The Best Headless CMSs for Gatsby

Gatsby is a popular static site generator that allows you to build fast and efficient websites. While Gatsby itself is not a content management system (CMS), it can be integrated with various CMSs to handle content management functionalities.

A headless CMS can help streamline the process of building and maintaining a Gatsby website, allowing you to add, delete, or edit content quickly and easily. If you are looking for the best CMS for Gatsby, then this guide will help you to make an informed decision.

Let’s explore…

What Is Gatsby?

Gatsby is a free and open-source JavaScript framework based on React to build static-first websites. Gatsby enables developers to create dynamic, engaging, and fast sites and apps with impressive performance.

It allows for the combination of content from multiple sources, such as headless CMSs, APIs, databases, and even local files. Furthermore, its static site generator architecture makes it easier to build sites that are optimized for speed.

While Gatsby is a great tool for building static sites, many users find it difficult to manage content on those sites without a dedicated content management system (CMS).

Fortunately, it can be integrated with various CMSs to handle content management functionalities. There are several great CMSs that are well-suited for Gatsby websites. In this section, we will discuss some of the best CMS for Gatsby sites:

The Top 7 Headless CMS Platforms for Gatsby

Strapi CMS

Strapi is an open-source headless CMS that provides a robust set of content management features. It is a JavaScript-based headless CMS that works with any front-end framework.

Strapi is a great choice for Gatsby websites because it offers an advanced GraphQL API that easily integrates with Gatsby.  Gatsby has plugins and starters available for integrating Strapi as a data source.

Furthermore, Strapi is a suitable solution for Gatsby's static markup generation, providing flexibility in content types, plugins, and customization for both static sites and dynamic apps/websites.

Key reasons why Strapi is considered a good CMS choice for Gatsby:

👉  Strapi follows a headless architecture. This makes it highly flexible and allows developers to use any front-end framework, such as Gatsby, to consume the content via APIs.

👉  Strapi offers both RESTful and GraphQL APIs out of the box. Gatsby has excellent support for GraphQL, making it easy to query and fetch data from Strapi. 

👉  Strapi has a robust plugin ecosystem. These plugins can enhance the capabilities of your Strapi-Gatsby setup and save you development time.

 👉  By combining Gatsby's static site generation with Strapi's content delivery via APIs, you can achieve excellent performance and faster page load times for your website or application.

Overall, Strapi is a content management system that provides benefits for Gatsby projects, including flexibility, robust APIs, real-time updates, integration capabilities, performance advantages, scalability, and developer experience. All these features make Strapi one of the best CMS for Gatsby.

How to Set up Strapi in a Gatsby Project

Prismic CMS

Prismic CMS makes creating and managing content for static sites simple. It offers developers and marketers an effective way to create reusable website sections, commonly referred to as Slices. This component-centric approach is perfect for those building Gatsby static sites.

Prismic offers a variety of features that make it the perfect choice for powering a Gatsby static site generator, including:

👉 Slice Machine is a unique feature in Prismic to create dynamic and reusable content components. This feature simplifies the content creation process.

👉 Prismic provides powerful content relationship capabilities to help maintain data integrity and improve content organization.

👉 Prismic has a robust API-first approach, providing a RESTful API and a GraphQL API. Gatsby SSG can consume data from various sources, including Prismic's APIs.

👉 With Prismic, developers can quickly create JSON files with content from the CMS. This makes it easy to access data from Gatsby’s GraphQL layer.

All these features combined make Prismic a good option to integrate with the Gatsby static site generator. Whether it's the flexibility of Slice Machine, advanced content relationships, content scheduling, AI-powered search, the Custom Types API, or the revision history functionality, Prismic offers a range of capabilities to meet diverse content management needs. 

How to Set up Prismic in a Gatsby Project

Decap CMS (Formerly known as Netlify CMS)

The Decap CMS is a single-page React app that is open-source and free to use. 

With Decap CMS, developers have access to an intuitive UI editor that makes it simple to create content and structure pages on their Gatsby sites. It can be used with any static site generator to create more flexible and faster web projects. The content is stored in the Git repository with your code, making versioning easier. It also allows for multi-channel publishing and the option to handle content updates directly in Git.

Decap offers a range of features that make it the optimal choice for Gatsby sites.

👉 Decap has a Fast, web-based UI with rich-text editing, real-time preview, and drag-and-drop media uploads.

👉 Installation is easy. You only need to add two files to your site and hook up the backend by including those files in your build process or linking to our Content Delivery Network (CDN).

👉 It acts as a wrapper for Git workflows. It uses APIs from GitLab, GitHub, or Bitbucket and offers several advantages. 

👉 Decap CMS supports modern authentication methods such as using GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket and JSON web tokens 

👉 Flexible and unlimited content types with custom fields

👉 Fully extensible and allows developers to create custom-styled previews, UI widgets, and editor plugins.

