Top 8 Headless CMS Platforms for Ecommerce Brands
Ecommerce brands know that creating a memorable brand experience is critical to converting shoppers into customers. Creating a great brand experience requires telling your shoppers a compelling story about your products and how they fit into their lives.
A Content Management System (CMS) has historically been an important part of how brands tell that story. A CMS stores all your brand’s content, which can include blog posts, product descriptions, images, and videos.
In recent years, as companies have begun to adopt a “headless” architecture, an increasing number of headless CMS platforms have entered the market. Headless CMS software stores all your content in a backend and makes it available to any frontend device via an Application Programming Interface (API).
A headless CMS allows your brand to pursue an omnichannel strategy, where you can display your content not only on desktop and mobile, but also on voice assistants and other IoT devices.
In this article, we review in great detail what a headless CMS is and how it can help your ecommerce brand. We then review the top 8 headless CMS platforms:
What is a headless CMS?
CMS platforms have been popular since the early days of web development. Brands need a platform that stores all their content and displays it on their website.
CMS platforms make available to marketers and content publishers an admin area where they could manage their content. Traditional CMS platforms such as WordPress and Drupal tightly couple the backend content with the frontend, or presentation layer.
Traditional platforms store content on the backend as pages since that is how the content is generally displayed on the frontend. This approach, however, has become antiquated as new devices such as voice assistants and IoT devices require presenting content in different formats.
Headless CMS software has emerged in recent years to give brands the ability to display content to a variety of devices. They also give brands the flexibility to model their content any way they see fit.
“Headless” is one aspect of a new way to architect your tech stack, often referred to as MACH architecture. MACH stands for microservices (M), API-first (A), cloud native (C), and headless (H).
With MACH architecture, brands can adopt various microservices to support customer experiences that will help drive conversions. The glue that holds these cloud-hosted services together are APIs, which allow these services to exchange data.
Ecommerce brands are no longer limited to the features and functionality that come with a popular ecommerce platform, such as Shopify or BigCommerce. Instead, they can adopt best-of-breed solutions to enhance their internal operations and customer-facing experiences.
Shopify’s native CMS, for example, is fairly bare bones and doesn’t have the extensive features of a more established CMS such as WordPress. But by integrating a headless CMS into your Shopify Liquid storefront, your content and marketing teams can work with a more robust solution.
And if you go completely headless with Shopify, you can additionally integrate a custom frontend that receives content from your headless CMS but still relies on Shopify as your commerce engine.
Benefits of a headless CMS
There are several ways in which you can integrate a headless CMS into your online storefront. First, your brand can continue to rely on the Shopify Liquid storefront. In this case, a headless CMS simply replaces the native Shopify CMS.
Alternatively, your developers can build a custom frontend with a popular JavaScript framework. In this section, we discuss the benefits of both approaches.
Enhanced omni-channel capabilities
In the past decade, we have witnessed a proliferation of digital devices. Brands can reach customers across a variety of devices, beyond just desktop and mobile.
Voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa and wearables like Apple Watch are just a few. In the next decade, we will potentially witness the emergence of new types of digital interfaces, including the metaverse.
These devices represent opportunities for ecommerce brands to reach new and existing customers. The traditional ecommerce storefront, however, was not designed to reach customers in these new digital spaces.
A headless CMS makes available all your content via APIs. With custom frontends, you can deliver your content to any device type. As new devices and platforms emerge to reach your customers, your brand is only one custom frontend away from being able to deliver your content on those platforms.
Developers can select their own technologies
When you go headless, you give your developers the freedom to select the technologies that they’re most comfortable with or are best suited for what you need to build.
The “headless” part of a headless CMS means that the software comes with no frontend, as opposed to traditional CMS software such as WordPress or Drupal.
The CMS you select no longer dictates your frontend. You can select any type of frontend that matches your business or technical requirements.
Select a best-in-class solution
Adopting MACH architecture allows your brand to adopt best-in-class solutions for all your business and technology needs. As mentioned earlier in this article, many ecommerce platforms provide native CMS functionality with very few of the robust features available with CMS providers.
By adopting a headless CMS platform, your marketing and content publishers have access to a wide range of features and functionality that will enable them to create and deliver custom storytelling experiences for your brand.
