At the heart of all headless approaches is the belief that content is king.

With a headless approach to content management, data exists in its own right. Your content isn't tied to a front-end, website or single application.

A headless CMS exposes its content via APIs, making it possible to consume the data within any kind of frontend or application. That means that the same CMS is able to deliver content across any channel, with no restrictions.

Traditionally, content management systems were responsible for powering both the frontend and backend of a website. In contrast, Headless CMS decouples the frontend from the backend, allowing both to operate entirely independently. This approach brings with it many advantages above a traditionally-implemented content management system, such as improved speed, heightened levels of security, and infinitely greater flexibility for both the frontend and the backend.

Traditional content management systems have existed for decades, but the idea of Headless CMS is a more recent development. Due to the potential business advantages that leveraging headless CMS development provides, a growing number of organizations are today choosing to switch from traditional monolithic applications to headless implementations.

Traditional CMSs provide both an administrative backend (to manage website content), as well as a frontend to display content (typically in the form of pages) to end users. This approach means that both the front and backend are served from the same server environment, run on the same programming language, and require a persistent database connection. What’s more, the most popular (traditional) content management systems are PHP-based, which is known to be a challenging programming language for developing rich frontend experiences. The modern web applications of today (PWAs, for example), run on Javascript, which is far better suited to developing progressive frontend experiences that are capable of delivering more engaging interactions and user journeys.

Furthermore, because legacy CMS require a database connection in order to deliver website content, pages load more slowly and are prone to frequent errors. The frequent database connections have a tendency to increase the amount of resources required of the server, and this problem only grows as more content is added to the database. Intensive backend operations will have a direct impact on the website’s frontend and users’ browsing experience, as the two are operating within the same server environment. Infrastructure providers have historically tried to mitigate this by upselling additional services such as load balancing for resource-intensive content management systems, but this isn’t efficient for businesses looking to scale their website or application while limiting the impact on costs. Regrettably, these problems are only compounded as content is added to the CMS over time, or as traffic increases and puts servers under more strain.

With the frontend of traditional content management systems requiring a connection to the database, these websites are prone to security flaws that are easily exploitable by bots or malicious users.

Headless CMS development does-away with these common problems of traditional content management systems, by decoupling the frontend from the CMS backend, allowing a frontend to be served purely with Javascript (offering a superior user experience), and without relying on a direct connection to the database. Taking it a step further, headless implementations are well-known for their ability to deliver superior pagespeed that significantly rivals that of traditional, monolithic CMS or web applications.

Over the last few decades, it’s become increasingly clear that the approach utilized by traditional content management systems lacks the flexibility required for emerging businesses to break through their constraints. The aim of Headless CMS development is to reduce the barriers associated with scalability, complex data, and the implementation of effective frontends that are built to convert.

Headless CMS & E-commerce

Headless commerce provides a new way for businesses to develop fast, scalable commerce solutions that offer greater control of the user experience and customer journey. Enhancing the customer journey for retail businesses is a key factor in achieving successful conversions and engagement. By applying the same approaches used in Headless CMS development, commerce can be efficiently decoupled.

Headless CMS & Jamstack

Headless CMS development is closely linked with Jamstack, because headless solutions commonly implement a Jamstack approach, making the two synonymous in many respects. The core foundation of Jamstack places value on a component-based approach to a technology stack. Headless CMS implementation is a natural factor in this equation, acting as a source of data that is separated from the other layers of the stack.