Highly Preferred Headless CMS Platforms In 2023 (Top 15)!

The most frequently asked question we get as Contentstack partners is: “What are the benefits that Headless CMS platforms offer and why are they different from traditional platforms?”

“There’s no front end, isn’t that a drawback?” Well, not really! It’s crucial to find out what exactly Headless CMS brings to the table and why businesses should look forward to these platforms that are contributing to the exponential growth of digital surge and redemption with a solid online presence.

 

With headless CMS, businesses can expect:

• Additional scaling flexibility
• Far better security capabilities than the traditional style
• Faster websites

and more! 

But keep in mind, not every Headless CMS platform can work at the same level. You need to think about the differences in features, capabilities, and API approaches as well.

So, which is the best headless CMS platform right now?

Remember this! The best headless CMS platform should be able to provide the most suitable structure for customization and user-friendliness. Take, for instance, Contentstack. 

For a more in-depth outlook on the current top favorites, let’s explore a list of 15 headless CMS platforms that deserve the hugest shoutout in 2022!

 

Factors to Choose the Best Headless CMS Platform for your Website

Before we begin with the list of 15 Headless CMS platforms, consider these few factors when choosing the most suitable platform for your business.

• Take into account your company’s work and objectives. Use the help of the marketing department to understand the needed features and content delivery style.
• Consult with your company’s developers for opinions.
• Cost-based scalability and other features are important to plan what amount would be perfect for a particular business.
• The ability to not fall off a price cliff needs to be assessed and checked.
• Find out about the file-managing capabilities of the product.
• Less effective migrations can lead to issues rather than benefits. So, it’s a good idea to take help from an authorized partner of the chosen platform to get the best implementation of features. For example, you can work with one of the renowned Contentstack partners to experience smooth migration to the Contentstack Headless CMS platform.

 

Introducing the Top 15 Headless CMS Platforms

Now, let’s find out about each of the 15 popular and most loved Headless CMS platforms in 2022.

 

Contentstack

 

The collaboration and steep learning curve are two amazing benefits of Contentstack that make creating and managing content easier. It also paves the way for other advantages to come onboard.

The content experience platform delivers a Content Management System that is fast-paced. This just accelerates the capacity for taking new users and also the velocity of content.

There is also a boost of IT resources with Contentstack. This MACH-based solution is one of the best for cloud-native scaling. There’s image manipulation as well as content-delivering APIs with it.

With Contentstack, businesses can utilize the most amazing customer-facing experiences. There’s no impact on back-end functionalities here. Businesses simply need to find one of the proficient Contentstack partners to experience a smooth migration to Headless CMS.

 

Sanity

Maximum engagement and digital experience are two exceptional benefits of Sanity, a unified content platform. The open platform is also flexible enough for easy access by developers. The usage of familiar tools is also possible.

Real-time collaborations are simple to leverage, and this even includes multi-user editing. Marketers can also track any change that takes place.

With Sanity, the combined impact of product data and marketing content results in a great content experience. This opens up doors for brands to sell anywhere they want to.

You can also use modern front-end tools as well as localization support with personalization. 

 

Contentful

A 2012 founded CMS platform in Germany, ContentFul is completely API based and targets the site’s backend as well as the content.

With it, creating, managing, integrating, and delivering content is easier for developers across multiple digital devices as well as channels.

They can have preferable frameworks and languages along with a smart device choice of their own.

Contentful is one of the best headless CMS platforms for small to medium-scale businesses. The plans are quite affordable and popular businesses such as Spotify and WeWork use this platform.

 

Butter CMS

Headquartered in Chicago, the Butter CMS comes next with a viable solution for the simplest migration experience from traditional to Headless.

Content modeling is super flexible with it and so optimizing data transfers are easy. There’s also support for multi-level, revision histories, and automated scheduling benefits.

There are plans based on business size and also the flexibility for custom pricing. Glovo and IDEO are two well-known businesses that rely on butter CMS’s amazing solutions.

 

Storyblok

Targeted towards marketers and developers, Storyblok is the perfect Headless CMS example that can deliver a power-packed content experience on the front end.

The visual editing tools and content blocks with customizability would be beneficial for both developers and users of a business.

Orchestrating content on various channels won’t be challenging for marketers. This includes everything from digital signage to mobile apps.

Storyblok can help brands with making a switch from the monolithic structure to a more modern eCommerce setup. You also obtain better merchandising, promoting, and managing abilities.

 

Agility CMS

Marketers need familiar authoring tools. While developers will love the non-restrictive characteristic of using any programming language or framework.

Both of these facilities are available with Agility CMS. It is of course both flexible and fast.

The RESTful APIs as well as open SDKs are great resources for amazing content delivery on any frontend. Sale increasing capabilities of Agility has made it one of the best API-first CMS out there.

 

Prismic

The US-based headless CMS solution, Prismic, is a great choice for those who want a SaaS-based platform. Top companies like Google uses Prismic for providing full customization and personalization capabilities to the user.