Evaluating a headless CMS
The criteria for evaluating a headless CMS is different from evaluating a traditional CMS like WordPress or Drupal. There are some criteria, such as pricing and customer support, that are shared between the two types of software.
But given that a headless CMS does not include a frontend, you should primarily be evaluating the platform for its backend capabilities, its ability to support content publishing operations, and the developer experience.
In this section, we review the criteria you should keep in mind when considering different headless CMS platforms.
Software Type
When considering headless CMS software, it’s important to keep in mind that there are 2 major types of software platforms: open source and closed source.
Open source
Open source software is a type of software where the codebase is publicly accessible and is available for customization by your developer team.
An advantage of adopting open source software is that your brand is able to customize the software to suit your business and technology needs. The drawback, however, is that open source software usually requires a greater amount of developer resources to upgrade and maintain.
Open source software is generally self-hosted, although in the headless CMS space, some providers require you to host the software on their cloud-hosted platform.
Closed source
The alternative to open source is closed source software. Your developers don’t have access to the software’s codebase, minimizing the ability for customization. Most closed source software is cloud-based, however, so your development teams aren’t responsible for upgrades and maintenance, allowing them to focus on new features and functionality.
Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms offer cloud-hosted software solutions that are generally closed source. SaaS solutions make available various features and functionality that are gradually unlocked based on a pricing tier.
API Capabilities
An Application Programming Interface (API) is the interface that developers use to exchange data between the various applications that constitute your tech stack. As a result, this is one of the most critical features of any headless CMS to evaluate.
Rest API vs. GraphQL API
The two most popular API protocols are REST and GraphQL. REST, or Representational State Transfer, has historically been the most popular API protocol used to exchange data between different applications.
A drawback of the REST protocol is that it’s not optimized for performance. Developers often have to make multiple sequential requests for data to collect all the required information to display to the user. This results in a slower page loading speed and a poorer user experience.
A common issue that results from the multiple requests made with REST API calls is the over-request of data, where extraneous data is sent to the user’s browser. This also results in slower performance.
GraphQL, however, is a relatively new API protocol created by Facebook that is optimized for performance. Developers can now construct queries for data that return exactly the data that is needed in one request-response cycle, resulting in a much faster user experience.
The API protocols exposed by the headless CMS platform is certainly important to evaluate as not all software providers expose a GraphQL API.
API rate limits
One method in which software providers constrain API usage is by setting limits on the number of API calls that can be made to their platform within a given period of time. If you reach their rate limit, subsequent API calls will fail and generate an error message.
While enterprise plans usually set generous rate limits, it’s always important to evaluate the platform’s API’s rate limit against how many requests you can expect to make so as not to create a poor user experience for your customers.
Developer Experience
Working with a headless CMS platform requires a great deal of developer resources. As a result, the developer experience is an important consideration when selecting a headless CMS, as a poor experience for your developer may result in a slower time to market and less productivity from your developers.
When evaluating a headless CMS for its developer experience, it’s important to ensure that the technical documentation is clear, thorough, and easily navigable. Another benefit to developers is whether the headless CMS makes available any starter templates or sample queries so developers don’t have to start from scratch when coding.
And when your developer teams have questions, it’s important that your developers have access to resources to get answers. It’s also critical to evaluate how responsive the technical support is and whether the provider makes available a Slack channel so your developers can either reach out to support staff or developers at other companies that use the product.
Integrations
What native integrations does your headless CMS come with? Out-of-the-box integrations reduce developer time and effort. Ideally, the platform you select should come with native integrations for the microservices that are already part of your tech stack.
You may choose to integrate your headless CMS with your ecommerce platform, for example, in order to give your content and marketing teams the ability to weave your brands products with your content.
In certain cases, you may decide to build a custom integration if one does not exist. If you select open source software, your development teams can create a custom integration with your ecommerce platform if a native integration does not exist.
If your brand selects a closed source solution, however, you may not be able to build a custom integration. You’ll need to investigate the headless CMS or the third-party service to determine whether an integration is possible.
Content authoring experience
Your content publishers and marketers are another set of users of your headless CMS. Content and marketing teams are generally familiar with updating or publishing content in a traditional CMS platforms like WordPress.
