A conventional content management system (CMS) serves as a user-friendly tool for storing, managing, and publishing diverse content types without requiring any coding knowledge. This system can cater to a single website or multiple websites and applications. Essentially, traditional CMSs act as a bridge between a website’s front end and back end, offering a low barrier to entry.
However, in an era where businesses seek rapid scalability and seamless handling of sweeping changes without downtime, traditional CMSs are becoming outdated. Enter the headless CMS, which decouples the back end (where content and data are stored) from the front end (the website’s presentation layer). Discover the advantages of adopting this innovative approach.
WordPress, responsible for powering over 43% of the internet’s websites, is a popular choice for ecommerce. But does it make a good headless CMS platform? Traditional WordPress is renowned for its user-friendliness and integrated back end and front end. Businesses appreciate its consistent user experience, plugin, theme, and design feature selection. While this was sufficient in the early 2000s, modern businesses demand a higher level of flexibility from their CMSs.
Headless WordPress addresses this by granting developers full control. While it comes with a steeper learning curve and increased complexity, developers can scale websites and redesign the front end as needed. This headless CMS platform’s flexibility ensures a seamless experience across various devices, thanks to GraphQL’s consistent content delivery.
Storyblok is a popular choice due to its exceptional UI, designed for collaboration. With this CMS, you can:
Storyblok ranks highly on our list of the best headless CMS platforms for 2024, emphasizing efficiency and UX. In fact, some users have even created their first prototypes in just two days using Storyblok.
Contentful has earned its reputation by simplifying integration with various tech stacks as an API-first headless CMS platform. As of 2024, it holds the largest market share for headless platforms. Some benefits include:
Shopify, a well-established name in the ecommerce space, is a top choice for the best headless CMSs in 2024. It offers robust ecommerce functionality, focusing on continuous improvements and capability enhancements. Developers working with Shopify’s headless CMS benefit from a powerful back-end infrastructure capable of handling a massive user base. Here’s why headless Shopify is a great choice:
Sanity CMS stands out from other headless CMS options by positioning itself as a ‘composable content cloud.’ This means it allows users to store any form of structured data, unlike other platforms that primarily focus on text and media-based storage. In addition:
In summary, this headless CMS platform is agnostic, meaning it doesn’t enforce predefined languages or frameworks. It supports a wide range of popular tech stacks, from React to Vue.js, enabling users to start building immediately.
Directus offers a cloud version, but it can also be self-hosted, giving users more control over their hosting environment and pricing. This feature is a significant advantage for developers and enterprise clients who require more control over their systems. This means greater control over hosting and pricing, potentially lowering costs and removing rate limitations. Directus’s content editor is particularly noteworthy, as it simplifies the management of large image libraries with built-in metadata scraping capabilities.
Builder.io is an excellent choice for businesses seeking a budget-friendly headless CMS platform. Its platform focuses on its visual editor, allowing extensive A/B testing and one-click publishing. If you already have a front end, you can easily migrate and continue building on top of it, and Builder.io will seamlessly migrate with you if you decide to switch platforms.
BigCommerce, similar to Shopify, brings a powerful ecommerce back end to the table. Developers and business owners will be pleased to learn that BigCommerce collaborates with Vercel to provide Edge Network hosting, combining site generation with server-side rendering for fast and customizable experiences. As one of the best headless CMS choices for 2024, BigCommerce offers reliability and supports other CMSs, like WordPress and Contentful, as well as digital experience platforms like Bloomreach, enabling personalized customer journeys.
As a headless CMS platform, BigCommerce also allows users to create and modify multiple storefronts from the same dashboard, making it ideal for businesses with multiple brands or selling across different regions.
Each headless CMS option on our 2024 list offers unique features. Determine what your business needs to make the right choice. If you require assistance building a website tailored to your business’s needs, contact Coalition Technologies for a free strategy review. Our expert developers understand the elements required to create scalable websites and SEO strategies that can significantly increase revenue in under a year.
