What is a Headless CMS?
Tags: webdev, cms, coredna, headless
Published: 2022-07-20 06:00:59

The headless content management (CMS) space has gained traction in recent years, leading to the renewed excitement around a content management model that can help brands handle the relentless number of emerging devices and channels. Old debates about the relevance of headless content management have reignited. But with new jargon, comes new levels of confusion. So, let’s break it down:

- What’s a headless content management system? 
- What’s a decoupled content management system? 
- Headless vs decoupled: What’s the difference? 
- Decoupled vs headless content management: Pros and Cons 
- Disadvantages of a headless CMS 
- Advantages of a decoupled CMS 
- Why headless and why now? 
- What’s API-first and a headless API? 
- What does front-end agnostic mean? 
- What’s a hybrid CMS and a hybrid headless CMS? 
- What’s a content-as-a-service (CaaS)? 
- Does a headless CMS help with omnichannel marketing?

So, what is a headless CMS? Well, If a traditional CMS was a body, the “head” would be the front-end components like the front-end framework and template system. If you chop that head off, and you’re left with a headless CMS.

This type of platform has no default front-end system to determine how the content is presented to the end-user. Instead, a headless CMS is front-end agnostic, meaning that your content is raw and can be published anywhere, through any framework.

By getting rid of the front-end delivery layer, your CMS is suddenly a content-only data source. It produces content and then sits there. Waiting.

This is because there is no default “head”. Front-end developers are free to build as many heads as they like…To retrieve the content for each channel, the headless CMS responds to API calls.

**What’s a decoupled content management system?**
Consider headless content management as a sub-set of decoupled content management (as [decoupled CMS](https://www.coredna.com/blogs/decoupled-cms) is headless, and then some).

A decoupled CMS (a.k.a. hybrid CMS), has your content managed separately and is front-end agnostic, just like a headless CMS. Yet, it has front-end delivery tools in the box, like templates for you.

The difference is that the back-end and front-end are not “coupled” to each other through a database like with a traditional CMS. Instead, the front-end and back-end communicate to each other through calls to an API.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/gfkytjcmx7tbz8rp3qzi.png)


So, remember when we chopped the “head” off a traditional CMS to make it headless? Well, imagine the same here, except keeping the head. It’s not attached to the main body as with a traditional CMS - but you aren’t totally left to your own devices when it comes to front-end delivery, like with a headless CMS, either. 


Read this next: [Contentstack: Everything You Need To Know Before Using Contentstack as a Headless CMS](https://bit.ly/3PkdN1O)


**Headless vs decoupled: What’s the difference?**
A headless CMS has modelling and editorial tools to create and edit content. But the concept of “publishing” content just means making it available via an API. It assumes that you and your nerdy front-end development can handle the rest with whichever frameworks & tools.

A decoupled CMS, on the other hand, doesn’t assume anything. It does everything headless does, but it doesn’t stop there. It also says, “Hey, we’ve got some templating tools here so you aren’t working from scratch.”

That’s just good manners, right? [Blend Interactive](https://www.blendinteractive.com/) CSO, [Deane Barker](https://twitter.com/gadgetopia), summed up [the difference](https://gadgetopia.com/post/9926) quite succinctly:

**“A decoupled platform is proactive — it prepares content for presentation and pushes it into a delivery environment. A headless CMS is reactive — it manages content, then just sits and waits for some process to ask for it.”**

For marketers, this subtle difference can be significant. While the decoupled system uses the templates, WYSIWYG editing and other traditional CMS system tools; many of those tools are not available in headless architecture. However, purely headless systems allow more control over how the content appears on each device. So, more fun for eager front-end developers, less fun for non-tech savvy marketers.


**Decoupled vs headless content management: Pros and Cons**

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/rkj279uxps1vupiqhvbi.png)

**Advantages of a headless platform**
1. Front-end agnostic
A headless or decoupled [CMS is front-end framework agnostic](https://www.coredna.com/content-management-platform). That means you can publish content on any device or channel via API calls. Plus, front-end developers are free to use their favorite frameworks and tools.

2. APIs
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) enable two technologies to speak to each other. Both use APIs to connect and communicate with other softwares and channels, allowing for content delivery. But that’s not all. APIs can also be used to send data from those channels, devices, and touchpoints back for processing, analysis, and re-distribution. 

3. Future-proof
APIs aren’t just ready to talk to any existing software or device, they’re prepared to speak to any new device or channel that emerges in 2019 and beyond. Thus, your content will remain future-proof, no matter what innovative device next hits the market.

Read this next: [eCommerce API: What Is It & How to Harness the Power of the eCommerce API Economy](www.coredna.com/blogs/ecommerce-api)

Read about the disadvantages of a headless CMS and more [here](https://bit.ly/3zjZULw)