5 Reasons You Should be Learning How to Build With A Headless CMS
Most websites, personal or professional, are built on a CMS (content management system). CMS systems like WordPress, Drupal, and others have surged in popularity over the last decade, but the future is here, and it’s headless. Here is why you should be learning how to build with a headless CMS.
Reasons to Build with a Headless CMS
- Secure integration
- Creative freedom
- Simpler updating
- Parallel development
- Better rendering
What is a headless CMS?
A headless CMS is a system where the “head” (the front end) is separate from the backend data of the website. Images, content, style sheets, and files are delivered via API calls. This allows for massive customization, easier updates, and lightning-fast load speeds.
Why do clients and developers like the headless CMS setup?
1) Secure integrations
All a headless CMS needs to integrate with a 3rd party is an API. With fewer backdoors and vulnerabilities, a headless CMS can quickly and securely integrate systems like Hubspot, Salesforce, Facebook, and even e-commerce systems like Shopify.
2) Creative freedom
In a traditional CMS setup, changes to the front end of a website can have significant impacts on the backend. In some setups, changes to the front end might require involvement from the backend development or IT teams. With a headless CMS, creative and front-end teams can take total control of their website’s look, feel, and user experience, all without ever involving back end or IT teams.
3) Easier maintenance and updates
Where CMS’s like WordPress can have catastrophic conflicts with plugin updates, themes, and other bugs, a headless CMS is largely free from those types of problems. With an independent front and backend, developers can keep each end running smoothly. Additionally, its marketing teams, writers, editors, and creative teams can quickly update their respective sections without causing issues for developers.
4) Parallel development
One of the biggest slowdowns in the web development process is dependencies between front and backend systems. The creative team can’t implement designs, and the content team can’t get their writing until the backend team has finished building frameworks. A headless CMS eliminates these types of dependencies and allows teams to work in parallel without worrying about what the other side is doing.
5) Improved rendering
Page rendering is one of the major culprits for slow website speeds, and most CMS setups don’t improve this key metric. In a traditional CMS, browsers have to send a request to specific folders in the server for all the parts required to render a web page, and CSS, images, HTML code, and JS all have to be delivered to the browser. A headless CMS uses something called client-side rendering, which means that the entire web page is rendering the user’s browser without having to make requests to the server.
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Ready to get on the cutting edge of headless CMS development? ONLC Training Centers can get you on the right path with courses in web development, JavaScript, and more. Learn more about earning a certification with ONLC Training Centers today!
