Capell vs Craft CMS
Choose Craft when you want a purpose-built content platform with Twig templates or GraphQL and no Laravel dependency. Keep Capell on the list when the CMS must share a Laravel application's models, Filament admin and release path.
Craft facts were read from first-party pages on 7 November 2026 and describe the product as of November 2026.
Compare Capell with Craft CMS in practice
Decide whether a second application stack is worth it.
Craft and Capell can both run a serious editorial site, so the decision rests on the stack your developers already operate. Trial one page family end to end, including preview and recovery.
Try one editorial change in each product
Judge editing, preview and recovery together.
Craft edits content through its own control panel and delivers it with Twig templates or GraphQL. Capell edits pages in Filament and leaves presentation to your Blade or Livewire templates. Ask an editor to change a page in each, then explain what became public.
Count the cost of a second stack
Include hosting, upgrades and skills in the estimate.
Craft runs as its own PHP application, with its own upgrades, plugins and hosting, so a Laravel team takes on a second framework to keep current. Capell stays inside the application you already deploy. Weigh that against Craft's mature content tooling.
Capell and Craft CMS solve different problems. Craft is a self-hosted CMS built on Yii with its own control panel. Capell is a CMS layer inside a Laravel application that already uses Filament. The honest question is which stack your team already runs.
Where Craft CMS is the clearer fit
Choose Craft when you want a purpose-built content platform with Twig templates or GraphQL and no Laravel dependency. Keep Capell on the list when the CMS must share a Laravel application's models, Filament admin and release path.
Where Capell is the clearer fit
Capell is the clearer fit when your developers already deploy a Laravel application, the admin is Filament, and pages, URLs, previews and recovery should be one maintained product model rather than a second system to operate. It is not the right choice when the team does not run Laravel or does not want to own hosting and the public frontend.
Prove the operating model
- Build the hardest representative page in both systems.
- Ask an editor to compose, preview, publish and correct a change.
- Trace a frontend change and an upgrade through testing and deployment.
- Price the editions and hosting you would really need, using the linked vendor pages.
Keep Craft CMS when those tests confirm it removes work. Consider Capell when one Filament workspace and developer-owned delivery are the simpler long-term shape.
How Capell and Craft CMS compare
Start with the row that decides your project, then test one representative page in both products. Competitor figures are a dated reading, not a quote.
Sources checked on 7 November 2026: Craft pricing, Craft Cloud, Craft home page.
Scroll horizontally to view the full table.
| Decision | Capell | Craft CMS |
|---|---|---|
| CMS placement | A CMS layer inside the Laravel application. The application's domain model, routes and admin remain primary. | A standalone CMS application built on the Yii framework. It is not a Laravel package, so content lives beside rather than inside a Laravel product. |
| Admin | Built on Filament, so editing can sit beside the application's existing Filament resources. | Craft's own control panel, translated into 25 languages on its home page. Filament is not its admin. |
| Who builds the public site | The application team owns Blade, Livewire, caching and the release path. | Templates are written in Twig, or the site is delivered headless through Craft's GraphQL API. The team still builds the frontend. |
| Hosting | You host it with the Laravel application. | Self-host any edition, or use Craft Cloud, where Team and Pro licences are included in the Cloud plan. |
| Licence and current price | Capell Foundation costs £0. Public MIT-licensed Composer packages. The paid offer is £59 GBP a year for protected downloads, updates and support. Covers one production website or application per entitlement. | Per-project licences. Solo is free for one user; Team is $279 and Pro is $399 per project, each with one year of updates, then $99 per year to keep updating. Craft Cloud starts at $120 a month for Team. Prices as shown on craftcms.com on 7 November 2026. |
Pick the product whose defaults remove work
Craft suits a team that wants a self-contained content platform. Capell suits a team that wants the CMS to live in the Laravel application it already ships.