How to chose your Headless CMS

Owned by Sylvain Paillard
Last updated: May 10, 2021
6 min read

Headless CMS: Real-time GraphQL within Boxalino Cloud

Integrating Boxalino Narrative API can be done with any type of content from any source. But integrating content you export to Boxalino API has the disadvantage to not offer a live preview to the marketers and content creators using the Headless CMS.

In order to avoid such a problem, make sure to chose a Headless CMS with an API supporting GraphQL. Boxalino will cache the response (typically for 1 hour) but will support live preview to enable efficient work on stage. Indeed, any millisecond is important for your page speed and Boxalino can ensure that your Headless CMS is typically not accessed in real-time, saving precious network time which will count for your Google Page speed ranking!

Boxalino supports real-time GraphQL queries you can directly configure in Boxalino Admin. This way, no need for an additional data transformation layer to prepare your data in the format needed for your real-time requests, you can directly configure the mapping in the GraphQL query.

Learn more about how a Headless CMS is a key part of your future front-end architecture here: Our Best Practice for your New Front-End

#1 Recommended Headless CMS

Prismic

https://prismic.io/

Prismic is a Content Management System, a tool for editing online content. Also known as a headless CMS, an API CMS, a content platform, a disruptive content-as-a-service digital experience...basically we've built a tool that lets you choose your technology, framework, and language and then easily manage your content.

Pros:

  • Mid-range pricing (around 500.- / month)

  • Simple to use interface

  • Many functionalities built-in

  • Efficient model editor

  • Good support of GraphQL

  • Can configure preview website easily

  • Webhook for pushing the content

  • Provides SDK

  • Integration M2 to Prismic and vice-versa

  • Content scheduling

  • Localization

  • Possibility to migrate existing content

  • Media management with Imgix. Can resize image dynamically while is being requested

  • External catalog integration

  • “Slices” for creating dynamic content

  • Internal CDN via AWS Cloudfront

Cons:

  • A strong concept of the final layout in the editor (limits the creation of content pieces that are reusable in different layout settings)

  • No connections to GCP

  • No DAM integrations

Contentful

https://www.contentful.com/

The content platform for the digital-first era. It’s the modern way to manage content: Control all content from a single hub. Publish to any channel. Integrate hundreds of tools with our industry-leading app framework.

Pros:

  • Mid-range pricing (500.- / month and more)

  • Good support of GraphQL

  • Can be connected to BigQuery (https://www.stitchdata.com/integrations/contentful/google-bigquery/)

  • Extensible UI schema with forma 36 (https://f36.contentful.com/)

  • Can configure preview website easily

  • Webhook for pushing the content

  • Provides SDK

  • Content scheduling

  • Localization

  • Possibility to migrate existing content

  • External catalog integration

  • Validation for fields

  • Internal CDN

  • Integrations:

    • DAM, A\B testing, Translation

Cons:

GrahCMS

https://graphcms.com/

GraphCMS is the Headless CMS allowing you to build digital experiences the way you envisioned them - with all your backends, frontends, and services, working together in harmony.

Pros:

  • Mid-range pricing (around 500.- / month)

  • Simple to use interface

  • Many functionalities built-in

  • Efficient model editor

  • Good support of GraphQL

Cons:

  • A bit more technical than other commercial headless CMS

  • No connections to GCP (some documented case here, but not clear what: https://graphcms.com/ecosystem-partners/google-cloud-platform)

  • No integrations with external systems

  • No existing solution for having Catalog information to use when creating content

  • Limited number of features and functionalities

  • No SDKs

  • No content scheduling

Directus

https://directus.io/

Directus is an open-source tool that wraps custom SQL databases with a dynamic API, and provides an intuitive admin app for managing its content. Self-host for free, or use our on-demand Cloud service to manage all your omni-channel digital experiences.

Pros:

  • It’s fully open-source, so it’s free (hosted version have a small fee) and enables any type of integration

  • It’s highly focused on doing the cms part well and nothing else which is a good fit for your integration with Boxalino, you don’t want to find something which claims to do many other things that you might end up not needed as redundant with other parts

  • it’s highly customizable as it wraps custom SQL databases with a dynamic API

Cons:

  • It’s a very “thin” layer on top of the database, which means that while it comes with many features of how to manage a custom CMS, it does not bring many high-level functionalities when it comes to content in a headless way (which can be a weakness if you want more than “a nice admin on top of a database”)

  • It’s not integrated on GCP or with BigQuery as a standard (focuses more on AWS), but that’s not a real blocker and it is possible to make it work on GCP

  • While there is some support of GraphQL, it’s not a very strong implemented (limited parameters: https://docs.directus.io/api/graphql.html#introduction)

Netlifycms

https://www.netlifycms.org/

Open source content management for your Git workflow. Use Netlify CMS with any static site generator for a faster and more flexible web project

Pros:

  • Nicely integrated over Git

Cons:

  • Not very advanced CMS options and quite technical

Strapi

https://strapi.io/

Strapi is the leading open-source headlessCMS. It’s 100% Javascript, fully customizable and developer-first.

