Headless CMS

A classic CMS manages content and renders the page from it at the same time - content and presentation are bound together. A headless CMS separates the two: it maintains the content and serves it over an API, while presentation is an application of its own. Anyone who has to publish the same content to a website, an app, and a partner portal needs that separation.

The second reason is independence. When presentation does not hang off the editorial system, the frontend can be renewed without migrating the content - and the other way round. In relaunches that is often the most expensive item you save yourself.

What is regularly underestimated is that the editing interface no longer automatically matches the site. In a classic system you see while editing what comes out; in the headless case a preview has to be built deliberately. Skip that and you trade technical freedom for daily friction among the people who maintain the content.

Choosing the system then follows the question of how structured the content is and who maintains it. We often work with Directus because it sits on a normal database and therefore also suits data that is not purely editorial - product data, master data, links into existing systems.