native visual preview: Content editors and developers lack real-time content context
• No built-in localization workflows: Requires manual setup or third-party tools
• Limited versioning & rollback: No native tools for comparing or restoring changes
• No local development workflow: Slows down testing and automation

On paper, Contentful checks many boxes for developers. It’s API-first, structured and promises flexibility at scale. But once you’re building, deploying and scaling real applications, you slowly start getting frustrated. Versioning headaches, rigid content models and painful rate limits can turn simple dev tasks into workarounds. If you've ever asked, “Why is this harder than it should be?” while working in Contentful, you're not alone. Let’s break down the disadvantages of Contentful and explore why developers are seeking Contentful alternatives, such as Contentstack. 

9 Contentful disadvantages

1. Rigid content modeling

At first, Contentful’s content model seems intuitive and user-friendly as you have to define content types, nest references and so on. However, as your business grows and you manage multiple languages, you begin to face real problems. In Contentful, you cannot define true relational models (e.g., one-to-many or many-to-many relationships). Instead, you face issues with references and arrays. When building a multi-author blog where authors belong to different teams and teams manage multiple categories, you must manually link everything via references. You cannot set relational rules or joins, making everything unmanageable as your digital content scales.

2. Rate limit on API calls

Contentful imposes high rate limits on APIs, depending on your pricing tier, which may hinder work during layered builds, migrations or CI/CD deployments. The free plan allows 100K API requests, but developers can easily exceed this limit in a multi-environment setup. Visual authoring experiences are limited, with no visual preview. Even building workarounds like request caching, throttling logic or paid add-ons is challenging. Contentful can lead to issues in deployments and automation. The absence of native visual preview, together with the limited authoring interface, adds to your overhead cost.

3. Limited visual authoring experience and no native preview

Contentful’s lack of a native visual preview and limited authoring interface creates unnecessary overhead. Content editors work in a rigid form-based UI with no real context for how content appears on the front end, which means you’re often sending requests to set up or troubleshoot preview environments. When discussing WYSIWYG layout builders, Contentful falls short due to its reliance on structured fields, rather than offering drag-and-drop zones. It's fine for structured content management APIs, but it leads to messages like, “Can you show me what this looks like?”

4. Lack of built-in localization workflows

Contentful CMS helps you use multiple languages, but there are no localization features, such as translation management, approval stages or translator assignment. Developers build or integrate these features into their workflows. Consequently, developers create their exclusive solutions through webhooks, status flags and third-party integrations, creating undue engineering complexity. 

This creates friction for multilingual teams and increases the likelihood of publishing incomplete or inconsistent content. Contentful is underpowered compared to other content management systems, such as Contentstack, which offer native workflow features and support for localization.

5. API-only nature can be limiting

The API-first approach and flexibility of Contentful come at a price. The core features are developed manually, as everything, including content creation and delivery, relies on content management APIs. It lacks support for versioning of content models, comparing changes across environments and rollbacks of updates. Developers require the assistance of external tools when they want to publish from staging to production, monitor revisions or deliver in batches. For teams managing complex websites, mobile apps or multiple platforms, this adds risk and reduces agility. 

6. No local development workflow

Contentful lacks support for local development workflows, which is frustrating for engineering teams used to working with Git-based CMS platforms or local content APIs. Since all content lives in the cloud and is accessed via API, developers cannot test or preview changes offline. There's no built-in local content store, mock API support or content sandboxing, making CI/CD pipelines more complex.

7. Limited extensibility without engineering support

Your development team will enjoy the flexibility of Contentful, but only when you develop custom code. Do you want to build your input field like a color picker or a YouTube embed? First, you have to create it in React, host it yourself and connect to the CMS manually. There is no plug-and-play and the App Marketplace is weak. This means that the non-technical users cannot move an inch without developers. Gradually, developers/IT professionals are required to address an increasing number of support inquiries and create tools to make the platform usable. Contentstack, on the other hand, is developer-friendly and offers built-in extensibility. 

8. Inconsistent developer support and documentation

While Contentful offers comprehensive documentation for basic tasks, you find outdated or fragmented documentation on advanced use cases, migration strategies and large-scale architectures. Often, developers must dig through forums, GitHub issues or engage in trial-and-error experimentation, which slows down development and increases the learning curve.

