Christian Salat
Strapi for Multi-Site Setups is not simply a topic about multiple domains. What matters is how companies structure, govern, and keep multiple websites, brands, and markets operationally manageable within one shared CMS approach.
In practice, this often includes setups such as:
This is where the question is not only:
Can Strapi technically support multiple websites?
But above all:
Is Strapi the right multi-site CMS model for our content architecture, governance, and ownership structure?
Because in day-to-day operations, multi-site usually means:
Strapi provides important foundations for these kinds of requirements. The Content-type Builder forms the basis for structured content types and reusable components. Draft & Publish separates draft and live content. Preview connects the content manager with the frontend. RBAC manages roles and granular permissions in the admin panel. Review Workflows add multi-step approval processes in enterprise contexts.
For larger content ecosystems, however, it is not enough to simply activate these features. What matters is how clearly content is classified, responsibilities are separated, and rules for reuse are defined.
If you first want to evaluate Strapi as a CMS approach for your website or platform in general, our Strapi Solution is a useful starting point. If you are already thinking about implementation, governance, and operations for larger content setups, our Strapi Agency is also relevant.
Before we go deeper, it is worth taking a closer look at what Strapi for Multi-Site Setups actually means in a headless CMS context.
This guide should deliberately not become a second multilingual guide.
Multilingual content mainly answers questions such as:
Multi-site answers different questions:
How the structure remains manageable across many websites
Of course, both topics can overlap.
A multi-site setup can also be multilingual. Still, the underlying logic remains different:
This distinction matters especially in larger companies because otherwise the wrong models are built quickly:
If you are already thinking about locale structures, language versions, and international editorial workflows, the natural follow-up guide is Strapi for multilingual websites. This guide deliberately focuses on structural scale.
The most important modeling question is usually not:
How many websites do we need to support?
But rather:
Which content is shared, which is brand-specific, and which is market-specific?
A robust multi-site model typically separates four layers:
Examples:
Examples:
Examples:
Examples:
A good model therefore answers upfront:
This is where structured headless CMS models show their strengths. Strapi defines content types, relations, and components as core parts of content modeling. For multi-site, the practical takeaway is simple: reuse has to be modeled, not improvised.
When multiple websites, brands, or markets rely on the same content pool, reuse becomes one of the biggest levers.
But that only works when reuse happens in a structured way.
Strapi describes components as reusable building blocks inside content models. For larger content systems, this is often a central element in a strong Strapi solution. Combined with the Content-type Builder, components make it possible to model recurring structures that can be used across different content types. That is exactly what often matters in multi-site contexts.
Useful applications include:
The benefit is not just speed. It is also:
Still, one rule remains important:
Not everything should be modeled as a shared component.
Too much centralization creates new problems:
That is why a good multi-site model always needs both:
Once a multi-site setup grows beyond two or three websites, governance becomes the main success factor.
At that point, it is no longer enough to model content well. It also has to be clearly defined:
Strapi brings several relevant foundations for this, which are also important in Strapi Preview and Workflows for approvals, preview, and editorial operations:
Typical governance questions in multi-site setups include:
A practical base model is often:
This matters especially in multi-brand setups because otherwise two extremes emerge:
Many multi-site projects start small and grow faster than expected.
At the beginning, there may only be:
A few months later, that often turns into:
That is usually the point where it becomes obvious whether the original content model was strong enough.
The most relevant architectural questions then become:
On the backend side, what matters is that Strapi provides structured content types, components, relations, and APIs. Whether this turns into a durable operating model usually only becomes clear in the practical evaluation of a Strapi Solution. On the frontend side, what matters is how delivery is organized across routes, domains, or segments. Next.js documents internationalization as well as domain-based and segment-based routing models, plus app-router guides such as multi-tenant and multi-zones. Those frontend capabilities do not solve the CMS model, but they do expose it very clearly.
That is why one thing matters most:
Multi-site usually does not fail because delivery is impossible. It fails because the underlying structure is unclear.
Preview in Strapi is especially important in multi-site setups.
As soon as content can appear across multiple websites, brands, or market sites, it is no longer enough to see raw content data in the CMS.
The official Strapi documentation on Preview describes it as the connection between the content manager and the frontend so changes can be reviewed before publication. In multi-site contexts, that becomes a much more demanding operational requirement.
