Headless CMS Explained in 8 Minutes: Things You Should Know to Decide If It Suits You

Managing content in ecommerce can sometimes feel like an endless pit of problems. It’s great when you can click two buttons and publish, but when a single update requires developers, hours of waiting (in the best case), and endless explanations, you start to wonder if it’s even worth it. Yet, in today’s fast-moving ecommerce landscape, businesses don’t have the luxury of falling behind.

According to the 2024 Connectivity Benchmark Report, 98% of IT leaders face challenges with digital transformation: 81% are battling data silos, and 72% are stuck with fragile, interconnected systems. The solution? An enterprise headless CMS.

With experience working with headless CMS solutions, Expert Soft can guide you through the headless CMS wilds to help make your decision. We’ll go deep into the headless CMS meaning, its key advantages, and real-world examples so you can find an answer to whether a headless CMS can solve your business challenges.

Quick Tips for Busy People

• What is a headless CMS? It’s a system in which the content is separated from the front end, or “head,” allowing for higher flexibility across platforms.
• Why use a headless CMS? Because it allows for flexibility, scalability, and the performance needed to serve content via multiple channels for a business.
• When to consider? When you’re upgrading your digital environment or constantly coping with outdated, slow, or rigid content systems
• Is it right for you? If your current CMS is stifling you, especially in omnichannel strategies or content updates, a headless CMS might be just what you need.

Headless CMS Definition

A headless CMS is a content management system that separates the back-end (where content is stored) from the front-end (how content is displayed).

This headless CMS meaning implies that unlike traditional CMS, such as WordPress, where non-technical users can select templates and publish content immediately, a headless CMS doesn’t come with pre-built components or front-end layouts. Instead, it enables developers to construct custom front-ends that connect with the back-end through APIs, delivering the content to any platform, from websites and mobile apps to smart devices.

Within headless CMS architecture, development is split into two important tasks: one team is responsible for front-end development, while another team configures data components within the CMS.

When the system is fully set up on both sides, it resembles a traditional CMS, meaning no further coding and the ability for any non-technical user to update content.

As a result, headless CMS development services have become crucial for businesses aiming for agility and scalability, where efficient content management is needed across various digital touchpoints.

Key Elements of Headless CMS

While discussing what headless CMS actually is, it’s important to outline the major technical components that guarantee their flexibility and functionality. The key elements below form the headless commerce meaning and ensure seamless content management and delivery across multiple platforms.

Take a look at the headless CMS architecture diagram below.

Together, these headless CMS features form the system that provides a flexible and scalable content management environment.

Headless CMS vs. Other CMSs

Now, with headless CMS explained, let’s compare it to a traditional CMS, weighing against each other over crucial criteria for businesses.

What do these differences mean in practice? Take Marc O’Polo.

Their CMS was originally part of a large monolithic system, and not a key feature within it. When the company needed to add new content, developers often had to resort to workarounds to implement changes. All the information was crammed into a single text box, making updates both tedious and inefficient.

To streamline content updates, provide more flexibility for developers, and empower non-technical users, such as marketers, to update content independently, Marc O’Polo decided to switch to a more flexible API-based solution.

They chose Storyblok. Now, their headless CMS enables omnichannel publishing and rapid product releases. This solution allows the company to manage content across 40 countries and 6 languages, improving both speed and flexibility in their content management.

Headless CMS vs. Hybrid CMS

When you’re researching what a headless CMS is, you may also stumble upon the term “hybrid CMS.” It may come as pretty confusing because the hybrid CMS solution encompasses a little of both traditional and headless systems. This means you can still use templates but also have the flexibility to go headless where needed.

Headless CMS vs. Serverless CMS

In fact, contrasting these two systems isn’t quite correct, as a headless CMS can also be a serverless one. In this case, the serverless approach takes it further by removing the need for server management altogether. While “traditional” headless still relies on infrastructure to handle content, serverless CMS operates entirely in the cloud, scaling automatically and reducing operational overhead for businesses.

Whether to use headless or hybrid or serverless CMS depends on the level of flexibility you require. Now, let’s look at what using headless CMS can bring to your business and change in terms of your content strategy.

