The CMS Hunter Headless CMS Review on Contentful

Paul's review on Contentful

What's Contentful?

Contentful, a beauty from Germany since 2013, is this cloud-based headless CMS that's all about helping businesses sort out their digital presence, proper style. It's not your usual CMS, but more like an all-over-the-shop content platform, giving you the goods to handle your content across all sorts of platforms. She's a ripper when it comes to letting businesses whip up custom content models quick smart, so they can get their unique content needs sorted out pronto.

With its RESTful API, Contentful's a deadset winner for chucking content across a ton of channels – think websites, mobile apps for all sorts of systems, and even those smart gadgets. Plus, the UI's a breeze, making it easier than ever for teams to get cracking on creating, managing, and putting content out there online.

How's Contentful Work, Then?

Contentful's a game changer, mate. It bins the need for a bunch of different CMSs for your digital channels. Everything's managed and dished out from one spot, whether it's for web, mobile, or IoT gadgets, all in the one editorial interface. Editors can fiddle with all sorts of content – videos, pics, text, you name it – and serve it up structured-like to users.

Here’s how Contentful rolls: First up, you define your content model, setting up the types of content you'll use, all separate from how it's gonna look. Next, editors get stuck into adding entries and assets that fit this model, using a pretty nifty editing interface. Finally, Contentful spits out the content, not fussed about layout, making it a cinch to publish across different platforms with API keys, spot-on for what your business needs.

Contentful's a standout 'cause it's this headless CMS that's sweet as for all content types and how they're shown, really opening up the field for where you can chuck your content.

How to Give Contentful a Bash

Getting a site going with Contentful is easy as:

1. Sign up or log into Contentful – no worries.
2. Start a new space or "data bucket" for keeping your project's content in line.
3. Set up a content space for different types of content.
4. Get into customising how these content types will look on your site.
5. Chuck your data into the bucket to fill out your content model.
6. Give it a test run to make sure it's all sweet locally.
7. When you're good to go, deployment's a piece of cake, with options like Heroku, Dokku, and GitHub up for grabs.

Exploring Contentful: The Interface and the Experience

From the Contentful dashboard, you've got easy access to all the main options and features of the CMS. The top navigation bar's a breeze for moving around between different sections. You can check out your content, jump over to the content creation screen, sort out your media, have a look at the apps, or adjust some settings. And for those new to Contentful, there's a handy quick start guide to help you find your feet.

Once you're familiar with the dashboard, you can get cracking on creating your first content model. At the top of the content model view, you'll see its name, and in the centre, there's space to add your fields. Adding fields is easy as – just click the 'Add field' button on the right. You've got a good range of field types to choose from, like rich text, text, numbers, dates, media, JSON files, and even location.

After you've got your content type sorted, head over to the Content screen. Here, putting together content using your structure is straightforward. Fill in the fields, and when you're ready, just hit the 'Publish' button on the right.

Every entry you make is listed under the Content tab. This list shows you the name of the entry, what type of content it is, and whether it's out there for the world or still in draft. Plus, there's a filtering feature to help you quickly find the entries you're after.

What Do You Use Contentful For?

Contentful makes updating content across websites and apps a walk in the park with its APIs and CLI migration tools. It even snagged the 2020 Proddy Award for Best Website Builder Product. From big names like Disney and Segment, heaps of businesses are giving it a go, showing how versatile it is.

With Contentful's built-in CDN, your content gets where it needs to go quick as a flash. Its flexibility means you can show off your content on all sorts of devices, thanks to customisable content models. Designers and strategy folks team up to tailor content for different screens and resolutions, making the user experience top-notch. UI extensions add even more to what Contentful can do, like letting you plug in custom fields in the app.

User Interface and Content APIs

Contentful's web app is as user-friendly as they come, always getting tweaks to make it better, with heaps of helpful links to docs. It supports SDKs across eight platforms and makes setting up your content model as easy as pie, with a bunch of fields you can tweak to suit your front-end needs.

Contentful's got four main REST APIs: Content Delivery, Content Preview, Content Management, and Images. Plus, there's a GraphQL Content API, giving you a full kit for getting your content out there and managed right.

Contentful Apps and UI Extensions

Contentful's UI Extensions and the new App Framework really crank up what the web app can do. The App Framework's the go-to for its extra features like config and state management. The marketplace is chockers with third-party apps to make life easier for both developers and editors.

Support

For the folks on the free Community plan, there's no dedicated support, but there's heaps of help in the docs, FAQs, community forums, and GitHub repos to get you unstuck and learn the ropes.

By dishing up this solid setup, Contentful's paving the way for flexible, scalable content management across a whole heap of digital channels, meeting the needs of all sorts of businesses.