[!IMPORTANT]
Star this repo or keep an eye on it to follow along.
Payload is the first-ever Next.js native CMS that can install directly in your existing /app folder. It's the start of a new era for headless CMS.
Benefits over a regular CMS
It's both an app framework & headless CMS
Deploy anywhere, including serverless on Vercel for free
Combine your front+backend in the same /app folder if you want
Don't sign up for yet another SaaS - Payload is open source
Query your database in React Server Components
Both admin and backend are 100% extensible
No vendor lock-in
Never touch ancient WP code again
Build faster, never hit a roadblock
Quickstart
Before beginning to work with Payload, make sure you have all of the required software.
pnpx create-payload-app@latest
If you're new to Payload, you should start with the website template (pnpx create-payload-app@latest -t website). It shows how to do everything - including custom Rich Text blocks, on-demand revalidation, live preview, and more. It comes with a frontend built with Tailwind all in one /app folder.
One-click deployment options
You can deploy Payload serverlessly in one-click via Vercel and Cloudflare—giving everything you need without the hassle of the plumbing.
Deploy on Cloudflare
Fully self-contained — one click to deploy Payload with Workers, R2 for uploads, and D1 for a globally replicated database.
Deploy on Vercel
All-in-one on Vercel — one click to deploy Payload with a Next.js front end, Neon database, and Vercel Blob for media storage.
One-click templates
Jumpstart your next project with a ready-to-go template. These are production-ready, end-to-end solutions designed to get you to market fast. Build any kind of website, ecommerce store, blog, or portfolio — complete with a modern front end built using React Server Components and Tailwind.
We're constantly adding more templates to our Templates Directory.
If you maintain your own, add the payload-template topic to your GitHub repo so others can discover it.
If you want to add contributions to this repository, please follow the instructions in contributing.md.
📚 Examples
The Examples Directory is a great resource for learning how to setup Payload in a variety of different ways, but you can also find great examples in our blog and throughout our social media.
If you'd like to run the examples, you can use create-payload-app to create a project from one:
Payload is highly extensible and allows you to install or distribute plugins that add or remove functionality. There are both officially-supported and community-supported plugins available. If you maintain your own plugin, consider adding the payload-plugin topic to your GitHub repository for others to find.
There are lots of good conversations and resources in our Github Discussions board and our Discord Server. If you're struggling with something, chances are, someone's already solved what you're up against. :point_down:
