What is a headless CMS?
A headless CMS is a content authoring and management tool that allows you to create content without being tied to a particular output such as a website or app.
If you want a more in-depth understanding of this topic, check out the FAQ section below:
Question #1: How does a headless CMS work?
It works by allowing the user to create and manage content independent of a website, app, or any other type of output, and then serve that content to any output they want via application programming interfaces (APIs). You can think of it as a database of content that developers of things such as websites, apps, digital kiosks, and even voice assistants can easily pull content from.
Question #2: What is the difference between a headless CMS and a traditional CMS?
The main difference between a headless CMS and a traditional CMS is that the former, as we have seen earlier, is not tied to a particular output—such as a website or app—while the latter is.
Take WordPress, for example. Whatever content you create using the platform is designed to go straight to the specific website you are working on. If you want to add the same content to another website (or app), you will have to manually copy and paste it.
In contrast, with a headless CMS, you can just focus on creating content first without worrying about where it would go. Once the outputs that require it are ready, they can just be configured to pull it from the database.
Question #3: What are the benefits of using it?
The main benefits of using a headless CMS include:
- Quicker content authoring
- Easier content creation and management for multiple channels
- Development flexibility
- Scalability
- Improved security
Let us go over each one in more detail:
First, you will be able to create content much more quickly because it eliminates the need for you to worry about how it would be rendered. You can just leave that part to the developers who would build the outputs that would use your content.
Second, since it is not tied to a particular output, you can just create content once and have it appear on any number of outputs. And if you need to make changes, you will only have to do that once as well. All websites, apps, and any other output that use it will automatically reflect the changes you made because they are all pulling data from the exact same database.
Third, being independent of any output, a headless CMS is also independent of any programming language. This means developers who wish to pull content from it can build whatever output they want using whatever programming language they are comfortable with.
Fourth, since a headless CMS is essentially just a database, there is virtually no limit to the number of outputs that can pull data from it. Whether you only have one website or 10,000 plus 100 apps, you will be able to author and manage content the exact same way.
Finally, since a headless CMS is completely separate from the outputs it is serving content to, even if any of these outputs go down or get attacked, your content would remain completely untouched.
Question #4: Is a headless CMS better than a traditional CMS?
While a headless CMS is clearly more powerful and flexible than a traditional CMS, it is not necessarily better. At the end of the day, it would still depend on your particular goals and requirements.
For example, if all you really need is a basic website, then there is really no point to choosing a headless CMS over a traditional one since the latter will also be able to do as good a job as the former.
But if your business requires you to be present across multiple channels (e.g, websites, apps, accessibility tools), then a headless CMS would be the better choice for you.