12 Best Headless CMS for your news website

Choosing a content management system(CMS) for your website is a crucial decision that you don’t make every now and then. It’s like entering a long-term partnership where it is necessary to ensure that both parties complement each other’s needs. This is why many companies often choose a headless CMS. 

It’s different from the traditional CMS and allows you to create different heads and choose any device (tablet, smartphone, smartwatch, etc) or application to display your content via an API. Hence, the name headless. 

Nowadays, headless CMSs are becoming quite popular in the media industry owing to the fact that they are more secure and scalable. It also allows more control and flexibility over the content, making it a favourite of the editors. If you are also looking for a new headless CMS, here is a list of the top 12 headless CMS options to consider. 

1. Kontent

2. Agility CMS

3. Bold CMS

4. Zesty

5. Dot CMS

6. Prismic CMS

7. Butter CMS

8. Contentstack

9. Sanity

10. Contentful

11. Magnolia

12. Ghost

Below are some of the best Headless CMS in the industry:

Kentico kontent is a headless CMS that provides easy-to-use content management tools for marketers while freeing developers to focus on building online experiences. Launched in 2004, Kentico kontent is a SaaS-based hybrid CMS.

Features:

• Effective mobile templates 

• A large and interactive community of users

• Supports multi-language 

Highlights

• User-friendly; so ideal for non-technical users

• Responsive customer support for all pricing plans

• Fast data transfer in both directions

• Intelligent and feature-rich content editing

• Pricing plans won’t suit everyone

Agility CMS is a Content-First Headless CMS. It allows you to choose any programming language while also getting the flexibility, speed, and power which come from lightweight APIs. 

Launched in 2013, it is the fastest CMS to build and manage your content.

Features:

• With built-in Page Management, Agility CMS roll can help out solutions faster while managing from a central platform with flexibility and scale.

• Content preview tools make it easy to structure and manage content across all your digital channels.

• You can build a server-rendered website, single-page application, or statically generated website with agility CMS

Highlights:

• Well-structured layout. 

• Easy to create new custom pages with the modules and page layouts.

• Settings tab is easy to use and easy to configure the pages

• Pricing is high.

• Not intuitive for users who lack knowledge of coding.

With Bold, you can create an easy workflow. With features like live preview across all platforms as well as content collections, there really is no better way to manage content. There’s no need to individually publish stories across social media handles, Bold brings it all together. Bold also works seamlessly with it's sister products that help with - front-end management, layout customization, monetisation and, interaction.

With multilingual support, Bold users have established themselves in various regional spheres. No more language barrier, at least not on you CMS! You can schedule a demo today.

Features include :

• Omni-channel distribution

• SEO validations

• Analytics

• Customization

• Live Blogging

• Geo Tagging
  
  

Highlights :

• Assured performance

• Mobile CMS

• 24*7 customer support

• Maximum editorial control

• Tried and tested templates

• No need to code
  
  

Zesty is a web content management system. It is API driven with an open-source user interface enterprise SaaS platform, for helping build websites collaboratively. It provides solutions for team communication, workflow, and maintenance of a company's website.

Features:

• An omnichannel content management platform

• Customizable templates

• Multi-tenant ability to organize content based on projects or destinations

Highlights:

• The main benefit of Zesty.io is its Content API

• Web-based content authoring

• Templates

• Automatic search engine optimization.

• Falls short of reporting stories live

• Not Intuitive for users who lack knowledge in coding

Dot CMS is a hybrid content management that allows organizations to build, manage, and deploy content-enabled applications such as websites, single-page apps, mobile apps, and more. 

The API-first approach helps users to manage content, images, and assets in a centralized location and deliver them to different channels.

Features:

• Content scheduling

• Multi-site hosting

• Multilingual support (i18n/UTF-8)

Highlights:

• Highly responsive

• The software includes features and abilities that are useful.

