About this episode
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 Sanity.io is a real-time headless CMS with a fully customizable Content Studio built in React. Get a Sanity powered site up and running in minutes at sanity.io/create . Get an awesome supercharged free developer plan on sanity.io/syntax . Freshbooks - Sponsor Get a 30 day free trial of Freshbooks at freshbooks.com/syntax and put SYNTAX in the “How did you hear about us?” section. 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 Scott: New course on Sapper - Sign up for the year and save 25%! Wes: Wes’ YouTube Channel Tweet us your tasty treats! Scott’s Instagram LevelUpTutorials Instagram Wes’ Instagram Wes’ Twitter Wes’ Facebook Scott’s Twitter Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets