What a headless CMS is, and which kind cmsspot is

Headless, in one paragraph

The "head" is the part visitors see. A classic CMS like WordPress is the head and the body in one: it stores the content, renders the pages, and runs on the same server as the site. A headless CMS cuts the head off. The content lives in one place, the pages are made somewhere else, and nothing of the CMS runs when a visitor loads a page.

The three kinds

API-based

Sanity, Contentful, Hygraph, Storyblok. The content is structured documents in a hosted database, and your frontend fetches it through an API. This is the strict meaning of headless, and the right one when the same content has to go to a website, an app, a newsletter and a feed at once. The price is that you build the frontend as an app, host it somewhere that can run it, and maintain a schema. cmsspot vs Sanity goes through it.

Git-based

CloudCannon, Decap, Keystatic. The content is Markdown or YAML in a Git repository, a static site generator builds the pages, and a deploy publishes them. Editors fill in forms; the result is a commit. Right for developers who already work with a generator and want branches and reviews. The alternatives compares them.

File-based

cmsspot, and the tag-based editors before it. The content is the website's own HTML or PHP files on the server. The CMS connects from outside, turns the pages into fields, and writes the change back into the file. No database, no API, no build. The site is the content.

So, is cmsspot headless?

By separation, yes. cmsspot is not installed on your site, renders nothing, runs nothing on a visit, and does not dictate what the frontend looks like. You build the site exactly as you want, and cmsspot edits it from outside. That is the property most people want from "headless": a plain site with no CMS weight on it.

By the strict API definition, no. There is no content API, because there is no content store apart from your files. If you need the same content in an app, cmsspot is the wrong tool and we say so.

We call it a file-based headless CMS. It is headless in the way that makes a site fast and safe, and it skips the part that makes a headless project expensive: the frontend app, the schema and the build.

What the separation gives a small site

• Speed. A plain page is served as a file. Nothing runs to produce it.
• Security. No login form on the domain, no plugins, nothing to patch. Less to attack.
• Freedom. The frontend is whatever you can write in HTML and CSS.
• Exit. Remove the CMS and the site is still there, unchanged.

An API-based headless CMS gives the first three too, at the cost of a frontend project. A file-based one gives all four, for the sites where the content is pages.

How to choose

Count what the content is. Pages people read in a browser: file-based, with cmsspot. A static site generator and a Git workflow already in place: git-based. Structured content that goes several places, several languages, a team of editors: API-based. Why cmsspot has the whole case, and the comparisons say which tool for which site.

Common questions

What does headless mean?

The "head" is the part that shows the pages to visitors. A headless CMS has none: it only manages content, and something else, a frontend you build, shows it. The CMS and the website are separate systems.

Is cmsspot a headless CMS?

By separation, yes: cmsspot is not installed on your site, renders nothing, and does not dictate the frontend. By the strict API definition, no: there is no content API, because the content lives in your own HTML and PHP files. We call it a file-based headless CMS and say so plainly.

Do I need a headless CMS for a small business site?

You need the separation, not the API. The separation keeps the site fast and free of anything to patch. The API only pays off when the same content goes to several places. For a site that is pages, a file-based editing layer gives the separation without the build.

Can cmsspot deliver content to an app?

No. The content is HTML on your server, made for the site itself. If the same content has to feed an app or a feed, an API-based platform such as Sanity is the right tool.