Headless CMS Development Services

A headless CMS is a content management system that gives you an administrative interface to create, edit, and manage content, BUT it doesn’t dictate how that content is presented to the user. Unlike traditional CMSs, it doesn’t have a built-in frontend or presentation layer.

In a traditional CMS, the frontend and backend are tightly coupled. That means the content management system controls both content creation and how that content is displayed to users. A headless CMS, on the other hand, separates the content management capabilities from the presentation layer, allowing you to use any technology or framework for the frontend.

There are open-source options like Strapi, Ghost, and Netlify CMS; commercial choices like Prismic, Kentico, Storyblok, and so forth. Each of these has its own features, pricing models, and target audiences, so it really comes down to evaluating the feasibility of each based on your unique needs.

Our dev team can knock it out of the park with pretty much all of the above; however, as is the case with most developers, we all have our favorites. Our primary tools of choice are Sanity and Contentful for a variety of reasons:

Sanity:

• Real-time editing: Sanity provides a real-time visual editing experience, which is a huge advantage for content creators and developers working collaboratively.
• Customization & flexibility: We can create highly customized editorial experiences and structured content.
• Scalability: Sanity is structured to handle anything from small blogs to large, complex websites, making it an excellent choice for projects of any scale.

Contentful:

• Integration capabilities: Contentful has a wide variety of integration options with other services. This flexibility allows us to create powerful and integrated digital experiences.
• Robust content modeling: This ensures a coherent delivery of content across different platforms and allows for flexible content structures.
• Enterprise-level features: You get features like roles & permissions, localization, and version control, instinctively suited for bigger, enterprise-level projects.

We believe that choosing the right headless CMS depends on a project’s specific requirements. While we primarily work with Sanity and Contentful, the wide variety of headless CMS options allows for flexibility and a specific fit per the project’s needs.

This is a tough one because it really comes down to factors like your project requirements (e.g., content types, integrations, scalability), budget, development team’s support, documentation provided by the CMS vendor, and any regulatory or compliance considerations. The good thing is we also provide consultation, where we can sit down and discuss your needs and create a plan of action from there.

Headless CMS platforms typically provide APIs (RESTful or GraphQL) that we use to retrieve content and assets. Our frontend developers then build the presentation layer using frameworks or libraries like Nextjs, React, Vue.js, or Angular, fetching content from the CMS via API calls.

We use Nextjs as our frontend of choice because of its robustness, scalability, flexibility, and excellent developer experience. It also supports essential features like Server-Side Rendering, Static Site Generation, and Incremental Static Regeneration out of the box. That being said, we can absolutely work with others if needed.

Yes, absolutely! It is possible, although the process can vary depending on the platforms. It typically involves exporting content from the existing CMS, transforming it into a format compatible with the headless CMS, and then importing it into the new system. With Nerder, you don’t have to worry about the coding. You take care of your business; we handle your website.