Traditional CMS software comes with an admin panel where teams can update content, preview how the content will look on a webpage, and publish it.
Going headless with your CMS will mean your content and marketing teams may need to readjust their internal operations around previewing and publishing content. When evaluating a headless CMS for its content authoring features, it’s important to review how previewing and publishing content is supported.
Does the headless CMS support adding comments to drafted content? Is your content team allowed to preview and publish content without developer support? And is the admin panel of the headless CMS easy-to-use.
Top CMS Platforms
There are a great number of software solutions in the headless CMS market. In this section, we review the top 8 headless CMS platforms for ecommerce brands. Based on our criteria for evaluating headless CMS solutions, we make sure to review the following topics for each platform:`
Price
Software type
Customer Support
API capabilities
Developer experience
Integrations
Content authoring experience
Contentful
Contentful is a headless CMS targeting mid-size to large enterprise companies. Used by companies such as Notion, Costa Coffee, and Shiseido, Contentful is a SaaS platform and is one of the leading API-first CMS platforms on the market.
Pricing
As with many CMS platforms, Contentful provides a free Community tier designed for developers, startups, and nonprofits. Their next tier is the Team plan, which starts at $489 per month. Their enterprise, or Premium, plan can run into the several thousands of dollars depending on your needs.
API Capabilities
Contentful exposes both a REST API and GraphQL API, allowing your developers to take advantage of both query protocols. The providers app marketplace allows your developers to install a GraphQL environment that allows them to test queries from within the admin panel.
Both the Community and Team plans set a rate limit of 2 million calls per month. No overages are allowed under the Community plan while the Team plan allows for paid overages. No API rate limit is set on the Premium plan.
Developer Experience
Contentful’s documentation is thorough, giving your developers information about how to query and render your brand’s content on frontend devices. Information is not easily findable, however. In our review, we found it easier to use Google to search for content in Contentful’s documentation.
A Slack channel and a community discussion board are both available to help your developers with any technical questions they might have. Their documentation also contains starter templates to create an ecommerce site and blog with Next.js so your developers don’t have to start from scratch when building out your online storefront.
Pros
Contentful provides an easy-to-use admin panel for your content publishers to preview and publish content. The headless CMS software’s flexible approach to content modeling also allows your content teams to easily structure content any way your brand sees fit.
The app marketplace makes available integrations for several ecommerce platforms, such as Shopify, BigCommerce, and Contentful. Your brand also has the ability to create custom integrations for platforms or tools that don’t have out-of-box integrations.
Cons
Contentful is a great headless CMS solution but its pricing makes this software provider less attractive for smaller companies. Competitors such as Sanity and Prismic offer lower pricing for small teams.
Sanity
Sanity is a headless CMS solution designed for organizations of any size. Companies such as Nike, Conde Nast, and Skims have adopted Sanity for their content needs.
Sanity is an open source platform built with React, the popular JavaScript library. Despite being open source, the headless CMS solution also offers deployment and hosting options.
Pricing
After a generous free tier, Sanity offers a Team plan for $99 per month designed for small teams, where you can pay-as-you-go for higher usage. Their Business plan costs $949 per month and is meant for mid-size businesses, while their Enterprise plan is designed for larger companies.
The pricing for the Enterprise plan is custom and comes with a Service Level Agreement (SLA) and 24/7 customer support.
API Capabilities
Sanity allows your developers to query data with two protocols. GraphQL and GROQ, a custom protocol developed by Sanity. Graph-Relational Object Queries (GROQ) is a query language that is intuitive to understand and, like GraphQL, is optimized for performance. Your developers will find writing queries in GROQ straightforward if they choose to adopt it.
The Free plan allows for a maximum of one hundred thousand API calls per month and the Team plan sets a limit of 500 million per month. The Business plan sets a limit of 2 millions calls per month while the Enterprise plan sets no limits.
Developer Experience
Community support is always available for your developers as Sanity provides a Slack channel for them if they have any technical questions. Sanity’s documentation is thorough as well organized, providing detailed information on how to use GROQ and GraphQL to make queries against your content repository.
