Choosing the right CMS for your website

The right CMS can make or break your content workflow. Traditional CMSs like WordPress suit blogs and marketing sites where editors need full control. Headless CMSs (Strapi, Contentful, Sanity) separate content from presentation — ideal for multi-channel publishing and custom frontends.

Consider your team's technical level, content volume, and integration needs. Do you need versioning, workflows, or multi-language support? Will you publish to an app or multiple sites? We often recommend headless setups for performance and flexibility, but a well-configured WordPress can be the right choice for simpler projects.

The best CMS is one your team will actually use. Prioritise ease of editing and reliable support over feature lists.

Traditional CMSs bundle content and presentation. You get a theme, plugins, and an admin panel. Pros: quick to set up, familiar to many, huge ecosystem. Cons: performance can suffer, security updates require vigilance, and the frontend is often tied to the CMS. Good for: blogs, brochure sites, small e-commerce.

Headless CMSs expose content via APIs. Your frontend (React, Next.js, etc.) fetches and renders it. Pros: better performance, flexibility to publish anywhere, cleaner separation of concerns. Cons: more development upfront, editors may need to learn a new interface. Good for: custom apps, multi-channel publishing, performance-critical sites.

When evaluating options, consider: Who will edit content? How often? Do you need approval workflows? Will you need to support multiple languages? Answer these before committing to a platform.