Definitive CMS comparison for Gatsby users in 2024

Highlights

You’ll learn about:

• Scalable solutions: Contentstack offers a headless and scalable architecture for handling e-commerce traffic spikes without backend complexities
• Personalized experiences: Create tailored content and promotions with Contentstack, dynamically rendered by Gatsby for a unique user journey
• SEO excellence: Achieve higher SEO rankings through fast load times and mobile optimization with Contentstack and Gatsby integration
• Efficient content management: Manage your content workflow using Contentstack’s intuitive dashboard, complemented by Gatsby’s rapid build process

Increase your Gatsby project’s performance, scalability, and SEO with the best CMS. 

Keep reading to learn more!

With 270 thousand websites built on the Gatsby framework, static web pages recapture businesses' attention because they bring speed, security and simplicity. Be it a portfolio website, company blog, business website, or any type of website, Gatsby can assist you in attaining your business goals.

However, as Gatsby is just a framework, it cannot work as a content repository or manage your content. Enters a content management system (CMS). A CMS manages the content on your static website.

Before moving ahead, let’s understand what Gatsby CMS is and compare various CMS for Gatsby. 

Let’s explore. 

What is Gatsby?

Gatsby is a free, open-source, React-powered static site generator for static websites and native applications. It generates HTML code in advance, increasing your website's page load speed and efficiency. Gatsby employs GraphQL to fetch data and React for user interfaces.

It ensures high performance and is very secure, handling almost any web project, from simple blog posts, landing pages, and portfolios to e-commerce sites and enterprise-level applications.

How does Gatsby work?

The Gatsby framework is used to create faster and more dynamic web applications. Contrary to popular belief, Gatsby is a static site generator built on React and GraphQL. With Gatsby, developers build optimized and high-performing websites and applications.

While the Gatsby framework is compatible with traditional and headless content management systems, we recommend choosing a headless CMS because it manages and stores content from the front-end presentation layer.

A headless system doesn’t control how content is displayed; instead, it's a content repository accessible via an application programming interface (API), making your architecture more flexible and delivering content to multiple channels and platforms.

Benefits of using a headless CMS for Gatsby projects

Using a headless CMS with Gatsby offers these benefits:

Ensures dynamic content management

Gatsby creates static web pages, while a headless CMS ensures dynamic content updates. Content editors manage the content through the CMS, and they only need to push the button to make the change reflected on Gatsby's site. They no longer have to rebuild the entire site from scratch.

Improves performance

Gatsby generates and delivers static files in advance, helping you improve your page load time and making your website more stable. Combining Gatsby with a headless CMS offers the best of both worlds: updating content management and delivering high-quality experiences.

Makes your systems flexible and scalable

The decoupled approach of headless CMS and Gatsby gives designers and developers more freedom in their work. Regardless of developers' front-end technology, you can easily integrate it with different CMS options. Headless CMS and Gatsby combine to create scalable websites and small and complex applications.

Enhances developer experience

Gatsby offers a vast toolset and plug-in library, including effortless integration with headless CMSs such as Contentstack. With such an infrastructure, developers can set up projects using a desired programming language. They can pull in content from the CMS and make any site deployable with little configuration.

CMS comparison for Gatsby projects

Here are some of the best Gatsby CMS:

Contentstack

Contentstack is a headless CMS with enterprise-leading capabilities for backing a full-fledged digital operation managed. Some features include content modeling, real-time collaboration, and workflow process management, making it a good option for large-scale and complex projects.

The combination of Gatsby's static site generation and Contentstack's fast content delivery makes your websites highly performant while offering an enhanced user experience.

Contentstack is the best CMS for Gatsby projects because it allows developers to design their Gatsby sites as they see fit.

Pros:

• Provides quick page loading and dynamic content updates.
• Integrates with Gatsby.
• Offers a user-friendly interface and API capabilities.
• Increases the developer's productivity and creates a better environment for the content editor.

How did Contentstack integrate Gatsby to increase Pella’s efficiency?

Before adopting Contentstack's headless CMS, Pella faced challenges with the monolithic CMS. Their old CMS lacked flexibility and demanded development efforts for customization. The move to Contentstack ensured quicker technological adaptations and more efficient content management. 

Integrating Gatsby with Contentstack enhanced Pella's web performance, offering faster site builds and dynamic page generation. Contentstack's headless nature and Gatsby's static site generation capabilities ensured excellent documentation and responsive support and increased Pella's operational efficiency. 

They achieved 230% faster publishing, 50% quicker site launches, and a 50% reduction in development time. This transition transformed Pella's digital framework, solidified a strong relationship with Contentstack, and positioned Pella for continuous growth and success. Gatsby played a critical role in optimizing their web strategy.

After using Contentstack, Tod Hilton, Web Developer at Pella, said, “Contentstack is the best decision we ever made.”

You can read the case study here.

Contentful

Contentful is well known for its powerful APIs and content modeling abilities. These abilities help you manage and deliver content across different platforms. The differentiating factor lies in the rich text editor and asset management attributes.

Pros:

• The fast and effective Gatsby-Contentful combination is at your disposal.
• Assist developers in putting up highly optimized websites.
• The extensive ecosystem of integrations makes it a versatile choice.

Cons:

• Though free options exist, such plans might become costly later when project requirements increase.
• The flexibility and the array of features can confuse new developers and users.

