Storyblok vs Acquia: A Technical Comparison

Headless CMS adoption is accelerating as organizations look for more flexibility in delivering content across websites, apps, and other emerging channels. But not all headless platforms are created equal. Some are headless by design, while others adapt existing CMS architectures to support headless delivery.

In this article, we’ll compare Storyblok and Acquia from a headless perspective, focusing on platform features, hosting, APIs, integrations, and developer experience. This is not a Drupal vs. Storyblok comparison; instead, we’re looking at how these two platforms approach headless delivery.

Delivery Models: SaaS vs. Headless PaaS

Storyblok is a SaaS headless CMS. There’s no infrastructure to manage; content is delivered via APIs, and you have complete freedom in choosing your frontend stack and hosting environment. This makes it ideal for organizations that want to adopt modern, composable architectures without vendor lock-in.

Acquia, in contrast, is a PaaS built around Drupal. It provides managed infrastructure, enterprise tooling, and supports both headless and hybrid modes. In headless mode, Drupal acts solely as a content repository. In hybrid mode, Drupal can still render pages or components alongside decoupled frontends.

MVP & Proof of Concept Readiness

Creating a proof of concept is an important step of any project. This is the step that really allows your team to become familiar with the intended product and see if it is truly a good fit for the intended use. Storyblok makes this easy with the availability of a generous free tier and quick-start tooling. Whether using the create CLI command, blueprints, or a tech guide for your favorite framework, teams can get hands-on almost instantly. At the 2025 RenderATL tech conference, a developer was able to go from sign-up to a fully functional local development environment, including a connected Visual Editor, in just 49 seconds, using the Storyblok CLI and the intuitive web app.

Acquia doest not offer a free tier, meaning there is no way to create a proof of concept within the Acquia ecosystem without initial investment.

Frontend Hosting & Deployment

With Storyblok, you’re in control. Deploy your frontend wherever it makes sense: Netlify, Vercel, AWS, etc. This flexibility lets teams adopt the latest frontend technologies, frameworks, and deployment strategies.

Acquia does provide frontend hosting options, including:

• Basic: static frontends.
• Advanced: SSR/ISR with JavaScript frameworks.
• Node.js hosting for custom setups.

You can also host Acquia frontends outside of their platform. However, using their built-in hosting provides tighter integration with preview workflows, CI/CD pipelines, and enterprise support.

Headless vs. Hybrid Modes

One of Acquia’s differentiators is its hybrid mode.

• Hybrid Mode: Drupal continues to render content traditionally while also exposing content via APIs.
• Headless Mode: Drupal serves only as a content API; all rendering happens in the decoupled frontend.

Storyblok, by design, is fully headless. Every piece of content is API-driven, and its visual editor works seamlessly on top of a headless workflow. There’s no fallback to traditional rendering, meaning the content delivery layer is always consistent and flexible.

APIs, SDKs & Starter Kits

Storyblok provides REST and GraphQL APIs, official SDKs for major frameworks (React, Vue, Svelte), and blueprints for modern frameworks like Next.js and Nuxt. Developers can quickly bootstrap projects and adopt best practices without worrying about underlying CMS constraints.

Acquia exposes JSON:API and GraphQL through Drupal modules and offers platform specific APIs for personalization and CDP integration. Their Headless Starter Kit and Next.js Starter Kit help set up decoupled frontends.

Both platforms offer modern APIs, but Storyblok’s API-first design makes headless development faster, cleaner, and more consistent. Acquia’s approach is effective but carries the overhead of adapting a traditional CMS.

Ecosystem & Integrations

Storyblok has a growing app directory with integrations for ecommerce (Shopify, BigCommerce, Shopware), personalization, DAMs, analytics, and more. Storyblok’s philosophy is composability: connect the best tools for your use case.

Acquia leans into its enterprise ecosystem. It offers a tightly integrated stack with Acquia DAM, CDP, Lift (personalization), Campaign Studio, Drupal Commerce and more. It also benefits from the broader Drupal module ecosystem.

Personalization & Customer Data

Storyblok integrates with third-party services like Optimizely or Ninetailed for personalization and customer data. This approach keeps your stack flexible and modular.