9. Not ideal for e-commerce solutions

Contentful cannot boast that it's built for e-commerce use. No native product modeling, inventory synchronization and pricing are available. To create a simple store with powerful features, you probably have to integrate several external services, such as Commerce Layer, Shopify or your PIM systems. Contentful has a high integration overhead, API rate limits and non-relational data, so it becomes a labor-intensive solution when building product-heavy websites.

Why are technical teams switching from Contentful to Contentstack?

Some of you might have heard about the positive reviews of Contentful, but most reviews overlook the reality. You’re constantly hacking your way to a working solution. Here’s why technical teams are switching to Contentstack, especially for its ease in developing custom apps:

Smarter, modular content modeling

Forget rigid content types and endless references. Contentstack is a composable content platform that utilizes “Modular Blocks” to enable fast modeling of flexible content structures, eliminating the need to build everything from scratch. 

Live preview and in-context editing

Contentstack's headless CMS provides real-time preview updates. The live preview and in-context editing give content creators real-time visibility, so developers don’t have to manually set up staging sites or answer “What will this look like?” five times a week.

Visual UI extensions that don’t require a hackathon

Do you need a custom field or workflow? Using Contentstack’s Extensions, you can build and drop them into the interface without wrangling OAuth flows or React from scratch, like in Contentful.

Transparent, usage-based pricing

Contentstack has usage-based pricing that is completely transparent. You will know what you're in for and won't be surprised by the recent restrictions. Additionally, you won't have to call a sales representative to continue with your project.

Quicker, cleaner setup of the environment

In Contentful, you configure new environments manually by copying content or using custom scripts. With Contentstack, you can easily clone an environment with only a couple of clicks. You can create staging, testing and production environments without adding additional efforts.

Built-in localization workflows

Managing multi-language content shouldn't feel like a side project. The headless architecture provides native localization workflows, fallback logic and language mapping, reducing the need for third-party integrations.

Case study: From frustration to efficiency: How Contentstack increased speed and productivity

A community platform replaced its outdated CMS Contentful with Contentstack. Contentstack offered an intuitive interface, robust support and seamless integration. With features like versioning and native multilingual support, publishing speed increased by over 75%. Overall content updates increased by 40% and productivity rose by 50%.

After using Contentstack, the Director of Content said:

“The versioning feature has been beneficial... I like how fluid it is when switching over to Spanish and then plugging everything in. Because we’re a bilingual site, the language capability is critical, and Contentstack shines in that regard.”

Read the complete case study here.

Cleaner, more efficient API responses

With Contentstack, the API provides clean, easy-to-use data, precisely what you need and nothing more. You don’t have to deal with messy layers of linked content or spend time filtering unnecessary information like you often do in Contentful.

Quick developer onboarding

Contentstack’s documentation is developer-first, and the CLI is intuitive. New developers can speed and push content within hours, not days, through trial and error.

Contentstack vs Contentful

Here’s how Contentstack outsmarts Contentful:

FAQs

Why is Contentful so expensive?

Contentful uses a tiered pay program, where key features and usage are capped by content types, customers and API calls. As a result, expenses rapidly expand as your project grows or you recruit more teams.

Is Contentful user-friendly?

Yes, it has a user-friendly interface for developers, but for non-tech-savvy users, Contentful is cluttered, extra complicated and has a steep learning curve.

What is the difference between Contentstack and Contentful?

Contentstack and Contentful are headless CMS solutions. However, Contentstack offers more built-in features, such as versioning, visual workflows and environment management for various platforms, which reduce development overhead costs.

How is Contentstack better than Contentful for developers?

Contentstack makes complex workflows simpler with fewer APIs, better environment setup, simpler versioning, localization and a preview in real-time.

Learn more

When choosing the best headless CMS, Contentstack and Contentful offer excellent capabilities, but they cater to different types of projects and teams.

Contentful is for businesses that prioritize API-first content and can invest in customization and integrations. It works for:

• Marketing websites
• Mobile apps
• Knowledge bases and internal portals
• Projects with in-house developer resources

Contentstack supports scalability, flexibility and tools that developers love without permanent workarounds, unlike Contentful. Here’s where the platform matters the most:

• Enterprise websites with complex content structures
• Multi-brand, multi-region experiences
• Omnichannel content delivery
• Projects requiring real-time preview and localization
• Agile teams that value version control and automation

Contentstack is what you need to take your business to the next level. Talk to us to know why many businesses choose Contentstack over Contentful.