One of the most powerful things nowadays on the internet is the content and its influence over the customers. The creation and distribution of the content can generate an iconic digital experience, however, a poor one can be a huge obstacle performing an effective digital journey for your customers. Therefore, it is crucial for every business to manage and deliver quality content in order to remain competitive.
To serve content, a new type of Content Management System (CMS) is on the rise. Headless CMS seems to be unstoppable at this point, and we at Wiredelta decided to uncover the 10 most popular CMS of 2020 that your organization can benefit from.
What is a Headless CMS?
The term “Headless” indicates a lack of a frontend. Accordingly, headless CMS includes a backend system and API at which the content is stored and distributed.
Publishing content to a web service via an API that is capable of delivering to any device (laptop, smartphone, smartwatch), fulfills the lack of frontend. Headless CMS uses API calls to execute the content into a webpage. This is a preferable option than building relationships between the content (frontend) and the backend like other CMS do such as WordPress.
In addition, there is no requirement for any hosts. Therefore, maintaining headless CMS is easier than non-headless CMS. This leads to improvement of the workflow and collaboration, with digital asset management and access controls being just some of the features of headless CMS.
1. Sanity.io
Sanity.io is an industry-leading headless CMS trusted by clients like Nike, National Geographic, Sonos, Figma, and Netlify.
Flexibility is at the core of Sanity. Developers can customize the editing environment using JavaScript and React and easily integrate the backend with powerful APIs and rich data modelling capabilities.
2. Directus
Directus is great headless CMS for projects that entail customized databases. It is written with backbone.js, REST is used for the public API and it is powered by PHP. The open-source software is free without any limitations or licenses.
Source: Directus
Using Directus, all system data is stored separately. Therefore, customers can have full control over the schema, managing the existing databases. Tracking the data and the possible rollbacks dis-allow the loss of data.
Directus proposes a simple and automatic interface for which no training is required. As each interface enables to manage content based on an extensive diversity of data such as colors, ratings, currencies, and locations.
3. Prismic
Launched in 2013, Prismic is a SaaS headless CMS trusted by many enterprises such as Google, Netflix, and Deliveroo.
The tool allows you to choose the technology, framework, and language and thereafter easily manage and deliver the content. It supports native integrations with eCommerce platforms such as Shopify and Magento.
Prismic proposes free, premium and enterprise plans.
Scheduling and previews, multi-language, full revision history and dynamic layouts are some of the features that make Prismic one of the most popular headless CMS of 2020.
4. Kentico Kontent
Kentico Kontent is a great headless CMS that produces content continually and in one place. Kentico’s cloud-based content hub allows its customers to collaborate, organize and communicate easily.
Kontent helps you and your distributed teams rapidly deliver meaningful content wherever your customers are through any platform on any device. Be it a website, mobile app, chatbot, wearables and IoT devices.
Vogue, University of Oxford, Starbucks, and Santander are some of the enterprises that have chosen Kentico Kontent to manage their content.
5. Bloomreach
The headless CMS Bloomreach offers three main solutions – Bloomreach Experience (brX), Bloomreach Search and Merchandising (brSM) and Bloomreach Experience Manager (brXM).
Bloomreach Experience is an API-based solution for the creation, management, and delivery of the content. brSM is used to optimize and personalize each visitor’s search, browse and landing page experiences. Bloomreach Experience Manager allows engineers to integrate the content and with the systems quickly.
It is a preferred tool by many businesses such as Bosch, Deutsche Telekom, Puma, and Topdanmark.
6. Magnolia
Founded in 1997 in Switzerland, Magnolia is headless CMS that offers powerful capabilities for creation, management, and delivery of experience across a variety of channels. The system allows authors and editors to work individually without relying on engineers for changes in the content.
With Magnolia, the developers can work with desired front-end frameworks such as Vue, Angular and React and integrate with other technologies easily.
Some of the benefits of the tool are personalization, in-context editing, and full-preview.
7. Netlify
Netlify is an open-source content management system. It can be used with any static generator for a faster and more flexible web project. The tool is created as a single-page React app.
Using Netlify, the content is stored in your Git repository alongside your code for easier versioning, multi-channel publishing, and the option to handle content updates directly in Git.
Some of the best features that make Netlify one of the most popular CMS of 2020 are editor-friendly user interface, intuitive workflow for content teams and instant access without GitHub account.
87. Contentful
Contentful is an API-driven headless CMS that focuses on content and backend. It is considered as one of the best systems for small to medium enterprises.
Using Contentful, the engineers can manage, integrate and deliver content across all digital devices and channels, using the preferred languages and frameworks. The content can be edited anywhere by any smart device and can be integrated with other services such as Dropbox.
Contentful offers a free plan available, with a premium plan of $39 a month and enterprise plans of $879 monthly. The tool is trusted by many businesses such as Spotify, Heiniken, and WeWork.
9. Butter CMS
Butter CMS is a Chicago-based headless CMS that enables transferring the data from old traditional CMS.
Flexible content modeling, multi-sites and environments support, revision histories and scheduling are some of the advantages that Butter CMS offers.
The tool proposes four different plans that the customers can choose from – a blog for $40/mo, startup plan for $99 a month, plan suitable for small business for $208 monthly and special for agencies and enterprises. Furthermore, it is an available free developer plan for personal non-commerce usage.
Some of Butter’s big clients are IDEO, Contactually, and Glovo.
10. CoreMedia
Launched in 1996, CoreMedia is an advanced CMS allowing engineers and marketers to create, preview, optimize and deliver the iconic digital brand experience. CoreMedia’s JSON format enables easy integration with front-end platforms.
Using the system, the developers can benefit from CoreMedia’s “Hubs” API to easily integrate additional third-party apps.
Core Media is trusted by more than 200 global companies including Calvin Klein, Mobile.de, Pandora, and GENERALI.
Source: CoreMedia
Summary
Creating, managing, and distributing quality content is an essential part of any business that wishes to stay competitive online. By using the right headless CMS that suits your business needs, you can easily deliver an iconic digital experience to your customers. We presented the features of the 10 most popular headless CMS of 2020, however, if you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to reach us!