Sanity also makes available several starter templates to help your developers accelerate development, as well as several guides and resources to help them get up and running with the headless CMS.
Pros
The diverse price points allows companies of any size to adopt Sanity. Whether you are a small brand or a large enterprise company, Sanity provides features and functionality at a relatively affordable price for your business.
The open source status of Sanity gives your developers the flexibility to customize the CMS to suit your business and technology needs. You can create integrations with any third-party service or extend the CMS’s functionality since the codebase is infinitely customizable.
Cons
Since Sanity is built with React, your developers will need to gain familiarity the with JavaScript library. React is perhaps the most popular of all the JavaScript libraries, so you most likely will not have a problem finding developers familiar with the library. But if your frontend is built with another technology, such as Vue, you may not want your developers to have to learn another JavaScript library.
Native integrations with ecommerce platforms are limited. As of the date of this article, Sanity only provides an out-of-the-box integration with Shopify. If you’re on another ecommerce platform, your development team will need to custom build an integration if you want your content publishers to update product descriptions, initiate flash sales, or weave in product-related information into your blog content.
Storyblok
Storyblok is a headless CMS platform and visual editing tool designed for ecommerce brands of all sizes. The platform has been adopted by companies such as Adidas, T-Mobile, and Pizza Hut.
What makes Storyblok distinctive as a headless CMS is its visual editing experience, giving content publishers and marketers the ability to add or alter content while also being able to preview how it will look in the editor.
Your developers create and register components with Storyblok, which then appear in the visual editor for your content and marketing teams. Content publishers also have the autonomy to rearrange components to create different customer experiences.
Pricing
Storyblok’s Entry plan for start-ups and small businesses costs $90.75 per month. The Team plan for larger companies is $411.58 per month, while its Enterprise plan is $2,999 per month. The Enterprise Plus plan is a custom price but will most likely run into the several thousands of dollars.
API Capabilities
Storyblok makes available to developers a Content Delivery API employing a REST protocol that allows you to read and write against your content. The platform also makes available a read-only GraphQL API.
The Content Delivery API has a rate limit of 50 requests per second for uncached requests. The GraphQL API has a different rate limit, using a point system to calculate limits. The GraphQL API has a rate limit of 100 points per second, with each query assigned a score based on a normalized scale of points.
Developer Experience
Storyblok provides developers with detailed, easily navigable documentation on how to create queries using both the Content Delivery and GraphQL APIs. Resources on popular JavaScripts, such as Next.js, Nuxt.js and Gatsby are also available for developers.
Developers also have access to a community forum on Discord if they have any technical questions they need answers to.
Pros
The visual editor distinguishes Storyblok from many other headless CMS platforms. As mentioned above, your content publishers can easily change and preview content across all breakpoints using an easy-to-use interface. They can also manipulate “bloks” to create unique page experiences without developer support.
Cons
You can easily integrate any ecommerce platform to Storyblok through an easy-to-use interface where you can add your platform’s API endpoint. One caveat, however, is that Storyblok’s integration support is read-only. Unlike other headless CMS platforms, you cannot update your product content directly from Storyblok.
Prismic
Prismic is a headless CMS designed for small teams but can also support large ecommerce brands. Popular brands such as Deliveroo, Rakuten, and Veriff had selected Primic to manage their content.
The headless CMS platform makes available “slices” that can be manipulated by your content and marketing teams to create custom experiences without the need for developer support. Primic also provides your teams with an easy-to-use visual editor to create and modify content.
Pricing
Prismic offers two tiers of pricing plans: one for small and growing brands and the other for mid to large-size companies.
For small and growing brands, Prismic offers 2 pricing points: a Starter plan that costs $7 per month and a Small plan for $15 per month.
For larger organizations, Prismic offers a Medium plan for $100 per month, a Platinum plan for $500 per month, and Enterprise plan with custom pricing.
API Capabilities
Like most of the headless CMS providers on this list, Prismic makes available both REST and GraphQL APIs.
But where Prismic really shines is in its rate limit, or lack thereof. Unlike other headless CMS providers, Prismic doesn’t set any rate limits on any of its plans, giving you the flexibility to deliver your content on any platform at any time.
