Coding is essential for Web development, right? But in my opinion, it is 50% correct and 50% wrong, it is true, that coding knowledge is essential for any Web development but it is also possible that you can develop a Website without knowledge of coding.
How? Keep patience and read ahead because today we are gonna have an interesting discussion.
In the Web development field, there are plenty of numerous platforms which offer us to develop software and Website with the essential coding knowledge but on the other hand, there are various options called CMS available, allowing us to develop and create content Management System without the essential technical knowledge.
What is CMS?
CMS stands for “Content Management System” and is a software tool that helps you to build software without any need for code from the beginning. There are various options of cms available in the market like WordPress, Joomla, Magnolia, Agility CMS, etc but among them, there is a strong battle of best cms is going on between Headless CMS vs WordPress and that’s why today we will look out which cms is good and best for the project.
So let’s move ahead to find out which is the best
Headless CMS or WordPress?
Headless CMS vs WordPress: What is WordPress?
WordPress is an open-source content management system of PHP, which allows you to host and build a website. It consists of plugins and templates and lets you customize any website, blog, or portfolio which is suitable for your needs. It is a perfect solution for large or small businesses. Also, It offers high customization options through plugins and themes.WordPress CMS also provides you with a number of options for a single site.
One myth growing about WordPress is that it is dying and it has an inconsistent future but in spite of that, it has proved to be one of the best and most versatile cms around the world. In fact, WordPress rules over 43.5% of all websites on the internet, and almost 8 out of every 10 websites you visit are powered by WordPress. Indeed it’s a powerful cms and definitely has a consistent future.
Why Use WordPress?
There are sorts of reasons to use these cms for your project, but especially WordPress is –
Robust tool for creating and managing sites.
Reliable platform – which controls over 60% of the market.
All-in-one solution for the backend as well as the front end.
Best for an E-commerce website, it offers huge benefits and can be easily manageable.
Cost-effective with high-security cms.
If you want to make your site through WordPress, then you will need an expert WordPress developer who can build your site well with all the best functionalities, and be sure to hire WordPress developer they familiar with All WordPress functions.
Headless CMS vs WordPress: What is Headless CMS?
Before we start with the headless CMS, let us know a little about the traditional CMS that has led to the headless cms approach. Traditional CMS is present for a long time in web development. WordPress and Drupal are some examples of traditional cms. In traditional cms content, images, text, HTML, and CSS was thrown into the massive bucket and it was hard to reuse those materials.
As the virtual platforms are evolving, mobile applications, gaming applications, enterprise sites, and varieties are developing which has increased the demand for flexibility hence traditional cms have lacked behind to fulfill those demands because cms organize content into webpage-based frameworks which are not adapted by other digital platforms and that’s why headless cms came into the chapter.
Headless CMS or Headless system is any type of content management system that separates the content repository i.e. body from the presentation layer. But what does headless cms really mean? headless CMS lets you manage content from one place and deploy it through RESTful or GraphQL API on another framework of your choice, and that’s why the term headless is used because the head (i.e frontend) is separated from the body (i.e backend).
Why Use Headless CMS?
You should use headless cms because it
Is faster, easier, and more convenient to develop.
Is API driven, and lets you build a presentation layer end-to-end.
Is more scalable than traditional cms
Is Perfectly optimizable for apps or websites using Best JavaScript frameworks like Vue.js, React.js, and Angular.js
Headless CMS vs WordPress: Pros and Cons of WordPress
Benefits of WordPress CMS
Easy Installation
The installation process of WordPress is easy and quick, it doesn’t require any specific software download you just have to create a web page and upload a database and start your work.
Minimal Coding
WordPress requires minimal coding knowledge as it comes with a lot of in-built features like media, posts, and pages which saves your time in writing code and makes your development faster.
Built-in Plugins
It has huge availability of built-in plugins and allows you to modify and manage the sites effectively. You just have to install the plugins as per your requirements, most of them are available free of cost
Variety of themes
Themes are the look of your website, or you can say the frontend part. There are a variety of themes available you can choose from and can give a trendy and attractive look to your site.
Security
WordPress is the safest and most secure platform that enhances your site’s security by providing password protection to the folder contents. You can easily enable SSL certificates on your WP site.
Drag and Drop Mechanism
WordPress is totally based on a drag-and-drop mechanism, you just need to drag the content from one place and put it to your desired location. It has media insertion features, which lets you add images quickly to enrich the content.
