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July 1st, 2019 ×

Hasty Treat - What is a Headless CMS?

Wes Bos

Wes Bos Host

Scott Tolinski

Scott Tolinski Host

or
Show Notes Transcript

In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes talk about headless CMSs - why to use them, how they work, pros and cons, examples and more!

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Show Notes

2:11 - What is a headless CMS?

  • It's a system or CMS that has no front-end (aka head)
  • Allows you to use front-end specific tech (static generators/front-end frameworks) instead of the back-end to generate pages

4:37 - Some examples

  • Can be used with any type of website that can consume an API
  • WordPress API + Gatsby
  • Hosted Service + React App

7:06 - Why?

  • Separation of concerns - your data is in a single spot, and can be pulled into any app, website, marketing micro site, etc.
  • Keeps ergonomics of WordPress or $CMSHERE, while developers get to use what they like
  • Optimizes for performance with static builds
  • Hide the implementation details and back-end from view

10:19 - Live vs statically-generated website

10:55 - How?

  • Connects to API via normal fetch calls/GraphQL/whatever you use
  • Needs to host your back-end either as a service or on a host
  • Needs to host your front-end either on the same server as your back-end or on something specialized like Netlify

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