What’s a Headless CMS?

To put it in simpler words, a headless CMS is a content management system without a front-end interface. Like any good content management system (CMS), this one lets organizations control their content generation processes from beginning to end. As the name suggests, headless CMS is a supreme tool for managing your content at the backend.

The biggest advantage of a headless CMS is that it can personalize content with localization in mind and can be presented to a person anywhere in the world. When it comes to businesses, a headless CMS is a boon.

However, the technology doesn’t have a web server; For the same reason, it can’t become the front end of a website.

Developers are free to showcase their work in whatever way they see fit, using whichever front-end technology they like.

Companies can use any front-end technology to show the material, expanding their potential audience beyond traditional digital mediums such as websites and applications to include kiosks, smartwatches, and even virtual reality headsets.

Top 15 Headless CMS platforms

Kontent .AI

The modular content platform Kontent.ai helps content, and technical teams create, manage, and reuse high-quality, consistent, relevant information across all user touchpoints.

Offers a tailored experience based on how teams operate, making tasks like content creation, modular content reuse, and real-time collaboration and approvals quick and painless. What comes out of this process is content that is uniform, well-optimized, and enjoyable to read.

Features

It’s a software-as-a-service (SaaS) hosted in the cloud.
Highly scalable
High-end data security
You can create and reuse content anywhere, everywhere.
You can create engaging content in any language
comprehensive role-based procedures that cover the whole content development process
Use the convenient built-in library to catalog and manage your digital media.
Create, edit, update, and check your work in the context of how it will appear on your websites and software.

Strapi

Strapi, the foremost open-source headless CMS, is made entirely in JavaScript and is designed with web developers in mind.

Using GitHub as its repository, Strapi offers a wide range of APIs and tools, including a command line interface (CLI), REST API, GraphQL API, Entity Service API, and Query Engine API.

Features

Despite the data structure, Strapi lets you define models and relations that can create a rich layout experience.
Cross-functional teams can seamlessly create and edit engaging content
Multiple third-party integrations
You can create queries using RESTful API or GraphQL.
You can choose from self-hosted servers or cloud-based servers.
You can integrate your preferred databases, frontend frameworks, or static site generators.

Ghost

Ghost is a potent tool for authors to publish their work and monetize their efforts. Create a website, share articles, distribute email newsletters, and charge for premium features, all included in the tool. Most importantly, it’s an open-source platform.

Features

It has an in-built editor that helps create and edit email newsletters and website content.
Video, Image galleries, gifs, info boxes, music, goods, accordion toggles, downloadable files, bookmarks, and even social media sharing capabilities can enrich your narrative.
Native registration forms in Ghost make it simple to convert casual visitors into registered users.
To better understand your target customer, you have access to information on who is joining up, who is paying, and what they are reading.
In-depth metrics on user interaction to help you determine which posts are most popular.

Netlify CMS

An open-source content management system exclusively built for your GIT workflow. Combine any static site generator with Netlify CMS for a more rapid and adaptable website.

Features

Enjoy the benefits of a static site, such as quick load times, robust protection, and scalability, while allowing easy content modification.
To facilitate versioning, multi-channel publication, and the possibility to manage content changes directly in Git, you may keep all your material in the exact location as your code: your Git repository.
Creating custom previews, editor plugins, UI widgets, add-backend, etc., is easy.
The team can easily handle the writing and editing from rough draft through peer review to publication.
User-friendly editor
Any team member may be granted access to the CMS using Git Gateway.

Payload CMS

If you are looking for a free and open-source headless CMS that puts the developer experience first while creating APIs and an admin UI, look no further than Payload.

Features

It has a flexible user interface and experience, and it connects your headless CMS to an ecosystem of technologies through strong connections.
All of Your information is stored in a Mongo database.
You can store and retrieve data using REST and GraphQL APIs.
Less coding involved.
CMS grade editor that can be completely white labeled using React.
Create document- or field-level access control features to safeguard your data.

ContentStack

With its RESTful APIs and ability to create unique, cross-device digital experiences, Contentstack stands out as a modern, headless content management system.

Features

Integrate quickly and effortlessly with your existing marketing technology stack (Brightcove, Marketo, Salesforce, Optimizely, etc.).
Content development, review, and publishing processes are streamlined, so your content governance is up to all regulatory standards.
Contentstack is significantly extension friendly.
An excellent group workspace where many people can produce, review and release a single piece of work.

Prismic

Prismic is a content management system (CMS) with custom-type builds, a visual editor, support for several languages, and a complete history of all changes made to a website. It also provides an advanced API for retrieving and managing data.

