API-first CMS: A developer’s guide to modern content architecture

Traditional CMSs tightly coupled architecture and predefined templates and content structures limit flexibility and creativity among developers and content teams. Developers, more often than not, have to do extensive custom coding or install additional plugins to implement new designs and content structures. As a result, web development slows down or, worse, user experience suffers.

API-first CMS, such as BCMS, separates content presentation from content management. This separation enables developers to select any frontend technology of their choice and easily create new content structures without being constrained by legacy templates and traditional CMS architecture.

What is an API-first CMS?

An API-first CMS represents a paradigm shift from traditional content management systems by completely decoupling content creation from presentation. Unlike conventional CMSs that tightly interweave content with how it's displayed, API-first systems store content in a raw, structured format and deliver it exclusively through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

This architecture embodies the headless CMS concept but takes it further by placing APIs at the core of the system design rather than as an afterthought. Content becomes a service that can be consumed by any frontend, application, or device capable of making API calls, freeing developers from the constraints of predetermined presentation layers.

Why API-first CMS is gaining traction

API-first CMS has increased in adoption due to a number of trends in the digital ecosystem:

Omnichannel demand: Today, businesses must deliver consistent content across multiple channels. These include websites, mobile apps, IoT devices, digital signage, voice assistants, and more. API-first CMSs support this omnichannel delivery strategy. They make content accessible to any platform through APIs.
Frontend framework flexibility: Modern development is gravitating towards specialist frontend frameworks like React, Vue, Angular, or Next.js. API-first CMSs complement these technologies to allow developers to build optimized experiences using their tool of choice rather than being limited within the constraints of a monolithic system.
Enterprise scalability: as the digital operations of a business grows, content operations need to scale as well. The API-first architecture handles scaling more efficiently. It separates content management from content delivery. This makes it a good option for enterprise applications with high traffic or complex content structures.

How API-first CMS works

At its core, an API-first approach functions through two fundamental principles:

Platform-agnostic Content Storage: Content is modeled and stored in structured, normalized formats (typically JSON) that aren't tied to any specific presentation logic. This content is enriched with metadata, relationships, and validation rules to ensure consistency.
API-Driven Delivery: The system exposes comprehensive APIs, most commonly REST or GraphQL, that handle authentication, content retrieval, filtering, and formatting. These APIs become the medium for consuming content, whether for websites, mobile applications, or any other digital interface.

This separation creates a clean division of responsibilities: content editors work in specialized interfaces to create and manage content, while developers build frontends that consume this content through standardized API calls.

Key benefits of an API-first architecture

API-first has several vital advantages to organizations and improved developer experience:

Future-proofing

When new platforms and devices emerge, your foundation content isn't as affected. You don't need to rebuild it all. Just create new frontends that consume the old APIs. You don't need to re-architect your entire content system.

Developer autonomy

Front-end developers can use new technologies without worrying about backend templates or legacy rendering engines. Backends can meanwhile focus on optimizing content models and delivery. They don't have to do this by disrupting front-end development.

Efficiency

Content made once can be reused across multiple platforms. It eliminates duplication and maintains consistency. When content changes, all linked applications reflect that change immediately. That makes it easier and quicker to maintain content.

Why developers should care

For developers, API-first CMSs support a more modern and flexible way to build digital experiences.

Composable architecture

API-first CMSs work well with composable enterprise setups. In these systems, each service handles one specific task. Instead of relying on a single monolithic platform, developers can plug in services for content, commerce, search, or personalization using APIs.

Microservices Integration

Microservices-based teams can add content features without having to tightly couple systems. This keeps each service independent and easy to scale.

With API-first content management, developers have the resources to build apps that are more scalable, flexible, and future-proof. It allows teams to meet today's needs while positioning them for tomorrow.

The best API-first CMS platforms in 2025

Here are the top API-first examples:

BCMS

BCMS is a headless CMS that offers a scalable and versatile way to control digital content.

BCMS is unique compared to other CMS platforms because it separates content management from presentation. The backend stores and maintains the content, while developers use APIs to display it on any device or platform.

