Strapi is the most-starred open-source headless CMS on GitHub among the ones I checked. It is a Node.js CMS that you host yourself or run on Strapi Cloud, and it generates REST and GraphQL
APIs from the content types you define. A French company founded in 2015 builds it, and it competes with Payload, Directus, Sanity, Storyblok and Contentful.
Strapi publishes a yearly review with some numbers, but it does not publish revenue, a current download total or a clear customer count.
Strapi Statistics
| Metric | Figure | Date | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | About 73,100 | Oct 20, 2026 | GitHub |
| GitHub forks | About 9,900 | Oct 20, 2026 | GitHub |
npm downloads of @strapi/strapi, last 30 days | 878,512 | Sep 19 to Oct 18, 2026 | npm downloads API |
| Same window a year earlier | 646,964 | Sep 19 to Oct 18, 2025 | npm downloads API |
| Customers (company claim) | “3K+” | Oct 2026, undated | Strapi homepage |
| Total funding | $45 million (Series B $31M) | Jun 2022 | TFIR; CMS Critic |
| Strapi 5 general availability | Sep 23, 2024 | 2024 | Strapi year in review |
| Share of known-CMS websites | Under 0.1% | Oct 2026 | W3Techs |
| G2 rating | 4.5 out of 5 from 206 reviews | Page modified Sep 28, 2026 | G2 |
| Starting paid price | Self-hosted $45 a month; Cloud $35 a month | Oct 20, 2026 | Strapi pricing pages |
Strapi GitHub and open-source activity
- Stars and forks: The
strapi/strapirepository showed 73.1k stars and 9.9k forks on October 20, 2026. Strapi’s own reviews give earlier points: 65k stars (January 10, 2025, covering 2024) and 70K+ stars (January 13, 2026, covering 2025). That is roughly 8,000 more stars in about 21 months by those two sources. - 2025 activity (Strapi’s year in review): About 36,000 commits and 9,400 merged pull requests. The scope of those counts is not explained, so I would attribute them to Strapi.
- Recent activity (IdeaProof, data collected August 2026): 1,407 commits in the last 12 months, 505 in the last three months, and a latest release dated August 12, 2026. That page contradicts itself on “days since last commit,” so confirm on GitHub before quoting.
- License: The repository’s license file says code outside the
ee/directory is under the MIT Expat License. Code in theee/(Enterprise Edition) directory has a different license, and using it means you are using the Enterprise Edition. Strapi’s pricing page describes the free Community plan as “MIT open source.” - Contributors and dependents: GitHub’s page showed neither count when I loaded it.
- Community: Strapi’s 2024 review reported 22.6k Discord members, 200+ community contributions in 2024 and 40+ new plugins, with 200+ plugins in the marketplace. I found no newer figures.
Strapi Downloads and adoption
I pulled these from npm’s public downloads API on October 20, 2026, for the core @strapi/strapi package.
| Period | Downloads |
|---|---|
| Sep 19 to Oct 18, 2026 | 878,512 |
| Sep 19 to Oct 18, 2025 | 646,964 |
| Oct 19, 2025 to Oct 18, 2026 | 8,756,568 |
| Oct 19, 2024 to Oct 18, 2025 | 7,581,883 |
- Growth: About 36% for the latest 30 days against the same window a year earlier, and about 15% for the latest 12 months against the 12 months before. I calculated both from the counts above.
- Strapi’s own figure: Its 2024 review cites 5.5 million npm downloads, with no stated period or package. It does not match the 12-month counts above, so I would not mix them.
- Caveat: npm counts include automated installs and CI builds, so they overstate human users. They also fall short of the number of Strapi projects, because many teams install through other packages or templates.
Strapi Customers
- “Trusted by 3K+ customers” appears on Strapi’s homepage in the enterprise section (read October 20, 2026, undated). The 2025 year in review says “thousands,” and lists Adidas, Airbus, Amazon, Cisco, Tesco, Toyota, PostHog and CodeRabbit.
- Earlier claim: At its June 2022 Series B, Strapi said more than 25,000 companies used it. That number likely counts companies using the open-source version, while “3K+ customers” likely counts a narrower group. Neither page defines its term, so the two do not show a decline.
- Partners: Strapi added five enterprise partners in 2025 (Notum, QBurst, Alloy, TenTwenty and Thrillworks), per its year in review.
Logos show who has used the product in some form. They do not show how deeply or how many sites.
Strapi Funding and company
- Series B: $31 million led by CRV, with Flex Capital and Index Ventures. Angels included Nat Friedman, Nicolas Dessaigne and Mathias Biilmann Christensen (Netlify’s CEO). TFIR published the news on June 27, 2022. CMS Critic’s copy of the story is dated August 3, 2023, which looks like a later republish, so I used the June 2022 date.
- Total raised: $45 million at that point (TFIR and CMS Critic). I found no later round, but I did not check regulatory filings.
- Origin: Founded in 2015 by Pierre Burgy and two co-founders, per Strapi’s 2024 review. Strapi turned 10 in 2025.
- Revenue and headcount: Not disclosed in anything I read.
Strapi Product milestones
- June 2024: SOC 2 Type 2 certification.
- September 23, 2024: Strapi 5 reached general availability.
- December 2024: A Growth plan at $15 per seat per month was introduced (2024 review). That price has since changed (see pricing).
- May 13, 2025: First in-person StrapiConf, after three online editions.
- 2026: Strapi AI credits appear in paid self-hosted plans, and the homepage banner says Strapi’s MCP server is generally available (undated). The year in review had called the MCP server a prototype in 2025.
- Cloud free plan: The 2025 review said Strapi Cloud launched a free plan, but an editor’s note added in August 2026 says Cloud no longer offers a free plan or trial.