Editors need to reliably understand in preview:
Across several websites, preview is only truly reliable if teams do not have to guess which target system is currently being rendered. This is exactly where Strapi Preview and Workflows becomes especially relevant.
What matters most:
A simplified principle:
Editor updates content in Strapi
-> Preview link contains target context
-> Frontend validates secret or token
-> Correct website / brand / route is resolved
-> Draft content is loaded in that target context
-> Page renders in the real template
Without that clarity, typical operational problems arise:
Many problems do not happen because Strapi lacks features. They happen because multi-site is modeled too vaguely.
Then brands and markets lose the flexibility they need. Small adjustments become unnecessarily difficult.
Then content duplication grows, structures become inconsistent, and maintenance effort rises.
Then it becomes unclear why content may vary or where it should stay shared.
Then shared components may exist, but there are no clear rules for when they should be used.
Then too many people can change global content, or local teams are constantly blocked by unclear approvals.
Then content is reviewed in the wrong website or brand view.
Then the system becomes harder to manage with each new site.
Then brand or market logic ends up in the wrong modeling layer.
That last mistake is especially important. Because then a governance problem that could have been solved becomes a long-term structural problem.
A robust setup does not need to be maximally complex. It mainly needs to be clear, understandable, and extensible.
This model is intentionally simplified. Larger setups usually add further rules for releases, change governance, content ownership, and integrations.
Strapi for Multi-Site Setups becomes especially relevant when companies want to manage multiple websites in a structured way, not just run them technically.
Strapi is often a good fit when:
Strapi should be evaluated more carefully when:
Strapi documents the relevant foundations for data modeling, components, preview, Draft & Publish, RBAC, and Review Workflows. Whether this becomes a truly durable operating model is usually something that can only be judged through a concrete Strapi Solution evaluation or with support from a Strapi Agency. That conclusion reflects practical implementation thinking based on the documented capabilities.
If you are evaluating Strapi for larger content ecosystems, multiple brands, or multiple websites, the most relevant pages within the cluster are:
A useful reading path is often:
Strapi includes several features that matter for larger website ecosystems. What matters is not to overestimate these building blocks, but also not to evaluate them in isolation.
The Content-type Builder is used to model content types, fields, relations, and components. The documentation explicitly describes it as a tool for data modeling and component usage. Components themselves are reusable structural building blocks inside content models. For multi-site setups, this is often the basis for modeling shared modules, brand patterns, or repeatable page segments consistently.
Draft & Publish separates drafts and published content. Preview enables previewing a frontend application directly from the admin panel. RBAC controls administrator roles and granular permissions. Review Workflows add multi-step approvals for more complex editorial processes.
What matters here is this: Strapi provides the building blocks, but it does not automatically provide the multi-site operating model. The quality of the final setup depends mainly on how well the content model, governance model, and delivery logic fit together.
| Feature | Available in Strapi | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Content-type Builder | Yes | Models content types, fields, relations, and components |
| Components | Yes | Reusable building blocks for structured models |
| Draft & Publish | Yes | Separates draft and live content |
| Preview | Yes | Connects the content manager with the frontend |
| RBAC | Yes | Controls admin roles and granular permissions |
| Review Workflows | Yes | Multi-step approvals in enterprise contexts |
| REST API | Yes | Automatically generated endpoints for content types |
| Document Service API | Yes | Recommended backend API for documents, components, and more complex structures |
| Next.js Routing / i18n / Domains | Yes, in the frontend | Relevant for website, market, and domain logic in the frontend |
This guide should deliberately not become a second multilingual guide.
Multilingual content mainly answers questions such as:
Multi-site answers different questions:
How the structure remains manageable across many websites
Of course, both topics can overlap.
A multi-site setup can also be multilingual. Still, the underlying logic remains different:
This distinction matters especially in larger companies because otherwise the wrong models are built quickly:
If you are already thinking about locale structures, language versions, and international editorial workflows, the natural follow-up guide is Strapi for multilingual websites. This guide deliberately focuses on structural scale.
The most important modeling question is usually not:
How many websites do we need to support?
But rather:
Which content is shared, which is brand-specific, and which is market-specific?
A robust multi-site model typically separates four layers:
Examples:
Examples:
Examples:
Examples:
A good model therefore answers upfront:
This is where structured headless CMS models show their strengths. Strapi defines content types, relations, and components as core parts of content modeling. For multi-site, the practical takeaway is simple: reuse has to be modeled, not improvised.
