Best Headless CMS for Nuxt and Vue in 2026: 7 Options Compared

Nuxt has one of the best CMS module ecosystems of any framework: several vendors ship official modules with auto-imported components and composables. That makes the choice less about whether a CMS works with Nuxt and more about how your editors work and how the bill grows. This guide compares seven options for Nuxt and Vue.

We make Cosmic, so weigh our take on it accordingly. Competitor prices were checked against each vendor's pricing page on November 2, 2026, and platforms are listed alphabetically.

Quick comparison

What matters for Nuxt specifically

Fetching the Nuxt way. Whatever CMS you use, fetch inside useAsyncData or useFetch so SSR, payload hydration, and caching behave correctly. Official modules wrap this in composables like usePrismic(), useSanityQuery, or useAsyncStoryblok. With a plain SDK, you call it inside useAsyncData yourself.

Keep keys on the server. Read keys in runtimeConfig.public are visible to the browser. That is acceptable for public read-only content, but preview and write tokens belong in private runtimeConfig and server routes under server/api.

Nitro deployment targets. Nuxt deploys to Node, Vercel, Netlify, and Cloudflare. Check that the CMS SDK works in your target runtime; REST and GraphQL clients built on fetch generally do.

Vue rich text. If editors write rich text, confirm the CMS has a Vue renderer for its format, or returns HTML or Markdown you can render with Nuxt's MDC.

The options

Cosmic

• Nuxt fit: @cosmicjs/sdk inside useAsyncData, or from a Nitro server route so the read key stays private. Webhooks trigger rebuilds or cache purges on publish. Cosmic is a REST API, so it works on every Nitro target.
• Beyond content: AI agents that draft and publish content, an MCP server for Cursor and Claude Code, and imgix-powered image URLs that pair with @nuxt/image.
• Pricing (verified November 2026): Free is $0 with 1 Bucket, 2 team members, and 1,000 Objects. Builder is $99/month, Team $299/month, Business $499/month. Each plan includes a set number of team members, and additional members are $29 each per month.
• Watch for: there is no Cosmic Nuxt module, so you write the fetch composable yourself (a few lines), and there is no drag-and-drop page builder.

Directus

• Nuxt fit: the Directus JavaScript SDK in useAsyncData; community Nuxt modules exist. Directus sits on top of your own Postgres, MySQL, or SQLite database and generates APIs from it.
• Pricing: self-hosting is free for organizations under $5M in annual revenue; larger organizations need a license. Directus Cloud starts at $89/month billed yearly ($99 monthly).
• Watch for: the revenue threshold on the free self-hosted license.

Nuxt Content and Nuxt Studio

• Nuxt fit: native. Nuxt Content reads Markdown, YAML, and JSON from your repo with typed collections. Nuxt Studio, once a paid platform, is now a free, MIT-licensed, self-hosted module that lets editors change content on the production site and commit it to git.
• Pricing: free.
• Watch for: content lives in git, so publishing goes through your CI pipeline, and structured relational content or high-volume catalogs are harder than in an API-backed CMS.

Prismic

• Nuxt fit: @nuxtjs/prismic is maintained by Prismic, auto-imports the Vue components, registers a /preview route, and generates TypeScript types per slice.
• Pricing: Free includes 1 user and 4M API calls a month. Paid plans are per repository: Starter $10/month, Small $25/month, Medium $150/month, Platinum $675/month, billed annually.
• Watch for: the slice model fits page building better than deeply relational content.

Sanity

• Nuxt fit: @nuxtjs/sanity provides useSanityQuery, image and portable text components, and type generation.
• Pricing: Free includes 20 seats, 2 public datasets, and 10,000 documents. Growth is $15 per seat per month.
• Watch for: Sanity Studio is a React app configured in code, so a Vue team maintains some React for the editor.

Storyblok

• Nuxt fit: @storyblok/nuxt supports Nuxt 4 and 3.15+, auto-imports components from a /storyblok directory, and connects them to the Visual Editor with v-editable.
• Pricing: Starter is free for 1 seat. Growth is $99/month with 5 seats; Growth Plus $349/month with 15 seats.
• Watch for: the Visual Editor loads your site in an iframe, so strict Content Security Policy headers need adjusting.

Strapi

• Nuxt fit: @nuxtjs/strapi provides composables for the REST API and authentication.
• Pricing: the open source edition is free to self-host. Strapi Cloud starts at $35 per project per month (Starter), with Pro at $90 and Business at $450.
• Watch for: Strapi Cloud no longer has a free plan.

How to choose

• One or two developers editing Markdown: Nuxt Content, adding Nuxt Studio when non-developers need to edit.
• Editors build pages visually: Storyblok or Prismic.
• You already have a SQL database: Directus.
• You want to self-host an API-backed CMS: Strapi.
• You want a custom editing app and can maintain React for it: Sanity.
• You want a hosted REST API on a plan-based price, with AI agents built in: Cosmic.

Try Cosmic with Nuxt

See how Cosmic works with Nuxt and with Vue, or follow the step-by-step Nuxt 3 and Cosmic guide. For a framework-neutral overview, see best headless CMS in 2026. The Free plan needs no credit card.