AI Academy · CMS & aesthetic evaluation

Eight versions of the same site — pick what fits AI Academy and Gio.

Same brand. Same content. Same Luma checkout. Three sources of variation: which CMS holds the content, which visual language carries the front-end, and how each handoff to Gio works in practice.

What to look for. First lane: 5 native aesthetics paired with their CMS-coded vibe (Sanity = editorial, Decap = brutalist, Tina = creator-warm, Hygraph = tech-modern, Vatican = classical-institutional). Second lane: what happens when you decouple — same content, but every site wears the Hygraph aesthetic. Use both to decide CMS *and* visual direction.
live hosted on Cloudflare, demoable from any browser
local requires npm run tina:dev
signup 2-min free signup unlocks editor
new just shipped
Luma integration is live across all variants. The Rome 2026 conference page has a working Register button connected to event evt-GDra7ZyFAGVJ78N. The /events/ route on every variant embeds the AI Academy Luma calendar (cal-4IYvRHXmHNYKq7B) as a live iframe.

Five CMS options — Andrea V2 design across all of them.

Same content, same Luma checkout, same hero, same brand. Choose based on the editor experience and cost model alone.

Sanity

SaaS · 3 free seats
Sanity preview

Polished hosted studio. Notion-feel block editor. Magic-link login. Currently the production deploy at ai-academy-zbo.pages.dev.

View site →Editor

Decap

OSS · git-backed · $0 forever
Decap preview

Minimal sidebar, plain form fields. Edits commit to git. Zero ongoing cost. Auth via Netlify Identity or GitHub OAuth (~2-3h setup).

View site →Editor (demo)

TinaCMS

OSS · visual inline editing
Tina preview

Killer feature: click any text on the rendered page to edit in place. Closest to "Bolt-feel". Run `npm run tina:dev` to demo locally.

View site →Editor (local)

Hygraph

SaaS · 10 free seats
Hygraph preview

Sanity-like form editor in dark mode. Most generous free tier (10 editor seats). GraphQL-first programmatic API.

View site →Sign up

Andrea V2 (canonical)

Source of truth · Sanity backed
Andrea V2 preview

The exact tokens from Andrea's design-system.html, ported to our production stack. Reference for what every variant aims to look like.

View site →

What the editor actually feels like

The CMS choice is the editor choice. Below: each editor's first-impression character, with a link to open the real thing (or sign up). The screenshots show login or loading states for the SaaS options — the live editor is one click away.

End-user feature matrix

For Gio writing daily, for Tom doing copy review, for Justine managing access. Sixteen things that matter to the editor — not to the developer.

Feature Sanity Decap Tina Hygraph
Login methodMagic-link email or GoogleGitHub OAuth or Netlify IdentityMagic-link (Cloud) or self-host authEmail / Google / GitHub
Free editor seats3Unlimited2 (Cloud) · ∞ (self-host)10
Writing surfaceNotion-style block editorForm + markdown editorVisual inline + formForm + rich text editor
Image uploadDrag → Sanity CDNDrag → git repo (bloats over time)Drag → repo or external CDNDrag → Hygraph CDN
Live preview of real site$99/mo tier onlyMarkdown preview onlyBuilt-in (visual mode)Doc-by-doc only
Version historySelf-service in UIGit only — needs devGit only — needs devSelf-service in UI
AutosaveYesNo — manual saveYesYes
Mobile-friendly editorYesOKOKYes
Where content livesSanity cloud (theirs)Git repo (yours)Git repo (yours)Hygraph cloud (theirs)
Self-hostableNoYesYes (backend)No
Open sourceStudio frontend onlyFully OSS (MIT)Fully OSS (Apache 2)No
Programmatic API (read)GROQ + RESTRead .md filesGraphQLGraphQL
Programmatic API (write)REST + tokenGitHub APIGraphQL mutationsGraphQL mutations
Migration cost away fromNDJSON exportZero — files are yoursZero — files are yoursGraphQL export
Yearly cost at current scale$0 (shared seat)$0 forever$0 self-host / $348 Cloud Starter$0 (Hobby tier)
PSM ongoing maintenanceNoneNone (CMS) + 2-3h auth setup~2-3h/mo if self-hosted backendNone