The Rise of Headless CMS in 2023: Benefits, Challenges, Best Practices and How to use it with NextJs for Frontend Developers

The world of front-end development is constantly evolving, with new technologies and tools emerging every year. One of the latest trends in the space is the rise of headless content management systems (CMS). Unlike traditional CMS platforms, which combine content creation and delivery in a single system, headless CMS separates the two functions, allowing developers to create and manage content independently from how it's displayed to end users.

Let's explore the benefits and challenges of using headless CMS for front-end developers and provide some best practices for implementing this approach in 2023.

Why use Headless CMS?

The main benefit of using a headless CMS is increased flexibility and control over content delivery. By separating content creation from content delivery, front-end developers can choose the best tools and technologies for each function without being limited by the constraints of a single system. This allows for more efficient and effective content management and better performance and scalability.

Another reason why you should use headless CMS is the ability to deliver content across multiple channels and devices. Traditional CMS platforms typically optimize content for a specific device or platform, such as a website or mobile app. But with headless CMS, content can be delivered in various formats and contexts, such as voice assistants, smartwatches, and other IoT devices.

Challenges of Headless CMS

While headless CMS offers many benefits for front-end developers, there are also some challenges that developers should be aware of. One of the main challenges is the increased complexity of managing content across multiple channels and devices. Without a single system to manage all content, developers must carefully consider how content is created, stored, and delivered to ensure consistency and accuracy.

Another challenge of headless CMS is the potential for increased development costs and resources. Because developers must use multiple systems and tools to manage content delivery, implementing and maintaining these systems may require more time and expertise, and additional costs may be associated with licensing and integrating multiple systems.

Best Practices for Headless CMS

To make the most of headless CMS in 2023, developers should follow some best practices to ensure efficient and effective content management. Here are some key best practices to consider:

Choose the right headless CMS platform: Many headless CMS platforms will be available in 2023, each with its strengths and weaknesses. Developers should carefully evaluate their options and choose a platform that fits their specific needs and requirements.
Focus on content modeling: With headless CMS, content modeling is the process of defining the structure and relationships of content, independent of how it will be displayed. This is critical in ensuring consistency and accuracy across all channels and devices.
Use APIs for content delivery: To deliver content to end-users, developers should use APIs to access content stored in the headless CMS. This allows for more efficient and flexible content delivery and better performance and scalability.
Consider serverless architecture: Serverless architecture is a design pattern that allows developers to build applications without managing servers or infrastructure. This can be particularly useful for headless CMS, allowing for more flexible and cost-effective content delivery.

How to Use The Current Most Three Popular Headless CMS with Next.js & TailwindCSS

Contentful: A cloud-based CMS platform that allows developers to create, manage, and deliver content across multiple channels and devices.
Strapi: An open-source CMS platform that allows developers to build APIs and deliver content to any frontend framework.
Sanity: A flexible CMS platform allowing developers to create custom models and deliver content through APIs.

Let's dive into the setup and usage with Nextjs; we're using TailwindCSS as our styling framework. Read more about tailwind here in case you don't know about it.

Next.js is a popular React framework for building server-side rendered and static websites. TailwindCSS is a popular CSS framework for creating responsive and customizable user interfaces.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, you'll need to have the following tools installed:

Node.js: The JavaScript runtime environment used to run JavaScript on the server.
NPM: The Node package manager used to install and manage packages.
Next.js: The React framework used to build server-side rendered and static websites.
Tailwind CSS: The CSS framework used to create responsive and customizable user interfaces.

Note: You'll also need to have an account with the headless CMS platforms you choose to use:

Step 1: Create a Next.js App

To create a new Next.js app, open a terminal window and run the following commands:

npx create-next-app my-app
cd my-app
npm run dev

This will create a new Next.js app and start the development server. You can access the app by opening a web browser and navigating to http://localhost:3000. Or the available development server if that's running a program.

Step 2: Install TailwindCSS

To install TailwindCSS, open a terminal window and run the following command:

npm install tailwindcss postcss-preset-env postcss-flexbugs-fixes --save-dev

This will install TailwindCSS and the necessary PostCSS plugins as a development dependency in your app.

