What is Contentful?
Contentful is a cloud-based headless CMS (Content Management System) that allows businesses to manage and deliver digital content across various platforms. Unlike traditional CMS which controls both the front-end (what users see) and back-end (content management), Contentful focuses solely on the back-end. This gives developers the flexibility to use their preferred tools to build custom user interfaces while content creators can manage content in a user-friendly interface.
What is a Composable Content Platform?
A composable content platform is essentially a system that allows you to break down content into smaller, more manageable pieces, often referred to as modular content. This means that instead of creating one large piece of content, you create several smaller pieces that can be used and reused in various ways across different channels. This not only makes the content more versatile but also saves time and resources as you don’t have to create new content from scratch for each new use case.
One of the key features of a composable content platform is the unified content source. This means that all your content is stored in one place, making it easier to manage and access. It eliminates the need for multiple content silos, where different types of content are stored separately.
Another important feature is visual content modeling. This allows users to visually build content models and easily collaborate on revisions with their team. It’s a more intuitive way of creating and managing content, making the process more efficient and user-friendly.
AI integration is another feature that sets composable content platforms apart. By incorporating intelligent, reliable automation tools, these platforms can accelerate the content creation process and augment the capabilities of content creators. This can include everything from automated content tagging to AI-powered content recommendations.
Finally, composable content platforms often come with pre-built integrations. These integrations can connect the content platform to other tools and systems, such as CRM systems, marketing automation tools, and analytics platforms. This makes it easier to manage and optimize your content across different channels and platforms.
In essence, a composable content platform like Contentful structures content and empowers teams to build experiences customers will love from the building blocks they’ve already created. It connects content to all other tools teams use to create compelling digital experiences. This approach changes how you create content: you worry less about how the content will be presented, and instead focus on producing high-quality, engaging content. The goal is to create great content once and reuse it everywhere.
Key Features
Content Modeling: Go beyond basic text fields. Build custom content models with various field types like text, images, references, and more. This allows you to define complex content structures for things like blog posts (including titles, authors, categories, and rich text bodies), product pages (with descriptions, specifications, and image galleries), or even event listings (with dates, locations, and speaker information).
Content Hub: Contentful is a single source of truth for all your content. Text, images, videos, PDFs – everything is organized within Contentful. This eliminates the need to manage content in scattered locations and ensures platform consistency.
Multilingual Support: Reach a global audience. Contentful allows you to create content in multiple languages and manage them efficiently. This includes storing translations, defining language variants, and even previewing content in different languages before publishing.
Version Control: Never lose a draft again. Contentful tracks changes to your content, allowing you to revert to previous versions if needed. This is a lifesaver for accidental edits or collaborative workflows where multiple people might be working on the same piece of content.
Collaboration Tools: Contentful streamlines teamwork. You can define user roles with specific permissions, set up approval workflows to ensure content quality, and leverage features like comments and notes for effective communication within your team.
API-First Approach: The magic lies in APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). Contentful provides robust APIs that allow developers to integrate content with any frontend technology, be it a mobile app, a single-page application (SPA), or a traditional website built with frameworks like React or Vue.js. This flexibility empowers developers to choose their preferred tools without limitations.
Global Content Delivery Network (CDN): Speed is paramount. Contentful leverages a global CDN to ensure your content is delivered quickly and reliably to users around the world. This minimizes loading times and creates a smooth user experience.
Headless Architecture: Unlike traditional CMS that ties content to a specific backend system, Contentful offers a headless architecture. This means your content can be delivered to any device or platform (website, mobile app, digital signage) independently of your backend infrastructure.
Intuitive User Interface: Contentful prioritizes user-friendliness. The interface is clean, easy to navigate, and requires minimal training for both content creators and developers. This reduces onboarding time and empowers teams to get started quickly.
Scalability: As your business grows, so do your content needs. Contentful is built to scale. It can handle large volumes of content efficiently and can adapt to your evolving requirements.
Security: Content security is a top concern. Contentful offers built-in security features like role-based access control and encryption to protect your valuable content from unauthorized access.
