Hybrid CMS: A Headless CMS, But With a Front-End
What is a traditional CMS?
Before we get into explaining what a headless and hybrid CMS is, let us first recap of how a traditional CMS platform works.
Traditional CMS platforms,?like WordPress,?Drupal, and Joomla, allow users to create, edit, and publish content via an easy-to-use front-end interface, usually in the form of a WYSIWYG editor or an HTML editor. In essence, the front-end template helps to determine how the content will look like to the end-user when they visit the web page through a web browser like Google Chrome.
The content that is produced on the front-end editor is then stored on to a back-end database, which also contains the files and codebase to help run the CMS platform
Besides governing the content, most traditional CMS help marketers manage other aspects of their website, including page structure, sitemap, and templates. It’s how the world of web content management has worked over the years, and it’s a pretty solid model.
However, the limitations of these traditional CMS platforms became apparent ever since IoT devices, like smartwatches, smart speakers, and even smart cars,?grew in popularity.
The pre-built front-end interface dictated how and where content should be distributed, and in most cases, this was to a?single web-based application such as a website or application. And since the front-end template is so tightly glued (or tightly coupled, which is the more appropriate term) to the back-end, both marketers and developers have little room for flexibility as to where they can push their content.
So, along came the headless CMS.
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What is a headless CMS?
To define a?headless CMS, think of the front-end and back-end components of a traditional CMS as the “head” and “body” of a CMS platform, respectively. When we decapitate and remove the head from the CMS platform, we end up with a headless CMS.
A headless CMS is front-end agnostic, which means it doesn’t come with a default front-end system to determine how your content is presented to your end-user. It essentially acts as a content repository which stores your content in its raw form.
So how does the content get delivered to your end-user? Well, since there is no default front-end presentation layer, developers are free to develop as many “heads” as they want, enabling brands to distribute content to a multitude of channels including websites, apps, billboards, and smart speakers. The content is distributed to each channel?through API calls.
Most headless CMS platforms are 100%?API driven, which why they’re suitable for delivering data and content to pretty much anywhere.