{"id":4716,"date":"2022-04-26T01:49:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-26T09:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.emergeinteractive.com\/?p=4716"},"modified":"2022-04-27T21:10:23","modified_gmt":"2022-04-28T05:10:23","slug":"the-best-headless-cms-for-mobile-app-or-react-applications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.emergeagency.com\/insights\/product-development\/detail\/the-best-headless-cms-for-mobile-app-or-react-applications\/","title":{"rendered":"Which Headless CMS is the best fit for your Digital Product?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
When creating a mobile app or web application, do you have a strategy for how the static content in the application is managed? An app can contain a myriad of static content that wouldn\u2019t make sense to load dynamically from an application or server each time the content is viewed. Some types of content that fall into this category can include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Home screen content<\/li>
Inline content blocks<\/li>
Navigation labels<\/li>
About us page content<\/li>
FAQ sections<\/li>
Video sections\f<\/li>
Product information that isn\u2019t stored elsewhere<\/li>
Really any text or image assets that aren’t dynamically generated<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
This is a challenge our clients encounter regularly, and we love helping them solve this problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why should you use a Headless CMS?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Traditionally, a mobile app or React application will have its static content embedded directly inside the application code. For apps geared toward traveling users or display kiosk applications that need to run locally, this is particularly true. While embedding content is the most straightforward and easily implemented method, the downside is that any content update will require a code change, testing, and a redeployment. Options such as loading content from an XML or JSON file exist, but these still require some technical proficiency, and potentially a redeployment if the files are still embedded in the codebase, or a server setup to host the files elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our clients are better often served if the content can be edited directly by the content owner responsible not just for the message but the users experience, be it the product manager, the marketing department, or someone at the helpdesk. Fortunately, a new breed of content management systems is specifically tailored to address this need. They\u2019re called Headless Content Management Systems (Headless CMS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Headless CMS provides a content management interface, much like a traditional CMS such as WordPress or Drupal. But instead of outputting the content as HTML onto a website, a Headless CMS makes the content available via an API to your web or mobile application. The application can then subsequently display content loaded in realtime from the CMS, or cache the content and permit it to be displayed offline without loading times. This is particularly advantageous for large assets such as video files.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe difference between headless CMS data flow and traditional CMS data flow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
While there are both self-hosted and cloud-hosted products available, we typically recommend our clients look at hosted products (CMS-as-a-Service). These provide the benefit of eliminating ongoing management of a CMS installation and hosting. Forget constant version patches to your open source CMS; this is all automatically handled by the CMS provider. Ultimately, long-term costs and expended effort are minimized while reliability and security are maximized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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