How to Set up Decap in a Gatsby Project

Hygraph CMS

Hygraph CMS, formerly known as GraphCMS. Gatsby and Hygraph are both GraphQL-native, which makes Hygraph an ideal CMS solution for a Gatsby website. 

Hygraph provides developers with the ability to manage their content through customizable content modeling. Blazing fast Hygraph content API allows building amazing frontend experiences.

Here are a few reasons why Hygraph is a good CMS choice for Gatsby:

👉 Hygraph seamlessly integrates with Gatsby's GraphQL data layer. The tight GraphQL integration simplifies data sourcing and makes it easy to build dynamic, data-driven websites with Gatsby.

👉 Hygraph's Content Federation feature enables teams to integrate content from multiple sources into a unified GraphQL endpoint without duplicating data. Hygraph expands its API capabilities. This allows access to data from various systems.

👉 Use Gatsby and Hygraph for a faster, more secure website. Using a single GraphQL API to query content ensures faster loading times and improved security for both static and dynamically rendered pages.

👉 Hygraph offers a management API that is both flexible and powerful, allowing users to manage their content and schema. Additionally, the content API is known for its speedy performance.

👉Gatsby's developer-centric ecosystem provides numerous plugins and starter templates, which can be smoothly integrated with Hygraph to enhance the developer experience  

Overall, the combination of Hygraph as a headless CMS and Gatsby as a static site generator offers a robust and efficient solution for building modern websites. The integration between the two allows you to leverage the benefits of both platforms, resulting in a content-rich, performant, and scalable web presence.

Get Started with Hygraph for Your Gatsby Project

Sanity CMS

This open-source CMS platform gives you the perfect combination of flexibility and control to manage content for any kind of website or app. 

Sanity integrates effortlessly with Gatsby.js. It allows real-time collaboration, customized editing environments, and live multi-user editing for teams of various sizes. Developers can build completely customized sites in no time.

Sanity is considered a good CMS (Content Management System) for Gatsby for several reasons:

👉 Sanity provides GraphQL APIs, which can be directly integrated with Gatsby. Gatsby leverages these APIs to pull data from Sanity and build static pages, enabling dynamic content generation while benefiting from the speed and performance advantages of a static site.

👉 Sanity is highly extensible, allowing you to add custom functionality and integrations as needed. You can create custom input components, build custom workflows, and even extend the CMS with your own React components.

👉 Sanity provides an intuitive editing interface with live preview, where you can create, edit, and manage your content directly from your Gatsby site.

Across the board, the combination of Sanity CMS with Gatsby SSG offers a powerful and flexible solution for managing content and building static websites. It provides a great editing experience, facilitates collaboration, and enables dynamic content delivery through the integration of GraphQL APIs.

Get Started with Sanity for Your Gatsby Project

Contentful CMS

Contentful CMS is one of the leading headless CMSs for Gatsby sites, offering an API-driven architecture that makes content management easier than ever. 

The CMS is highly flexible, and developers can customize it to suit their needs, and it also provides an array of features such as localization, version control, and collaboration tools. Additionally, Contentful offers a wide range of integrations that allow developers to extend the functionality of their Gatsby sites.

The reasons why Contentful is considered a good CMS choice for Gatsby:

👉 Contentful’s decoupled architecture enables flexibility and allows you to build highly customized and performant websites using Gatsby.

👉 Contentful offers a powerful and developer-friendly API. Gatsby can utilize this API to fetch content during the build process, enabling you to generate static HTML pages that are highly optimized for performance.

👉 With Contentful, you can define content models with custom fields and relationships, providing a structured way to organize and manage your content.

👉 Contentful offers a wide range of integrations with popular tools and services, such as image processing services, analytics platforms, and deployment systems. It also provides webhooks and a rich set of APIs.

👉 Contentful's developer-friendly approach makes it easier for developers to integrate with Gatsby and build custom solutions.

Overall, the combination of Contentful as a headless CMS and Gatsby as a static site generator offers a powerful and flexible solution for building modern, performant websites or applications. It allows you to leverage the benefits of a robust CMS while taking advantage of Gatsby's static site generation capabilities.

Get Started with Contentful for Your Gatsby Project

Acquia CMS

This CMS is built on top of Drupal, making it the perfect choice for those who want to use the same advanced features that are available in Drupal. Gatsby has prebuilt integrations with Drupal and Acquia CMS.

The Acquia CMS is one of the best headless content management systems (CMS) to use in combination with the Gatsby Static Site Generator for creating websites and applications. Its Composable architecture provides a competitive advantage.

The Acquia CMS is easy to install and configure, allowing you to quickly get up and running with a Gatsby Site.

