Glossary · Software Architecture
What is a headless CMS?
Short answer
A headless CMS is a content management system that stores and manages content but has no built-in website front end. It delivers content through an API, so the same content can be shown by any website, app or device built with any technology. Payload, Strapi, Contentful and Sanity are examples; WordPress can also be used headlessly.
Headless versus traditional
In a traditional CMS such as classic WordPress, editing and page rendering live in one application. A headless CMS separates them: editors work in the CMS, and developers build the front end separately, perhaps a static site, a React or Vue app, or a mobile app, pulling content over REST or GraphQL.
Benefits
- Performance and security: front ends can be pre-built static pages on a CDN, with no database exposed to visitors.
- Omnichannel: one source of content for web, apps, email and more.
- Freedom: front-end teams choose their own framework and deploy independently.
Trade-offs
- Previews, URL routing and SEO metadata must be built rather than coming out of the box.
- Two systems to host, secure and upgrade instead of one.
- Editors lose some visual page building unless you add it.
This site is an example: content is edited in Payload CMS and published as a static Astro site served from Cloudflare’s edge.
