Episode Details

In this episode of Syntax, Scott and Wes talk about headless content management systems — why you might want to use one, things you should take into account, and more!

Sanity.io is a real-time headless CMS with a fully customizable Content Studio built in React. Get a Sanity powered site up and running in minutes at sanity.io/create. Get an awesome supercharged free developer plan on sanity.io/syntax.

Get a 30 day free trial of Freshbooks at freshbooks.com/syntax and put SYNTAX in the “How did you hear about us?” section.

02:38 - What and why

• A headless CMS doesn’t mean you have to use a static site generator
• A headless CMS has an API:
  • REST
  • GraphQL
  • GROQ
• A headless CMS can pipe its content into:
  • Static Site on build - like Gatsby
  • An app on run/refresh
  • An existing website - widget
• What makes a CMS? Do you need a UI?
• What is the threshold?
• Is a hotdog a sandwich?
• Things to think about when choosing an API
  • Auth - Rules + roles + levels
• How easy is it to create new data types?
  • Is it code or UI?
  • Can my mom use it?
• Can you create one-off content types? (e.g. settings pages)
• Custom workflows
  • dRafts, revisions, roll backs
• How are images handled? Do you need another service for that?
• Pre-determined UI
  • Is custom UI possible?
  • Two-way relationships?
  • Tags?
• Data validation?
  • UI + API?
• Hosting?
• Pricing?
• Content movability?
  • Can you get your data out?
  • Schemas
  • Users
  • Revisions
• CORS or realtime API?
• APIs
  • Can you insert data via the API? (or just pull)
  • Node API
  • Importing data

24:37 - Hosted

• Sanity
• Prismic
• Contentful
• Dato CMS
• Storyblok
• 8Base
• Agility CMS
  • Seems to be making a big corporate play