Headless CMS in 2026: Strapi, Sanity, Contentful, and Building Content-Driven Applications

The traditional CMS model — WordPress, Drupal, Joomla — bundles content management with content delivery. Your content is stored in the CMS database, rendered by the CMS templating engine, and served by the CMS server. This worked when websites were the only channel. In 2026, the same content needs to appear on websites, mobile apps, smart watches, voice assistants, digital signage, and AI chatbots. A headless CMS provides the content through APIs; you decide how and where to render it.

This guide compares the three leading headless CMS platforms — Strapi (open-source, self-hosted), Sanity (cloud-hosted, real-time), and Contentful (enterprise, API-first) — and shows you how to build a content-driven application with Next.js.

What Makes a CMS "Headless"

A headless CMS provides: (1) an admin interface for content creators to manage content (text, images, videos, structured data), (2) a content model builder for defining content types (blog posts, products, pages, events), and (3) APIs (REST and/or GraphQL) for developers to fetch content. It does NOT provide: rendering, templates, themes, or a frontend. You bring your own frontend — React, Next.js, Svelte, mobile apps, or anything that can call an API.

The benefits: use any frontend framework, deliver content to any channel, content team works independently from development team, better performance (static generation or edge rendering), and no monolithic CMS server to manage and secure.

Strapi: The Open-Source Choice

Strapi is the most popular open-source headless CMS, with 65,000+ GitHub stars. It's self-hosted (you run it on your own infrastructure), provides a visual content model builder, generates REST and GraphQL APIs automatically, and supports plugins for extending functionality.

// Setting up Strapi with Next.js

// 1. Create a new Strapi project
npx create-strapi@latest my-cms --quickstart

// 2. Define content types in the Strapi admin panel
// Or programmatically in src/api/blog-post/content-types/blog-post/schema.json
{
  "kind": "collectionType",
  "collectionName": "blog_posts",
  "info": {
    "singularName": "blog-post",
    "pluralName": "blog-posts",
    "displayName": "Blog Post"
  },
  "attributes": {
    "title": { "type": "string", "required": true },
    "slug": { "type": "uid", "targetField": "title" },
    "content": { "type": "richtext" },
    "excerpt": { "type": "text" },
    "coverImage": { "type": "media", "allowedTypes": ["images"] },
    "author": {
      "type": "relation",
      "relation": "manyToOne",
      "target": "api::author.author"
    },
    "category": {
      "type": "relation",
      "relation": "manyToOne",
      "target": "api::category.category"
    },
    "publishedDate": { "type": "date" },
    "seo": {
      "type": "component",
      "component": "shared.seo"
    }
  }
}

// 3. Fetch content in Next.js
// lib/strapi.ts
const STRAPI_URL = process.env.STRAPI_URL || 'http://localhost:1337';
const STRAPI_TOKEN = process.env.STRAPI_API_TOKEN;

export async function getBlogPosts() {
  const response = await fetch(
    `${STRAPI_URL}/api/blog-posts?populate=*&sort=publishedDate:desc`,
    {
      headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${STRAPI_TOKEN}` },
      next: { revalidate: 60 }, // ISR: revalidate every 60 seconds
    }
  );
  const data = await response.json();
  return data.data;
}

export async function getBlogPost(slug: string) {
  const response = await fetch(
    `${STRAPI_URL}/api/blog-posts?filters[slug][$eq]=${slug}&populate=*`,
    {
      headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${STRAPI_TOKEN}` },
      next: { revalidate: 60 },
    }
  );
  const data = await response.json();
  return data.data[0];
}

Sanity: The Real-Time, Developer-Friendly Option

Sanity distinguishes itself with real-time collaboration (multiple editors can work on the same document simultaneously, like Google Docs), a portable text format that's more flexible than HTML or Markdown, and Sanity Studio — a React-based admin interface that's fully customizable.

Sanity's key differentiator: GROQ (Graph-Relational Object Queries), a query language designed specifically for content. GROQ is more expressive than REST filters and more intuitive than GraphQL for content queries.

// Sanity GROQ queries — powerful and readable
// Get all blog posts with author and category
*[_type == "post"] | order(publishedAt desc) {
  title,
  slug,
  excerpt,
  publishedAt,
  "author": author->{ name, image },
  "category": category->{ title, slug },
  mainImage { asset->{ url } }
}

// Get a single post with related posts
*[_type == "post" && slug.current == $slug][0] {
  ...,
  "author": author->{ name, bio, image },
  "relatedPosts": *[_type == "post" && slug.current != $slug
    && count(categories[@._ref in ^.categories[]._ref]) > 0
  ] | order(publishedAt desc) [0...3] {
    title, slug, excerpt, publishedAt
  }
}

Contentful: The Enterprise Standard

Contentful is the most established headless CMS for enterprise use. It provides a robust content infrastructure API, global CDN delivery, granular permissions and workflows, and integrations with enterprise tools (Salesforce, SAP, Adobe). Contentful is the right choice when you need: enterprise-grade SLAs, complex content workflows (draft → review → legal approval → publish), multi-brand/multi-site management, and a proven platform used by companies like Spotify, Urban Outfitters, and Telus.

Choosing the Right Headless CMS

Choose Strapi when: You want full control over your data (self-hosted), you're a startup or small team on a budget, you need custom backend logic (Strapi is extensible with JavaScript/TypeScript plugins), or data sovereignty requires hosting in a specific location.

Choose Sanity when: Content editors need real-time collaboration, you need highly flexible content modeling, your developers want the best developer experience, or you need structured content that goes beyond HTML (portable text).

Choose Contentful when: You're an enterprise with complex content workflows, you need global delivery with enterprise SLAs, multiple teams and brands manage content, or you need integrations with enterprise marketing tools.

Building a Content-Driven Next.js Application

Regardless of which headless CMS you choose, the frontend pattern is the same with Next.js:

Static Generation (SSG): Fetch content at build time, generate static HTML pages. Best for content that changes infrequently (blog posts, marketing pages). Use generateStaticParams() in Next.js App Router.

Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR): Generate pages statically but revalidate them at a configurable interval (e.g., every 60 seconds). Best for content that updates periodically. Use next: { revalidate: 60 } in fetch calls.

On-Demand Revalidation: The CMS triggers a revalidation webhook when content is published. Pages are regenerated within seconds. Best for content that needs to appear live immediately after publishing.

Draft Mode: Content editors preview unpublished changes in real-time using Next.js Draft Mode. The preview shows how the content will look on the live site without publishing.

ZeonEdge helps companies migrate from traditional CMS platforms to headless architectures. We handle CMS selection, content modeling, API integration, and frontend development. Learn about our web development services.