Strapi

Strapi is extremely easy to setup
Simple database configuration with many choices (Mongo, Postgres, and MySQL)
Simple to modify the backend code
Getting up and running from zero to a complete API with data in as little as 10 to 20 minutes

I do think that more time needs to be spent on building a solid foundation (which the Strapi team are working on)

More time needs to be spent testing bugs for all usecases (or some automation for the frontend testing needs to be implemented and I believe that is being done right now)

While not an issue with the software itself, I do think that services like Heroku need to be put on the backburner and not pushed as heavily as Strapi is a service, Heroku and other "serverless" environments are not built to handle complex applications. At the same time more user involvment with Pull Requests are something that would greatly help development and bug fixing.

Strapi - as the name suggest - is an API builder tool which helps you to manage data that is being consumed by frontends and other apps. This functionality is done very well.
Strapi provides hooks and cycles to modify data coming in and out of it. But these need to be programmatically configured.
Good thing is the Strapi authentification layer and CDN for images.

As Strapi does not provide you with a Frontend it is hard to get the initial concept and add functionality. Every change in the Admin triggers a restart of Strapi and basically means downtime.
Sometimes the database gets vacuumed while you try to work with endpoints. This can very frustrating. Same as the responses from Strapi which include nested objects and those are hard to orientate in while consuming the data.

- The self-hosted option is simply incredible, especially for smaller companies or in our case, non-for-profit
- Easy to setup, does what you need without being complicated
- Third party integrations make Strapi an extremely flexible solution for many project types
- The API is really easy to use, from setup to a working site in mere minutes

- Documentation could be improved, especially around production deployment and a few more common use examples in the filtering/populate space ahead of the real complex examples already there e.g. relationships or depth
- A type reference to explain how to use or access for example TypeScript types for things like Rich text (blocks). Shouldn't need to find solutions outside Strapi to do this.
- This is the same for all CMSs. Cloud hosted plans for small businesses / non-for-profit / infrequently updated sites.