Benefits
Contentful, as a headless CMS (content management system), offers several advantages over traditional CMS systems. Here are some of the key benefits of using Contentful:
Freedom from Server Management: Traditional CMS systems often require managing your own servers, which can be a complex and time-consuming task. Contentful, as a headless CMS, operates on a serverless architecture. This means:
- Your developers are freed from server maintenance, allowing them to focus on building the core functionalities of your application.
- Scaling a server-based CMS requires additional infrastructure. Contentful’s serverless nature eliminates this concern, allowing you to scale your content delivery effortlessly.
- You don’t need to invest in server hardware or software licenses, potentially leading to cost savings.
Unmatched Flexibility and Future-Proofing: Contentful’s decoupled architecture offers significant advantages:
- Unlike traditional CMS that lock you into their frontend system, Contentful allows you to choose any frontend technology (React, Angular, Vue.js, etc.) This gives you immense flexibility in building your user interface.
- Content delivery needs can evolve over time. Because you’re not tied to a specific frontend framework, you can easily switch technologies if needed, making your content strategy future-proof.
Omnichannel Content Delivery: In today’s multi-device world, consistent content delivery is crucial. Here’s how Contentful helps:
- Contentful breaks down silos by allowing you to deliver your content seamlessly across various platforms (websites, mobile apps, smart TVs, etc.). This ensures a unified user experience regardless of the device.
- Contentful provides robust APIs that make it easy for developers to integrate content into any application or platform.
Improved Collaboration: Effective content creation often necessitates collaboration:
- Contentful offers a user-friendly interface for both content creators (writers, editors) and developers. This fosters smooth collaboration, allowing content creators to focus on crafting content while developers integrate it seamlessly.
- Contentful provides granular access control, ensuring different users can perform specific tasks within the platform, maintaining data security and integrity.
Faster Time to Market: The faster you get your content out there, the sooner you can see results. Here’s how Contentful helps with this:
- The ease of use and flexibility of Contentful streamline the content creation and integration process, allowing you to launch your product or service quickly.
- Contentful’s intuitive interface allows for quick content updates and modifications, making it ideal for businesses that need to be agile and responsive to changing market demands.
Rich Features: Contentful goes beyond basic content storage:
- Define the structure and organization of your content with ease. This ensures consistency and makes content retrieval efficient.
- Track changes made to your content and revert to previous versions if needed, ensuring you never lose important information.
- Organize your content effectively using tags and categories, making it easier to find specific content pieces.
Cost-Effectiveness: Contentful’s pay-as-you-go pricing model makes it a cost-effective solution for businesses of all sizes. You only pay for the resources you use, eliminating unnecessary expenses.
Security First: Contentful prioritizes security. They offer features like role-based access control, data encryption, and regular security audits to keep your content safe.
Drawbacks
While Contentful is a popular headless CMS, there are some drawbacks to consider:
Steeper Learning Curve: Traditional CMS platforms often bundle the content management interface with the presentation layer (how it looks on the website). Contentful, being headless, separates these. This gives you more control over the front-end design, but it requires a developer to build the interface that fetches and displays content from Contentful’s API. If your team isn’t familiar with building APIs and headless architectures, there’s a learning curve to overcome.
Pricing Considerations: Contentful offers a free plan, but it has significant limitations in features, content volume, and bandwidth. For real-world use cases, you’ll likely need a paid plan. These plans are tiered based on features and usage, and they can become expensive for larger teams or projects with a lot of content or high traffic.
Limited Features in Free Plan: The free plan is intended for trying out the platform. It restricts the number of content types (different types of content you can manage, like blog posts or products) and the amount of storage you have. This makes it unsuitable for anything beyond basic experimentation or very small websites with minimal content needs.
API Rate Limits and Optimization: Contentful enforces limits on the number of API requests you can make per second to prevent overwhelming their servers. While this is reasonable, it can be a hurdle for high-traffic websites or apps that rely heavily on fetching content from Contentful. You’ll need to optimize your API calls to stay within the limits, or you might be forced into a more expensive plan with higher limits.
Search Limitations: While Contentful has search functionality, it might not be ideal for very specific content searches. If your content structure is complex or you need to search for very granular details within your content, the search function might not be as powerful as you need.
