Top 5 Best Headless CMS For Low-Code In 2023

The world of content management is evolving rapidly, and headless CMS solutions are at the forefront by separating content management from delivery to multiple marketing channels. With the growing movement of low-code development, headless CMS are becoming more accessible than ever, allowing non-technical users to create and manage content with ease.

In this article, we will explore the 5 best headless CMS solutions: the unique features and benefits of each platform, code examples to get started, and their pricing information. Whether you are a marketer, a developer, or a business owner, this article will provide valuable insights to choose the right solution for your needs.

What Is A Headless CMS?

A headless CMS is a content management system you can access via API from any front-end framework, unlike a traditional CMS like Webflow or Wordpress where you are locked in a built-in design system. For example, you can write and publish content using the headless CMS, and then use the API to display the content on a website, mobile app, or any other channel.

Why You Need A Headless CMS

• Flexible publishing - A headless CMS separates content creation from publishing, so you are free to use any front-end technology you like and really customize every detail of how your content should look like.

• Increased performance and security - Because a headless CMS is decoupled from the front-end, it can be scaled independently to serve more content to more users without worrying about the performance of your website. There is little to no server processing to do client-side if you use a static site generator, so you can save on server costs, reduce the potential attack surface to improve security, and speed up your website.

• Better team experience - A headless CMS is great for cross-functional teams because it allows developers to focus on optimizing content delivery through design and infrastructure while giving marketers and writers the interface they need to work fast.

Comparison Criteria

• Pricing - How much does it cost? What are the limits on the pricing plan, and can I try the tool for free?
• Scalability - How much work is needed to handle more customers?
• Developer Experience - How easy is it to use?
• Feature-completeness - What can I do with the tool?
• Time To Hello World - How fast can you get started?

Best CMS By Category

• Rowy is best for cross-functional team who want a balance between costs, low-code, scalability, and feature-completeness.
• For a minimalist headless CMS, use Strapi.
• Ghost is a great open-source headless CMS primarily for content creators who want payments and emails built-in.
• Supabase is a headless CMS alternative for developers.
• Wordpress is a free headless CMS with the largest community.

5 Headless CMS For Your Next Project

1. Rowy

Rowy is a Firebase CMS to spin up a serverless backend in minutes without code.

Pricing: Free to start, not including Firebase fees (free up to 1 Gb of stored data and 50K reads per day).

Features:

• NoSQL database
• Authentication
• Cloud functions with Rowy Run
• Full-text search
• Built-in CMS templates and demos

Pros:

• Generous free tiers
• Document database that’s easy to get started with thanks to the spreadsheet UI
• Easily scalable
• Loads of features to handle every aspect of CMS development, including rich set of fields for markdown & rich text
• Extensive Firebase API documentation
• Loads of SDKs to integrate Firebase into your app
• Open source on Github, 4.3k stars, with self-hosted option

Cons:

• Firebase's documentation isn’t always clear because of the many features it proposes
• Firebase is not open source

Code example:

Because Rowy is built on top of Firebase, you can use all of Firebase's features directly, including calling its API from your frontend:

import { initializeApp } from "firebase/app"

let firebaseConfig = {
  # ...
    apiKey: "FIREBASE_API_KEY",
    # ...
}

const app = initializeApp(firebaseConfig)

2. Strapi

An open-source headless CMS.

Pricing: Free community plan. From $9 per month for enterprise features.

Features:

• REST and GraphQL APIs
• API plugins

Pros:

• Open source on Github, 52k stars, with self-hosted option
• Minimalist interface
• Data privacy via self-hosting
• Great API documentation and intuitive developer experience

Cons:

• No authentication system so you need to roll out your own or use a plugin.
• Only self-hosted option. The managed option requires joining a waitlist.

Code example:

You can create any collection you want and easily manage them via HTTP requests. For example, with a blog collection:

curl http://localhost:1337/api/posts

Similar solutions: Contenful, Storyblok

3. Ghost

All-in-one content platform for the creator economy.

Pricing: From $9 per month. Free trial of 14 days.

Features:

• Headless CMS with REST API and Webhooks
• Email newsletter
• Membership system for paid content
• Analytics

Pros:

• Open source on Github, 42.5k stars, with self-hosted option
• Great documentation and active community
• Lots of useful features to make a living out of your content like memberships and newsletters

Cons:

• Limited API flexibility: you can manage posts, pages, authors, and tags but not add custom collections
• No Markdown in the posts collection, only HTML. So you'll need to convert it yourself.

Code example:

curl -H "Accept-Version: v5.0" "https://demo.ghost.io/ghost/api/content/posts/?key=22444f78447824223cefc48062"

4. Supabase

An open source Firebase alternative for developers.

Pricing: Freemium. Free up to 500Mb of database storage, then $25 per month per project.

Features:

• Postgres database with Instant APIs and Realtime subscriptions
• Authentication
• Edge Functions
• Storage

Pros:

• Open source on Github, 46k stars, with self-hosted option
• Great pricing for small and medium businesses
• Great developer experience: beautiful documentation and user interface

Cons:

• Technical and not very marketer-friendly.
• Less features than Firebase
• Limited to PostgreSQL as a backend technology, so you need to understand how SQL works (bigger learning curve than a document database)

Code example:

Create an account, a project, and a database. Unlike a NoSQL database like Firebase’s, you need to have a structure ready to be able to manipulate data. But once this step is done―and you’ll have ready-to-use templates to help speed up this part―you can call Supabase like so:

import { createClient } from '@supabase/supabase-js'

const supabaseUrl = process.env.REACT_APP_SUPABASE_URL
const supabaseAnonKey = process.env.REACT_APP_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY

export const supabase = createClient(supabaseUrl, supabaseAnonKey)

5. Wordpress

The most popular CMS in the world.

Pricing: Free if self-hosted, not including hosting and domain fees.

Features:

• Headless CMS
• There is a plugin for anything you can think of

Pros:

• Low-cost option
• Open source on Github, with self-hosted option
• Biggest CMS ecosystem thanks to 2 decades of development

Cons:

• Aging tech stack (PHP, MySQL)
• Plugin costs to take into account for running costs
• Lots of unmaintained plugins means more security risks

Code example:

Similar to Ghost's:

curl https://example.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts

Conclusion

You have plenty of options when it comes to choosing a headless CMS. Depending on your technical background and your budget, we hope this article has helped you narrow down your choices.

If you have any further questions or need help with choosing the right headless CMS solution, we invite you to join us in our Discord community.