It has omnichannel delivery capability. You can reuse the same content for websites, mobile apps, IoT devices, etc.

BCMS also has a simple interface for content editors. At the same time, it gives developers the ability to choose what tools and frameworks to utilize for the frontend.

Key features

Open-source and modern architecture with a decoupled backend and frontend
API-first approach for flexible content delivery to any device or platform
Scalable design suitable for enterprise-level applications
User-friendly interface for content editors and marketers
Minimal maintenance requirements, allowing developers to focus on innovation
Customizable content structures and fast deployment options
Supports omnichannel content delivery across websites, apps, IoT, etc.

Pros

Enhanced performance and faster content delivery
Omnichannel support enables the content reuse across multiple channels
High scalability for growing projects
Greater customization and flexibility for developers
Empowers non-technical users to manage content independently
Future-proof architecture adaptable to new technologies and front-end development tools

Cons

Initial setup can be complex and requires technical expertise
Dependence on APIs may introduce integration challenges
Higher development and maintenance effort compared to traditional CMSs
Steeper learning curve for marketers due to lack of real-time content previews

Ideal use cases

E-commerce websites with complex product catalogs: BCMS supports flexible content modeling and API integration, which is a good fit for e-commerce platforms with large and complex product catalogs. Marketers and developers can quickly build rich and customizable product pages and integrate with other backend systems like CRMs or ERPs for real-time inventory updates.
Large-scale websites with frequent content updates: Organizations with large content libraries that require frequent updates benefit from BCMS’s API-first architecture for efficient content versioning, scheduling, and centralized management. As a result, content is consistent and scales during peak traffic or rapid content changes.
Multilingual CMS: BCMS can efficiently handle content localization and regional variations, supporting businesses that operate in multiple countries or languages. Integration with translation services and management of localized media helps maintain brand consistency while delivering tailored experiences to different markets.

Contentful

Contentful is a cloud-based, API-first headless CMS that decouples content management from the final presentation, which allows businesses to manage and deliver content seamlessly across multiple digital channels and platforms. It acts as a content hub, providing a set of APIs for content delivery and editing.

Key features

Enterprise-grade security and compliance (ISO 27001, GDPR).
Integrated CDN for fast and reliable content delivery.
Robust set of APIs: Content Delivery API, Content Preview API, GraphQL API, Images API, Content Management API, User Management API.
Features for personalization, AI Actions, AI Suggestions, Segmentation, Experimentation, and Data connections.
Contentful App Framework offers tools that allow customize the platform to meet the specific needs of each user or company.

Pros

API-first approach allows implementation through different programming languages and frameworks.
You can integrate Contentful with other platforms such as Filepicker, Getty Images, and Kalta.
Content Preview API provides a preview of content in development environments.

Cons

Limited on database and performance customization (absolutely no choice in database).
Pricing depends on various factors like seats, roles, locales, API calls, CDN bandwidth, and additional features, making it complex.
Does not offer single types (types that allow only one entry, useful for pages).

Ideal use cases

Enterprise companies that have content in different media platforms (websites, apps, marketing emails) and need to keep content in one place and reuse it.
Freelance developers working with small clients.

Strapi

Strapi is an open-source headless CMS designed to provide developers and content creators with a flexible and customizable platform for managing digital content. Built on Node.js, Strapi handles content and exposes it via APIs (REST and GraphQL) for developers to utilize in various digital interfaces like websites, mobile apps, and more.

Strapi decouples content from the frontend presentation layer, focusing on a rich backend system and a user-friendly administration panel for content management.

Key features

API-first headless architecture: Designs REST and GraphQL Content Delivery APIs to connect to any frontend. This API-driven approach is central to its design and flexibility. Automatically generates APIs from content models defined in the admin panel.
Customizable content types and structures: Allows defining and tailoring data models, including fields and relationships, through a visual Content Type Builder. This offers flexibility beyond predefined templates. Components and Dynamic Zones enable building flexible content structures.
Built-in authentication and role management: Provides a flexible system to define user roles, permissions, and integrate with external authentication providers.

