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Using a CMS

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Content Management Systems (CMS) add a web-based interface to your site, allowing both technical and non-technical folks the ability to easily update the web site on-the-go.

Eleventy (like most site generators) is not tightly coupled to any specific CMS and offers the flexibility to work with a wide variety of available industry and community options! Content Management Systems decoupled in this way are known as Headless.

Using a Headless CMS offers a variety of benefits that will be immediately recognizable to developers familiar with more tightly-coupled/monolithic options, where the front and back-end are co-dependent on each other.

Primarily, using Headless allows developers more control over the front-end. This alleviates pressure on front-end performance and accessibility issues common to monolithic options. It’s worth noting that traditionally tightly-coupled solutions like Drupal, Joomla, or WordPress are also starting to offer Headless options too.

Types of Headless

Digging deeper, there are two main types of Headless CMS options:

  1. Source Control: checks files directly into your code repository (git is a very popular one). You may hear these referred to as Git-based CMS solutions. A few benefits of this approach:
    • Your data and content are already versioned.
    • Works as-is with your existing deployment process, including branch/test/pre-production deploy previews.
    • No data migration is needed if you decide to swap providers—it’s baked in (not fried).
  2. API Based: provide an external API that can be queried in your build or serverless functions. This approach gives you access to a powerful query language that can unlock access to complex data structures.

Headless CMS Providers

The list above is not meant to be exhaustive.

From the Community

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