In this episode of Syntax, Scott and Wes talk about headless content management systems — why you might want to use one, things you should take into account, and more!

Sanity - Sponsor

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Freshbooks - Sponsor

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Show Notes

02:38 - What and why

• A headless CMS doesn’t mean you have to use a static site generator
• A headless CMS has an API:
  • REST
  • GraphQL
  • GROQ
• A headless CMS can pipe its content into:
  • Static Site on build - like Gatsby
  • An app on run/refresh
  • An existing website - widget
• What makes a CMS? Do you need a UI?
• What is the threshold?
• Is a hotdog a sandwich?
• Things to think about when choosing an API
  • Auth - Rules + roles + levels
• How easy is it to create new data types?
  • Is it code or UI?
  • Can my mom use it?
• Can you create one-off content types? (e.g. settings pages)
• Custom workflows
  • dRafts, revisions, roll backs
• How are images handled? Do you need another service for that?
• Pre-determined UI
  • Is custom UI possible?
  • Two-way relationships?
  • Tags?
• Data validation?
  • UI + API?
• Hosting?
• Pricing?
• Content movability?
  • Can you get your data out?
  • Schemas
  • Users
  • Revisions
• CORS or realtime API?
• APIs
  • Can you insert data via the API? (or just pull)
  • Node API
  • Importing data

24:37 - Hosted

• Sanity
• Prismic
• Contentful
• Dato CMS
• Storyblok
• 8Base
• Agility CMS
  • Seems to be making a big corporate play

36:59 - Self-Hosted

• WordPress
  • WordPress REST API
  • GraphQL API
  • WP GraphQL
  • Advanced Custom Fields for custom UI
  • Most things in WordPress are custom post types and taxonomies, so data from plugins can often be surfaced
  • The theme UI from plugins is often lost
• Drupal
  • contentacms.org
• Craft CMS
• Ghost
• Strapi
• Keystone
• Joomla (JK!)

44:33 - API (BYOUI)

• Hasura
• Prisma
• Firebase

47:37 - Git Based

• Netlify
• Forestry

50:30 - Other

• Google Sheets
  • Sheety
• Airtable
• Tina CMS
  • Not a CMS
• Markdown under the hood
• Notion

Links

• https://twitter.com/wesbos/status/1254772936935739393
• Pixel & Tonic
• GraphCool
• GraphCMS
• Sapper

××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ×××

• Scott: DEWALT Random Orbit Sander
• Wes: Shelf Brackets

Shameless Plugs

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• Wes: Wes’ YouTube Channel

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