Pros

Flexibility and customization: Strapi allows you to tailor content structures, types, and workflows, API endpoints, and authentication to specific project needs, avoiding predefined templates. Its modular design supports customization and adding personalized features.
Security Measures: Offers robust, open-source security measures including user verification, role-based access control (RBAC), authentication, and authorization protocols. Regular security updates and patches are released. Strapi is SOC 2 certified and GDPR Compliant.
Open source and community-driven: It is free to use with its source code available on GitHub. It benefits from a vibrant global community that contributes to its development, provides support, tutorials, and resources.
Extensive Plugin Ecosystem: Strapi Market offers a marketplace of plugins and integrations. Plugins extend core functionality, add features like SEO optimization, image processing, user authentication, or integrate third-party services. Developers can build their own custom plugins. Plugin installation is controlled by developers, which can prevent "plugin bloat" and accidental breaking of production sites.

Cons

Not Entirely Free for Hosted/Advanced Use: While the open-source version is free, the hosted Strapi Cloud solution starts at $29/month and does not have a free tier. A Pro version is available for additional features like custom plugin support and professional assistance. Specific features like Content History (versioning) are part of the Enterprise Edition.
Limited native TypeScript support: Strapi does not natively support TypeScript, which may be a drawback for advanced users working on large or complex projects. TypeScript support can be added via a plugin.

Ideal use cases

Blogs and news sites: Simplifies content management, drafting, scheduling, and optimizing content for search engines and social media.
Custom web applications: Preferred for building custom solutions tailored for specific businesses or agencies.
Projects requiring flexibility and customization: Particularly beneficial for businesses that require unique content structures and workflows and want to avoid the constraints of predefined templates.

Sanity

Sanity.io is a flexible, open-source, cloud-based headless CMS. It is designed to streamline how organizations create, manage, and distribute digital content efficiently across various devices, platforms, and channels by providing structured content via APIs.

Key features

Structured content & Flexible Data Model: Treats content as modular data that can be broken down, organized, and reused. Users can define and tailor their own custom data structures/schemas beyond predefined templates. Supports the COPE principle ("Create Once, Publish Everywhere").
Content lake: A cloud-based repository for structured content. Stores all data and allows real-time querying.
Portable text: A feature for managing rich text content. Stores rich text in a portable format enabling precise rendering control and combining rich text with custom objects on the frontend.
GROQ (Graph-Relational Object Queries): A custom query language designed specifically for JSON documents. Allows for expressive filtering and flexible retrieval of exactly the data needed. Sanity can translate GraphQL requests to GROQ. A Vision tool is available for writing and testing queries.
Sanity Create: An AI-powered writing assistant integrated directly into Sanity Studio.

Pros

Flexibility and customization: Offers significant flexibility. Allows users to define their own data and document structures, tailoring content structures, types, and workflows to specific needs, avoiding predefined templates. The Sanity Studio interface is highly customizable.
Open source and community-driven: It is open-source and benefits from a strong developer ecosystem and community that contributes to its development, tools, and plugins.
Cost-effectiveness: Offers a free tier/plan, which is generous and good for small projects or testing. Free usage quotas (100 GB Bandwidth & Storage, 1 million API requests/month) are good enough for startups. Paid plans are pay-as-you-go ($15/user/month for Growth Plan). Example user is paying zero forever at their current size.

Cons

Vendor lock-in: If you have a lot of content, it can be difficult to move your content out of Sanity if you decide to change your CMS. Learn more: Sanity migration.
Not entirely free for advanced use/volume: While a generous free plan exists, paid plans are required for increased usage. There is a document limit of 10k in the free version and 25k in the paid version, with custom pricing needed for higher volumes. Custom pricing may also be required for very frequent content updates, with uncertain affordability for small businesses/individuals.

Ideal use cases

Teams need a customizable, collaborative, real-time editing environment.
Organizations of all sizes, from individuals and startups to global enterprises.

