WordPress is a powerful content management system (CMS) that enables you to create, manage, and update your content whenever you want without having to deal with coding. Nevertheless, even though WordPress is fantastic, there may be times when you need even more flexibility. Or, the most crucial thing to do is to make a website perform better.
In these situations, using WordPress as a headless CMS can be helpful. Headless WordPress architecture separates your website’s content database and display, giving you more flexibility, simpler multichannel distribution, and speedier performance.
In this blog, you will understand what headless WordPress is, how it works, how to set it up, and its benefits.
A traditional WordPress setup has a fully integrated back and front end, meaning the same system handles content creation, presentation and management. When it comes to flexibility and scalability, this can be constricting, especially if you want to use emerging technologies or have particular demands for your front-end experience.
This is where the term “headless” is used. You can separate content management from content presentation using a headless WordPress CMS because the front end (the “head”) is separated from the back end.
It means using WordPress to manage and create content while utilizing other frameworks or technologies to handle the visual presentation. If you’re looking for a content management system with more flexibility, speed, and scalability, the WordPress headless CMS is a compelling alternative.
Now that you know what Headless WordPress means, let’s look at how it works.
In a traditional WordPress, the PHP code that manages WordPress’ database is run every time a page is displayed. This framework could be more efficient as it causes performance issues for web apps that use WordPress as a backend.
In headless WP, the content is routed through a REST API instead of being directly sent straight to the front end. To put it another way, the WordPress REST API maintains content management features while eliminating the need for themes and plugins to display your content.
Now that you better understand how headless WordPress works, why should you consider implementing this approach to your CMS?
There are several advantages to using WordPress headless:
Quick Loading Times
Traditional WordPress dynamically generates web pages. As a result, the WordPress hosting server doesn’t store static HTML pages to send to users on demand; instead, it generates an HTML page whenever a request is made. As such, the server must run PHP and MySQL code, lengthening load times.
The headless version of WordPress, however, makes use of JavaScript frameworks like Vue.js, React.Js, etc. As a result, web pages are not constructed each time a user submits a request. The pages are created using static HTML in these frameworks, and only the portions that require updating are updated, producing quick loading times.
Flexible Front-End Design
WordPress lets you do much with the front end with its vast collection of customizable themes and WordPress Plugins. Still, you need a strong experience with PHP and HTML to use this feature entirely.
While using a front-end framework like Angular or React for your presentation, you can keep the “content management” portion of the WordPress CMS by using a WordPress headless CMS. By Bypassing WordPress’s complexity, you can now easily create unique experiences and layouts.
With Headless WP, You Can:
Publishing On Multiple Channels
With this CMS, you can create and manage content for multiple channels in one place, something made possible by the fact that WordPress has a powerful admin dashboard. For this reason, WordPress is still a popular platform.
A traditional WordPress site can be used for both desktop and mobile devices. However, you must have a distributed system to scale your business and reach your potential customers. With wp headless, all of your content can live in one place but be delivered to multiple channels over different interfaces like:
Additionally, when you change some content in the WordPress headless CMS, this change is automatically reflected in all the channels you work with.
Improved Security
With wp headless, you can use an API to keep the content management part of your business separate from the front-end stuff. This is crucial for protecting your intellectual property (IP) and against potential security threats, especially with WordPress being such a popular CMS.
In a traditional setup, all your data is loaded onto one server. That means if a hacker breaks into that server, there’s a potential for them to access all your data. Using the REST API in WordPress headless allows you to avoid this situation by separating the CMS from the front end.
The entire CMS uses themes and WordPress Plugins code in traditional setups. In a headless design, you can use a lightweight front-end framework like Vue.js to present your content without the overhead of conventional WordPress themes.
This also means you don’t need to handle multiple code and asset repositories for different WordPress and front-end projects. In a headless setup, everything is managed in one place, so it’s easy to manage trackable assets like stylesheets, media files, and JavaScript files.
Headless WordPress CMS drawbacks
Now that you know the benefits of headless WordPress, let’s discuss the drawbacks.
Increased Workload
Headless WordPress is more complex than traditional WordPress because it has more moving parts. Moreover, you have to manage the server’s configuration and code.
But don’t worry! If you have a hired WordPress Development Company with experience with WordPress and front-end applications, they should be able to get it done.
Expanding Complexity In The Structure
Yes, headless WordPress is extremely adaptable. However, flexibility brings complexity.
When you add a new front-end experience, the structural complexity of your application grows. You have one more system component to manage, updates, maintenance, and everything else.
Besides, as the number of front-end frameworks increases, you may need to figure out how to organize your front-end assets properly. So, if you want to make it simple to update and maintain your WordPress website, you should look for reliable WordPress Maintenance Services with a lot of experience.
Getting More Expensive
As everyone is aware, WordPress is a free content management system (CMS) that non-programmers can also customize. However, if you want to go headless, you’ll need to look for a headless solution with more features, customization options, and the ability to add external modules.
So, if you’re looking for a WordPress solution with many features, you must invest in creating your own headless CMS. And you have to spend more money, time, and effort to make these features.
Now that you know what WordPress is and why you can go headless, let’s discuss how to set up a headless WordPress setup.
A WordPress CMS can be changed into a headless CMS if one already exists. Using plugins or manually developing headless WordPress are both options.
One of the many available plugins is preferable if you want to set up headless WordPress quickly. The following plugins can be useful:
If you’re a developer and want to do everything manually, you must modify the WordPress settings file. This is where all the answers are. You can set up advanced REST API plugin settings for your headless site using this file.
However, keep in mind that manually setting up a headless WordPress is not recommended for beginners because it’s quite complex compared to using plugins.
But if you want to know how to do headless WordPress development manually, you need more details about WordPress and its settings file.
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Now that you know how to set up a headless WordPress website, it’s time to learn about the best framework options available for headless WordPress.
React.JS is a very popular JavaScript framework developed by Facebook. It’s used to create reusable user interface components. It’s also fast, scalable and maintainable. There are lots of libraries for React that you can use to build scalable web apps like Material UI, Redux, Webpack and many more.
And there’s also a big community that supports the framework as well. So, if you want to build an E-Commerce website with WordPress, then you can use React for headless WordPress development.
Faust.JS is a JavaScript framework for building component-based user interfaces. It uses the concept of microcontrollers to connect to your WordPress CMS and render data for your front end. As a result, it’s very simple and easy to set up.
Faust is great because you can use Material UI on top of it and still be able to make API calls that work with React. And since Faust is built with React, you can learn either one fairly quickly.
Gatsby.JS is a modern static site generator for React. It relies on GraphQL for its data connections. This means you only need one API call, which reduces your total page load time and improves SEO.
Gatsby is also great because it’s compatible with most front-end libraries that you can use in your React application (like Material UI or Bootstrap). However, since Gatsby is built on top of React, you need to learn both to develop in this framework.
Next.JS is another framework for building modern web apps using JavaScript. It’s based on a functional programming library called Node.js that allows you to use functional programming in the browser.
Next.JS is also a good choice because it has good documentation and there is a big community supporting it. And it also has many plugins available, allowing you to be more productive.
Using a headless WordPress CMS has many advantages over traditional WordPress. It allows you to create custom user experiences, focus on the front end with your choice of frameworks, and have a robust content management system at the backend.
However, with any new system comes drawbacks, and there are several challenges you might face when working with headless WordPress – increased complexity, larger file sizes, and more expensive solutions. But if you work with the right WordPress Development Company, they should be able to overcome these challenges.