Features

Developing reusable website sections is very easy.
Content will be delivered via robust APIs.
Custom website builder.
Provisions for UI testing, image optimization, and previews.
Supports Next.js, Nuxt.js, Gatsby, and more.

Craft CMS

Craft CMS is indeed one of the most prominent headless CMS products out there. It has all the features to help you create and strategize content easily. Also, there is the added advantage that it’s good at design and development.

Features

Access to marketing tools such as Salesforce, Mailchimp, Hubspot, etc.
An impeccable content translation module.
Powerful plugin framework.
Based on specific needs, you can create custom fields and forms.
Built-in category and tag support.

Storyblok

Storyblok gives developers and content teams the tools to improve content experiences on any digital channel. In addition, Storyblok’s visual interface makes creating, managing, and distributing content easier.

Features

Streamline your publishing process with group-wide collaboration options like discussions, comments, and automated processes.
The digital asset manager in Storyblok makes it easy to keep everything in its place and tweak it for maximum effectiveness. The ability to edit, tag, and add pertinent data to a single location.
Custom applications from the Storyblok App store are available for free, which gives extra functionalities.
optimized omnichannel publishing capabilities.
The next-generation, API-driven technology at the heart of Storyblok’s headless backend is equipped with the fastest and most intelligent APIs, an excellent security standard, and many more features.

Hygraph

If you want your stack to be modular, you need Hygraph, the shared content platform. Use our one-of-a-kind content association method to connect all of your services and push data to all of your endpoints through a single, robust GraphQL API.

Features

To create cutting-edge media for your target demographic, Hygraph streamlines the process of consolidating and contextualizing material.
Large amounts of programmatic material from any API-driven service or gathered from suppliers and partners may be unified and organized quickly and simply for publishers.
Strong authentication architecture.
With publishing, staging procedures, scheduling, and localization, your media management will be a breeze.
Powered by the most advanced GraphQL, Content APIs in the business.

Quintype

Quintype is built using APIs specifically for news organizations and digital media companies. The platform’s built-in editing interface lets people work together to make content. It also has workflow management, automatic publishing, card-based organization, and support for content in different languages and formats.

Features

Real-time analytics
Automated daily reports
Use Accesstype, smart software for managing subscriptions, to unlock the unrealized potential of subscriptions.
Equipped with Metype, an audience engagement technology that fosters better interactions, is included. Readers turn and become followers. Audiences that participate form communities.

Butter CMS

Butter CMS is a headless CMS that makes it easy to move data from standard or legacy CMS. It works with any framework and comes with SDKs and plugins for NodeJS, Laravel, PHP, Rails, Ruby, and other frameworks.

Features

One of the biggest features of the tool is the scalable content management system.
Use the in-built SEO metadata and description to boost your blog’s visibility in search engines.
Custom fields.
Using the various preview panels (both split-screen and full-screen), you can see how your edits will appear before you commit them.
Drag and drop reordering.

Acquia CMS

Acquia is a Drupal-powered headless CMS. With Acquia’s low-code tools, you can create helpful, composable, and reusable content with little help from developers

Features

Rich data modeling and content management capabilities.
Headless CMS features include JSON: API and GraphQL, NodeJS hosting, Developer freedom, and Power apps and IoT.
Hybrid CMS features include low-code tools, CMS hosting, code and configuration, progressive components, and turn key PWA.
Cloud-based development tools.

Agility CMS

Agility CMS pioneered the integration of editor-friendly website management tools with the scalability and adaptability of an API-first design. With the Agility Content Management System, businesses can quickly and easily make digital experiences geared toward the customer.

Features

Marketing features such as page management, module management, sitemap management, multi-site support, URL routing management, SEO fields, content, page previewing, and content modeling.
Allows many third-party integrations.
Create cutting-edge digital experiences with Agility’s open API-first platform and your preferred programming language/front-end framework.
Agility native is a cloud-native tool that’s hosted on Microsoft Azure.
CDN-Powered APIs and Assets.

Adobe Experience Cloud

From data insights to managing content and marketing workflows, Adobe experience cloud is a versatile headless CMS tool in the market.

Features

Advanced personalization features for customers
CDP (Customer Data Platform) software for instantaneous channel-wide customization in real-time.
Integrate your open-source CMS and digital asset management (DAM) system to produce a smooth marketing process.
Instantaneously adjusts the service provided to each user based on their previous actions.
Impeccable in project management, analytics, eCommerce, and content management.

Conclusion

There are indeed a bazillion headless cms platforms out there in the market. So the right way to do this is to list your requirements and, through the trial versions, find out which one can take care of your requirements in the best and easiest way possible.

Headless CMS: Top 15 Platforms You Need to Know About