Storyblok

Storyblok is a headless CMS that offers a mix of visual editing tools and highly customizable content blocks through its API-driven approach. Storyblok enables developers to build fast and reliable websites.

Key Features

Visual Editor: A core feature that allows users to see a real-time preview of content changes before publishing and build pages with clicks.
Component-based structure: Content is organized using customizable content blocks, enabling developers to reuse components and marketers to craft storytelling.
Multilingual content: Supports creating and managing content in multiple languages.
Multiple Environments: Support for different stages like development, staging, and production.
Workflow and team management: Allows setting up approval processes, managing user roles (predefined and custom), and organizing user groups.

Pros

User-friendly for editors: The interface is intuitive and self-explanatory, making it easy for content managers without coding skills to edit and manage content independently.
Powerful visual editor: This feature is highlighted as a major benefit, enabling real-time preview and simplifying page creation and updates.
Developer flexibility: Developers have the freedom to use their preferred tools and frameworks due to the API-based and headless nature. They can focus on building value instead of maintaining monolithic backends.
Easy project handover: Onboarding clients is quick, and the clear UI and intuitive block-based content management make it easy for clients to become independent.

Cons

May have a learning curve for non-technical users
Pricing can escalate for larger projects with advanced needs

Ideal Use Cases

Marketing websites
E-commerce websites

Best practices for implementing an API-first CMS (Using BCMS)

When selecting an API-first CMS, you should consider your technical needs, content strategy, and future scalability.

Here are some considerations when selecting an API-first CMS:

API design and functionality:

The CMS should provide a full, extensible API with not only reading/querying but also creating/updating of content (write/mutations). It should include advanced API features such as ordering, filtering, and pagination to enable efficient content management and delivery.

API type:

Evaluate whether the CMS supports RESTful APIs, GraphQL, or both. GraphQL APIs are often preferred for delivering predictable payloads-only the data requested-improving performance and reducing unnecessary data transfer.

Good documentation:

Comprehensive API documentation is critical for faster onboarding and efficient development.

Ease of setup:

The CMS should allow intuitive and quick setup of content models and architecture, minimizing resource waste.

Reliability:

Look for guarantees on content availability and uptime to ensure your content is accessible whenever needed.

Step-by-step implementation guide

Content Modeling

When working with an API-first CMS, you’d have to define the models of your content. Content models are the blueprints you create in your CMS that define what kinds of content you can store and how that content is structured. Think of a content model as a schema or type definition in a traditional database: it specifies the fields (title, body, image, etc.), their data types (string, number, date, reference), and how different models relate to one another (e.g., a BlogPost has one Author, an Author can have many BlogPosts).

By designing robust content models, you:

Enforce consistency: Every entry of a given type follows the same structure, which makes fetching and rendering predictable.
Enable type safety: SDKs (like BCMS’s TypeScript SDK) can generate interfaces from your models, catching mistakes at compile time.
Facilitate integrations: External services (search, analytics, e-commerce) can rely on a known schema when pulling or pushing data.

Example

A simple Product content model might include:

price (Number)
description (Rich Text)
images (Media asset – array)

API setup

Once you’ve defined your content model(s), your CMS’s API will automatically expose a suite of REST (and often GraphQL) endpoints for CRUD operations. For example:

GET    /products       # list all products  
POST   /products       # create a new product  
GET    /products/:id   # fetch one product by ID  
PUT    /products/:id   # update a product  
DELETE /products/:id   # remove a product

Integrations

API-first CMSs are designed to play nicely with the rest of your stack. Two of the most common integration patterns are:

Webhooks & automation
- Configure “on-change” triggers (e.g. entry published, entry updated) to fire webhooks to services like Netlify, Vercel, or Zapier.
- Automate tasks such as cache purges, search‐index updates, or email notifications whenever content changes.
3rd-party services
- Analytics: Push page-view and engagement data to Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or Segment to track how content performs across channels.
- E-Commerce: Connect product catalogs to Shopify, WooCommerce, or Stripe—so your CMS becomes the single source of truth for prices, inventory, and media assets.