When multiple websites, brands, or markets rely on the same content pool, reuse becomes one of the biggest levers.
But that only works when reuse happens in a structured way.
Strapi describes components as reusable building blocks inside content models. For larger content systems, this is often a central element in a strong Strapi solution. Combined with the Content-type Builder, components make it possible to model recurring structures that can be used across different content types. That is exactly what often matters in multi-site contexts.
Useful applications include:
The benefit is not just speed. It is also:
Still, one rule remains important:
Not everything should be modeled as a shared component.
Too much centralization creates new problems:
That is why a good multi-site model always needs both:
Once a multi-site setup grows beyond two or three websites, governance becomes the main success factor.
At that point, it is no longer enough to model content well. It also has to be clearly defined:
Strapi brings several relevant foundations for this, which are also important in Strapi Preview and Workflows for approvals, preview, and editorial operations:
Typical governance questions in multi-site setups include:
A practical base model is often:
This matters especially in multi-brand setups because otherwise two extremes emerge:
Many multi-site projects start small and grow faster than expected.
At the beginning, there may only be:
A few months later, that often turns into:
That is usually the point where it becomes obvious whether the original content model was strong enough.
The most relevant architectural questions then become:
On the backend side, what matters is that Strapi provides structured content types, components, relations, and APIs. Whether this turns into a durable operating model usually only becomes clear in the practical evaluation of a Strapi Solution. On the frontend side, what matters is how delivery is organized across routes, domains, or segments. Next.js documents internationalization as well as domain-based and segment-based routing models, plus app-router guides such as multi-tenant and multi-zones. Those frontend capabilities do not solve the CMS model, but they do expose it very clearly.
That is why one thing matters most:
Multi-site usually does not fail because delivery is impossible. It fails because the underlying structure is unclear.
Preview in Strapi is especially important in multi-site setups.
As soon as content can appear across multiple websites, brands, or market sites, it is no longer enough to see raw content data in the CMS.
The official Strapi documentation on Preview describes it as the connection between the content manager and the frontend so changes can be reviewed before publication. In multi-site contexts, that becomes a much more demanding operational requirement.
Editors need to reliably understand in preview:
Across several websites, preview is only truly reliable if teams do not have to guess which target system is currently being rendered. This is exactly where Strapi Preview and Workflows becomes especially relevant.
What matters most:
A simplified principle:
Editor updates content in Strapi
-> Preview link contains target context
-> Frontend validates secret or token
-> Correct website / brand / route is resolved
-> Draft content is loaded in that target context
-> Page renders in the real template
Without that clarity, typical operational problems arise:
A robust setup does not need to be maximally complex. It mainly needs to be clear, understandable, and extensible.
This model is intentionally simplified. Larger setups usually add further rules for releases, change governance, content ownership, and integrations.
Strapi includes several features that matter for larger website ecosystems. What matters is not to overestimate these building blocks, but also not to evaluate them in isolation.
The Content-type Builder is used to model content types, fields, relations, and components. The documentation explicitly describes it as a tool for data modeling and component usage. Components themselves are reusable structural building blocks inside content models. For multi-site setups, this is often the basis for modeling shared modules, brand patterns, or repeatable page segments consistently.
Draft & Publish separates drafts and published content. Preview enables previewing a frontend application directly from the admin panel. RBAC controls administrator roles and granular permissions. Review Workflows add multi-step approvals for more complex editorial processes.
What matters here is this: Strapi provides the building blocks, but it does not automatically provide the multi-site operating model. The quality of the final setup depends mainly on how well the content model, governance model, and delivery logic fit together.
This guide should deliberately not become a second multilingual guide.
Multilingual content mainly answers questions such as:
Multi-site answers different questions:
How the structure remains manageable across many websites
Of course, both topics can overlap.
A multi-site setup can also be multilingual. Still, the underlying logic remains different:
This distinction matters especially in larger companies because otherwise the wrong models are built quickly:
If you are already thinking about locale structures, language versions, and international editorial workflows, the natural follow-up guide is Strapi for multilingual websites. This guide deliberately focuses on structural scale.
The most important modeling question is usually not:
How many websites do we need to support?
But rather:
Which content is shared, which is brand-specific, and which is market-specific?