E-commerce Friendly
It provides WooCommerce for shopping sites, WooCommerce is a free plugin that allows you to develop your e-commerce site easily and let the shop owners sell their products efficiently.
Drawbacks of WordPress CMS
Need Lots of Plugins to add Extra Features
If you are working with the design template, then you can update the design templates according to your brand content but if require additional features, then you need to install extra plugins and some of them are free or costly.
For eg: if you want to add a Facebook feed to your site, then you be having a variety of plugins options like Facebook Reviews WordPress Plugin, Facebook Pixel WordPress Plugin, and WordPress Facebook Plugin and sometimes it becomes difficult to choose and manage because, for each extra feature, you need to have a plugin.
Slow page speed
WordPress is still the slowest platform due to its plugins and themes. Extra plugins and themes can also affect your page speed and you can also lose your sales. Because the user wants fast content delivery, even if your content is different, the user will not continue if your page speed is slow. Therefore page speed is a crucial part to focus on.
The site may go down without warning
It happens rarely but it is possible that your site may go down due to various reasons and you won’t be aware of it. It could remain out of service for a couple of hours or days, which can create a negative impact on your business operations. You have to pay some amount to get it back which is another expense.
Headless CMS vs WordPress: Headless CMS Pros and Cons
Benefits of Headless CMS
Flexible
Headless cms are flexible because it’s an API – driven and it offers you to choose programming languages as per your need. Developers have the right to reuse the code in another framework.
It separates the both presentation layer and the content layer, thus it provides the advantages of both traditional cms as well as headless cms in one platform. As it is API-driven, it is not dependent on plugins which is the biggest advantage as compared to WordPress cms.
Light-Weight
Due to their only database contents and API calls, headless cms are lightweight and easy, responsive, and quick to operate.
Compatibility
Provides higher compatibility as it is suitable with every other framework, as its presentation layer and body layer are separated. If you want to make any changes in the future, headless cms can easily adopt these changes without any issues so it is one of the top-most benefits of headless cms.
Easy to learn and Use
This cms is easy to learn and use because you can manage the content easily and its cms implementation is just for content storage rather than unnecessary stuff.
Drawbacks of Headless CMS
Expensive Developing
Headless cms are expensive as compared to traditional cms because you will have high development costs like you have to pay for cms implementation, development, frontend-end architecture, and many and that’s why it is one of the major drawbacks of headless cms
No plugins and themes
No available plugins and themes might be a benefit, because you got the chance to design by yourself but sometimes it’s a drawback because you have to design the entire UI from scratch, and even if you are not a designer then you have to hire web designer which is again an extra cost because traditional cms provide all in one frame
No option for Preview
As this architecture has no consistent frontend end, so unlike traditional cms, the developers cannot edit and preview their content before publishing which in turn results in a lot of formatting errors.
Headless CMS vs WordPress: Usecases of WordPress
WP CMS is a suitable option for
Blogs
if you want to create a blog post for a website or if you want to publish your own article then it provides the option of the post to publish your content or you can preview your content before publishing
Educational site
WordPress allows you to create educational sites for universities, schools For eg: Georgia State University’s website is built on WordPress
Business
It is perfectly suitable for any kind of industrial site for business
E-commerce sites
It is best known for its e-commerce sites, it offers plenty number of themes and plugins to build attractive e-commerce sites plus you can add high functionalities too.
Headless CMS vs WordPress: Usecases of Headless CMS
Headless CMS is best suitable for
Capable with Javascript framework
If you are developing a site using js frameworks like React.js, Vue, and Angular to create any single-page applications, you can easily combine headless cms on the backend to enhance functionalities.
Scales Business Quickly
As headless cms decouple the front and the backend sides, development teams can easily publish the content when needed while working independently.
Conclusion
Both WordPress cms and headless cms have their own benefits and drawbacks, but their functionalities can’t be ignored, both of them are suitable as per project requirements.
However, WordPress is considered “monolithic” cms which means it is all-in-one, best for both frontend and backend place you don’t need to rely on third-party libraries as it offers you plenty number of themes and plugins
While Headless CMS allows you to work independently, you can create your content and store or you can access them from another framework with Rest API, as it separates the front and backend which results in high development cost
Now it’s up to you, from the above points hope you could be able to determine the best suitable cms for your project