Strapi Pricing
Strapi sells two kinds of plans: self-hosted licenses and Strapi Cloud. Both were read on October 20, 2026.
Self-hosted
| Plan | Price | What’s included |
|---|---|---|
| Community | Free | MIT open source, unlimited CMS users, role-based access, REST and GraphQL APIs, community support |
| Growth | $45 a month | 3 users included, $15 a month per extra user; Strapi AI (1,000 credits a month), Live Preview, Releases, 14-day Content History, basic support; SSO add-on $150 a month plus $50 a month per user |
| Enterprise | Custom | Growth features plus SSO, Review Workflows, Audit Logs, bring-your-own AI, SOC 2 report, standard support |
Strapi Cloud (billed per project)
| Plan | Monthly price | API requests a month | Asset storage | Asset bandwidth a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $35 | 100,000 | 50 GB | 50 GB |
| Pro | $90 | 1,000,000 | 250 GB | 500 GB |
| Business | $450 | 10,000,000 | 1,000 GB | 1,000 GB |
- Annual billing can save “up to 17%,” but the page did not list annual prices for the plans.
- Overages: Extra API requests cost $1.50 per 25,000, extra storage $0.60 per GB and extra bandwidth $30 per 100 GB.
- Entries and database storage are unlimited, subject to a fair use policy.
- Price history: Strapi’s January 2026 review quotes a Cloud Essential plan at $15 a month billed annually and a Pro plan at $99, which differs from today’s page. That suggests plans changed in 2026, so confirm before you quote.
Self-hosting is free, but you still pay for the server, the database and the developer hours. For one market’s rates, see our website development cost in India guide.
Strapi Market share
- W3Techs, October 2026: Strapi is used by less than 0.1% of websites whose CMS W3Techs can detect. W3Techs detects platforms from page code, and headless sites hide many of those signals, so it undercounts headless products.
- I found no second tracker I could verify.
Ratings
- G2: 4.5 out of 5 from 206 reviews (page last modified September 28, 2026; I could not see individual review dates).
- Strapi’s homepage did not show a G2 badge when I loaded it, so I did not check any badge claim.
How Strapi compares on the numbers?
| Strapi | Payload | Sanity | Storyblok | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars (Oct 20, 2026) | About 73,100 | About 45,300 | About 6,300 | Not comparable (archived info repo) |
| Latest funding | $45M total (2022) | Acquired by Figma (Jun 2025) | $85M Series C (May 2025) | $80M Series C (Jun 2024) |
| W3Techs share, Oct 2026 | Under 0.1% | Not checked | Under 0.1% | Under 0.1% |
| G2 | 4.5 from 206 reviews | Not checked | 4.7 from 926 reviews | 4.5 from 596 reviews |
Stars measure interest in a code repository, not customers, and SaaS products like Sanity keep most of their code private, so stars compare poorly across them. I also did not compare npm downloads across brands, because each company ships different packages.
For the wider market picture, see our headless CMS statistics article. If you are planning an API-driven build and want a developer-led team, our custom web application development service covers that kind of project.
What the Strapi numbers suggest?
- Strapi leads open-source headless CMS on GitHub interest. It has about 73,000 stars, well ahead of Payload’s roughly 45,000.
- Downloads are growing, but more slowly than some rivals. Strapi’s 12-month downloads rose about 15%, while Sanity’s rose about 230% on the same measure in my earlier Sanity data.
- Customer numbers are vague. “3K+ customers” and “25,000 companies” count different things, and neither has a method.
- Funding has been quiet. I found no round after 2022, and Strapi discloses no revenue.
- Pricing is moving. Strapi Cloud’s free plan is gone, and plan prices differ from the January 2026 review.
FAQ
How many GitHub stars does Strapi have?
About 73,100 on October 20, 2026, with about 9,900 forks.
Is Strapi free?
The Community edition is free and MIT-licensed, apart from code in the ee/ directory, which has a different license. Paid self-hosted plans start at $45 a month, and Strapi Cloud starts at $35 a month.
How much funding has Strapi raised?
$45 million in total as of its $31 million Series B in June 2022, led by CRV. I found no later round.
How many customers does Strapi have?
Strapi’s homepage says “3K+ customers.” In 2022 it said more than 25,000 companies used Strapi. The two numbers count different things.
How many people download Strapi?
The @strapi/strapi package had 878,512 npm downloads from September 19 to October 18, 2026, about 36% more than the same window a year earlier. Those counts include automated installs.
What is Strapi’s market share?
Under 0.1% of websites with a known CMS, per W3Techs in October 2026. That tool undercounts headless sites.
When was Strapi 5 released?
Strapi 5 reached general availability on September 23, 2024, per Strapi’s 2024 review.
Sources
- GitHub: strapi/strapi (Oct 20, 2026) and its license file
- npm downloads API for
@strapi/strapi, Sep 19 to Oct 18, 2026, 2025, Oct 2025 to Oct 2026 and Oct 2024 to Oct 2025 (queried Oct 20, 2026) - Strapi: Bye 2025, Hello 2026, a year in review (Jan 13, 2026, updated Sep 25, 2026; vendor source)
- Strapi: Bye 2024, Hello 2025, a year in review (Jan 10, 2025; vendor source)
- Strapi homepage, self-hosted pricing and Cloud pricing (read Oct 20, 2026)
- TFIR: Strapi raises $31M Series B (Jun 27, 2022) and CMS Critic’s copy (page dated Aug 3, 2023)
- IdeaProof: Strapi project data (GitHub data collected Aug 2026; internal inconsistencies)
- W3Techs: Strapi usage statistics (October 2026)
- G2: Strapi reviews (page modified Sep 28, 2026)
