Everything you ever wanted to know about headless CMS but were afraid to ask. Ashley Summers, Director of Development, gives us an inside look into how headless CMS works, scenarios where it’s the ideal fit, and why Prismic has become such a top choice for our clients at Lokion.
Headless vs. Traditional CMS
While both a traditional CMS and a headless CMS allow you to create and manage content and assets, they do so in very different ways.
“Traditional” content management systems like WordPress, Jahia, or Optimizely come packaged with a content delivery layer, or “head”. This front-end layer determines how the content is presented to the end user. Generally, the front end is tightly integrated with the back end where you manage your content.
The downside is you lose flexibility if you want to deliver your content across multiple platforms or you want to use multiple technologies for the front end.
“Headless” solutions like Prismic, do not have the front-end layer, or the “head”. In recent years, the headless option has become so favored, that even the most popular traditional CMS systems like Jahia and Optimizely have begun offering headless options for their content. Even WordPress has a robust API that can be used as a headless alternative.
So, if there’s no front end, how is the content accessed and displayed? The content created and stored on a headless CMS is delivered via APIs - usually via REST or GraphQL calls. The retrieved data can then be read and displayed using any frontend technology such as React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, etc - on any device or platform. This essentially means you can use the same back-end content to power an unlimited number of frontends! This offers an amazing amount of flexibility and scalability and an enormous amount of marketing potential.
It should be noted that using multiple display technologies means each front end will have to be maintained separately.
Why Use Headless CMS
There are several scenarios where it makes sense to consider using a headless CMS over a traditional CMS:
- If your goal is to deliver the same content across multiple platforms such as a website, a mobile application, a VR/AR experience, etc., then a headless CMS is a good option because it separates content from presentation. This allows you to send the same content to different platforms without needing to format it specifically for each one.
- If your team prefers to use a specific front-end technology, a headless CMS can give you this flexibility. Oftentimes, traditional CMS systems will require a specific templating or theming language or system. You can also build a custom site with custom branding.
- If your business is microservice architecture-oriented, a headless CMS fits well into this structure. A headless CMS can act as another independent service component in an application.
- If you are anticipating high traffic or otherwise need your content to load very quickly, headless solutions are often far more performant because they deliver the content without needing to render a front end. This quick load time can lead to better SEO performance and thereby, more site traffic.
- If you’re concerned about future-proofing and want to be prepared to adopt new platforms or technologies, a headless CMS can offer far more flexibility and longevity as it separates content management from content presentation, meaning you can overhaul your presentation layer without having to rework your content management and perform costly migrations.
3 Common Myths about Headless CMS
There’s a lot of chatter about headless CMS and with that comes common misconceptions. We bust three of the biggest myths below:
Myth #1: Headless CMS doesn’t support SEO.
Au contraire! With Prismic, you can pre-render all of your pages so they appear as static HTML - which is perfection for SEO! Each page can have custom meta tags, title tags, keywords - you name it! Prismic provides the content and code that can generate anything else we may need for SEO - even sitemaps.
Myth #2: Headless CMS doesn’t support WYSIWYG.
While this is technically true, I would argue this is better in many ways because it separates the noise from what content editors are there to do - edit content. But for those who want to see the content as it appears, Prismic offers a page preview to see content in place.
And even more exciting Prismic has just launched a new beta feature called Page Builder - allowing users to see in real-time a WYSIWYG mini-preview of their content rendered as it is entered or updated. How cool is that?
Myth #3: Headless CMSs are more expensive.
While I can’t speak for every headless system, I can confidently say that Prismic’s price point is unbeatable and it’s one reason we are recommending it to so many of our clients who come to us looking to re-platform or select a platform.
When Headless CMS Isn’t a Fit
Because a headless CMS provides only the backend content management and does not include the presentation layer, it requires a development team skilled in a frontend technology such as React, Vue, Angular, etc. If your goal is to maintain your CMS presentation layer and your team doesn’t have that skill set, you’ll likely need to consider hiring, training, or establishing a long-term partnership with a skilled provider.
What is Prismic? What Makes Prismic Unique?
Prismic is a headless CMS with a super easy-to-use interface making it a snap for anyone to use. Prismic’s standout feature that takes the cake is Slices. Slices are customizable website sections that let users drag, drop, and rearrange entire sections of a webpage without worrying about fonts or styles - everything stays perfectly formatted, perfectly on brand. It gives end users complete freedom to build and design on their own without needing to involve developers.
You get the benefits of headless meaning developers can build a custom site for you with quick load times, and your custom brand. They also enable marketers to launch new pages faster, from an intuitive, Page Builder UI. That's why Prismic calls itself a Headless Page Builder.
The Advantages of Prismic
The great thing about Prismic is it’s super easy to get started and they have a SDK for all the major Jamstack frameworks. Prismic offers webhooks and scheduled content publishing, which when working together, gives you full control over when your content is published via CI/CD.
They also offer fully functional content previews so editors can see what their content will look like before it’s published, allowing them to make changes and feel absolutely confident prior to publishing. Editors can even send preview links to collaborators to get feedback on a page before publishing.
Lokion is no stranger to the magic of Prismic. Here’s what the Prismic team had to say about our work together, “From their early adoption of Prismic in 2021 to their proactive approach in embracing our latest features, Lokion has exemplified the spirit of growth and adaptability. With a stellar team, they’ve consistently showcased a profound grasp of our platform’s capabilities. Their recent endeavors, especially in assisting our clients to optimize their setups with Slice Machine, highlight the transformative power of Prismic. We’re delighted to play a role in their ongoing success and eagerly anticipate our future collaborations.”
You can check out some of our recent work on the Prismic website. Take a look at our platform development services while you’re at it and get in touch if we can be of any help!
Ashley Summers, Director of Development, Bio
A Lokionite for 13 years, Ashley is the Director of Development specializing in content platform development and customization. She has a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Memphis. Ashley stays up-to-date on the latest trends in frontend web development, constantly looking for new services, frameworks, or tools that can benefit Lokion's clients or enhance an existing development workflow. When not at the keyboard, she enjoys crocheting hats for her cats, which her cats do not enjoy.