One content API.
Any backend.
Laika is a content API. Define your content once and serve it as a JSON:API to your editors, sites and apps. It runs on your own infrastructure, on top of the filesystem, a database, a Git repository or a content service you already use. More than 40 backends are supported.
1import { buildJsonApi } from "laikacms/storage-api";2import { allowAll } from "laikacms/json-api";3import { FileSystemStorageRepository } from "laikacms/storage-fs";45const repo = new FileSystemStorageRepository({ basePath: "./content" });6const api = buildJsonApi({ repo, authorize: allowAll });78// a JSON:API for your content that runs anywhere fetch runs9export default { fetch: api.fetch };
Open source, on your own infrastructure.
Laika puts an API in front of your content. The storage behind it is a configuration choice, so you can switch backends without rewriting your application. Everything is MIT licensed and self-hosted.
MIT licensed
The license won’t change in newer releases. Self-hosting is the default, and the source is on GitHub.
Headless
Your content lives behind an API, separate from any theme. Render it with React, Vue, Astro, a static site generator or a mobile app, all from the same source.
40+ backends
Store your content on the filesystem, object storage, a Git repository, any SQL database, MongoDB, Notion, Neo4j or IPFS. Switching backends is a one-line change.
One API for everything
Your editors, your site build and your apps use the same endpoints. There is no separate delivery API to keep in sync.
Any JavaScript runtime
The API returns a standard fetch handler, so the same code runs on Node, Bun, Deno, Cloudflare Workers and in the browser.
API-first
A JSON:API over your content. Connect Decap CMS to it, or build your own front end on the same endpoints.
Pluggable serializers
Store content as JSON, YAML, Markdown with frontmatter or raw bytes. You choose the format on disk.
Works with Decap
A git-gateway-compatible HTTP handler with OAuth2 and PKCE built in. Connect Decap CMS to Laika directly, or run the gateway yourself. All MIT.
Developed in the open
Developed on GitHub with changesets and public issues. Contributions and new adapters are welcome.
Where Laika sits.
Laika is the API layer between your content and the apps that use it. These are the tools it is most often compared with, and where Laika differs.
The enterprise SaaS standard. Polished and proven. Proprietary, priced per seat, with your content stored in their cloud.
The same API-first workflow, MIT licensed, with content in a store you own.
An open-source Studio in front of the proprietary hosted Content Lake: the editor is yours, the data layer is theirs.
The API layer is MIT as well, and it runs in front of your own database, bucket or repository.
Self-hosted open core on Node and SQL, with an Enterprise Edition and a cloud for the advanced features.
MIT licensed throughout, and it runs on more than Node: Bun, Deno, Cloudflare Workers and the browser.
MIT, code-first and Next.js-native, backed by Postgres or MongoDB. Now part of Figma.
Independent of any framework, with 40+ interchangeable backends instead of two.
The successor to Forestry: visual editing over Markdown, with the commercial TinaCloud at the centre.
Git is one of many backends, and the whole stack can be self-hosted.
An open-source, Astro-native CMS built for humans and agents.
Works with any framework: Astro, or anything else that speaks fetch.
Open Source
Several well-known projects went fully commercial and later shut down, and the teams that built on them had to migrate. A tool you build on should not change its terms after you adopt it.
Stable licensing
Every release ships under the MIT license, the same terms you adopted it under.
Self-hosted by default
Laika runs on your infrastructure with your storage. Your content stays where you put it.
Managed, if you want it
The paid service is managed infrastructure: ready-to-use backends, hosting and operations, for when you prefer not to run them yourself.