Introducing Django Headless CMS: A Powerful and Flexible CMS Solution
Tags: django, cms, opensource, python
Published: 2024-06-20 06:39:52

## Introduction

Are you looking for an effortless way to create and manage a headless CMS? Look no further! I'm excited to introduce **Django Headless CMS**, a robust, open-source content management system designed to simplify the process of managing and delivering content across multiple platforms. Built on Django, this package leverages the sturdy foundation of the Django framework while providing a headless approach, making it ideal for modern web applications.

## Why Choose Django Headless CMS?

Why choose Django-headless-cms over alternatives like [Wagtail](https://wagtail.org/), [Django-CMS](https://www.django-cms.org/), [Strapi](https://strapi.io/), or [Contentful](https://www.contentful.com/)?

- **Headless CMS with minimal configuration**: Unlike Wagtail and Django-CMS, which are primarily headed CMS solutions.
- **Responsive UI**: Preferred over Strapi for its user interface.
- **Python & Django-based**: Built on a robust framework with numerous extensions.
- **Open Source**: Unlike Contentful and other paid services, it allows you to self-host your CMS.
- **Integration**: Easily integrates with many existing Python and Django libraries.
- **Centralized multi-language support**: Reduces redundancy and allows different content across multiple languages.

## Key Features

Django Headless CMS comes packed with features to enhance your content management experience:

- **Schema Migrations**: Manage content schema as database migrations, making it easier to sync from development to production environments.
- **Versioning Content**: Revert to any previously saved version.
- **Publish/Draft Content**: Manage published and draft content.
- **Markdown Editor Support**: Enhanced content editing experience, useful for Posts/Articles.
- **Multi-language Support**: Even for Markdown fields.
- **Auto Translate/Force Re-translate**: Use ChatGPT or build your own translation interface.
- **Recursive Actions**: Apply actions like Publish, Translate, and Force Re-translate to referenced objects.
- **Optimized Queries**: Auto prefetch and select related queries for optimization.
- **Filter Published Objects**: Easily filter to show only published content.
- **Auto Admin**: Simplify admin page setup with features like:
  - Sortable inline Many-to-Many (M2M) relationships.
  - Sortable generic inlines.
  - Display publish status of child objects.
- **Auto Serializer**: Simplify serializer creation, including nested relations. Override specific serializers as needed.
- **Rapid API Development**: Build APIs (Views/Viewsets) quickly and easily with auto serializers and optimized queries.
- **Easy Data Import/Export**: Use the admin interface or management commands.
- **Auto-generated API Documentation & Playground**: Automatically generate API documentation and an interactive playground.

## Quick Start

To get started with Django Headless CMS, follow the tutorial from the docs:

[Quick Start Guide](https://django-headless-cms.readthedocs.io/en/latest/quick-start.html)

## Demo

Want to see a quick demo? By the end of this tutorial, you will have a CMS that can be used to build a multi-lingual page that looks like this: [Django Astrowind Demo](https://django-astrowind.netlify.app/en)

Some features:

- Publish/Unpublish/Recursively publish:

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/wx3axvu100imt07zqds5.png)

- Multi-language & markdown editor:

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/7xvglf5zgt6099ou026h.png)

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/126c91f21w3dvv2nkeg9.png)

- Drag-to-sort related items:
![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/tto50ju0e3cft38haukn.png)

- Auto-translate to multiple languages:

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/xcm4evb8lcq38eti7nge.png)

- And other cool features. Read more in the docs.

## Conclusion

After experimenting with various CMS frameworks, I built Django Headless CMS and Django Astrowind to meet my specific needs and address issues faced by others in the community.

For more information, explore the [Django Headless CMS documentation](https://django-headless-cms.readthedocs.io/) and the [Django Astrowind repository](https://github.com/huynguyengl99/django-astrowind).