The Best CMS for Developers

Webflow

Webflow is an emerging player among modern, code-free CMSes. While WordPress takes a post-centric approach, it can fall short on how approachable it is for agencies that work in Agile or a two-way project management structure.

Using a block like drag-and-drop builder, it is easy for designers who are code-native, to build a website while being able to resize and amend each individual block to fit with an agreed design. Then, the development team can enjoy an easy “headless” API architecture to link it up with whatever third party packages they feel will help the website run as optimised as possible.

Webflow is great for content managers, as its CMS allows for them to design, build and write content for new pages. You can also input the content right into the design, so you know how it will look before it is published to the world.

It’s drawback is that it isn’t free. Webflow charges a minimum of £15 a month (paid annually) for it’s limited plan and £30 a month (paid annually) for full access to the API and CMS. Plans start from £25 per month (paid annually) for their ecommerce platform. But it is an investment into what is arguably one of the most exciting and comprehensive CMSs in recent years.

Contentful

From CMSes with integrated software, to easy to use WordPress-adjacent platforms, the current market constantly develops the emerging concept of CaaS (Content as a Service). Contentful is one of many market leading content platforms for medium to enterprise level content management solutions. With an API driven mindset, this is the preferred choice for front-end developers and designers to craft experiences without the limitations placed on them from off-the-shelf platforms.

How is this different?

Let’s take a minute and understand the key differences in CMS structures.

Decoupled: A CMS structure where the back-end and front end tasks are separated. It does not assume anything from your project and offers website templates, pre-configured layouts and a WYSIWYG editor to create your content. In an architectural point of view, it is not headless, however, this is completely optional to use and considers how content is presented (using the presentation layer). A decoupled system can achieve everything a headless approach can.

Headless: In a headless approach, the CMS takes no responsibility on how the content would be presented (no front end presentation layer). It prepares content ready for display and pushes to the specified delivery environment of your application. This provides developers the freedom of how information is displayed using their choice of various frameworks/coding languages. Essentially, you are separating each component to a wider net. API integrations (e.g with SAP, CRMs) can flow easily without disrupting the entire content management system.

Traditional: Simply put; an approach that uses an intertwined architecture of the back end and front end. This is good for simple solutions, however, it restricts you to major transformation requirements and needing skilled developers to carry out heavy customisation when scaling up to more advanced systems.

This is where Contentful comes in; it may be considered as a headless CMS, however it comes with more “brains” which sets an entire new standard of content infrastructure. It works by hosting a hub to store all your content and a programming tool that allows developers to ship information to any website, app or device. The content infrastructure then turns the content into code so you can build out any digital product for any platform. This allows you to reduce spend on various resources and use your development team much more wisely. Being ‘API-First’, Contentful’s key focus is to provide powerful enterprise grade APIs compared to the general market (API-plugins) to manage complex digital needs. All of this being hosted on the cloud without the need to set up nor maintain your own server.

For small Businesses, pricing starts at 40$/month for developers while enterprise level pricing starts at 879$/month.

Contentful is not a one-stop-shop out of the box solution, therefore a decent team of developers using proprietary code will be needed. If you are looking for a simpler solution whilst only needing one or two API integrations; then a traditional setup may be more accommodating.