Sanity

Owing to its portable text feature, Sanity provides a real-time content editing experience and a fully customizable editing environment. Its structured content method helps you reuse the same content on different platforms.

Pros:

• Gatsby-Sanity streamlines development workflow by supplying live previews that simplify the process of content creation.
• Sanity is all about customization and, therefore, highly adaptable to meet different project requirements.

Cons:

• Customization is key to using all the functionality of Sanity, which increases your development time.
• Costs can spike based on usage, especially for projects that involve large content volumes or continuous user participation.

Drupal

Drupal is another competent traditional CMS that uses headless architecture. Its strong content manager features, such as multilingual support and extensive user permissions, make it different from others on the list.

Pros:

• Helps you create context-rich websites that are secure and flexible.
• Provides extended functionalities.

Cons:

• Requires in-depth knowledge to configure and optimize content for Gatsby projects.
• As a traditional CMS, optimizing for headless scenarios like Gatsby might require additional effort.
• Higher learning curve.

WordPress

WordPress's ease of use and diverse themes and plugin options make it a popular CMS. This headless approach lets WordPress deal with the backend while Gatsby controls the frontend.

Pros:

• Offers user-friendly content management.
• Superior security benefits.

Cons:

• WordPress websites are frequent victims of security attacks, but you can tackle them with proper maintenance and security practices.
• While the headless approach mitigates performance issues, optimizing WordPress to work efficiently in a decoupled setup requires additional effort.

Choosing the best Gatsby CMS for your needs

Look for these features when choosing the best Gatsby CMS:

Performance and scalability

Besides the features and technical capabilities, one crucial question is how well your CMS can manage higher traffic and large volumes of content. Consider the impact on build times and how easily the platform can scale as your project grows.

Developer experience

Assess the tools, documentation, and community support for your Gatsby CMS. A CMS with robust and dependable developer support will reduce development time while upholding code quality.

Content management capabilities

Evaluate your challenges when writing, editing, and updating content. Before choosing a CMS, look for features like WYSIWYG editor, content architectures, and workflow setups.

Integration and plugins

Consider the breadth and quality of plugins and integrations available. For example, you need Gatsby plugins and many services to add functionalities to your site.

Security

Assess the security level offered by the CMS. A Gatsby CMS should offer data protection, authentication, and regular updates to reduce security issues and risks.

Customization and flexibility

When choosing a Gatsby CMS, consider a customizable and flexible CMS. The CMS should help you change the admin interface, create custom content models, or integrate custom code.

SEO and marketing tools

Search for built-in SEO tools and marketing integrations that increase your online presence and help your business grow.

Benefits of using Contentstack as an e-commerce platform with Gatsby

Contentstack’s integration with Gatsby fulfills merchants’ demands and creates a seamless experience for the shoppers. The headless architecture ensures Gatsby’s static site generation provides fast, robust and flexible ecommerce websites. Apart from improving the shopping experience, Contentstack’s integration with Gatsby offers the following benefits:

Provides blazing-fast website performance

Using Gatsby to generate static pages from Contentstack's content API reduces the page load time. A fast-loading website keeps your online shoppers engaged, reducing bounce rates.

Enhances security

The combination of Contentstack and Gatsby reduces security risks by minimizing the direct calls to the database and serving static files. As a result, it becomes challenging for attackers to exploit vulnerabilities.

Offers scalability

Contentstack's headless CMS structure allows e-commerce platforms to deal with traffic spikes in a scalable way. It also guarantees a consistent user interface that does not require complex backend updates.

Ensures personalization and flexibility

Contentstack enables retailers to craft personalized content and promotions, which Gatsby can dynamically render, offering a tailored shopping experience for each user.

Optimizes for SEO

Contentstack and Gatsby can increase your SEO rankings by providing fast load times, mobile optimization, and ease of implementing SEO best practices across your e-commerce site.

Streamlines content management

Using Contentstack’s dashboard, retailers can add and edit categories, such as products and promotional content, while leveraging Gatsby's fast-building process and deployment advantages.

FAQs

Which CMS is best with Gatsby? 

It depends on your project needs, though headless CMS options generally offer better flexibility and performance.

Does Gatsby have a CMS? 

Gatsby itself isn't a CMS but integrates well with many CMS platforms.

Is Gatsby SEO-friendly? 

Yes, Gatsby's fast load times and SEO optimizations make it an excellent choice for search engine visibility.

Does Gatsby have a backend?

Gatsby is a front-end framework without a backend component. It can pull data from various sources, including traditional CMSes, headless CMSes, APIs, and databases. It works like a front end for whatever backend you choose to use.

Which CMS is the fastest? 

Many factors, like the hosting environment, the amount of content, and the optimization strategies employed, influence your CMS speed. However, headless CMS platforms like Contentstack offer faster delivery speed because they serve content through APIs and do not require server-side rendering.

What is the most widely used CMS? 

Contentstack is the most used CMS because of its extensive library of plugins, large community, and versatility. It’s a headless CMS that helps you reuse it on many projects, including those employing Gatsby. 

Learn more

Selecting the right CMS for your Gatsby increases your web presence. By comparing the different nuances of each CMS option, developers can choose one that helps them craft a visually appealing and user-friendly website optimized for performance and scalability. 

If you’re searching for a Gatsby CMS, request a free demo to understand the power of combining Gatsby with the leading CMS platforms.