A robust multi-site model typically separates four layers:
Examples:
Examples:
Examples:
Examples:
A good model therefore answers upfront:
This is where structured headless CMS models show their strengths. Strapi defines content types, relations, and components as core parts of content modeling. For multi-site, the practical takeaway is simple: reuse has to be modeled, not improvised.
When multiple websites, brands, or markets rely on the same content pool, reuse becomes one of the biggest levers.
But that only works when reuse happens in a structured way.
Strapi describes components as reusable building blocks inside content models. For larger content systems, this is often a central element in a strong Strapi solution. Combined with the Content-type Builder, components make it possible to model recurring structures that can be used across different content types. That is exactly what often matters in multi-site contexts.
Useful applications include:
The benefit is not just speed. It is also:
Still, one rule remains important:
Not everything should be modeled as a shared component.
Too much centralization creates new problems:
That is why a good multi-site model always needs both:
Once a multi-site setup grows beyond two or three websites, governance becomes the main success factor.
At that point, it is no longer enough to model content well. It also has to be clearly defined:
Strapi brings several relevant foundations for this, which are also important in Strapi Preview and Workflows for approvals, preview, and editorial operations:
Typical governance questions in multi-site setups include:
A practical base model is often:
This matters especially in multi-brand setups because otherwise two extremes emerge:
Many multi-site projects start small and grow faster than expected.
At the beginning, there may only be:
A few months later, that often turns into:
That is usually the point where it becomes obvious whether the original content model was strong enough.
The most relevant architectural questions then become:
On the backend side, what matters is that Strapi provides structured content types, components, relations, and APIs. Whether this turns into a durable operating model usually only becomes clear in the practical evaluation of a Strapi Solution. On the frontend side, what matters is how delivery is organized across routes, domains, or segments. Next.js documents internationalization as well as domain-based and segment-based routing models, plus app-router guides such as multi-tenant and multi-zones. Those frontend capabilities do not solve the CMS model, but they do expose it very clearly.
That is why one thing matters most:
Multi-site usually does not fail because delivery is impossible. It fails because the underlying structure is unclear.
Preview in Strapi is especially important in multi-site setups.
As soon as content can appear across multiple websites, brands, or market sites, it is no longer enough to see raw content data in the CMS.
The official Strapi documentation on Preview describes it as the connection between the content manager and the frontend so changes can be reviewed before publication. In multi-site contexts, that becomes a much more demanding operational requirement.
Editors need to reliably understand in preview:
Across several websites, preview is only truly reliable if teams do not have to guess which target system is currently being rendered. This is exactly where Strapi Preview and Workflows becomes especially relevant.
What matters most:
A simplified principle:
Editor updates content in Strapi
-> Preview link contains target context
-> Frontend validates secret or token
-> Correct website / brand / route is resolved
-> Draft content is loaded in that target context
-> Page renders in the real template
Without that clarity, typical operational problems arise:
Many problems do not happen because Strapi lacks features. They happen because multi-site is modeled too vaguely.
Then brands and markets lose the flexibility they need. Small adjustments become unnecessarily difficult.
Then content duplication grows, structures become inconsistent, and maintenance effort rises.
Then it becomes unclear why content may vary or where it should stay shared.
Then shared components may exist, but there are no clear rules for when they should be used.
Then too many people can change global content, or local teams are constantly blocked by unclear approvals.
Then content is reviewed in the wrong website or brand view.
Then the system becomes harder to manage with each new site.
Then brand or market logic ends up in the wrong modeling layer.
That last mistake is especially important. Because then a governance problem that could have been solved becomes a long-term structural problem.
A robust setup does not need to be maximally complex. It mainly needs to be clear, understandable, and extensible.
This model is intentionally simplified. Larger setups usually add further rules for releases, change governance, content ownership, and integrations.
Strapi for Multi-Site Setups becomes especially relevant when companies want to manage multiple websites in a structured way, not just run them technically.
Strapi is often a good fit when:
Strapi should be evaluated more carefully when:
Strapi documents the relevant foundations for data modeling, components, preview, Draft & Publish, RBAC, and Review Workflows. Whether this becomes a truly durable operating model is usually something that can only be judged through a concrete Strapi Solution evaluation or with support from a Strapi Agency. That conclusion reflects practical implementation thinking based on the documented capabilities.
If you are evaluating Strapi for larger content ecosystems, multiple brands, or multiple websites, the most relevant pages within the cluster are:
A useful reading path is often:
