Imagine you’re managing social content for a fast-growing ecommerce brand. Your traditional CMS struggles to keep up with content updates across your website, mobile app, and social media. The updates are slow, often requiring back-end changes only IT can handle, delaying marketing campaigns and impacting customer experience.

So, what do you do? You switch to a hosted headless CMS solution because of its API-first approach, you can decouple the content management from the front-end presentation layer. This means that your marketing team could update content directly, without waiting for IT support.

In this article, we’ll explore the best hosted headless CMS options for 2024, examining their key features and pricing to help you find the perfect solution for your business.

What is a Hosted Headless CMS?

A hosted headless CMS separates the back-end content repository from the front-end presentation layer. This means the back-end layer is for managing and storing the content and then through APIs, you can deliver the content to any device or front-end.

This approach allows developers to build custom front-end experiences with any technology stack while using the CMS solely for content storage and management. When hosted, the CMS infrastructure is managed and maintained by the service provider, offering benefits such as scalability, security, and reduced maintenance overhead for businesses.

Some of the benefits of using a hosted headless CMS solution include,

Reduced maintenance

The hosting, updates, and infrastructure are managed by the service provider which reduces the need for in-house IT maintenance.

Scalability

Easily scales with growing content and traffic needs without requiring significant changes to the infrastructure.

Flexibility

Allows the use of any front-end technology, promoting developers to create highly customised and unique user experiences.

Need a custom solution? Our application development services ensure your CMS is perfectly aligned with your business requirements.

Omnichannel delivery

Content can be delivered seamlessly across multiple platforms, including websites, mobile apps, IoT devices, and more.

Improved performance

Faster content delivery as the back-end and front-end are decoupled, allowing for optimised performance on each end.

Enhanced security

Managed hosting environments often come with robust security measures, ensuring content is protected from threats.

Cost-effective

Reduces costs associated with maintaining and upgrading in-house infrastructure.

Future-proof

Easily integrates with new technologies and platforms as they emerge, ensuring the CMS stays relevant and effective.

Why choose a headless CMS over a traditional CMS?

Architecture

A traditional CMS combines the front-end and back-end into a single system, which limits flexibility and makes updates more unmanageable.

Headless CMS decouples the back-end from the front-end, delivering content via APIs for any front-end or device, allowing for more versatile and modern web development practices.

Content delivery

Traditional CMS lets the content be delivered through predefined templates and themes, restricting how and where content can be displayed.

Headless CMS lets the content be delivered through APIs, allowing it to be displayed on any platform or device, improving the reach and adaptability of your content strategy.

Flexibility

Traditional CMS is limited to the front-end capabilities and design constraints of the CMS, which can slow down creativity.

Headless CMS is highly flexible, as developers can use any front-end technology, helping create customised user experiences.

Scalability

Traditional CMS can be challenging to scale as both front-end and back-end are tightly coupled, which can create bottlenecks as your site grows.

Headless CMS is easier to scale since the back-end manages content independently of the front-end, allowing each layer to be scaled as needed without affecting the other.

Customisation

Traditional CMS customisations are often limited to what the CMS platform supports, which can restrict the ability to fully meet specific business needs.

Headless CMS provides extensive customisation options as developers can build custom front-ends tailored to exact requirements, enabling unique and differentiated digital experiences.

Speed and performance

Traditional CMS can be slower due to the combined processing of front-end and back-end, which can affect load times and overall performance.

Headless CMS is generally faster since it only serves content, leaving front-end optimisation to developers, resulting in better performance and quicker load times.

Choosing a headless CMS over a traditional CMS offers significant advantages in terms of flexibility, scalability, and performance, making it a superior choice for modern web development and content management needs.

Best Hosted Headless CMS platforms in 2024

Choosing the right headless CMS can be tricky, but knowing the top options can make it easier. These platforms offer flexibility, scalability, and a wide array of features to meet the diverse needs of modern web development. Here's a simple guide to the best hosted headless CMS platforms in 2024, highlighting their features and pricing.

Contentful

Contentful is a hosted headless CMS that provides an API-first platform, allowing developers to create, manage, and deliver content to any digital platform.

Key features

Contentful offers robust RESTful and GraphQL APIs, which makes it easy to integrate with various front-end technologies. This approach allows for greater flexibility and customisation.

The platform provides a highly customisable content structure, encouraging users to define their content types and fields according to specific needs. This flexibility is crucial for businesses with unique content requirements.

Contentful integrates seamlessly with tools like Gatsby, Netlify, and various marketing and analytics platforms, ensuring smooth workflows and enhanced productivity.

It manages images, videos, and other media types, allowing for easy uploading, editing, and delivery of rich media content.

The content distribution across web, mobile, and other digital channels, ensures a consistent user experience across all platforms.

Pricing details

Free plan 

This plan is available at zero cost. It includes 5 users and 2 locales with community support and is ideal for small projects or personal use.

Basic plan

This plan starts at 300 dollars per month, suitable for small to medium-sized businesses with more complex needs. It includes more advanced features, multiple environments, and up to 20 users.

Premium plan

This plan has custom pricing, designed for large organisations requiring advanced features, higher levels of support, and custom integrations. Pricing is tailored based on specific business needs.

Hygraph

Hygraph is a native GraphQL headless CMS designed for developers to build and manage content with high flexibility and scalability.

Key features

It allows merging data from multiple sources into a single API, streamlining content management and delivery processes.

It is built specifically for GraphQL, offering efficient and flexible data querying and integration. This makes it easier for developers to work with the platform.

The users can create and manage their own content schemas easily, providing a tailored content structure that fits their specific needs.

This supports a wide range of SDKs and plugins, enhancing functionality and providing additional tools for developers.

It ensures fast content delivery through a global Content Delivery Network, improving performance and user experience.

Pricing details

Community plan

This plan is free of cost Free, suitable for developers and small teams. You can easily work with 3 users and use up to 1 million monthly API calls.

Professional plan

It ranges from $199 to $799 per project per month, with an annual discount available. It definitely offers more advanced features, such as access to 20 users, and complete access to GraphQL management API and SDK with higher usage limits.

Premium plan

This is a customised plan, designed for larger projects with higher usage needs, offering premium features and priority support. The custom pricing, provides comprehensive features, security controls, fine-grained permissions, audit logs, and dedicated support.

Arc XP

Arc XP is a headless CMS platform designed to facilitate multi-channel content delivery and efficient workflow management.

Key features

It facilitates content creation and distribution across various platforms, ensuring consistent messaging and branding.

It includes tools like WebSked for efficient content scheduling and management, streamlining editorial workflows.

It integrates with Salesforce, Splunk APM, and other enterprise tools, enhancing functionality and data connectivity.

It is hosted on AWS, ensuring reliable performance and the ability to scale as your business grows.

It features like Bandito for content testing and team collaboration, improving productivity and content quality.

Pricing details

Premium plan

Arc XP offers custom pricing based on the specific needs of your business. Interested users can request a demo and discuss tailored pricing with Arc XP’s team to find the best solution for their requirements.

dotCMS

dotCMS is a hybrid content management system that combines headless and traditional CMS features, offering flexibility and robust content management capabilities.

Key features

It combines headless and traditional CMS features, providing flexibility in content delivery and management.

It simplifies content creation with a visual editor, making it easier for non-technical users to manage content.

It manages content in multiple languages, ideal for global businesses with diverse audiences.

This offers advanced security features to protect content and user data, ensuring compliance with industry standards.

It provides an open-source edition, giving users more control and flexibility over their CMS environment.

Pricing details

Open source plan

This is a self-hosted headless CMS with features such as unlimited users and content with basic workflow, suitable for developers and small projects looking for a flexible and customisable CMS solution.

Enterprise plan

This is a cloud-based plan where the pricing is customised based on the requirements of your project. It has 99.9%uptime SLA with integrated CDN, designed for large enterprises with complex content management needs.

Magnolia

Magnolia is a headless CMS known for its flexibility, modular architecture, and robust integration capabilities, making it suitable for enterprise-level applications.

Key features

It has advanced personalisation features to deliver tailored content to different user segments, enhancing user engagement and experience.

It efficiently manages and distributes content across various platforms, ensuring consistent branding and messaging.

It allows for easy customisation and extension with modules, enabling businesses to add new functionalities as needed.

This managed cloud hosting ensures high availability, reliability, and performance, reducing the burden on internal IT teams.

It integrates seamlessly with enterprise systems like ERP and CRM, improving data flow and operational efficiency.

Pricing details

Open-source CMS

It is free of cost. The open-source CMS includes features such as key content management capabilities with robust community support.

Self-hosted DXP

This plan is priced at $3000 per month with features including high availability deployment and, a dedicated plan for customer success paired with unlimited non-production environments.

Cloud DXP

It offers custom pricing. With this plan, you can build customised applications with features such as preconfigured CI/CD pipeline and guaranteed availability.

Comparing pricing and plans

Choosing a hosted headless CMS involves evaluating the pricing models to determine which platform offers the best value for your needs. Let’s break down the pricing models of the top hosted headless CMS, cost expectations, and value analysis.

Overview of pricing models

When selecting software or services, understanding the various pricing models is crucial. Three common models are freemium, subscription-based, and enterprise-level.

Want to dive deeper into CMS pricing? Explore our comprehensive cost comparison of top headless CMS solutions.

Freemium

The freemium model offers basic services for free while charging for advanced features. This model is effective for attracting a broad user base and allowing users to experience the product before committing financially.

dotCMS offers a freemium model with a Community edition that is open-source and free to use. Their subscription-based plans, Enterprise and Cloud, provide more advanced features, security, and support.

Subscription based

This model involves regular payments (monthly or annually) for continued access to a product or service. It often includes various tiers with different levels of features and support. 

Contentful offers a tiered subscription-based model with a free Community plan to get started. As needs grow, users can upgrade to Team or Enterprise plans, each providing more features and support.

Hygraph also uses a subscription-based model, starting with a free tier called the Community Edition. Paid plans, including Professional and Enterprise, offer advanced features and enhanced performance. 

Enterprise level

Enterprise pricing is typically tailored for large organisations. It involves custom pricing based on the specific needs of the business, often including premium features, dedicated support, and bulk discounts.

Arc XP follows an enterprise-level pricing model, tailored to the specific needs of large organisations. Pricing is customised based on the required features, integrations, and scale.

Magnolia follows an enterprise-level pricing model, with custom pricing based on the organisation's requirements. It offers comprehensive features, including multi-site support, personalisation, and advanced security.

Value for money analysis

Contentful offers excellent value for developers and teams needing a scalable CMS with robust API capabilities. The higher-tier plans are cost-effective for growing businesses that need advanced features and support.

Hygraph provides good value, especially for small to medium-sized projects. The scalability of plans makes it suitable for businesses starting small and expanding over time.

While on the higher end, Arc XP offers significant value for large enterprises needing a comprehensive and customisable CMS solution. Its tailored approach ensures it meets specific organisational needs.

dotCMS freemium model offers a risk-free way to explore the CMS. Paid plans provide good value for larger businesses needing extensive features and support. The open-source nature adds flexibility and cost-effectiveness.

Although expensive, Magnolia delivers significant value for large organisations. Its robust feature set, scalability, and premium support justify the investment for enterprises needing a powerful CMS.

In conclusion, choosing the right hosted headless CMS depends on your specific needs and budget. Contentful and Hygraph are ideal for growing businesses with scalable pricing models, Arc XP and Magnolia suit large enterprises needing customised solutions, while dotCMS offers flexibility with its open-source option and paid plans for enhanced features.

With years of experience in CMS implementation, our team can guide you through the entire process, from selection to deployment and ongoing support.

Use cases of hosted headless CMS 

Headless CMS platforms are changing the landscape of content management across various industries by providing flexibility, scalability, and efficiency.

Ecommerce

Contentful helps ecommerce businesses manage product information, marketing content, and customer reviews, ensuring consistent user experiences across web and mobile platforms.

In case you are looking for the best headless CMS options for ecommerce, heck out our top picks and value analysis for 2024.

Media and publishing

Arc XP, developed by The Washington Post, allows media companies to streamline content distribution across websites, mobile apps, and social media, ensuring rapid and consistent delivery.

Healthcare

Hygraph is used by healthcare organisations to manage content for medical services, health tips, and patient records, delivering personalised patient experiences securely.

Financial services

dotCMS is employed by banks and insurance companies to manage content for online portals and customer support, ensuring data consistency and regulatory compliance.

Travel and hospitality

Magnolia helps travel companies like airlines and hotels manage content for destinations, bookings, and customer reviews, enhancing the customer booking experience.

In summary, headless CMS platforms help companies across various industries to enhance content management, improve user experiences, and achieve greater operational efficiency.

How to choose the right hosted headless CMS?

When selecting a hosted headless CMS, consider your business size, type, and requirements.

Business size

Small businesses might benefit from scalable options like Contentful or Hygraph, starting with free or affordable plans. Large enterprises may require robust features and support offered by Arc XP, dotCMS, or Magnolia.

Looking to outsource? Our web development outsourcing services offer scalable solutions for businesses of all sizes.

Type of business

Ecommerce, media, healthcare, finance, and travel each have specific needs. Ensure the CMS supports relevant integrations, security, and compliance requirements.

Requirements

Assess your need for features like multi-site management, personalisation, content modeling, and API capabilities.

Thinking of migrating from a traditional CMS? Learn how to transition smoothly with our guide to migrating from WordPress to Webflow.

Steps to evaluate and select the best CMS

Identify needs

Outline your specific content management needs and desired features.

Research options

Compare CMS platforms based on your requirements, scalability, and pricing models.

Request demos

Get hands-on experience with demos or free trials to evaluate usability and functionality.

Consult reviews

Look at case studies and user reviews for insights on performance and support.

Budget considerations

Ensure the chosen CMS fits within your budget, considering both current needs and future growth.

Choosing the right hosted headless CMS is crucial for efficient content management and delivery, tailored to your business’s specific needs. Carefully evaluate your options based on business size, type, and requirements. Selecting the right CMS can significantly enhance your content strategy, operational efficiency, and customer experiences.

Need help implementing a headless CMS? Our headless CMS development team can help.