The Best Headless CMS

What is a Headless Content Management System (CMS)?

A Headless Content Management System (CMS) separates content creation and storage from its presentation layer. Unlike traditional CMS platforms, it focuses solely on content management, enabling developers to retrieve and deliver content via APIs to any frontend or device, promoting flexibility and agility in digital experiences.

In a headless CMS, content authors can create and manage content independently of the frontend, while developers have the freedom to design and build user interfaces using their preferred technologies, whether it's a web app, mobile app, or any other digital platform. This architectural flexibility makes it easier to adapt to evolving technology trends and user expectations, ultimately enabling organizations to deliver a more dynamic and personalized user experience.

Executive summary

Sanity.io emerges as the optimal choice for their headless CMS, as it offers unparalleled flexibility and developer-friendly features. In contrast to Headless WordPress, burdened by legacy code and a monolithic architecture, and Contentful, which may pose cost challenges as content scales, Sanity.io provides a nimble and intuitive content management system. Its schema-less, JSON-powered structure facilitates seamless content modeling and real-time collaboration, enabling adaptability to evolving needs. Moreover, its open-source nature and customizable content studio grant their development team complete control over the content authoring experience, resulting in faster iterations and a tailored, efficient workflow. In summary, Sanity.io empowers them to create, manage, and deliver content with unmatched agility and precision, making it the optimal choice for their headless CMS.

Top picks

1. Sanity.io
2. Builder.io
3. Contentful

Why trust us

Alex Dixon is the Editor in Chief at Wasai.co, content publisher of a collection of media sites with over 5 million visitors per month. He’s implemented many CMS’s at scale with large teams of writers and engineers delivering petabyes of content to readers each month.

Moe Amaya is the former Head of Engineering at Monograph leading 25-person engineering team. He also spent time on the growth team at Figma who owned the marketing site on Contentful and Gatsby at the time.

Analysis

Developer experience

API

Business

Customers

Developer support

Implementation time