This implements framework, language, 3^rd party app, and SEO strategies for the best digital experience. Also, the solution is a rare one that can provide native integration with Magento and Shopify.

 

Strapi

Strapi is for those who would like to use a complete JavaScript or open-source Node.js Headless platform. With this completely customizable solution, building websites to make projects faster is possible.

Integrating any tool is also easier for developers with the Strapi platform. Content teams can also get maximum benefits from centralized content creation and distribution across multiple channel flexibility. Also, the price range is quite affordable for startups and solo developers.

 

Bloomreach

With a connected suite of products that includes searching and merchandising tools as well as other resources for better engagement, Bloomreach is a fabulous cloud solution for so many brands.

The headless CMS platform of Bloomreach can help with a powerful eCommerce experience while its features such as SDK and content APIs work for easy frontend integration.

 

Directus

Businesses that have existing SQL databases will find Directus to be quite a great Headless CMS platform. The language is vue.js and the public API is REST. This open-source Headless CMS can be used without any restriction.

There’s an admin app and content API available inside the product suite. It’s a free self-hosted option.

It's easier to choose libraries and tools with Directus. It also makes connecting via SDK or API simple for developers.

It also fits the need of non-IT users as a great content management option through the admin app.

A strong control system helps with retrieval and rollbacks of earlier versions. Other notable features of Directus are the no-code app, the extensibility and decomposing ability, built-in authentication, and more.

 

Hygraph

 

Businesses that need high marketing and interaction-rich mobile apps will prefer Hygraph. It is the world’s very first GraphQL native Headless CMS. It also provides flexible user experience optimization for multiple language eCommerce platforms.

The content management infrastructure is quite solid with this platform and so both developers and content teams can utilize various styles of content along with effective categorization of workflow streamlining.

 

Sitecore

Another rich customer experience-focused digital platform is Sitecore. You can centralize all the assets in one single pace and so, brands have ease in delivering personalized content. 

Sitecore helps in combining content planning and production. The simplicity of editing, managing, storing as well as delivering content across multiple channels is also a reason Sitecore is a top favorite. 

The customizable Headless solution that is also API-first provides an all-in-one marketing solution that can facilitate AI-driven tools for better product recommendation as well as search results.

 

Netlify CMS

A solid and faster web project is what Netlify CMS delivers using any static generator. It is one open-source Headless system that works as a single-page react application.

The Git repository contains all the content when using Netlify CMS (This also includes the code). So, versioning is super simple with it. The same goes for publishing on multiple channels.

Businesses that choose Netlify CMS will also have the benefit of handling content updates in Git directly.

Real-time previews are also available and so effective content working is assured before the actual publishing. 

Other fabulous features of Netlify CMS would be the great UI for content makers, the availability of web-based and command-line services, and a built-in rich text editor.

 

Bold

Quintype is a new-age digital publishing platform that provides an enterprise Headless CMS named Bold. 

The notable characteristic is its rich editing facility and also the workspace that seems quite organized. The omnichannel distribution is efficient.

Bold can serve with analytics that is quite in-depth. Also, there’s a machine learning algorithm for making the content access the target audience easily. 

FORTUNE, SWARAJYA, and some other companies use Bold for its amazing Headless CMS capabilities.

 

Ghost

Ghost is a complete Headless CMS that can take almost any front-end connection. Earlier it was a standard monolithic web app representing architecture.

The default setting provides a front end with an admin client. However, it's possible to swap them out with personal JAMstack if necessary. Nasa, Apple, and many renowned brands rely on Ghost.

 

Is it Necessary to Use Headless CMS – Making the Final Choice!

Now, with all eyes on Headless CMS, is it absolutely necessary for a business to migrate? And more importantly, is headless CMS the future of content management?

Headless CMS has full potential to be the biggest aspect in the future, especially looking at the rising number of multi-experience user journeys. It’s already a significantly considered structure for several renowned businesses that love the independent storing of contents systematically. This can then be used on various applications and channels. 

As Contentstack partners, we have seen our share of different types of businesses getting amazing benefits from the Headless CMS technology. 

But, no matter how promising anything seems, there’s always a certain crowd that may not need these benefits. That’s why you must ask, “Is Headless CMS worth it for your particular business?”

Yes! Headless CMSs are beyond worth it for organizations that need to discard the old way of spending resources on editing and rendering content. It can be greatly beneficial for developers who strongly consider user experience. 

But if a business does not need frequent changes and uses mostly static content, then there’s not much to obtain from a Headless CMS. Also, small-scale websites with less technical proficient availability may experience strike back instead of any good.

Once you are set on the decision of switching to Headless CMS, it is indeed a good idea to always check the features of all available platforms. This helps you find the less time-consuming migration option.

 

Contentstack offers the easiest, most practical switch to headless CMS. SJ Innovation provides headless CMS service with complete support as official Contentstack partners to help businesses experience a simple migration along with hitting overall goals.