Strapi: the open-source headless CMS for content management

When it comes to creating new digital experience platforms (DXP), headless CMS’ are gaining momentum. Among these CMS’, Strapi is becoming popular thanks, among other things, to its high modularity and ease of use.

What is Strapi?

Strapi is a headless CMS based on the principle of simplicity. With an intuitive interface, the platform provides only the essentials. Far from being a weakness, this allows great customization freedom. Indeed, Strapi offers a multitude of plugins to adapt to all your needs. Using more modern technologies than traditional CMS’, it is a scalable solution that offers numerous content management possibilities.

What are Strapi’s advantages compared to other CMS’?

Strapi is a headless CMS written in Node.js and open-source. Its entire back office is written in React. Created in 2015 in France, Strapi differentiates itself from limited traditional CMS’ by using recent technologies. It is available both as a self-hosted version and on the cloud. Its approach advocates simplicity. Thus, this CMS contains only the essentials and relies on many plugins to be customized according to your needs. This CMS is recommended if you want to distribute content across different channels or devices. Unlike CMS’ like Drupal or WordPress, Strapi is API-oriented. This notably saves time when distributing your content on various devices.

If you plan to develop a more complex project, Strapi will be a truly valuable asset. Thanks to its modular architecture, you can customize it and integrate your own features. This gives great system flexibility, making it adaptable to any type of project.

What is Strapi’s approach?

This headless CMS’s approach is based on three main characteristics :

• simplicity ;
• customizability ;
• API orientation.

The software is quick to install using the documentation provided. By default, it uses SQLite, but it is possible to switch to other databases, especially in production.

Based on simplicity, the Strapi CMS offers a clear and intuitive interface including :

• a content manager to handle all content ;
• a content type builder to manage and modify content types ;
• a media library for image and video files ;
• a list of plugins ;
• a marketplace to add new plugins ;
• a “Settings” section for CMS configuration.

Everything is designed to be scalable according to each project’s needs. That’s why there are many plugins available to easily enrich it. Some are created by the community and partly maintained by the Strapi team. Creating custom plugins is relatively simple, as it is well documented. Strapi’s extensive documentation can guide you in adding all the desired features.

What are Strapi’s functionalities?

Content management

There are different content types in Strapi :

• Collection Type : content that can be used multiple times, for example for news or events.
• Single Type : unique content, like a homepage or contact page.
• Component : reusable blocks offering specific fields or validation rules that can be reused across different content.

Content construction is performed live : various contents are found in the “Content types builder” section. On the back-end side, Strapi generates the corresponding code, including the JSON schema. Moreover, it is possible to write content directly in the code. As soon as modifications are made in Strapi, the code is regenerated.

What types of fields are available ?

• Text ;
• richtext ;
• image ;
• date ;
• etc.

Custom fields allow enriching an existing content type or creating a new tailored content type with the WYSIWYG editor of your choice.

The possibilities of components and dynamic zones are particularly interesting. Components are sub-content types that can be repeated from one content to another. Dynamic zones allow contributing with one or several types of components and making on-the-fly modifications. This option is perfect for creating content variants.

There are two content status types : draft and published. Other statuses can be added via extensions.

Strapi’s native APIs

Once published, all content is available through Strapi’s native APIs. By default, this is a REST API, but it is possible to use GraphQL with an official Strapi plugin. As soon as content is created, its API endpoint is automatically generated. It can then be retrieved via this API. All these APIs are private by default but can be made public.

Strapi only fetches level 1 information. To retrieve certain content linked to image fields, for example, the “Populate” parameter must be used, which can sometimes be tedious. For easier handling, there is a plugin called populate-deep which fetches all information by default.

Several filters are offered by the REST API to filter basic values on deep fields, publication statuses, and to enrich controllers for particular operations. Numerous operators are available.

Internationalization

Initially, Strapi is configured in English. The admin language is set in the app.js file, and the content language is configured via the integrated plugin named “internationalization.” This plugin allows managing several languages, including collections.

User management

For managing contributors, multiple roles can be created with their associated rules. It is possible to generate an API key with precise rules. These settings are found in “Users” to give each contributor one or multiple roles with a high degree of detail.

Configuring views

You can customize content views during editing by rearranging field sizes, displayed text, etc in the back office. Fields can be moved or edited. The Strapi Config-Sync plugin facilitates synchronization across different environments.

Strapi, a simple and flexible CMS

Strapi aims to be a simple CMS, but it can easily be enriched via the many available extensions . The extensive documentation and software capabilities make it a flexible solution. It includes a real back-end approach to add fully customizable features. Its design makes it a scalable and high-performance CMS.

Fully customizable, Strapi adopts an approach where you can add the building blocks that suit you with plugins but also develop your own extensions. The architecture and organization of Strapi make it a reliable and efficient tool that offers real flexibility, unlike traditional CMS’. It provides a true alternative to the latter by focusing on flexibility, technology, and performance.