Compare
Zeku vs TinaCMS.
Checked , from each project's own site and repository.
Zeku is a writing app for your Astro site, not a full-blown CMS. It handles posts and pages within your content collections, reading frontmatter and markdown, leaving the rest to whatever you already build your site with. There's no web admin portal, no user roles, and no page builder.
TinaCMS and Zeku both keep your content as Markdown in your repository. TinaCMS adds an admin to your site, with visual editing that lets you click the page to change it, and a hosted backend, Tina Cloud, for editing the live site. Zeku is an app on your computer that reads your project directly, with nothing added to the site.
Side by side
| TinaCMS | Zeku | |
|---|---|---|
| Where you write | In a browser, at an admin page on your site, locally or on the live site | In a desktop app for Windows, Mac or Linux |
| Setup | Add Tina to the project and describe your fields in tina/config.ts; for visual editing, mark the editable parts of your pages with its Astro islands | Open your project's folder |
| Your Astro schema | Not read: you describe each field again in tina/config.ts | Read from content.config.ts and the schema astro sync writes |
| Writing | Forms and a rich text editor, or clicking the rendered page | Live-preview Markdown, with callouts, tables, math and Mermaid drawn as you type |
| Seeing the page | Visual editing on the real page, once your pages are set up for it | Your real page, from your own astro dev, beside the editor, with no changes to the site |
| Publishing | Saves commit to your repository through Tina Cloud or a backend you host | Commits and pushes with your own git |
| Who can edit | The users on your plan, from any browser | Whoever has the app and the repository |
| Price | Free locally and for 2 users on Tina Cloud; then $24 per project a month, or $290 a year, for 3 users | $19 once for a founding license until October 31, then $39, with a 14-day trial |
When TinaCMS fits better
- Clients or marketers edit the site in a browser, and clicking the page they want to change is the easiest thing to teach them.
- You want hosted editing for a team, with more users and review on the paid plans.
- You're happy to describe your fields a second time and set your pages up for visual editing.
When Zeku fits better
- You're the one writing, on your own computer.
- You want the editor to know your schema as it is, and to catch what your build would reject before you publish.
- You'd rather not change your site to make it editable.
- You prefer paying once to paying per project every month, and writing offline.
Using both
Both read and write the same Markdown files in your repository, so a team can keep TinaCMS for the people who edit in a browser while the main writer uses Zeku, and git keeps them in step.
Weighing more than these two? Every Astro CMS option, compared.