Not Beginner-Friendly Interface: Contentful’s interface is designed with developers and content editors with some technical knowledge in mind. While it offers a good level of control and flexibility, it might be less intuitive for casual content editors unfamiliar with CMS interfaces.
If you’re considering Contentful, it’s important to weigh these drawbacks against the benefits it offers. It’s a powerful tool for building flexible and scalable content experiences, but it does require some technical expertise and potentially a larger budget compared to traditional CMS options.
Use Cases
Contentful, a headless content management system (CMS), finds applications in various scenarios. Here are some of its common use cases:
Websites and Blogs: Contentful offers a unique approach to content management that benefits both editors and developers. For editors, Contentful provides Content Freedom by separating content from presentation, allowing them to focus solely on creating and editing content in a user-friendly interface without worrying about layout or design. This streamlined workflow enhances content creation efficiency. On the other hand, developers benefit from Flexibility by leveraging Contentful’s robust APIs to seamlessly integrate content into the website’s frontend. This separation empowers developers to build modern websites using their preferred frameworks without limitations imposed by traditional CMS. Additionally, Contentful enables Omnichannel Delivery by delivering content through a global Content Delivery Network (CDN), ensuring fast and reliable content delivery across various devices and locations.
Multilingual Websites: Contentful simplifies localization by enabling you to create and manage content for different languages within a single platform. This eliminates the need for separate CMS instances for each language, streamlining the content localization process. Editors can utilize language-specific workflows to create content tailored to each language, including translations and cultural nuances. Contentful manages versions and workflows for different languages, ensuring efficient content updates. Moreover, Contentful delivers localized content based on the user’s language preference or the website’s configured locale, providing a seamless user experience for global audiences.
Mobile Apps: Contentful serves as a centralized content hub, acting as a single source of truth for all app content, including text, images, videos, and product information. This eliminates the need to manage content within the app itself, simplifying updates and making them easier and faster. Additionally, Contentful can be configured to provide offline content access within mobile apps, ensuring a seamless user experience even when an internet connection is unavailable. Moreover, Contentful integrates with user data platforms to deliver personalized content experiences within mobile apps, such as tailoring product recommendations, displaying localized content, or offering targeted promotions based on user preferences.
E-commerce Platforms: Contentful offers comprehensive support for e-commerce platforms, simplifying product information management and enhancing promotional capabilities. With Contentful, editors can efficiently create detailed product descriptions, specifications, and manage rich media content like images and videos, ensuring consistency and accuracy across all sales channels. E-commerce platforms can utilize Contentful for managing dynamic content for marketing campaigns and promotions, facilitating the creation of product landing pages, special offer banners, and other marketing materials without altering core product information. Moreover, Contentful integrates seamlessly with various e-commerce platforms, enabling a consistent product experience across websites, mobile apps, and other digital touchpoints, thereby enhancing the omnichannel product experience.
Knowledge Base and Support Portals: Contentful offers a robust solution for structured content management, empowering editors to create and manage content such as FAQs, tutorials, and knowledge-base articles with a flexible content model. Editors can categorize content, add tags, and utilize rich text editing for detailed explanations. With built-in search capabilities, users can easily find the information they need within the knowledge base or support portal. Content can also be organized with clear categories and hierarchies, ensuring intuitive navigation. Moreover, Contentful enables version control of content, allowing editors to track changes and revert to previous versions if necessary, facilitating collaboration between different teams within the organization to ensure accurate and up-to-date content.
Why Choose Contentful?
Contentful is an API-first CMS, which means it’s designed to provide users with powerful APIs for consuming and publishing content. This design allows developers to build apps for every channel, making it a versatile tool for content management.
Unlike a traditional CMS, Contentful offers a wide array of features. It allows users to store and link to content from multiple sources, providing a more comprehensive and interconnected content management system.
For developers and product owners, Contentful provides a range of tools that can help streamline their work. Developers can avoid manual migration, minimize custom development, and eliminate content change backlogs. Product owners can replicate content models, reuse content, and sync common components, making it easier to manage and update content.
Contentful also includes marketing tools that can help businesses reach new audiences across regions, channels, and brands with consistent messaging. This can be particularly useful for businesses looking to expand their reach and engage with a wider audience.