Developer Experience
Prismic makes available a Slice Machine, which developers can run in their local environment to create Slices for content and marketing teams to create custom user experiences. Prismic provides both documentation and videos to guide developers on how to work with the Slice machine.
Some customers have complained, however, that their API documentation is not complete. Our own review suggests there is an opportunity for Prismic to enhance the thoroughness of its API documentation.
Prismic’s documentation, however, does provide deep dives into setting up Prismic with popular JavaScript frameworks, such as Next.js, Gatsby, and Nuxt.js.
Pros
Prismic’s visual editor is easy-to-use and will give your content and marketing teams the ability to create new experiences without the need to burden your developers. You can also set up preview environments so your teams can preview content and once approved, publish it.
Shopify is the only ecommerce platform with a native integration supported by Prismic. However, Prismic makes available integration fields that easily allow you to push and pull your product data from any ecommerce platform.
Cons
Many customers have complained about the lack of adequate technical documentation. While our review did reveal some gaps, your development teams should review it to determine if it meets their technical needs.
Strapi
What differentiates Strapi from the other headless CMS platforms on this list is that it is open-source. As the leading open-source headless CMS platform, it has been adopted by brands such as Toyota, Walmart, and eBay.
Strapi is self-hosted so your developers will be responsible for deployment and maintenance. The headless CMS platform, however, will soon be offer cloud-hosting services.
Pricing
Strapi is free to use, customize, and deploy. But the platform does offer a series of pricing plans for enterprise customers who want custom roles for admin users and Single Sign-On functionality out-of-the-box, as well as technical support.
The Bronze plan costs $9 per user per month while the Silver plan costs $29 per user per month. Strapi also offers a Gold plan for a custom price.
API Capabilities
As an open-source solution which brands are currently required to self-host, API rate limits are set by the cloud-hosting solutions you select. When selecting your hosting service, ensure that the API rate limits set by the provider meet your business and technology needs.
Strapi supports queries to your content repository using both REST and GraphQL API protocols.
Developer Experience
Strapi offers a variety of resources to ensure your developers have all the support they need to build and deploy a Strapi application. Their website provides thorough documentation on how to make queries with both REST and GraphQL APIs.
The website also showcases a series of tutorials addressing common technical concerns your developers may have. It also contains a starter template library where you developers can accelerate their productivity with Gatsby and Next.js.
Strapi also supports a Discord community which your developers can join and connect with others working with the headless CMS.
Pros
As an open source solution, Strapi is highly customizable. If you have the developer resources, you can extend Strapi with new features and functionality depending on your business needs.
Your content editors have autonomy from developers by having the freedom to create new pages and structure content any way they see fit.
Cons
Strapi supports over 100 integrations with all types of third-party services. But when it comes to ecommerce platforms, Shopify is the only platform with a native integration. If you’re on any other platform, your developers will have to build a custom integration.
Contentstack
Contentstack is a headless CMS designed for mid-market and large enterprise brands. They boast McDonalds, Shell, and Chase among their many customers.
The headless CMS platform is one of the founding members of the MACH alliance, a non-profit organization created to educate and support brands who want to select best-in-class technologies as part of the new headless revolution.
Pricing
Contentstack has 3 pricing plans, with all 3 at custom price points. You’ll need to contact Contentstack’s sales team to learn more.
The Start plan is for teams managing single property sites, white the Grow plan is designed for teams who need to manage a web, mobile, or iOT application. The Scale plan supports organization-wide usage and teams working on multiple digital properties.
API Capabilities
Contentstack makes available both REST and GraphQL APIs. When REST or GraphQL queries are executed, content is delivered to your users via a Contentstack CDN cache.
There are no limits on the number of queries that hit Contentstack’s CDN. Requests that hit the origin server, however, have a rate limit depending on the protocol.
GraphQL queries that hit the origin server are rate limited to 80 requests per second per organization. REST API queries that hit the origin server have a rate limit of 100 requests per second per organization.
Developer Experience
The Contentstack website hosts starter templates for your developers to accelerate their productivity. Templates exist for not only Next.js and Gatsby, but also for less common frameworks such as Angular and Sveltkit.
The website also features detailed guides for several technologies ranging from Node.js and React Native to iOS and Android.
