10 Best Headless CMS Options for 2024 and Beyond

A Content Management System (CMS) plays a vital role in simplifying content management and distribution for a business's website. Through this technology, companies can easily create, manage, modify, store, and publish various forms of digital content. Essentially, you don't need coding expertise to build a website when employing a robust CMS. A high-quality CMS equipped with an intuitive user interface and advanced features can significantly boost the user experience.

In our digital realm, ensuring a top-notch user experience is crucial for business success. Finding the perfect solution that efficiently handles content while delivering an exceptional user experience remains a challenging endeavour for any enterprise.

What is a Headless CMS?

The concept of a Headless CMS is transforming how we address our content-related needs using technology. When examining the advantages of a Headless CMS, a key feature is the separation of content management from the front end of the CMS. You can efficiently manage content on the repository's backend without the necessity of a dedicated front-end system. If you utilise Rest APIs or GraphQL APIs, you can effortlessly make your content accessible to your users with this.

For those in search of efficient content management without the intricacies of front-end functionality, a Headless CMS emerges as the ultimate solution. It empowers content publishers for your website or app to employ an API-first approach, expediting content delivery and ultimately enhancing the user experience.

Top 10 Headless CMS Platforms in 2024

Headless CMS is a great tool to elevate user experience and add value to the business. We have listed the top ten headless CMSs so you can make a data-driven choice.

WordPress VIP

One of the best headless CMS that can bring flexibility to your system. Using a single stack, users can utilise the features of a headless CMS like WordPress VIP and elevate user experience on the platform. Some of the top features of WordPress VIP are agility, reliability, security, and more. You can easily integrate this headless CMS with third-party software and use it for your website needs.

Benefits of WordPress VIP

There are many benefits of choosing WordPress VIP as a headless CMS for your business website development, such as:

• WordPress CMS offers greater controls and customisation features, so developers can enhance the user experience easily.
• It gives the flexibility to developers to use any front-end technology to enhance the performance of the website.
• Developers can get data from multiple sources and present it to users without any database issues.
• It is easy to provide content to any platform whether it is a digital display, IoT device, or mobile app.

Acquia

It’s a powerful Drupal-based headless CMS. With cutting-edge personalisation options, it also offers seamless integration with third-party tools. You can easily connect this headless CMS with sales tools and marketing platforms. Creating content quickly can enhance customer experience.

Benefits of Acquia Headless CMS

Here are some of the benefits of using Acquia headless CMS:

• This offers scalability and personalisation options so every user can get the maximum value of a CMS.
• With a simplified option, you can connect the CMS to various CRM tools and utilise customer data to the fullest.

Adobe Experience Cloud

Adobe Commerce is one of the best platforms for eCommerce development. Adobe Experience Cloud (AEC) can be used as a headless CMS as it delivers seamless navigation across all channels of a website. While offering real-time data updates, it can organise and centralise data and manage sales. Companies like Coca-Cola and Dell are using this platform for their e-commerce needs.

Reasons to Choose Adobe Experience Cloud CMS

• It comes with easy integrations with various Adobe products and improves the overall eCommerce experience.
• You can create a highly personalised customer experience to elevate your sales across all channels.
• With integration, you can streamline user journeys and improve the process for marketing and sales teams.

Contentful headless CMS

Contentful is an API-focused, headless CMS. It utilises technologies like REST, GraphQL, and many other CMSs. Users can create, manage, and share content across various platforms with the help of this headless content management system.

Benefits of using Contentful Headless CMS

• You can connect with other tools and services easily thanks to its many integrations.
• To suit your company's requirements, you can develop your own specialised content types and models.
• In order to improve content management, Contentful supports workflow management and aids in website development. It is also used for approval procedures, which simplifies for you the content creation procedures.
• Contentful is simple to understand for everyone thanks to its active developer community and thorough documentation.

CloudCannon

It is a safe headless CMS that can be used to create visually appealing pages. It has an excellent website editing interface, giving developers a powerful and adaptable experience. The majority of clients of this feature-rich CMS are small businesses.

Benefits of CloudCannon headless CMS

• You can build pages with custom components and share changes before publishing them on the website.
• It supports multi-object versioning.
• With templated websites, it offers functionality where non-technical editors can build and manage websites.
• It has powerful editing options with Markdown and HTML files.
• With better security infrastructure, you can integrate third-party tools easily.

Sanity headless CMS

Sanity CMS empowers teams of all sizes to work together in real-time and offers advanced version control features. It is being used by many big websites like Nike, Skims, and Figma. Other than this, it also offers quick and easy integrations with Google Maps and Vimeo services.

Benefits of using Sanity

• It comes with many real-time collaboration tools which allow teams across the organisation to seamlessly create content together.
• With the help of Sanity, content deployment is swift and it can be used for high API performance for efficient interactions.
• Sanity also has a high level of customisation options and offers extensibility so you get the best solutions for content management.
• A robust developer community is available, offering support and insights for smoother implementation.
• The pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pricing model is well-suited for projects of all sizes, from small businesses to enterprises.

Strapi

It is an open-source headless CMS that is built on the node.js language. With flexibility, this JavaScript-based platform offers simplified integration. Some of the top names and companies using this CMS are Toyota, Walmart, and IBM.

Benefits of using Strapi headless CMS

• It has extensive documentation, making it a great choice for developers.
• With features of the Strapi content management system, you can customise content types and APIs and make it easy for you to manage content online.
• It has built-in API support options so you don’t have to use other approaches and methods.

Webiny

If you are looking for a headless CMS for enterprise-level business, Webiny is one of the best names. This open-source headless CMS has many customization options so you can improve the core functionality it has to offer. You can change the UI and add GraphQL easily in this CMS. Moreover, it also has multi-site support and a static site page builder tool.

Benefits of using Webiny CMS

Here are some of the benefits of using Webiny CMS:

• It is serverless and comes with a file manager to serve images over a CDN.
• You can change the interface as the API is very customisable in this CMS.
• With multi-site functionality and modern GraphQL API, it also has a no-code page and no-code form builder.

GraphCMS

This headless CMS has many features for editing and managing content. This CMS uses Vue and React frameworks to make it easy for developers to customise any feature. Based on PostgreSQL, GraphCMS utilises a scalable, modern server architecture hosted by Amazon Web Services.

Benefits of using GraphCMS

Here are some of the key benefits of GraphCMS:

• It is very easy to create a backend with GraphQL.
• GraphCMS offers many quality tools to create any type of content.
• It uses CDN to deliver content faster and offers a great user experience.

ButterCMS

It is an API-first and user-friendly headless CMS that can simplify content management for businesses. Moreover, it offers easy third-party integration and helps in marketing strategy. It is a great tool for building blog sites and dynamic pages.

Benefits of using ButterCMS

Here are some of the benefits of using ButterCMS:

• The setup of this CMS is easy and it comes with great content marketing.
• With SEO-friendly URLs, it supports metadata.
• It supports many programming languages using SDKs and delivers content faster with API caching.
• It has a fully managed architecture and there is no need to maintain the server with every request.

Build a Robust Website With a Secure CMS

Choosing the best headless CMS for your business depends on many factors, as there is no one-size-fits-all solution for website development. If you are looking for the best CMS solution for your website content management needs, you should compare the CMS and choose what fits your needs best. Making a choice can be complex but you should take your time and choose the best one with relevant features and benefits. Speak to one of our CMS experts today so we can help you in making a data-driven choice!

Whether you're aiming to establish a strong digital footprint through website creation or seeking support for content management, the Dotsquares team is here to assist you with all your needs. Ready to kickstart your website development journey? Reach out to us today to start!