Pros:

Cons:

  • (probably) limited back-end for marketers (to be confirmed)

  • Internationalization features are missing (https://www.capterra.com/p/170599/Strapi/#reviews)

  • No CDN & DAM integrations

  • No localization

  • No Content scheduling

  • Most external integrations are available via community plugins

  • No image manipulation features

#2 Other options

Apostrophe

https://apostrophecms.com/

Apostrophe is a globally-minded technology company focused on creating incredible open source content management tools for organizations—from small businesses to the enterprise. Our products empower our customers to take ownership over their digital experiences. As a full-featured JavaScript CMS with both headless capabilities through the headless module and core in-context editing, our tools appeal to both developers and content editors, not only because of how flexible they are, but because they feel good to use. Our customers’ success in their digital experiences is a result of the impact of our products.

Pros:

  • very innovative approach

Cons:

  • It is a full Jamstack CMS with a visual editor for building pages. The headless is a module in their complete solution.

  • No GraphQL

  • No SDKs

  • No content scheduling

ButterCMS

https://buttercms.com/

ButterCMS is an API first platform, served in JSON in a mostly RESTful way. It was definitely built with developers in mind, which is what makes its integration, setup time, and delivery among the top praised aspects of the platform/service.

Pros:

  • Lower-Mid-range pricing (250.- / month and more)

  • Very API oriented

  • Oriented towards blogging (not only generic CMS)

Cons:

  • A little too much oriented to the final result (not fully headless in that sense)

  • Not extremely developed concepts for the model editor

Craft CMS

https://craftcms.com/

Craft is a flexible, user-friendly CMS for creating custom digital experiences on the web and beyond.

Pros:

Cons:

  • Not particularly focused on headless

Cosmic

https://www.cosmicjs.com/

Cosmic is a Headless CMS that empowers you to create, edit, and manage content across limitless websites and applications, from one convenient interface.

Pros:

Cons:

  • probably not the best admin for marketers

Kontent

https://kontent.ai/

Kentico Kontent delivers all the benefits of a headless CMS while empowering your marketing team to manage the experience across your digital channels. 

Pros:

  • Quite advanced functionalities

Cons:

  • On the more expensive side (1K to 2K/ month and can be more)

  • Doesn’t seem to support GraphQL

  • More as a monolith than a piece of the puzzle

Bloomreach

https://www.bloomreach.com/

Great commerce experiences stem from great product discovery and data-driven optimization. brX is a modular API-first platform built to leverage your data, products and content together with our commerce-specific AI to drive both great experiences and your business outcomes.

Pros:

  • Quite advanced functionalities

Cons:

  • All in one platform trying to provide AI, search, …

Magnolia

https://www.magnolia-cms.com/

Magnolia started small, driven by two innovators who wanted to build a flexible and powerful CMS. Over the years, we've extended this vision to make life easier for our customers and partners - to understand your DX challenges and to ensure that each deployment of the platform is truly tailored to what you want.

Pros:

  • Quite advanced functionalities

Cons:

  • Not really originally a Headless CMS, so more trying to present their CMS as headless

Coremedia

www.coremedia.com

CoreMedia Content Cloud is a flexible, composable DXP built on an Agile CMS and advanced DAM. It is designed for business flexibility, openness and fast time to value. We empower companies to collaboratively create, preview, and optimize digital brand experiences – across multiple countries, languages and touchpoints.

Pros:

  • Quite advanced functionalities

Cons:

  • All in one platform trying to provide AI, search, …

Sanity

https://www.sanity.io/

Sanity.io is the unified content platform that powers better digital experiences.

Pros:

  • “Cloud hosted backend”

  • Open-source editor build on React to self-host (Sanity Studio) with lots of features like collaboration tools, image manipulation

  • Localization

  • Provides SDK for PHP an JS

  • Multiple datasets to use for dev/prod like environments

  • API & Assets CDN

Cons:

  • The content structure has to be created as React components. No UI or possibility to create everything via drag&drop

  • No Content scheduling

Other resources

https://jamstack.org/headless-cms/