Decoupled vs headless content management: Pros and cons
The headless content management model is growing in popularity — and we’ll explore why that is later. But before that, here are the benefits and drawbacks so you can evaluate the model for yourself.
Advantages of a headless platform
1. Front-end agnostic
A headless or decoupled CMS is front-end framework agnostic. That means you can publish content on any device or channel via API calls. Plus, front-end developers are free to use their favorite frameworks and tools.
2. APIs
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) enable two technologies to speak to each other. Both headless or decouples environments use APIs to connect and communicate with other softwares and channels, allowing for content delivery. But that’s not all. APIs can also be used to send data (like end-user activity and preferences) from those channels, devices, and touchpoints back to the CMS for processing, analysis, and re-distribution.
3. Future-proof
APIs aren’t just ready to talk to any existing software or device, they’re prepared to speak to any new device or channel that emerges in 2019 and beyond. Thus, your content will remain future-proof, no matter what innovative device next hits the market.
Disadvantages of a headless CMS
1. No fun for marketers
Robbed of WYSIWYG editing, blogging functionalities and other user-friendly features, marketers, in particular, are left out in the cold until their development team sees to their needs. This isn’t typically a problem for decoupled CMSs.
2. A fragmented tech stack
With a headless CMS, removing the ‘head’ simply means having to hunt for further technologies to replace it. This can entail building front-end solutions in-house, or deploying existing third-party tools to plug the gap. Either way, it could get costly both monetarily and through time spent—not to mention difficult to manage. This problem can be partially alleviated with a decoupled CMS, which will bring those marketer-friendly features right back.
3. No content previews
If you do manage to get your marketers back on track be drafting in third-party tools, they still won’t be able to efficiently use a headless CMS, as they won’t be able to easily preview content before it goes live.
Advantages of a decoupled CMS
As we’ve already discussed, a decoupled CMS doesn’t suffer from the same limitations that a headless CMS has. Instead, it’s headless, and more, as the list of advantages below demonstrate.
1. All the benefits of a headless CMS
As discussed earlier, a decouples CMS is essentially a headless CMS with full-CMS capabilities. Hence, a decoupled CMS gives you the same advantages you’d get with a headless CMS — and then some.
2. Optional front-end templates
Unlike a pure headless CMS, a decoupled CMS will likely provide you with templates to help launch websites and pages quickly, and to give your developers a head start on any other front-end presentation layer they wish to build.
3. All the tools marketers love
A decoupled CMS doesn’t just give marketers their templates back, it also provides WYSIWYG editing, content previews, and additional content publishing tools.