Launched in 2013, Prismic is a SaaS-based headless CMS that is used by leading companies like Google and eBay. 

With Prismic CMS, teams of developers and marketers can launch websites. It also allows front-end developers to customize the front end and use any programming language. 

Features:

• Supports Multi-language to get a better reach

• Capable of Integrating with other resources

• Scheduling and previews are possible

Highlights:

• Installing and setting up hardly consumes time

• User-friendly experience

• Drag and drop, rich text editors make writing easier

• Not suitable for brands without developers

Butter CMS is a headless content management system and blog engine that integrates into new or existing web projects within minutes. It can be integrated with any tech stack, whether it’s programming languages, coding framework, libraries, tools, and architecture. 

Butter CMS comes with a WYSIWYG editor to let you create web page content without having to write HTML codes or employ developer expertise.

Features:

• ButterCMS comes with built-in SEO and other features like content preview, revision histories, localization, and post-scheduling.

• Flexible content modeling

• Localization for multiple languages

• Host a variety of audio file types and power your podcasts with ButterCMS.

Highlights:

• Blog engine comes bundled or as a standalone product

• WYSIWYG editing

• Asset management

• Content localization

• Webhooks

Contentstack is an API-first, headless CMS technology that accelerates and simplifies content management across today's and tomorrow's digital channels, including web, mobile, and IoT. You get a content management system (CMS) and digital experience platform (DXP) that helps create compelling customer journeys.

Features:

• Powerful headless CMS features to manage your content across the entire organization.

• RESTful APIs covering content management, content publishing, and image manipulation/optimization.

• Accelerate development with the only Node.js web application framework available for headless CMS.

Highlights:

• Omnichannel delivery

• Cross-platform support

• System stability

• Scalability

Sanity or Sanity.io is one of the most popular headless CMS platforms in the market. It has an esteemed list of clientele, with Nike and National Geographic as highlights. The CMS is known for its customization and offers best-in-class collaboration. 

You can use several different components, such as Sanity Studio, Content Lake, and  Image Pipeline to extend your CMS. In terms of security, Sanity does not disappoint. It offers robust privacy and security controls. 

Features: 

• Customizable templated workflows, portals and sites, asset management

• SSO features to allow users to log in easily with third-party accounts

• Image pipeline to transform images on-demand

• GraphQL, and GROQ support for querying the documents

• Group posting

• WYSIWYG rich text editor

Highlights: 

• Great documentation and data model

• Super-friendly for users

• Customization might be complex in some parts

• Great documentation and data model

Features: 

• Easy-to-use interface with support for all content types

• Multilingual support

• Security with roles and permissions

• Content modeling that enables custom content creation

• Supports both REST and GraphQL APIs

Highlights

• Easy merging of the content of a website in a single hub

• Teams can collaborate easily on a specific project

Just like Agility, Magnolia is also known for its speed for both authors and developers. This way, it can create a fast-paced publishing environment. It also allows you to manage the content in one hub and use all the channels easily. You can also build unified platforms if by connecting it with other applications like eCommerce and CRM.

Features: 

• Offers WYSIWYG editing, experience preview, personalization, and analytics

• User community and access management features

• Internal search, versioning, content authoring features, and approval process

Highlights:

• Allows scalability & extensibility

• Publish content without being tied to a specific visual template or frontend structure

This is considered the best headless CMS by non-technical users who wish to create newsletters and blogs. The reason is that it is an open-source publishing platform. Anyone can customize and use it by integrating it with popular apps and software. However, it has fewer customization options.

Features: 

• Default admin client and front-end

• Newsletters built-in

• Rich media & dynamic cards

Highlights: 

• Great user experience

• Super flexible

• Beautiful free themes and designs

It’s 2023 and Headless CMS is the key to the best content management. If you are planning to get the best headless CMS for your business, make sure you go through all the options. 

We at Quintype understand the importance of a good CMS. That’s why we offer a free demo of BOLD.