Bolt.new vs Payload CMS

Prompt to full-stack app in your browser — by StackBlitz
vs. TypeScript-first open-source headless CMS — code-first, config-driven

Bolt.new ↗Payload CMS website ↗

Pricing tiers

Bolt.new

Free

1M tokens/month. 300K tokens/day cap. Public + private projects. 10MB file uploads. Hosting + unlimited DBs.

Free

Pro

$25/month. Starts at 10M tokens/month, no daily cap. No Bolt branding, 100MB uploads, custom domains, SEO support, image AI edit. Rollover tokens.

$25/mo

Teams

$30/member/month. Centralized billing, team access, private NPM registries, design system knowledge.

$30/mo

Enterprise

Custom. SSO, audit logs, dedicated account manager, 24/7 support.

Custom

Bolt.new ↗

Payload CMS

Open Source (self-host)

MIT license. Run free on any Node host. Full admin + APIs.

$0 base (usage-based)

Cloud — Standard

$35/month. 3 GB DB storage, 30 GB file storage, 40 GB bandwidth.

$35/mo

Cloud — Pro

$199/month. Higher resources + priority support.

$199/mo

Cloud — Enterprise

Custom cloud hosting with dedicated support.

Custom

Payload CMS website ↗

Free-tier quotas head-to-head

Comparing free on Bolt.new vs oss on Payload CMS.

Metric	Bolt.new	Payload CMS
No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers.

Features

Bolt.new · 14 features

Browser Terminal — Real shell in-browser. Run npm install, scripts, etc.
Deploy to Netlify — One-click deploy to Netlify.
Deploy to Vercel — One-click deploy to Vercel.
Design System Knowledge — Team plan: shared design-system context for consistent UI.
Expo Support — Build React Native/Expo apps too.
GitHub Export — Push full project to a new GitHub repo.
Image Input — Upload image/sketch → Bolt generates matching UI.
Import Existing Project — Upload an existing repo and iterate in Bolt.
Live Edit + Run — Edit code + hot reload alongside AI agent.
Private NPM Registries — Team plan: use private packages.
Prompt to App — Describe app → Bolt scaffolds + codes + runs it in the browser.
Stripe Integration — Hook up Stripe payments in-chat.
Supabase Integration — Provision + connect Supabase from chat.
WebContainer runtime — Node.js + terminal + filesystem running entirely in your browser.

Payload CMS · 18 features

Access Control — Function-based per-collection/field access rules.
Admin UI — React admin — fully customizable components + views.
Authentication — Built-in JWT + HTTP-only cookies + API keys.
Blocks — Flexible page-builder pattern via block field.
Collections — Schema-defined content types with fields, hooks, access control.
Drafts & Versions — Version every change. Autosave, drafts, scheduled publish.
Field Types — Rich field library: text, textarea, richText (Lexical), upload, relation, blocks…
Form Builder Plugin — Dynamic forms with submissions storage.
Globals — Single-instance documents (site settings, header, footer).
GraphQL API (auto) — Full schema auto-generated.
Hooks — Lifecycle hooks: beforeChange/Read/Delete, afterChange, etc.
i18n — Multi-locale field values + admin UI translations.
Live Preview — Side-by-side editor + iframe preview of Next.js site.
Local API (zero latency) — Direct in-process data access. Ideal for Next.js server components.
Multi-Tenancy Plugin — Multi-tenant content isolation via plugin.
@payloadcms/plugin-seo — Built-in SEO meta fields.
Plugins — Official + community plugins (SEO, Stripe, Form Builder, multi-tenant, etc.).
REST API (auto) — Auto-generated REST endpoints for every collection.

Developer interfaces

Kind	Bolt.new	Payload CMS
CLI	—	create-payload-app
SDK	—	@payloadcms/next (Node)
REST	—	Payload REST API
GRAPHQL	—	Payload GraphQL API
OTHER	Bolt Web App, GitHub Export, StackBlitz Sync, WebContainer runtime	Admin UI, Local API (Node.js direct)

Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Bolt.new and Payload CMS are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.

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