Flotiq vs Hygraph: Headless CMS Guide 2025

Paulina Gawlicka
Paulina Gawlicka15 min read7 Apr 2025

Flotiq and Hygraph are both powerful headless CMS platforms built for flexibility, performance, and scalability. But depending on your team’s needs - whether you're a developer seeking seamless integration, a content team looking for intuitive tools, or a business prioritizing transparent pricing - the differences can make a big impact. In this in-depth comparison, we explore the most critical areas: developer experience, content workflows, integrations, pricing, and support. Discover how Flotiq compares to Hygraph - and why many teams choose one over the other.

Why choose Flotiq as an alternative to Hygraph?

1. Strong API foundations
Both Flotiq and Hygraph are API-first headless CMS platforms.
Flotiq offers automatically generated RESTful APIs with OpenAPI documentation and SDKs — making it fast to integrate with any frontend framework or backend service. The GraphQL API is more restricted in Flotiq than in Hygraph.
Hygraph is focused exclusively on GraphQL, which can be powerful but less familiar to some development teams.

2. Visual and flexible content modeling
Both platforms provide visual schema editors to build custom content types.
Flotiq makes it easy to define structured content with metadata, relationships, and versioning — ideal for scalable and multilingual projects.
Hygraph also allows flexible modeling but leans into GraphQL conventions that may require more upfront planning.

3. Intuitive content editing for teams
Flotiq and Hygraph both feature modern, editor-friendly interfaces.
Flotiq is designed to help content teams publish faster — with SEO-friendly extensions, easy-to-use editorial workflow, and live content preview integrated in the user interface.
No steep learning curve, and no constant dev support needed for everyday updates.

4. Typescript and Next.js support
Typescript support in Hygraph requires manual effort to setup and their Next.js integration is not as deep as the one offered by Flotiq.
Flotiq provides full-type synchronization between the CMS and your codebase to eliminate the need for manual work which is tedious and error-prone. Flotiq offers a first-class integration with Next.js with full support for Draft mode and live-previews working like a charm!

Comparing Flotiq and Hygraph: Headless CMS Capabilities

See below for a side-by-side comparison of high-level headless CMS capabilities. Scroll down for more details on features for content teams and developers.


Capability

Flotiq

Hygraph

API

REST (OpenAPI), GraphQL, JSON-ready APIs auto-generated for each content type

Mainly GraphQL, REST support & documentation are limited

Content Modeling

Visual builder, relations, metadata, geolocation, versioning

Visual schema editor, GraphQL-first model structure

Editorial Features

Clean UI, markdown/WYSIWYG, basic and custom roles, field-level permissions, drafts & publishing flow

Rich UI, collaborative features, advanced roles (higher tiers)

Deployment Models

SaaS (shared), Hybrid (private cloud), Full Enterprise (on-premise or private cloud)

SaaS only

Digital Asset Management

Built-in DAM, image optimization, CDN delivery (Cloudflare), basic video streaming

Asset uploads, basic CDN via Fastly, advanced handling via integrations

Community & Resources

Growing community, Discord, examples, tutorials, vetted development agencies

Larger ecosystem, GraphQL learning hub, official support resources

Plans & Pricing

Free forever plan, transparent pricing, custom plans available

Tiered pricing, custom quotes for enterprise

Security & Compliance

ISO 27001, GDPR, supports on-premise and private cloud deployments

Enterprise-grade features, SSO, audit logs, encryption

Support & SLA

Support available for all plans, enterprise SLAs

Priority support on higher plans, SLAs for enterprise only

Learning Curve

🚀 Fast for developers and editors — REST + visual tools

Steeper due to GraphQL-only setup

Developer Ecosystem

Certified development agencies vetted by Flotiq

Large network of GraphQL-experienced devs

User Roles & Permissions

Basic + custom roles, field-level access control

Advanced RBAC available on higher tiers

Key differences for business decision makers

Pricing Transparency and Predictability

Hygraph's Growth plan starts at $299/month or $199/month when billed annually, with key enterprise features like audit logs, scheduled publishing, and backup recovery available only in the Enterprise tier (custom pricing). For scaling teams, this can lead to unexpected costs as needs grow.

Flotiq offers a transparent pricing structure starting at $39/month or $37/month when billed annually, with advanced features like daily backups (30-day retention), audit logs, and role-based permissions already included in lower paid tiers - giving businesses more control over their budget from day one.

Business continuity

Hygraph restricts backup & restore and instant recovery to the Enterprise tier, which may not be accessible to smaller teams.

Flotiq provides automatic daily backups and data retention features starting from its Basic tier, ensuring that even early-stage or mid-sized teams benefit from operational resilience and reduced downtime risk.

Platform uptime SLA

Hygraph uptime SLA is 99.95% and only available in the Enterprise tier.


Flotiq provides a 99.9% uptime guarantee starting from the lowest-paid tier and 99.99% in higher paid tiers.

Flotiq vs Hygraph – deployment models overview

Hygraph is a cloud-only SaaS platform, which can be a limitation for industries with strict compliance needs (e.g., finance, government, healthcare).

Flotiq offers on-premise and private cloud deployment options, giving enterprises full control over infrastructure, data residency, and compliance requirements.

