When it comes to building websites, how you manage content matters. While traditional CMS platforms still work well for many sites, headless CMS are growing in popularity due to their flexibility, better performance, and stronger security. In this blog, we’ll break down what exactly this means, and why a headless CMS might be the better way to build sites in 2025.
What is a CMS?
A CMS, or Content Management System, is software that lets you create, edit, manage, and publish content on a website without needing to write code from scratch.
You get a dashboard where you can do things like add pages, blog posts, upload images and videos, update text and more. In a traditional CMS, the CMS is connected to the front-end of the website. You manage content and control how it looks all in one place, so you’re editing in the same environment that renders the website.
What is a Headless CMS?
A headless CMS separates the back-end from the front-end visual part of a website. As both the back-end and the front-end are separate entities, the content and assets are delivered by an API endpoint. So you just manage content, and then fetch it via APIs to display however and wherever you want. That could be to websites, apps, and even smart home appliances.
Benefits
There are numerous benefits and reasons for choosing this approach for a website build. To help you out, we have narrowed it down into four key benefits below.
1. Performance
One of the main benefits of a headless CMS is its improved performance. Simplified code means website loading times can be significantly improved, especially if this is combined with static website generation (this means your web pages are pre-made ahead of time, instead of being built on the spot every time someone visits).
In a traditional CMS model, the page content and data are loaded via a database. This takes up valuable time in going back and forth to the website front-end and the server. But if the website is generated statically, then it means all of the page rendering can be done entirely on the front-end, which can drastically improve the website speed.
You might be wondering, ”But how can you make edits in the CMS if the website is static?” It’s simple: Just update the content in the CMS as you usually would. When you click “publish” or “update”, the system rebuilds the website as new static files, and shows the updated version to visitors on the front-end.
This approach generally leads to not only fast website loading times, but also fewer bottlenecks and is generally better for SEO.
2. Security
In a traditional CMS model, both the front-end and back-end of the website are tightly coupled together by being hosted in the same location. This means that things like your dashboard, database access and templates are all often exposed publicly.
On the other hand, with a headless CMS, the front-end and the back-end are generally hosted in separate locations. This means the back-end (with the CMS) isn’t directly exposed to the public, making targeted hacking attempts much less likely to happen.
We often get asked “If the front-end and back-end of the website are separated, how do they talk to each other?” This is all done via an API which fetches only the bits of content and data that you require to render onto the page. The API integration coupled with the static website generation further improves the website performance.
The CMS’ API is usually protected by authentication methods too, such as API keys, JWT tokens or OAuth. You can also restrict access to certain users, adding an extra level of security to the website build.
3. Flexibility
As the front-end and back-end of the website are treated separately, this gives the developer full flexibility. They can either choose the framework that suits their skillset best, or one that better specialises in front-end website builds. This means you aren’t locked into a CMS’ templating engine. Some of the popular frameworks include: React, Vue, NextJS.
With a headless CMS your content is served through an API, which means it can be fetched by any device or platform, making it more readily available to also develop additional digital products such as mobile apps, allowing integration with voice assistants (like Alexa or Google Assistant), AR, and Wearables (like Apple watches).
4. Easier Integration
A lot of websites that exist online require some level of API integration. This could be anything from sending form data to a CRM system, or displaying social content on the website. As the website is API driven, it makes it more readily accessible to integrate with third party tools such as CRMs, eCommerce platforms and search engines amongst other things.
In summary, a headless CMS offers a modern and efficient approach to content management by decoupling the front-end and back-end of the website. The architecture brings several benefits such as improved website performance, enhanced security, greater developer flexibility and easier third-party integrations.
Whether you are building a simple content website, a high-performance marketing website or an eCommerce store, a headless CMS provides the scalability needed to meet today’s demands in website development.
