In recent years the headless CMS has become one of the standard solutions for larger websites and portals. The name sounds odd, but the idea is simple: it separates content from presentation.
How is it different from a traditional CMS?
In a traditional content management system such as WordPress, content, templates and presentation live in one system. A headless CMS lacks the "head", the presentation layer: content is available through an interface (API) and displayed by a separately built frontend, such as a Next.js application. Well-known headless systems include Sanity, Contentful, Strapi and Storyblok.
What are the benefits?
- Speed: the frontend serves prebuilt, lightweight pages, which is good for users and search engines alike.
- Security: the editing interface is separate from the public site, so the attack surface is smaller.
- Multiple channels: the same content can appear on a website, in a mobile app, on a display or in a newsletter.
- Design freedom: the look is not limited by a template system.
- Structured content: content is stored in fields, which makes it easier to reuse, translate and make search-friendly.
What are the drawbacks?
It needs more development than a site built on a ready-made template, because the frontend has to be written. Editors also have to get used to editing structured content rather than pages, so a good content model and training are needed. For a simple company site of a few pages it is usually overkill.
Who is it for?
- Portals with many content types and many editors.
- Multilingual sites where managing translations matters.
- When you use the content on several channels.
- When speed, search optimisation and visibility in AI search are key goals.
- When your WordPress site has become slow and hard to maintain because of its plugins.
We are building our own new website on a headless CMS too: the content lives in Sanity, and Next.js renders it.
Updated: 4 November 2026
