Headless Content Management Systems

Ghost is an open-source publishing platform and headless content management system designed for professional publishers. It provides a decoupled architecture that separates the content management backend from the front-end delivery layer, allowing users to manage editorial workflows and site data through structured web services. The platform distinguishes itself by integrating a built-in membership and subscription engine, which enables creators to manage gated content, paid tiers, and secure member profiles directly within the system. It also features a dedicated infrastructure for professional newsletter publishing, supporting automated email distribution and subscriber engagement. Developers can interact with the platform through a comprehensive RESTful API or a dedicated JavaScript client library, while the system's headless nature allows for the delivery of content to any custom front-end application. Beyond its core publishing capabilities, the platform includes a templated theme engine for server-side rendering and supports extensive customization through modular configuration adapters. These allow for flexible storage backends, event-driven webhooks for external integrations, and granular control over site settings and security. The project provides extensive documentation for its administrative and content delivery APIs, alongside command-line tools for managing site configuration, theme validation, and environment settings.

Strapi is an open-source headless content management system and JavaScript framework used for defining content schemas and managing structured data. It functions as a REST and GraphQL API gateway that decouples backend data storage from frontend delivery. The system includes a self-hosted administration interface for managing content entries and defining data models without manual database queries. The framework utilizes a plugin-based extension system to inject custom logic into the application lifecycle. It employs schema-driven content modeling to automatically generate database tables and API endpoints based on configuration files. The platform covers content management, API delivery, and custom backend development. It provides tools for local development orchestration using containers to ensure consistent environments for testing and deployment.

Directus is a headless content platform that functions as a backend service, automatically generating REST and GraphQL APIs by performing introspection on existing SQL database schemas. It serves as a unified data orchestration layer, decoupling content management from frontend delivery while providing a secure, stateless gateway for database transactions. The platform distinguishes itself through a granular role-based access control engine that enforces security policies at the field level across all API endpoints. It includes a visual, low-code administrative dashboard that allows non-technical users to manage database records directly, alongside a dynamic query abstraction layer that ensures consistent data access regardless of the underlying storage engine. Beyond its core API generation capabilities, the system supports complex data workflows through an event-driven webhook architecture and a middleware pipeline for custom logic injection. It also provides integrated digital asset management for storing and transforming media files, facilitating the development of internal tools and rapid backend prototyping.

Keystone is a GraphQL headless content management system and Node.js backend framework. It functions as a schema-driven data manager that automatically generates a GraphQL API and a React administrative dashboard based on a central data model configuration. The system uses an adapter-based database abstraction to decouple core logic from storage layers and a storage-provider abstraction for managing media assets via local or cloud drivers. It distinguishes itself through a component-based field rendering system and a hook-based middleware pipeline for data validation and automation. The framework covers a broad range of capabilities including role-based access control, user authentication, and the management of complex relational data models. It allows for system extension through a plugin-based architecture, custom GraphQL resolvers, and a customizable management interface.

Apostrophe is an open-source Node.js headless content management system that delivers structured content through REST APIs while providing a visual in-context page editor for live editing. It is built on a module-based plugin architecture that extends CMS functionality through reusable modules, each encapsulating logic, configuration, and templates. The system uses schema-driven content modeling to define data structures and validation rules through configurable schemas and custom field types, with all content stored as flexible JSON-like documents in MongoDB. The platform distinguishes itself through multi-site management capabilities that coordinate multiple websites and shared resources from a single installation, enabling centralized administration and resource sharing. It supports enterprise content governance with granular user roles and permissions for content approval, publishing, and site-wide administration across teams. The system provides multilingual content translation with automated AI-powered translation and locale management, alongside visual in-page editing that lets content creators modify text and media directly on live pages with a WYSIWYG interface and real-time preview at different breakpoints. The CMS offers comprehensive content and media management including rich text editing, file uploads with cloud storage support, responsive breakpoint previews, and reusable widget types. It includes a REST API with automatic route generation, webhook registration for external integrations, and framework bridges for Astro and Gatsby frontends. The system supports both MongoDB and PostgreSQL database backends, with capabilities for batch content operations, draft publishing, content duplication, and permanent deletion.

Wagtail is an open-source content management system built on the Django web framework. It provides a structured, tree-based approach to content modeling, allowing developers to define custom page types and reusable content components that are managed through a highly customizable administrative interface. The platform distinguishes itself through its flexible, block-based content composition system, which enables editors to assemble complex page layouts dynamically. It also offers robust support for multi-site and multi-lingual environments, allowing organizations to manage distinct websites or localized content versions from a single installation. These capabilities are complemented by a headless-ready architecture that exposes structured data through programmable APIs, supporting decoupled frontend implementations. Beyond core content management, the system includes comprehensive tools for editorial workflows, such as scheduled publishing, moderation, and granular permission controls. It also features integrated search indexing, automated media processing, and extensive hooks for system extensibility, enabling developers to tailor the administrative dashboard and backend logic to specific project requirements. The project is distributed as a Python package, providing a standardized structure for bootstrapping new content-managed applications.

Webstudio is a visual CMS and website builder that provides a visual development environment for designing and publishing websites. It functions as an AI-powered design tool, a REST and GraphQL API client, and an atomic CSS compiler. The platform distinguishes itself through generative AI capabilities for creating layout variants and refining visual styles from text prompts. It integrates a headless CMS workflow that maps external data sources to visual components and utilizes a specialized compiler to convert design tokens into deduplicated atomic CSS for optimized page load speeds. The system covers a broad range of capabilities, including dynamic content integration, frontend performance optimization, and multi-platform site deployment. It provides tools for visual website development, motion and animation sequencing, and comprehensive search engine optimization. Users can publish projects to static hosts, serverless platforms, or self-managed infrastructure via Docker.

Halo is a modular content management platform built on the Java Virtual Machine, designed to power dynamic websites through a flexible, extensible architecture. It provides a centralized administrative interface for publishing digital content and managing media assets, serving as a foundation for diverse web projects ranging from personal blogs to corporate sites. The platform distinguishes itself through a plugin-based architecture that allows for the dynamic loading of functional components and third-party services without modifying the core source code. This extensibility is complemented by a template-based theme engine that separates visual presentation from content logic, enabling developers to customize the appearance and functionality of their sites through a centralized marketplace system. The system is engineered for consistent execution across diverse hosting environments by utilizing a container-first deployment model. It supports scalable operations through integrations with external object storage for media assets and provides enterprise-grade content governance tools for managing user roles, backups, and site configurations.