Contentful vs OneSignal
Enterprise headless CMS — Compose + Studio + Personalization
vs. Mobile + web push, email, SMS, and in-app messaging at consumer scale
Pricing tiers
Contentful
Free
10 users, 2 roles, 2 locales, 100K API calls/mo, 50 GB CDN, 10K records, 25 content types.
Free
Lite
$300/mo. 20 users, 3 roles, 3 locales, 1M API calls/mo, 100 GB CDN.
$300/mo
Premium
Custom. Unlimited API calls, unlimited spaces, 24/7 support, 99.99% SLA.
Custom
Personalization Add-on
Start/Core/Scale (100K/500K/1M MAUs). Custom pricing.
Custom
OneSignal
Free
Unlimited mobile push, 10K web push subs, 10K email/mo, 1 journey. GDPR compliant.
Free
Growth
$19/mo + usage. 20K email/mo included, then $1.50/1K. 3 journeys. Advanced in-app.
$19/mo
Professional
Custom. Unlimited volume, 20 journeys, CSV export, prioritized support.
Custom
Enterprise
Custom. Dedicated CSM, SLA, frequency capping, advanced permissions, HIPAA options.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Contentful vs free on OneSignal.
| Metric | Contentful | OneSignal |
|---|---|---|
| active journeys | — | 1 journeys |
| email monthly | — | 10000 emails/mo |
| mobile push | — | Unlimited subscribers |
| web push subscribers | — | 10000 subscribers |
Features
Contentful · 17 features
- AI Actions — AI content generation/translation/editing in workflow.
- App Framework — Build custom apps + extensions for the web UI.
- Compose — Visual page-building UI for editors.
- Content Delivery API — Read-only, cached, fast (CDN-backed) for published content.
- Contentful Studio — AI-assisted multi-channel composition.
- Content Management API — Full read/write for admin + authoring tools.
- Content Modeling — Rich content types with fields, references, validations.
- Environments — Branchable content workspaces (staging, preview, etc.).
- GraphQL Content API — Flexible queries with pagination, filtering, nested references.
- Images API — On-the-fly image manipulation (crop, resize, format).
- Localization — Multi-locale content with inheritance.
- Marketplace Apps — 300+ apps: Cloudinary, Shopify, BigCommerce, Optimizely, etc.
- Personalization — Content variants by audience. Acquired Ninetailed 2024.
- Scheduled Publishing — Queue entries for future publish.
- Tasks + Comments — Editorial collaboration.
- Webhooks — HTTP + transformation on publish/unpublish/archive.
- Workflows — Editorial approval + publication workflows.
OneSignal · 12 features
- A/B Testing — Split testing across push, email, in-app.
- Analytics + Cohorts — Delivery, open, click, conversion metrics + retention cohorts.
- Email — Transactional + marketing email with templates.
- Frequency Capping — Limit message frequency per user.
- In-App Messaging — In-app banners, modals, surveys, carousels triggered by events.
- Intelligent Delivery — Optimize send time per user with ML.
- Journeys — Multi-step automations with branching, delays, actions.
- Live Activities — iOS Dynamic Island + Live Activities.
- Mobile Push — iOS (APNs), Android (FCM/HMS) push notifications.
- Segments — Dynamic audience targeting by tags, location, behavior.
- SMS — Two-way SMS in 200+ countries.
- Web Push — Browser push via service workers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, Opera).
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Contentful | OneSignal |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | contentful-cli | — |
| SDK | contentful (JS client), contentful-management (Node) | OneSignal Android SDK, onesignal_flutter, OneSignal iOS SDK, @onesignal/node-onesignal, OneSignal Unity SDK, OneSignal Web SDK, react-native-onesignal |
| REST | Content Delivery API, Content Management API, Content Preview API, Images API | OneSignal REST API |
| GRAPHQL | GraphQL Content API | — |
| OTHER | Webhooks | Outbound Webhooks |
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