In the fast-paced world of technology and digital marketing, content management plays a fundamental role in any successful strategy.

Until recently, traditional content management systems (CMS) were responsible for this task. However, in recent years there has been a innovative alternative: the Headless CMS.

Headless CMS, also known as content management systems without a presentation layer, offer a highly effective solution for creating, editing and distributing content through an API. Unlike traditional CMS, which combine the back end and the front end, headless CMS provide unparalleled flexibility to publish content on a variety of platforms and devices.

The 6 best headless CMS on the market

Now, what are the best headless CMS available in the market? What are its advantages and disadvantages? How to choose the right one for your project?

In this article, we'll dive into a comparison of the most outstanding headless CMS:

Contentful: Powerful and Versatile

Contentful is one of the most recognized and used headless CMS in the market. Based on the cloud, it offers a powerful and flexible API that allows you to manage and distribute content on any platform or device. It provides both a RESTful API, a GraphQL API, a flexible data model, and a content editor.

It offers a series of tools and integrations that improve productivity and collaboration, including an integrated code editor to add logic and functionality to the content.

Contentful's user interface is professional and sophisticated, ensuring efficient and secure content management. Your approach focused on creating omnichannel content makes it a versatile tool for any type of project.

The platform offers comprehensive documentation, tutorials, examples and an active community of users and developers.

Contentful Benefits

• Great flexibility to model and structure information in different types of content, fields, references and inputs.
• It facilitates integration with other platforms and services through more than 200 available integrations and the ability to create your own.
• It allows the omnichannel content delivery with a fast, scalable and reliable API which supports multiple formats and languages.
• It has a free and open source version for testing and customizing the platform.
• It offers analysis tools to track content performance.
• It has a series of security measures to protect the content.

Disadvantages of Contentful

• It has a limit on the depth of GraphQL queries, which can affect query performance and complexity.
• In higher plans, the price can be high, which could be a challenge for large projects or projects with many needs.

Contentstack: Composable and automated platform

Contentstack is a headless CMS that offers a content management platform and composable digital experiences. It allows the creation and management of structured and dynamic content, which can be published on any platform or device.

In addition, it facilitates the automation and optimization of content development and delivery processes, as well as the easy integration of the technologies and tools preferred by users.

It has a customizable user interface, a powerful and intuitive API, and content and data synchronization between teams. It also provides a wide variety of artificial intelligence tools and integrations.

It is a secure and scalable cloud-native solution that adapts to the needs of modern businesses.

Contentstack Benefits

• It offers a superior user experience for content creators and editors, with a visual editor, workflows, live previews and image optimization.
• It allows for easy integration of developers' preferred technologies and platforms using SDKs, webhooks, extensions and a wide range of pre-built integrations.
• It facilitates the delivery of omnichannel content with a native GraphQL API, performance improvements, and personalization and localization of content.
• It is backed by an active community, quality support and a MACH certification.

Disadvantages of Contentstack

• It lacks a free or open source version, limiting the options for testing and customizing the platform.
• It requires a period of learning to make the most of its functionalities and ecosystem.

Umbraco 12: guaranteed speed

Umbraco 12 is the latest version of the renowned open source content management system (CMS). This version introduces an innovative feature: the Content Delivery API, which It allows Umbraco operate in headless mode.

A free and open source CMS that has a large community of developers and users. Umbraco 12 runs in the Microsoft Azure cloud, ensuring high performance, security and availability. In addition, the subscription plan can be adjusted according to the needs of the project, paying only for what is used.

‍It's a powerful option for developers looking for a flexible and scalable CMS.

Benefits of Umbraco 12

• It is designed to handle large volumes of content and users.
• It enables developers to quickly create and launch new channels.
• It offers an API-based architecture that makes it easy to access and deliver content to any channel or device.
• It simplifies integration with other technologies and services, as well as the personalization of the user experience.

Disadvantages of Umbraco 12

• The development of a custom presentation layer can result in additional costs.
• It requires advanced technical knowledge to take full advantage of its functionalities and capabilities.

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Sanity: the composable content cloud

Sanity is an open-source headless CMS that is based on a NoSQL database. It is defined as the “Composable Content Cloud” because of its ability to create customized and modular content models that can be reused and combined in different ways. In addition, it integrates with DALL-E 3, a powerful artificial intelligence tool capable of generating images from text descriptions.

It's a good option for projects that require high customization and scalability.

Sanity benefits

• It offers great flexibility to model and structure content, fields, references and blocks.
• It facilitates integration with other platforms and services through more than 200 available integrations and the ability to create your own.
• It has a free and open source version for testing and customizing the platform.
• It has extensive documentation, tutorials, examples and an active community of users and developers.

Disadvantages of Sanity

• It has an unintuitive and attractive user interface, which can make it difficult to create and edit content, especially for non-technical users.
• It has a limit on the depth of GraphQL queries, which can affect query performance and complexity.
• Requires programming knowledge.

Strapi: open source 100% Javascript

Strapi is an open-source headless CMS that provides the ability to create, manage and distribute content across a wide variety of digital channels. All of its source code is available on GitHub.

It offers a highly customizable administration panel and allows the optional addition of a presentation layer. In addition to a series of starter templates for various use cases, such as eCommerce, blogs, websites, and more. This significantly simplifies the project initiation process.

It allows the connection of content through its REST API with other interfaces and offers a user system that facilitates role management and native authentication.

Strapi benefits

• It provides great flexibility for modeling and structuring content, with content types, fields, relationships, and components.
• It makes it easy to create custom APIs for any application and is highly scalable.
• It allows you to easily integrate content with other platforms and services through more than 100 available integrations.
• It is open source and free, allowing you to test and customize the platform without restrictions.

Disadvantages of Strapi

• It requires a learning period for the installation, configuration and deployment of the platform, especially for non-technical users.
• It has limited and dispersed documentation, which can make it difficult to resolve problems and questions.
• It has a small and inactive community, which can affect platform support and innovation.

Storyblok: combines flexibility and simplicity

Storyblok is a closed source headless CMS that combines the flexibility of an API with the simplicity of a visual editor. It allows the creation and management of structured and dynamic content, which can be published on any platform or device. It provides the ability to preview content in real time, making it easier for both publishers and developers to work.

Storyblok's user interface is modern and easy to use, drag and drop, making it easier to create and edit content. In addition, it has a component system that allows the creation of reusable and customizable content blocks that can be dragged and dropped into the visual editor.

Storyblok benefits

• It offers an intuitive user interface for non-technical users.
• Integrate content with other platforms and services through a wide range of integrations.
• It makes it easy to deliver omnichannel content with a fast, scalable, and reliable API that supports multiple formats and languages.
• It has a free and open source version for testing and customizing the platform.
• Its focus on creating reusable content blocks positions it as the ideal choice for projects that require an abundance of modular content.

Disadvantages of Storyblok

• It has a limit on the depth of GraphQL queries, which can affect query performance and complexity.
• In higher plans, the price can be high, which could be a challenge for large projects or projects with many needs.
• Special training is needed to make the most of its features.

Headless CMS are an increasingly popular and demanded option for managing content in the digital world, as they offer greater flexibility and versatility when it comes to publishing content on different platforms and devices, without depending on a specific presentation layer. Remember that choosing the CMS is a key strategic decision that can influence the efficiency and success of your business, so it's essential to carefully compare and evaluate the different options available in the market.

If you need help with your digital solutions ecosystem or the choice of the CMS that best suits the needs of your company, do not hesitate to contact us. At Novicell, we are passionate and experts in digital strategy, so we'll be happy to help.