What Headless CMS Can Bring to Your Business

Or what a traditional CMS can’t bring. Recent research showed that:

• 84% of the surveyed companies felt their CMS held them back from realizing their content’s full potential;
• 92% had problems maintaining consistent data;
• 64% had difficulties in reusing their content because of silos.

Besides, 74% of companies consider that better data access reduces costs. And enterprise headless CMS can solve all the issues above, streamlining your business with headless CMS advantages.

Let’s take a look at these advantages in practice, exploring the example of an Expert Soft’s client.

A leading global provider of financial data, struggled with slow, error-prone content updates that required direct interaction with code, making even simple updates cumbersome.

To solve the challenge, Expert Soft implemented Contentful — the headless CMS. By decoupling the back-end from the front-end, we gave the client’s team the freedom to manage digital content without relying on developers.

The implementation went off without a hitch, seamlessly integrating a new solution into the company’s existing infrastructure, ensuring minimal disruption to their ongoing operations. As a result, the company has reduced page load times, enhancing overall site performance, and now can deploy content updated and roll out new features faster.

When You Might Need Headless CMS

Not every business needs a headless CMS, but if your company is experiencing any of the following problems, it might be time to consider making the switch:

• Difficulty managing content across multiple channels.
• Slow updates of outdated or cumbersome content.
• A need for more scalability to handle growing content and traffic.

For example, our client, from the example above, refreshed their information portal every two weeks, requiring complex coding each time. And yes, headless CMS made the process much easier, freeing up valuable time for other tasks.
So, to better understand if you truly need a headless CMS, ask yourself these questions:

• Are older technologies holding you back from quickly launching new features and iterating on them?
• Do you feel like you don’t have proper omnichannel support, where experiences are never consistent across platforms?
• Are tedious tasks, such as repetitive content updates or endless copy-pasting, getting in the way of what really matters?
• Does this headless CMS architecture align with business needs to enhance workflow and overall performance?
• Do your business and technical teams clearly understand what will change when adopting a headless CMS in terms of their respective processes and objectives?
• Is your organization prepared to spend the proper budget and resources for executing a headless CMS pricing plan?

If you answered “yes” to several of these questions, then a headless CMS will likely provide the flexibility, speed, and scalability your business needs. But only if you properly implement a solution into your infrastructure, keeping in mind some consideration.

Specifics of Headless CMS Migration

Migrating to a headless CMS architecture might be challenging, but with proper planning, it can be seamless. Key challenges include:

Let’s take a closer look at choosing headless CMS. Among the most popular ones we can name:

• Contentful: Contentful is a popular choice among businesses, having a friendly UI and good API support to deliver content quickly and efficiently across multiple channels. That makes it suitable for pretty complex setups since it integrates well with other tools.
• Strapi: An open-source headless CMS that’s highly customizable and developer-friendly, Strapi gives place to a flexible way of managing the content while allowing developers to extend functionalities by using plugins or writing custom code.
• Sanity: Sanity offers real-time collaboration and a highly customizable content model. Being very intuitive for development teams working on content creation and delivery, it places structured content and the developers first.
• Ghost: Although it was born as a blogging platform, today Ghost positions itself as a headless Content Management System with robust features for content delivery. Ideal for websites that bear heavy loads of content.
• Prismic: With an API-driven approach, Prismic is all about providing an intuitive experience to authors and editors. This feature of Prismic makes it suitable for businesses that deal with integrations to many other platforms.

However, it’s likely that even the most suitable headless CMS can’t cover all your business needs. Here you may require customizations and we at Expert Soft are ready to use our experience to ensure seamless integration and enhanced functionality that aligns with your unique goals.

Final Word

So, why use a headless CMS? It’s needed to stay competitive. Headless CMS architecture offers flexibility, scalability, and omnichannel support, making content delivery smooth across multiple platforms.

At Expert Soft, we’ve helped businesses make the shift to headless CMS. Whether you’re ready to jump in or just exploring your options, we’ll ensure a smooth transition tailored to your needs. Let’s talk!

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