# CMS Brew vs TinaCMS, compared honestly.

> Tina makes a React site editable in place, for editors who work in it often. CMS Brew puts a rare editor in a chat instead, and keeps a review step between their change and your production site.

## Short answer

Choose TinaCMS if a content team edits your React site daily and wants in-place visual editing worth maintaining a schema for. Choose CMS Brew if you hand finished sites to clients who edit rarely: they describe changes in chat instead of learning an editor, per-field review is included rather than gated to a paid TinaCloud tier, and nothing is added to the site, no schema, no data layer, no SDK.

## Why developers go looking for a TinaCMS alternative

TinaCMS is the best-known way to make a React site editable in place, and for a content team that edits every day, a visual editor is a fine fit. Handing a finished site to a client is a different situation: you define every editable field in a Tina schema, the client still has to learn the editing UI, and the editorial workflow that makes client edits reviewable sits in the paid TinaCloud tiers.

- **Clients still learn an editor:** Visual editing is still fields, blocks, and a sidebar. A client who edits twice a year relearns it every time. Chat needs no training: they say what they want changed and see it in a live preview.
- **Review is where the safety lives:** Being able to approve a client edit before it publishes is the whole point of a safe handoff. In Tina, editorial workflow is a paid TinaCloud feature built on branches and pull requests. In CMS Brew, per-field guards and the review queue are the product, included.
- **You write the schema:** Tina content models live in tina/config: every collection, field, and block, defined and maintained by you, per site. CMS Brew maps the editable content from the repository automatically, which is worth something on day one and little by day thirty; the schema is a setup cost, not the reason a handoff goes wrong.

## CMS Brew vs TinaCMS, side by side

| | CMS Brew | TinaCMS |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What the client sees | A chat. They describe the change in plain words and watch a live preview. | A visual editor with fields, blocks, and a sidebar, entered from the site. |
| Content modeling | Automatic. The repository is mapped when you connect it. | You define collections, fields, and blocks in the Tina schema. |
| Review before publish | Per-field guards decide what publishes freely and what waits for you. Included. | Editorial workflow via branches and pull requests, on paid TinaCloud plans. |
| Out-of-scope requests | Refused in the editor and escalated to you with the client's original words. | Not a concept. Anything outside the schema reaches you some other way. |
| Framework fit | Any repo that rebuilds from Git: Next.js, Astro, SvelteKit, Hugo, and more. | Strongest on React sites; visual editing is React-first. |
| Footprint in your site | Nothing added: no SDK, no script, no data layer. Edits arrive as commits. | Tina's client, data layer, and GraphQL API become part of the site. |
| Price | $39/mo for 5 sites, unlimited editors, 7-day free trial. | Open-source core; TinaCloud has a free starter tier, review workflow costs extra. |

## Where the other option wins

Where Tina wins: a content team that edits daily may prefer clicking on the page to describing a change, and Tina's open-source core is free to self-host. CMS Brew is built for the other case: the delivered client site, edited rarely, where nobody should have to relearn a UI and nothing should go live without a place for you in the loop.

- Your editors work in the site every day and genuinely prefer clicking on the page to describing a change.
- The site is React and you want the visual, in-place editing Tina is best at.
- You have already invested in the Tina schema and data layer, and they are earning their keep.
- You want to self-host everything, including the editing backend.

## How to switch from TinaCMS to CMS Brew

1. **Connect the repository** Sign in and connect the site's GitHub or GitLab repository. Content stays where Tina kept it, in your repo, so there is nothing to export. CMS Brew maps the editable text and images automatically; it does not read or need tina/config.
2. **Set your guards** Review the mapped fields and set a guard level per category: Open publishes freely, Warn asks the client to confirm, Review holds the change for you. This replaces the editorial workflow you would otherwise buy in TinaCloud.
3. **Invite the client** Send the client an invite. They sign in with Google or an emailed 6-digit code and edit by chat; there is no editing UI to teach.
4. **Remove Tina when ready** Run both during the transition; both end in Git commits. When you are done, remove the Tina client, data layer, and admin route from the site, and the site gets lighter, not heavier.

## FAQ

### What is the main difference between CMS Brew and TinaCMS?

The editing surface and who does the setup. Tina is a visual editor over a schema you define and maintain; CMS Brew is a chat over content it maps automatically from your repository. And in CMS Brew, review-before-publish and per-field guardrails are included rather than gated to a higher plan.

### Do I need to migrate content or remove Tina first?

No. Your content lives in your Git repository, and that is where CMS Brew reads and writes it. Connect the repository and it maps the editable content automatically. You can run both during a transition and remove Tina whenever you are ready.

### Does CMS Brew do visual, click-on-the-page editing?

For text, yes: the client can click the words on the live preview and retype them, and what ships is exactly what they typed. What it does not have is Tina's block composition, the fields, blocks, and sidebar for arranging a page, because an edit in CMS Brew is only ever a new value for content that already exists. Everything else is chat: they describe the change and watch it applied in the preview, which is exactly what makes rare edits easy.

### Can I control what clients can edit in CMS Brew?

Yes. Every field category has a guard level: Open publishes freely, Warn asks the client to confirm, Review sends the change to you first, and Locked hides it entirely. Structural and code fields can be tightened but never opened.

### How much does CMS Brew cost?

One plan with everything included: $39 per month covers 5 connected sites, each extra site is $10 per month, and there are no per-seat charges. It starts with a 7-day free trial.

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- [Home](https://cmsbrew.com/)
- [Features](https://cmsbrew.com/features)
- [Full product details](https://cmsbrew.com/llms-full.txt)