These integrations let you stitch your content layer into marketing platforms, personalization engines, and even headless commerce setups—without having to write custom middleware.

BCMS example: Structuring content types

Here’s a quick hands-on walkthrough of how to model a Product type in BCMS, no command-line required.

Step 1. Create the Product model in the UI

In the BCMS UI, click on “Templates” and then on “Create new template” to create a new content model.

Insert the name and description of the content model. You can also choose if you want to make the template a single entry or not.

Drag and drop properties(or fields) you’d like your Product model to contain.

Step 2. Add an entry to the Product template

On the left-side panel:

Navigate to “Entries”
Click on “Product”
Click on “Create new entry” to create a product

Add a product by providing the details. After you’re done, click on “Create”

BCMS automatically exposes the Product endpoint and you can fetch the products data using the bcms.entry.getAll() fetch function.

import { bcms } from '@/app/bcms-client';

async function fetchProducts() {
    const products = (await bcms.entry.getAll('product')) as ProductEntry[];
    return products;
}

Also, BCMS automatically generates the types of each content model(or template in our case) when you start or build your application using your framework’s build command.

import type { BCMSEntryContentParsed } from '../content';
import type { BCMSEntryStatuses } from '../status';
import type { PropRichTextDataParsed, PropMediaDataParsed } from '@thebcms/types';

export interface ProductEntryMetaItem {
    title: string;
    slug: string;
    product_description?: PropRichTextDataParsed;
    price?: number;
    product_image?: PropMediaDataParsed;
    quantity?: number;
}

export interface ProductEntryMeta {
    en?: ProductEntryMetaItem;
}

export interface ProductEntry {
    _id: string;
    createdAt: number;
    updatedAt: number;
    instanceId: string;
    templateId: string;
    userId: string;
    statuses: BCMSEntryStatuses;
    meta: ProductEntryMeta;
    content: BCMSEntryContentParsed;
}

Integrating with modern frontend frameworks

Once your content models are ready and your API is exposing data, it’s time to connect that content to your frontend.

Modern frontend frameworks like Next.js, Nuxt.js, and Astro work smoothly with headless CMS APIs. They support static generation, server-side rendering, or a mix of both.

Next.js (BCMS Example)

With Next.js, you can use getStaticProps to fetch content from your CMS at build time, ensuring fast-loading static pages.

Here’s a quick example using BCMS’s TypeScript SDK:

// pages/products.tsx (Next.js Pages Router)
import { GetStaticProps } from 'next';
import { bcms } from '@bcms/sdk';
import type { Product } from '@/types';

export const getStaticProps: GetStaticProps = async () => {
  const products = await bcms.product.getAll<Product>();
  return { props: { products } };
};

In the App Router (Next.js 13+), you can do the same in a server component:

// app/products/page.tsx
import { bcms } from '@bcms/sdk';

export default async function ProductsPage() {
  const products = await bcms.product.getAll();

  return (
    <div>
      {products.map((product) => (
        <div key={product.id}>{product.price}</div>
      ))}
    </div>
  );
}

Why use this approach?

Build-time fetching = blazing-fast performance
Works great with Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR)
Type-safe with generated interfaces from BCMS

Next.js Server-Side Rendering

Next makes it easy to build SEO-friendly apps with server-rendered content. Use the asyncData hook to fetch CMS data during page load:

import { bcms } from "~/bcms";
import type { BlogEntry, BlogEntryMetaItem } from "~/bcms/types/ts";
import type { EntryContentParsedItem } from "@thebcms/client/types";
import { BCMSContentManager, BCMSImage } from "@thebcms/components-vue";

const result = await useAsyncData(async () => {
  const entries = await bcms.entry.getAll('blog') as BlogEntry[];
  return entries.map(entry => {
    return {
      meta: entry.meta.en as BlogEntryMetaItem,
      content: entry.content.en as EntryContentParsedItem[]
    };
  });
});

const blogs = result.data;

To reduce redundant API calls and speed things up, cache responses using Nuxt modules like @nuxt/http-cache or set up external caching (e.g., Cloudflare, Redis).

