What Are Your Thoughts on Using Headless CMS for Scalable Content Management?

My main struggle has been with indexing content. Once you hit a certain volume, searching through it slows down significantly. Webiny CMS is pretty good with this due to its built-in elastic search via AWS OpenSearch, so that’s been a fast solution for me!

I started out just messing around with headless CMS and now I’m actually a certified specialist for Contentful! They’re fantastic once you get the hang of them. But don’t underestimate the work; a lot of custom components and tailoring the code are necessary to make everything function seamlessly.

What you mentioned is a pretty ideal scenario. In reality, a headless CMS requires specific content structures tailored to your front end, which means code is involved! While async requests can seem advantageous, content might load after the main page, which can be confusing. For simpler needs or on a tight budget, a platform like WordPress might be a better fit.

Using a headless CMS can expose how well your developers grasp CSS. As content updates, does your page adapt well, or does it break? Plus, with the trend towards static site generation, don’t forget to set up webhooks for automatic deployment when new content drops. For a smaller company focused on a single site, a headless CMS might be overkill, but if you're distributing across many platforms, it's a lifesaver.

I've worked with Payload and Strapi, and honestly, the ability to scale is a game-changer when you’ve got multiple frontends pulling from one content source—like a website and mobile app. The UI for editors is pretty clean, which is a plus. But the tricky part for me has been sorting out permissions and the learning curve with deep customization in Strapi. Once that's under control, it really shines in efficiency!