Acquia includes native personalization and a Customer Data Platform, allowing teams to manage data and deliver experiences within the Acquia ecosystem.

Developer Experience

• Storyblok: Visual Editor with real-time preview, modern framework blueprints and sdks, and full frontend freedom.
• Acquia: Drupal-centric starter kits, CI/CD pipelines, and enterprise hosting. Its hybrid mode offers editor-friendly workflows but assumes familiarity with Drupal.

Storyblok offers a modern, frontend-agnostic DX, while Acquia provides a Drupal-centered DX with enterprise guardrails.

Use Cases: Why Storyblok Stands Out

Storyblok is the go-to choice for teams who want:

• Fully headless delivery.
• Composable architectures with freedom to pick their tools and integrations.
• Maximum frontend and hosting flexibility.
• Developer-friendly APIs, SDKs, and starter kits for modern JS frameworks.

While Acquia has its strengths, Storyblok provides a more streamlined, modern path to headless content, giving teams control, speed, and flexibility that hybrid CMS approaches can’t match.

Beyond Headless: Site Studio & Community Starter Kit

While most of this comparison has focused on headless delivery, it’s worth mentioning two additional pieces of the Acquia ecosystem that shape the developer and editor experience:

• Acquia Site Studio: A low-code tool that helps marketers assemble pages and layouts quickly. It works in headless or hybrid setups, but its value is mostly for teams still relying on Drupal rendering.
• Acquia Community Starter Kit: A packaged solution for building online communities on Drupal. While not headless-first, it shows how Acquia leverages its ecosystem to accelerate enterprise use cases.

Both are strong enterprise accelerators, but they highlight that Acquia is still tied to Drupal workflows, unlike Storyblok, which treats headless as the core approach.

Storyblok’s Additional Features

Ideation Room

The Ideation Room in Storyblok introduces the idea of “sandboxes” for content editors. Editors can draft and collaborate on ideas in isolation directly within Storyblok. No need for third party text editors like Google docs or Word. This makes it so that all content is in a centralized location, and remains versioned with consistent formatting. Once ready, editors can move content from the Ideation Room into a live entry and publish it without copy-paste headaches or formatting issues.

Concept Room

The Concept Room in Storyblok helps bridge the gap between developers and content teams by offering a collaborative space to visually map out a site’s structure before implementation begins. With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, teams can align on layout, hierarchy, and reusable components without needing to dive into code. Editors and marketers can leave comments directly on nodes and sections to streamline feedback and approvals, eliminating back-and-forth across tools. It’s also a powerful way to scope new feature requests: content teams can visually explain what’s needed, where it fits, and how it connects to existing structures. This clarity helps developers quickly understand requirements and accelerates implementation by visually organizing components, the Concept Room makes it easier to spot patterns, identify opportunities for reuse, and define a more modular and maintainable content structure from the start.

Side-by-side Comparison

	Storyblok	Acquia
Native Headless CMS	✅	❌  Adapts Drupal for headless
SaaS	✅ Fully managed, no infrastructure overhead.	❌ Managed hosting and tooling around Drupal. Infrastructure is abstracted but still heavier.
Free Tier	✅	❌
Bring your own hosting	✅	✅ Yes (for headless applications only) — but Acquia hosting is encouraged
Collaborative editing - field level comments	✅	❌
Fast onboarding for developers	✅	❌ Steep Drupal learning curve
Low code/no code page builder	❌	✅

Conclusion

Both platforms support headless content delivery, but they approach it differently:

• Storyblok: Headless-native, API-first, and designed for composable architectures. Ideal for teams who want freedom, flexibility, and developer speed.
• Acquia: Headless-adapted, Drupal-dependent, and enterprise-focused. Suited for organizations already embedded in the Drupal ecosystem who want hybrid options and built-in enterprise tooling.

For modern content-driven teams looking to innovate quickly, Storyblok provides a more agile, flexible, and developer-friendly platform, without the constraints of a traditional CMS. Storyblok prioritizes composability and choice, whereas Acquia provides built-in enterprise features.

Further Resources

Migrating from Drupal to Storyblok?

Check out Migrating Drupal articles to Storyblok.