Choosing your headless CMS

Things you might wish to consider

Spork Digital
2 November 2019
8 min

We’re currently in the process of choosing a new Content Management System for a client, whose new site we’re due to build in the new year. Their current site (which we’ve been supporting for the last 7 months) was built in WordPress, an architectural decision that was taken, I suppose, when they were a much smaller brand.

Fast forward to 2020, and this client is operating 50 sites in 6 territories globally, and their site is in 4 different languages. WordPress has become a pain.

Why a headless CMS?

Actually – maybe we should start with the what:

A headless CMS is what’s known as a decoupled application… that means that the backend and the frontend are 2 separate applications that talk to each other via an API. (As opposed to just one monolith application).

Who cares, right? Well:

Traditional CMSs dictated the programming language with which the templates in the frontend had to be built. So, WordPress had to be in PHP, Umbraco in .NET, Magnolia in JAVA and so on. By decoupling the application, developers can build the front end in whatever they want and that means they can build in what they’re best at. That’s a good thing.
Decoupled applications provide more flexibility when it comes to integrating with other systems and are easier to scale.
It makes swapping out one CMS for another easier (for example as a company grows or requirements change).
If content from the site needs to appear in more than one application, for example a website and a phone app, then a headless CMS makes this possible.

Criteria to help

Clients are often surprised when we don’t recommend a CMS right at the beginning of a project. Naturally, there are some in which we have more experience, but that in isolation isn’t a good enough reason to pick one over another. We try to remain agnostic until we understand the requirements of the project: different platforms are better for different clients. Never should it be assumed that one size fits all.

The headless CMS arena has blossomed somewhat in the last year or so, with some excellent new players to the market. Because of this, we delved into a LOT of possibilities and here is the list of a criteria we came up with for helping to make the right choice.

Is it self-hosting?

This may or may not be what you want… but not that many vendors offer both options. You may have a preference that’s based on cost or scalability but either way you should check.

Was it originally built to be headless?

That’s not to say traditional CMSs with an API add-on aren’t good. But a CMS built to be headless from the ground up normally suggests a cleaner code base. That translates into better updates, an easier site build, and happier development team.

Quality of API

Remember what the API lacks you will have to build. Can you build custom parts of the admin interface? How many types of API are there? Is it just REST, or is there GraphQL too? This might not mean much to you, but I promise – it means a hell of a lot to your dev team. The better the API the more they can build to your requirements without making a wincing face.

Cost

This might seem obvious, but consideration needs to be given to not only the immediate requirements, but what the requirement might be over a period of 5 years or so. What happens if traffic on the site or app you build suddenly shoots up, or you need double the amount of a content types? Will your choice of CMS allow some flex?

You often see vendors offering a vague sounding ‘enterprise tier’ with no details of price. In our experience that price is approximately 10 times that of the most expensive advertised tier. You have been warned, not all vendors are prepared to barter.

Documentation

In conclusion

There is no way that each of the above criteria will have equal importance, so you’ll need to weight each of these accordingly. And, as it happens, it’s unlikely that, from project to project, you’d score each criterion consistently, so we’d advise doing this process each time.

The method of scoring and weighting is completely up to you, of course. And might be the subject of another blog post. But we thought it might be worth noting down some of the things we think about. Choosing a CMS isn’t an insignificant amount of work, and the decision you’re stuck with for a while. So, in our mind, it’s important to put some time and love into the process and make the best decision possible.

Don’t make the choice on a whim! And if you’re looking for help making that choice, we’d love to find out how we can help. Get in touch with us today.

Choosing your headless CMS

Why a headless CMS?

Criteria to help

Is it self-hosting?

Was it originally built to be headless?

Quality of API

Cost

Documentation

In conclusion

Criteria to help

Is it self-hosting?

Was it originally built to be headless?

Quality of API

Cost

Documentation

Active developer community

Affordable enterprise support

Does it fit your data design?

Can you automate tasks with scripts?

Good for different environments

Quality of administration user interface

Ability to customise the admin interface

Low risk in longevity

Is it in a language we’re okay with?

How easy is it to create draft previews of content?

Quality of known client list