The reasons why Acquia is a good CMS for Gatsby SSG:

👉  Acquia provides a robust set of content management features, allowing you to create, organize, and publish content efficiently. 

👉  Acquia is built on Drupal, a highly scalable and performant CMS. When combined with Gatsby's static site generation, you can leverage the scalability and speed benefits of a static site while still benefiting from Acquia's robust infrastructure.

 👉  Acquia includes advanced personalization features, allowing you to tailor content to specific user segments or target audiences. 

👉  Acquia offers a wide range of integrations with third-party systems and services.

👉  Acquia supports omnichannel content delivery, allowing you to distribute your content across multiple channels, such as websites, mobile applications, and digital signage. 

Combining Acquia's content management capabilities with Gatsby's speed, scalability, and flexibility can result in a powerful and efficient website or application that meets your content management and performance needs.

Get Started with Acquia for Your Gatsby Project

Why Use Gatsby with a Headless CMS?

When combined with a headless CMS, Gatsby can provide an incredibly powerful platform for building modern websites and applications that are both feature-rich and highly optimized.

Using a headless CMS with Gatsby Static Site Generator can provide numerous benefits to website owners. A headless CMS operates without the need for a front-end presentation layer, allowing content to be stored and managed in one location and then pulled into other applications.

Reduced Development Time

With a headless CMS, developers can quickly and easily create and manage content without having to worry about the presentation layer. 

This significantly reduces development time, as site owners no longer have to worry about managing the HTML or templates of their websites. 

Performance

Gatsby is a static site generator that creates pre-rendered HTML and assets, resulting in faster load times and improved performance. By coupling it with a headless CMS, you can fetch content from the CMS during the build process and generate static pages, reducing the need for server-side processing and database queries during runtime.

Flexibility

A headless CMS decouples the content management layer from the presentation layer, providing more flexibility in choosing the technologies and frameworks for each layer independently. 

Content Reusability

Gatsby's GraphQL data layer allows you to query content from a headless CMS in a structured manner. This enables you to reuse content across multiple pages and components, enhancing consistency and reducing duplication. 

Enriched Security

A headless CMS hides the content management layer from the user interface. This protects a business's website data from malicious attacks. Content is stored and managed in a secure Gatsby CMS environment without any server-side code or database to be attacked. 

Scalability

With Gatsby and a headless CMS, you have the flexibility to scale your website as needed without worrying about managing complex databases or dealing with server maintenance tasks.

Cost Effectiveness

 When a Gatsby site is coupled with a headless CMS, developers are able to quickly and easily create dynamic front-ends without the need for expensive server infrastructure or complex databases.

Is Gatsby SEO-friendly?

Yes, Gatsby is known for being SEO-friendly. It provides several features that make it easy to optimize your site for search engines. Here are a few reasons why Gatsby is considered SEO-friendly:

✪ First of all, since Gatsby is serverless, the sites it creates are incredibly fast and secure, which not only helps with user experience but also improves site rankings in search engines.

✪ Gatsby’s GraphQL data layer makes it easy to pull content from multiple sources (including a headless CMS) into pages and posts created in the site. This allows for more dynamic content that can be easily indexed by search engines.

✪ Gatsby has a wide range of plugins and integrations available that can help with SEO. For example, you can use plugins like gatsby-plugin-react-helmet to easily manage meta tags, titles, and other SEO-related elements for each page.

✪ Gatsby provides built-in image optimization as well as support for progressive web apps (PWAs). This helps ensure that pages load quickly and look great on all devices, both of which are crucial for good SEO performance. 

✪ Gatsby uses code splitting to split your JavaScript code into smaller chunks, and it only loads the necessary code when needed. This helps reduce the initial page load time and improves performance, which can have a positive impact on SEO.

The Best Headless CMS for Gatsby: Final Thoughts

Gatsby is designed to be lightning-fast, secure, and easy to use. And there are a variety of headless CMS solutions that can be used to power Gatsby static sites. Strapi CMS, Prismic, Decap CMS, Hygraph, Sanity, Contentful, and Acquia CMS are all popular options that offer powerful tools for quickly and easily managing content. 

Each platform provides unique features and advantages that make it suitable for particular projects. Ultimately, the best CMS for Gatsby static sites will depend on the specific requirements of each project. As well as the ability of the person or team responsible for content creation to adapt to a given interface.

Ready to build your Gatsby project or need any help with your existing project? Meet StaticMania! We offer comprehensive Gatsby development services at a low cost. Let's build your dream site together and make it a reality!

Note: Our editorial team independently picked and reviewed each of the products, frameworks, and platforms we listed. All of the mentioned product’s features and other information were collected independently and dependent on the date this article was published. We cordially request that, before making any decision, please visit the featured websites. Posts may contain affiliate links.