Contentstack provides 24/7 support for your developers when they have questions, as well as a customer success manager to help your team get up and running with the CMS.
Pros
Contentstack supports a great variety of integrations with third-party services, including many ecommerce platforms, such as Shopify, BigCommerce, and Commercetools, among several others.
Your content and marketing teams don’t have to change their internal operations to suit the headless CMS. Your teams have flexibility around how to preview and publish content with the ability to create custom workflows.
Cons
Several customers have made various complaints about the admin panel. Some of these complaints have included a lack of color contrast and that the user interface is too minimalist.
Hygraph
Hygraph is a headless CMS designed for mid-market and large enterprise companies. The software provider has been adopted by well-known brands such as Samsung, Philips, and Telenor.
Hygraph markets itself as a federated content platform. Your brand can leverage Hygraph to compose content across all your third-party services so it can be managed in an admin panel and available to your customers via a single GraphQL query.
Pricing
Hygraph makes available a free Community plan for your developers to explore the CMS and build starter applications. A Professional plan at $299 per project per month and a Scale plan at $799 per project per month are designed for growing teams who are scaling their products.
The price for the Enterprise plan is custom and includes professional support for onboarding and architecture, dedicated infrastructure coverage, and a Service Level Agreement.
API Capabilities
Hygraph makes available a GraphQL API to deliver your content to any custom frontend.
Rate limits vary by pricing plan. The Community plan limits API calls to 5 requests per second, the Professional plan to 10 requests per second, and the Scale plan to 35 requests per second. The Enterprise plan allows you to exceed 50 requests per second.
Developer Experience
Hygraph provides a great developer experience with thorough API documentation and starter templates for over a dozen frameworks and libraries.
A Slack channel exists for your developers to get answers to any technical questions they may have. There are also user guides and videos to help your developers get up to speed on how to build with Hygraph.
Pros
Hygraph comes with many out-of-the-box integrations for various third-party services. Among ecommerce platforms, Shopify, BigCommerce, and Swell are supported with native integrations. Your developers, however, can build their own integrations to any service.
An easy-to-use admin plan is available for your content publishers to create structured content and publish or unpublish content without developer dependencies.
Con
We explored the user generated reviews on G2 and didn’t find any consistent themes that points to clear drawbacks to Hygraph. Several customers complained about their pricing structure. It’s important to note, however, that Hygraph is designed for mid-market and large enterprise companies who have budgets large enough to absorb the cost.
ButterCMS
ButterCMS is a headless CMS platform for ecommerce brands small and large. The platform has been adopted by Salesforce, Indeed, and PickFu.
The platform boasts of being one of the easiest to use for content publishers and marketers. Publishers can easily review content, assign it to others to review, and schedule it for publishing.
Pricing
ButterCMS has 4 price plans. The Micro plan is $83 per month and designed for teams working on small projects. The Startup plan is $166 per month for brands that need to launch a marketing site while the Small Business plan is $333 per month for brands that need to scale content globally.
The Enterprise plan is a custom price and includes a Service Level Agreement, access to a Write API, and solution engineers.
API Capabilities
ButterCMS only makes available to your developers a REST API to query content. API rate limits are not displayed in their documentation.
Developer Experience
In addition to detailed API documentation, your developers can take advantage of starter templates and code examples from over 2 dozen different types of technologies.
A Slack channel for your developers to ask questions is only available under the Enterprise plan.
Pros
ButterCMS shines when it comes to giving your content and marketing teams autonomy from developers. Your teams can create landing pages or update content with an easy-to-use admin panel.
Your developers can accelerate their development with Butter CMS’ wide selection of starter templates.
Cons
ButterCMS doesn’t appear to support any out-of-the-box integrations with their platform. If you want to push your product catalog into ButterCMS, your developers will have to build a custom integration.
Wrap Up
As this article demonstrates, there are a number of great headless CMS platforms on the market with different pricing models and features.
The best solution for your organization will involve identifying which features and functionality are necessary versus nice-to-have and finding a pricing model that fits within your budget.
A great thing about the headless CMS market is that most of the software on our list offer a free tier. Before you commit to any of the platforms on this list, your developers and content teams can explore these solutions to determine which one is the best fit for them.
