What is a Headless CMS and How to Source Content from One

A headless CMS is content management software that enables writers to produce and organize content, while providing developers with structured data that can be displayed using a separate system on the frontend of a website or app.

A traditional, monolithic CMS is responsible for both the backend management of content, and serving that content to end users. In contrast, a headless CMS is decoupled from frontend concerns, which frees developers to build rich experiences for end users, using the best technology available.

Many traditional content management systems (CMS), like WordPress and Drupal, now support a “headless” or “decoupled” mode, which is perfect for Gatsby sites. Through use of source plugins, Gatsby has support for dozens of headless CMS options, allowing your content team the comfort and familiarity of its preferred admin interface.

We’ve included setup guides, and links to the integration documentation as well as official starters (when these exist).

For integrating your site with a headless CMS:

Try it on Gatsby Cloud!

Popular CMSs

The following CMSs have high popularity among Gatsby users and support key functionality like content previews and incremental builds. If you’re choosing between CMSs, we recommend reading the Choosing Your CMS(s) documentation.

CMS	Guides	Plugin Docs	Official Starter
Contentful	guide	docs	starter
WordPress	guide	docs	starter
Shopify	guide	docs	starter
Sanity	guide	docs	starter
Strapi	guide	docs
Contentstack	guide	docs
DatoCMS	guide	docs	starter
Drupal	guide	docs
Prismic	guide	docs	starter
NetlifyCMS	guide	docs	starter

Other CMSs

CMS	Guides	Plugin Docs	Official Starter
Cosmic	guide	docs	starter
ButterCMS	guide	docs
Ghost	guide	docs	starter
Kontent by Kentico	guide	docs
Directus		docs
GraphCMS	guide	docs
Storyblok	guide	docs
Cockpit		docs
CraftCMS		docs
Agility CMS	guide	docs
Prepr CMS	guide
Forestry	guide
Gentics Mesh	guide
Builder.io	guide	docs
Flotiq	guide	docs
Webiny	guide		starter
Dialoguewise	guide	docs

Integrating with other CMSs

Other CMSs not on the list above can be found on the plugins directory. If your preferred CMS is integrated with Gatsby but not on this list, you can open a pull request to add it. If your preferred CMS is not yet integrated with Gatsby, you can write your own source plugin.

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