Astro Static Sites

import { bcms } from '../bcms';
import type { BlogEntry } from '../../bcms/types/ts';
import { BCMSContentManager, BCMSImage } from '@thebcms/components-react';

const blogs = (await bcms.entry.getAll('blog')) as BlogEntry[];
const bcmsConfig = bcms.getConfig();

<main>
  <div class="flex flex-col gap-4">
    {
      blogs.map((blog, blogIdx) => {
        if (!blog.meta.en || !blog.content.en) {
          return '';
        }
        return (
          <div class="flex flex-col gap-8">
            <h1 class="mb-10 text-3xl">{blog.meta.en.title}</h1>
            <BCMSImage
              className="w-full h-60 object-cover"
              media={blog.meta.en.cover_image}
              clientConfig={bcmsConfig}
            />
            <BCMSContentManager items={blog.content.en} />
          </div>
        );
      })
    }
  </div>
</main>

Astro gives you the flexibility of static content with just enough JavaScript to enhance UX where needed.

By integrating your CMS with these frontend tools, you get the best of both worlds: structured content and modern web performance. Whether you're shipping a blog, storefront, or documentation site, your CMS becomes a reliable content layer you can plug into any frontend stack.

5. Overcoming common challenges

As powerful as API-first CMSs are, working with them in production does come with a few hurdles, especially around security, performance, and evolving content structures.

Here are some of the most common challenges developers face, and how to solve them effectively.

Authentication:

Problem: How do you keep your CMS API secure while allowing developers or external systems to access content?

Solution:

Use OAuth2 or API keys to authenticate requests. Most CMSs offer role-based access control (RBAC), so you can restrict what each token or user role is allowed to do—like read-only access for public content or write access for internal editors.

If you're using BCMS, you can manage API keys and assign roles (e.g., Admin, Editor, Guest) through the dashboard to ensure only authorized clients can create, update, or delete content.

API Rate Limiting:

Problem: What happens when your frontend makes too many API calls, either during traffic spikes or in development?

Solution:

To avoid hitting rate limits, implement client-side caching or use a caching layer like Redis. You can cache CMS responses locally for a short period (e.g., 60 seconds) to avoid repeat requests for the same content.

In static site setups (e.g., Next.js with ISR or Astro), most of your content is pre-fetched at build time, so you’ll rarely hit the API directly on the client side.

6. Conclusion: API-first development is not a future; it is an industry standard

API-first CMS platforms are not a passing trend. They're a major shift in how we build and deploy digital experiences. By separating content presentation from its management, API-first CMSs allow developers to build apps that are adaptable, scalable, and future-proof.

Whether you're building for the web, mobile, or newer platforms like IoT and smart displays, API-first CMSs like BCMS allow you to deploy content where it's required. Its structured APIs, rock-solid integrations, and frontend-agnostic design make it ideal for modern development.

As omnichannel plans become standard and frontend frameworks keep evolving, an API-first approach makes your stack flexible and efficient in the long run.

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API-first CMS: A developer’s guide to modern content architecture

What is an API-first CMS?

Why API-first CMS is gaining traction

How API-first CMS works

Key benefits of an API-first architecture

Why developers should care

The best API-first CMS platforms in 2025

BCMS

Key features

Pros

Cons

Ideal use cases

Contentful

Key features

Pros

Cons

Ideal use cases

Strapi

Key features

Pros

Cons

Ideal use cases

Sanity

Key features

Pros

Cons

Ideal use cases

Storyblok

Key Features

Pros

Cons

Ideal Use Cases

Best practices for implementing an API-first CMS (Using BCMS)

Step-by-step implementation guide

BCMS example: Structuring content types

Integrating with modern frontend frameworks

Next.js (BCMS Example)

Next.js Server-Side Rendering

Astro Static Sites

5. Overcoming common challenges

6. Conclusion: API-first development is not a future; it is an industry standard

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