The Cons of Headless CMS

In recent years we have witnessed an explosion in B2B SaaS startups offering a Headless CMS (What is a Headless CMS?) solution to power websites. Thousands of developers have been early adopters and the names of companies who have moved to Headless include everyone from adidas to Netflix to Nike.

The main drivers for the Headless CMS movement are the performant benefits - primarily the speed of Headless CMS-based websites. Speed impacts everything from SEO to conversion rates and thus represents a key driver for adoption for those looking for marginal gains. Additional benefits include enhanced security (over legacy solutions), increased design flexibility, and the capacity for more productive marketing teams.

Recommended Resource: What are the Key Benefits of a Headless CMS?

Similarly, a growing number of companies are frustrated with their current site performance (some of whom may be on WordPress) leading to another motivation to migrate. Issues with WordPress include everything from issues with website bloat, to security vulnerabilities (often due to plug-ins) to lethargic performance issues.

Before we dive into the details any further it is worth being clear on what a Headless CMS is. There are plenty of technical explanations out there that reference decoupling the front end and the back end, focusing on creating structured content and providing API access to a static site generator. These are not very clear for those encountering it for the first time.

It all boils down to the following.

Many of the more popular tools we use to build websites previously are designed to be all-in-one solutions. Everything gets jumbled together (content, design, and code). While that made perfect sense and helped deliver 1,132,268,801 websites around the world (source Web Server Survey - 2023), it became increasingly apparent in recent years that for a certain category of user, there were significant limitations to utilizing these website builders and traditional site builders.

Firstly, it is important to note that there are many types of websites - from simple blogs to B2C sites, to eCommerce sites to sites dedicated to local offerings. The category of users bumping up against the limitations tended to be larger business websites where performance is everything. These include major brands (with lots of traffic), technology companies such as Intercom, Stripe, and Teamwork (all early adopters of Headless) who wanted a beautiful website designed without compromising on speed.

For those running B2B SaaS sites, design and speed are key elements of success. Your visual identity needs to engender confidence. Conversion rates are linked to SEO rankings and site speeds. Running a WordPress site based on a template, supplemented by lots of plug-ins is no longer considered fit-for-purpose for a site with growth aspirations.

The Headless CMS category has emerged as an approach that is well-suited to the needs of big brands with lots of traffic, as well as technology companies who need to put their best foot forward online.

In short, Headless works well in the following situations

Where there is access to an in-house Front End developer on an ad-hoc basis (this is typically the case for SaaS / tech companies who will likely have a developer in the team familiar with the Jamstack). Most SaaS/ B2B / tech / major brands are ok with this.

Where content creation is an important part of the strategy. This means things like structured content, and editorial calendars are in place and there may also be a desire to push content to different locations (heads)

Where a beautifully designed and high performant website is non-negotiable

Given the above, we are seeing an explosion in the usage of Headless from big brands in all sectors, and technology (SaaS and B2B) companies looking to deliver highly performant websites.

While the benefits of Headless CMS have been espoused by an ever-growing number of providers the drawbacks are less widely understood. In many instances, the drawbacks are material for the wrong type of customer. When there is a good fit (largely commercial sites) with growth aspirations the drawbacks are not that material, which is one of the reasons as to why the category continues to explode.

Please note ChatGPT was not used in the production of this blog.