Feature

Flotiq

Hygraph

Shared Cloud

✅ Yes

✅ Yes

Dedicated Cloud

✅ Yes

✅ Yes

On-Premise

✅ Yes

❌ No

Custom Infrastructure & SLAs

✅ Yes

✅ Only on Enterprise

Flotiq vs Hygraph for Engineering Teams

Flotiq and Hygraph both have an extensive set of features for engineers. Hygraph will feel more comfortable for teams heavily invested into the GraphQL concept of API communication, while developers more familiar with RESTful APIs and OpenAPI or engineers who appreciate Typescript will prefer Flotiq.

Feature

Flotiq

Hygraph

Programming languages

All popular programming languages - JavaScript, Typescript, Python, PHP, .NET, Dart, Go

Popular programming languages

Typescript support

Full native support, automated typing

Manual

Frameworks

We can support any framework. Our current hero is Next.js but we’re growing the support for others as well.

Multiple frameworks supported, but not fully integrated

Native GraphQL Content APIs

Efficient and type-enriched content retrieval via GraphQL


Content retrieval and mutations

REST API with OpenAPI support

RESTful API generated based on your data model

Hygraph’s primary focus is on GraphQL

Rich Set of Developer Tools

SDKs for multiple languages

Automatically generated API documentation and code samples

Integrated API sandbox

Generated Postman collections

Typescript integration

GraphQL API playground

Global CDN and Advanced Caching

Flexible Content Modeling

Large Set of Field Types

Reusable Components

Management tools

Management CLI for on-prem deployments

Content & settings import / export tools

Management SDK

Environment Management

We support complex environment-based workflows through our space separation

Granular Permissions and Workflows

Basic roles
Custom roles
Field-level access permissions

Basic & custom roles

Extend Platform with Custom Plugins

User interface customization / extensions are possible through Flotiq Plugin framework

Business logic extension through hosted code

Webhooks and synchronous webhooks

Apps & integrations

Webhooks Configuration

Async webhooks

Synchronous webhooks

Hosted webhook code

Async webhooks only


Typescript Support in action

Flotiq

 Hygraph

Types are automatically synced with CMS. All field information, including help texts is visible in developer’s IDEs.



Dev team manually defines types, see Hygraph docs



Key Takeaways for Engineering Teams

Feature

Flotiq

Hygraph

API Type

✅ REST & OpenAPI
GraphQL available

❌ No OpenAPI support
GraphQL only

TypeScript Support

✅ Full TypeScript SDK with auto-sync

⚠️ Limited — developers must manually rewrite and sync TypeScript definitions

Next.js Integration

✅ Smooth integration, including live preview and drafts

⚠️ Basic support — requires manual setup and lacks draft/live preview tooling

Business Logic Extensions

✅ Webhooks + built-in plugin system + REST hooks

⚠️ Webhooks only (asynchronous)
Requires external apps for logic extension

Flotiq vs Hygraph for Content Teams

Hygraph may initially seem like a more friendly choice for content teams or digital marketers, but the feature by feature comparison of Hygraph and Flotiq shows that both systems provide a similar value to the end user.

Feature

Flotiq

Hygraph

Independent Content Publishing

Individual permissions to access content can be defined

Subsets of the REST API can be published

Access tokens with specific permissions for each data type

Granular Permissions

Basic roles

Custom roles

Field-level access permissions

Basic roles

Custom roles

Conditional access

Workflow

Collaboration Tools

Presence information

Versioning

Commenting

Notifications about comment events

Bulk Operations

Rich Editing Experience

Digital Asset Management built-in

✅ 

Content Versioning and Validations

Drafts and Live Previews

Localization / Multilingual

AI translations

DeepL integration

Platform Customization and Extensions

Custom UI Modifications

Key Insights  for Content Teams

Flotiq’s stronger Next.js support means faster preview cycles, reduced dev time, and smoother publishing — giving content teams more confidence and autonomy during campaigns or site updates.

Hygraph offers richer in-editor collaboration (e.g. commenting), which may help larger marketing teams align during content review cycles — though it’s offset by limited live preview capabilities.

Final Thoughts: your CMS should grow with you

Whether you prioritize clean developer workflows, faster time-to-publish for your content team, or pricing that scales with your needs - choosing the right CMS sets the foundation for long-term success.

Both systems offer a similar value for marketers and content editors. Hygraph is going to be an interesting choice for projects with larger budgets and development teams that already have experience building systems with Hygraph and GraphQL. 

For teams that prefer using RESTful APIs, whose focus is on delivery speed and code quality - Flotiq may be a better choice, because of the OpenAPI support and Typescript integration. If your frontend framework is NextJS - Flotiq's integration with Next will significantly improve your workflow.

Additionally - Flotiq offers a much greater value in terms of features critical to running a business like backups, uptime guarantees and support SLAs.

👉 Try Flotiq free today and experience how a modern headless CMS can support your team, your workflows, and your ambitions - from day one.



Share on LinkedInShare on XShare on Facebook

Frequently Asked Questions

Paulina Gawlicka

Paulina Gawlicka

Posts related to Insights

Flotiq vs Hygraph: Headless CMS Guide 2025
Insights

Flotiq vs Hygraph: Headless CMS Guide 2025

Paulina Gawlicka15 min read7 Apr 2025
Differences between DXP, PIM and Headless CMS
Insights

Differences between DXP, PIM and Headless CMS

Magdalena Sobantka10 min read31 Mar 2025
Breaking Language Barriers: Multilingual Content with Flotiq's Plugins and DeepL
Insights

Breaking Language Barriers: Multilingual Content with Flotiq's Plugins and DeepL

Kinga Knapik8 min read6 Mar 2025
Flotiq vs Hygraph: Which Headless CMS is Right for Your Team in 2025? | Flotiq Blog