The breakthrough in digital products has modernized the way consumers communicate with brands. Unlike before there are multiple channels and touch-points to access and consume information. Creating and updating content for so many different channels can slow down content delivery.
For enterprises, the dilemma lies in how best to manage the content that customers demand. Traditional content management systems offer limited functionality in this multichannel environment pushing organizations to look for better solutions to inspire the customer and create engaging experiences. They need more than a traditional CMS.
This blog talks at length on why enterprises should consider an open source headless CMS and how it can actually help manage content for all channels and mediums.
What is a Headless CMS?
A headless CMS is a content management system that provides a way to author content, but instead of web page rendering, it provides the content as data over an API.
Which means, that the editor creates content at the backend and stores it in a standalone database frontend through APIs. The content is then retrieved by an entirely separate frontend rendering layer via those APIs.
In an open source headless CMS, developers can freely access the code directly (e.g. JavaScript, PHP) to create their own API calls and content delivery templates.
An open source headless CMS has much of the same functionality as a proprietary headless offering, while also enjoying several advantages. Reduced downtime, cut down on internal costs, and freedom from being tied down to one delivery channel or to a particular frontend framework are some of the many benefits of open source headless CMS.
An open source headless CMS has much of the same functionality as a proprietary headless offering, while also enjoying several advantages
Reasons to Opt for an Open-source Headless CMS
Here're core reasons why enterprises should opt for an open-source headless CMS.
- Community Support
Thriving communities are the prime reason why enterprises should consider open-source tech solutions. Bound by a common drive to support and improve a solution that benefits both the enterprise and the community, the solution and capabilities are faster, better, and more effective than internal teams working on proprietary solutions.
The collective power of a community delivers not only more ideas but quicker development and troubleshooting when issues arise against proprietary code which may come with unforeseen limitations and unwelcome surprises. With open-source, you're protected against lock-in risks and can see exactly what you're getting.
One of the many counter-arguments put forth against open source is—visibility into the code base, as well as all discussions about how the community develops features and addresses bugs. But this means vulnerabilities are not a wonder to anyone and the solution is mostly readily available at hand. - Security
Security is the top priority for companies who are using CMS to improve their customers’ experience. For highly regulated and public-facing industries not adhering to digital security standards can both damage consumer relationships and cause businesses to suffer hefty legal fees.
Continuous efforts on enhanced experience is not the only best outcome from an open source community. The responsiveness of the open-source community and vendors relative to information security problems has been very good.
The fact that the entire community actively looks for possible code exploits brings out far better responsiveness than in a proprietary environment where a few might know about the exposure but some were exploiting it, is an advantage of open source. The output tends to be extremely robust, tried, and tested code. - Reduced Cost
An open-source headless CMS ensures reduced cost in so many ways, the former being there is an absence of licensing fees.
With a free version to install for a trail and error, enterprises can freely try and assess their requirements before jumping on a solution.
The community support with the increased accessibility further reduces upgrades and maintenance cost. - Faster Continuous Innovation
Enterprises need to constantly respond to the changing needs of their users. Couple years back creating content for multichannel marketing was not as popular neither as relevant to the market. These needs have evolved over time.
Open source headless CMS thrive on agility and flexibility, typically offering multiple ways to solve problem helping keep your teams from getting blocked because a particular capability because it isn’t available from a vendor. Instead of waiting for the vendor to deliver that capability, one can collaborate through community forums and create them.
Opensource headless CMS like EzContent are increasingly following the no-code approach, making it easier to reduce editorial teams’ need for developers by offering a self-service approach with a drag-and-drop page builder. - Minimal framework friction, overhead, and learning curve
Organizations using vendor-specific CMS tools and technology spend more time and money on learning about their employees. Moreover, the specific type of developer skillsets confines developers to specific teams and projects. And once the project gets over, everyone loses even though it's an unfortunate and common thing.
Open-source headless CMS content has a different approach wherein it leverages battle-proven open standard and open-source technologies like Drupal, Git as fundamental components of the platform.
The secret sauce of opensource headless CMS is found in the technology mix and the hard work of identifying the right technologies and combining and integrating them in an architecture that is both powerful and scalable. As a result, it bolsters developers’ existing skills without typecasting them as platform-specific developers. Developers come up to speed quickly and become more productive with more enhanced skills and widely applicable knowledge.
Take advantage of headless features with EzContent without losing must-haves
The future of CMS is quickly moving away from traditional database-driven systems to API-driven headless CMS. Going headless is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity to stay nimble.
However, one of the biggest issues presented by the move from a traditional or monolithic content management system is the need to restore functionality that marketers and publishers hold dear. Some of these important features include capabilities like in-place editing, layout building and page building, component libraries, and other editorial requirements.
Unfortunately, because many of the front-end technologies are primarily oriented toward developers, it’s easy for the frameworks to reduce the effectiveness of marketers and publishers to do their jobs.
EzContent, an open source headless CMS, facilitates better and richer collaboration between marketers and publishers and their technical partner.
EzContent facilitates better and richer collaboration between marketers and publishers and their technical partners. Also supporting a rich integration with key Drupal modules and features relating to search engine optimization like meta tags, path aliases, and Schema.org support for a future-ready CMS solution to your multichannel and website content.
