Sanity CMS - why and how to use the market's #1 content platform

We are free to design and develop the editor interface in the same way that we do with the user-facing web application. Each instance of the "Sanity Studio" (where the content work is done) is unique and custom-made for each client we work with. The flexibility opens up a whole new world when it comes to developing engaging editorial experiences and workflows.

In 2024 Sanity introduced "Presentation". It allows the editor to split the Sanity Studio into a preview on one side and the content editing panel on the other, and then click any content on the website preview to open up the correct field to edit that content. Read more about Sanity Presentation and see a demo video in this article.

We develop super-fast and user-friendly websites when we combine Sanity with Next.js (modern React framework) hosted with Vercel. Nothing kills sales faster than a slow site, especially on mobile. Google: 53% of mobile users abandon sites that take over 3 seconds to load.

The above is a performance review using Lighthouse while rounding off the development of Manymore.com.

Sanity has a free plan including 3 editors and a certain quota of use. The pricing structure is relatively complex to decode as the price depends on a lot of variables linked to the usage. Here's an attempt to simplify and exemplify:

• FREE: Somewhere between 150,000 - 250,000 page views pr month (depending on the size/content of the pages).
• FREE: Unlimited administrators
• $3 pr 25,000 page views for usage over the above quota.
• $15 / month pr extra editor
• The next level after the Free plan is the Team plan at $99 / month which includes 10 editors and about 4 x the usage quote.

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With a headless CMS like Sanity, the content is structured and stored separately from the website presentation. It can be used across websites, apps, newsletters, and more. You can also save a lot of effort when it's time to restructure or redesign your website, as the content can live on in Sanity for multiple iterations of your website.

Sanity really shines in organizations with several editors working with different content at the same time. The level of control and the usability of version control in the editor is in a class of their own.

To take the editorial flow to the next level, Sanity offers custom editorial workflows where we can build out Trello-style "kanban" boards where editors can move content along between phases in the editorial workflow.

All documents (what we call pages and any other piece of content in Sanity) can be edited and published individually. Editors can be assigned custom roles with custom permissions to assure that content is only published after it has been reviewed and approved.

Sanity handles images really well. Both on the website with lightweight images in the right sizes pr device and also in the Sanity Studio where editors can set a hotspot and crop while previewing different crops.

We can integrate Sanity with just about any system that allows integration. Here are a few examples of how custom integrations we have developed to exchange data between Sanity and other platforms:

• Mailchimp integration to compose and send newsletters with related articles without ever leaving the Sanity Studio.
• Dashboard in Sanity Studio displaying data from Memberful (memberships/sales), Google Analytics (web usage statistics), and Mailchimp (newsletters) in a single view for a glance at how the entire content business is doing across platforms.
• Two-way integration between Hubspot and Sanity to move leads through a sales funnel.

When we design rich articles with background videos, it's crucial to serve the user high quality video in the right size for their device for the fastest possible load times.

Using the MUX plugin, the editor uploads videos directly in the Sanity Studio. The video is then uploaded to MUX in the background, which processes the video, and makes source files in different sizes for different device types automatically that we can access and display on the website.

Sanity supports content in multiple languages. Even simple low-budget websites like the non-profit Support not Protect feature the option to speak to their audience in their native language.

Sanity works well for websites of all sizes, from simple websites to enterprise solutions with content served to multiple websites and other channels in a single instance of the Sanity Studio. Successful brands like Nike, reMarkable, and Sonos build their site on Sanity - the best modern CMS.

We have used Sanity for everything from building simple MVP websites to huge solutions like when we replaced 4 separate content platforms with Sanity for a large Norwegian corporation. We have worked with most of the alternatives, we have the experience, and when it comes to Sanity we feel very safe in our choice to stay on our course.

Sanity has a pricing model that works well from the smallest website through growth. It scales well without any surprises, compared to Contentful which jumps from the free Community plan to the Team plan starting at $489/month 🤯

We are all about building good solutions which are easy to use and motivating for editors who work in Sanity on a day-to-day basis. Sanity offers the best flexibility to customize the editor interface for the individual use case. We can build and integrate other platforms into the Sanity studio itself, building it out as a very flexible web application.

In Sanity, we have better flexibility and options as to where content lives, than with a platform like Contentful where all the content is "global". In Sanity, if we have let's say a list of features in a content block, the elements in that list live only within that content block, as opposed to being "related" from a (potentially huge) content archive which is the case with Contentful. It's hard to explain it in an understandable way, but it's a thing :) 

We can choose to host Sanity CMS ourselves or have it hosted with Sanity that we normally do. The website itself we host with Vercel. We also have all the data schemas and setup for the Sanity studio in Git, giving us full control of the code and versioning as we build and customize the Sanity studio.

Sanity is a Norwegian company with an incredible team. They raised $39 million in June 2021. We have our deepest faith in the direction they're building their company, team, and product.

In our humble opinion, Sanity is the best and most flexible headless CMS out there, compared to other popular options like Contentful (that may be the closest equivalent). It's not just our opinion though; Hundreds of businesses seem to agree with us on Sanity being superior to Contentful.