Choosing the appropriate content management system (also known as CMS) in eCommerce is not an easy task – even for those who know about eCommerce and software development. The most popular CMS for eCommerce are WooCommerce (WordPress), Magento, and more. However, the development of eCommerce has created many headless CMSs such as Strapi and Contentful, as well as platforms such as Medusa which is a Headless Ecommerce Open Platform.

Why to choose a headless solution?

Headless CMS (or Headless eCommerce if an eSHOP is manufactured) is a management environment that provides all data as well as the functionality of the online store through an interface – also known as API. In practice, in the Headless CMS, the content management system is independent of the Frontend, that is, the theme presented to the visitor of the site is not unified with the CMS. If we select the Headless CMS we will build our eSHOP by creating the Frontend with one of the popular Reactive Frameworks, such as Vue or React.

Some advantages of using a headless CMS are:

Flexibility: A headless CMS does not have a Frontend User Interface, which allows for greater flexibility in display and content loading. The same content can be used on many platforms or devices, such as web apps, mobile apps, and so on.

Security: With a disconnected CMS (decoupled), content management and appearance functions are separated, allowing greater flexibility and ease of developing code.

Performance: All content is delivered through an API, which is rapid, safer, and more effective than always with Standard CMS.

Scalability: Headless CMS can be designed and optimized for specific tasks, such as content management, and can be expanded without restrictions.

Cost of using a Headless CMS

The eSHOP development itself usually requires more time than constructing a normal theme for a standard CMS. It is also important that the hosting solutions intended for headless CMS require a more sophisticated set of tools. Therefore, a shared hosting account in a headless CMS cannot be used.

Why choose a custom theme and a standard CMS?

In the ecosystems of popular CMS such as WordPress, there are dozens of easy-to-use additives. These add-ons are based on the integration between the theme (theme) and the CMS. So we can easily enter additional code when developing your website, while a Frontend Developer is not even required in many cases. We need to be careful of course, as many additives can make a website messy and extremely slow.

Optimizing customized theme

A theme installed on a CMS is rendered whenever a user clicks on a link. And, of course, it can’t be as fast as file service in a headless CMS. However, there is always room to optimize the code that calls and processes the data. The cache memory is the most well-known solution used to improve loading speed.

Security of CMS

Many customers wonder if the popular CMS is safe. Creating a theme on a CMS consolidates the entire CMS with the front end. However, this does not mean that there is no way to make it safe. You and your developer can take some additional security measures. In addition, most of the malware is designed to attack systems with default structure and default configuration.

What about cloud-based platforms?

Many popular content management systems (CMS) and eCommerce are maintained as open-source projects capable of hosting autonomously. Some commercial tools are also designed to operate on-premise (locally). This way you have the choice of where your site or your application will run. You can choose one of the dozens of hosting platforms or even use your server. But the system is needed to always be up-to-date and safe. While you need to take care of backup and deal with problems if something ‘breaks’ or crushes.

Alternatively, there are excellent cloud-based SAAS platforms. As a customer and user of the platform, your system is always up-to-date and safe, which means less time than you and significantly lower costs. Also, each cloud app has easy connectivity, such as in eSHOP connection to ERP.

I still need some help to decide

Well, perhaps now you are better informed about making the right decision – contact Anveto Marketers to design and implement your online store together.

Anveto Marketers is an award-winning digital agency in Athens and London.