About Keystatic
Keystatic is a content management system that keeps content as Markdown, YAML, or JSON files in your own repository instead of in a database. It offers a TypeScript API and a visual editing interface, connects directly to GitHub, and does not alter your source code. It carries over ideas from Keystone, a previous project from the same team, Thinkmill. It is released under the MIT license.
It is designed for modern front-end frameworks such as Next.js, Remix, and Astro, and is meant to fit into existing developer workflows. Because content is plain files, it can be versioned, reviewed, and deployed along with the rest of a site, and editors who are not developers get a friendly interface to change it.
The README describes the project as experimental while it is being developed and points readers to keystatic.com, guides, templates, and the CLI to try it. Development of the monorepo requires Node.js 18 and pnpm. Keystatic suits developers building content-driven sites who want a lightweight CMS without running a separate backend.
Key features
- Content stored as Markdown, YAML, or JSON files
- TypeScript API for defining content
- Visual editing interface for non-developers
- Direct GitHub connection
- No database required
- Designed for Next.js, Remix, and Astro
Good fit for
- →Adding an editor interface to an Astro site
- →Git-based content for marketing sites
- Tags
- cms
- git-based
- markdown
- typescript
- astro
- nextjs
- headless-cms
- content-management
Keystatic: questions and answers
- What is Keystatic used for?
- Keystatic is a Git-based CMS from Thinkmill that stores content as Markdown, YAML, or JSON files with a TypeScript API and no database, built for Next.js, Remix, and Astro. It is a good fit for adding an editor interface to an Astro site and Git-based content for marketing sites.
- Is Keystatic open source?
- Yes. Keystatic is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at Thinkmill/keystatic and is written mainly in TypeScript.
- Is Keystatic free?
- Yes. Keystatic is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
- Can I self-host Keystatic?
- Yes. Keystatic can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
- What is Keystatic an alternative to?
- Keystatic is an open-source alternative to Prismic, Storyblok, DatoCMS and CloudCannon. Other open-source alternatives to Prismic include Pages CMS, Sveltia CMS and TinaCMS.
- Is Keystatic actively maintained?
- Yes. The most recent commit to Keystatic was on 1 October 2026. The project has 2.4k stars on GitHub.
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