Step 3: Configure TailwindCSS (Which might not be necessary with the latest Tailwind Update because it comes along with your installation files)

To configure TailwindCSS, create a new file named tailwind.config.js in the root directory of your app and add the following code:

module.exports = {
  mode: 'jit',
  purge: ['./pages/**/*.{js,ts,jsx,tsx}', './components/**/*.{js,ts,jsx,tsx}'],
  darkMode: false, // or 'media' or 'class'
  theme: {
    extend: {},
  },
  variants: {
    extend: {},
  },
  plugins: [],
}

This configures TailwindCSS to use just-in-time (JIT) mode, which optimizes the generated CSS by including only the necessary styles based on your app's usage. It also sets up automatic CSS purging to remove unused styles and defines the default theme and variants.

Step 4: Install and Configure a Headless CMS

To install a headless CMS, you must follow the specific installation instructions for each platform that can be found in their documentation. Once you've installed the CMS, you'll need to create a content model and add some content to use in your app.

Contentful

To install Contentful, open a terminal window and run the following command:

npm install contentful --save

To configure Contentful, create a new file named .env.local In the root directory of your app and add the following code:

CONTENTFUL_SPACE_ID=your_space_id
CONTENTFUL_ACCESS_TOKEN=your_access_token

Replace your_space_id and your_access_token with the values from your Contentful account.

Strapi

To install Strapi, open a terminal window and run the following command:

npm install strapi-sdk-javascript --save

To configure Strapi, create a new file named .env.local In the root directory of your app and add the following code:

NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=http://localhost:1337

Replace http://localhost:1337 with the URL of your Strapi instance.

Sanity

To install Sanity, open a terminal window and run the following command:

npm install @sanity/client --save

To configure Sanity, create a new file named .env.local In the root directory of your app and add the following code:

SANITY_PROJECT_ID=your_project_id
SANITY_DATASET=your_dataset

Replace your_project_id and your_dataset with the values from your Sanity account.

Step 5: Fetch Data from the CMS

To fetch data from the CMS, create a new file in the pages directory of your app and add the following code:

import { createClient } from 'contentful'

export async function getStaticProps() {
  const client = createClient({
    space: process.env.CONTENTFUL_SPACE_ID,
    accessToken: process.env.CONTENTFUL_ACCESS_TOKEN
  })

  const res = await client.getEntries({ content_type: 'blogPost' })

  return {
    props: {
      posts: res.items
    }
  }
}

export default function Blog({ posts }) {
  return (
    <div>
      {posts.map(post => (
        <div key={post.sys.id}>
          <h2>{post.fields.title}</h2>
          <p>{post.fields.content}</p>
        </div>
      ))}
    </div>
  )
}

This code fetches data from Contentful and passes it to the Blog the component as a prop. You can modify the content_type field names to match your content model.

For Strapi and Sanity, you must follow their specific API documentation to fetch data from their platforms.

Step 6: Style the UI with TailwindCSS

To style the UI with TailwindCSS, add the necessary CSS classes to your components. For example:

import styles from './Blog.module.css'

export default function Blog({ posts }) {
  return (
    <div className={styles.container}>
      {posts.map(post => (
        <div key={post.sys.id} className={styles.post}>
          <h2 className={styles.title}>{post.fields.title}</h2>
          <p className={styles.content}>{post.fields.content}</p>
        </div>
      ))}
    </div>
  )
}

This code imports a CSS module and applies the necessary classes to style the container, post, title, and content.

Step 7: Build and Deploy the App

To build and deploy the app, run the following commands:

npm run build
npm run start

This will generate a production build of your app and start the server. You can access the app by opening a web browser and navigating to http://localhost:3000.

You must follow their specific deployment instructions to deploy the app to a hosting service. You can also use a service like Vercel, which provides a seamless deployment process for Next.js apps.

Conclusion

Headless CMS is an emerging front-end development trend offering many content management and delivery benefits. By separating content creation from content delivery, developers can choose the best tools and technologies for each function without being limited by the constraints of a single system.