One of the key features of Contentful is its integrated service. There’s no need for 3rd party plugins, and it provides a CDN to deliver high speeds to users. This integrated approach can simplify the process of managing and delivering content.
Contentful’s headless CMS approach focuses on being a CMS with eCommerce capabilities rather than an eCommerce solution with CMS capabilities. This approach gives businesses more control over their e-commerce sites, allowing them to personalize their shopping experiences and make their websites more enticing and engaging.
Finally, Contentful provides unlimited access to platform features and capabilities — for free. This empowers teams to collaborate, innovate, and deliver impactful experiences at scale.
When Should You Use Contentful?
Contentful is a content management system that is often used to build websites and applications. It’s a powerful tool for managing content, whether you’re an editor working on a marketing blog or a contributor working on a web app. It allows users to manage and store content in a structured way, which can be particularly useful when you’re dealing with large amounts of data.
Before you can start creating content, you need to create a content model. This is where Contentful really shines. It gives you total freedom to create your own content model, so you can decide exactly what kind of content you want to manage. This could be anything from blog posts and product descriptions to user profiles and more.
One of the key features of Contentful is its ability to deliver content across multiple channels. Thanks to its RESTful APIs, you can use Contentful to publish your content not just on websites, but also on mobile apps (iOS, Android, and Windows Phone) or any other platform you can imagine. This makes it a great choice if you’re looking to reach a wide audience across multiple platforms.
Despite its powerful features, Contentful is designed to be easy to use, even for non-technical users. You can create and organize content without writing a single line of code. This makes it a great choice if you’re a content creator who doesn’t have a technical background.
Finally, Contentful is a great tool for collaboration. Whether working alone or in a team, Contentful makes creating and managing your content online easy. You can assign custom roles and permissions to team members, making it easy to control who can do what.
However, while you can add and manage content in Contentful without writing code, building websites, apps and other experiences will require actual programming. If you’re not comfortable with coding, you might need to work with a developer or an agency to help you create a platform for your content. So, while Contentful is a powerful tool for managing content, it’s important to remember that it’s just one part of the puzzle when it comes to building a successful online presence.
Pricing
Contentful offers a tiered pricing system to cater to different project sizes and needs.
Free Plan: There’s a free plan for personal projects or small teams to test the waters. It has basic functionalities but restricts things like users, content volume, and how often you can interact with the platform.
Starter Plan: For more serious projects, they have paid plans starting at $300 per month. This “Starter Plan” allows small teams to build websites and apps. You’ll get features like more users, the ability to manage content in multiple languages, and increased capacity to connect Contentful with other tools you use. There’s also technical support included in case you run into issues.
Premium Plan: If you have a larger team or complex content needs, Contentful offers a “Premium Plan” with features tailored to your specific requirements. This plan builds on the Starter Plan by offering potentially unlimited interactions with the platform and the ability to accommodate more users and data. However, unlike the Starter Plan with its set price, you’ll need to contact Contentful for a custom quote for the Premium Plan.
Keep in mind that even with the unlimited interactions of the Premium Plan, there might be additional charges if you exceed other limitations, like data storage usage. The good news is Contentful’s plans are designed to scale with your business. You can easily add more users and content as needed, potentially upgrading to a higher tier if your project demands it.
Ultimately, the best way to understand Contentful’s pricing is to explore their website for the latest details. They also have a free plan that lets you experiment with the platform before committing to a paid option. This will help you gauge if Contentful’s features and pricing align with your project’s needs.
How to Choose the Right Plan?
Choosing the right Contentful plan depends on the size and complexity of your project, along with the number of people who will be using it. Here’s a breakdown to help you decide:
Free Plan:
- Ideal for: Individual users or small teams working on personal projects.
- Consider this if: You’re just starting out with Contentful, want to test its features, or have a small, personal project with limited content and users.
Starter Plan ($300/month):
- Ideal for: Small teams building websites or apps.
- Consider this if: Your team is under 20 people, you need to manage content in multiple languages, and you plan to integrate Contentful with other tools. This is a good starting point for small businesses or startups.
Premium Plan (Custom Pricing):
- Ideal for: Businesses with larger teams and complex content needs.
- Consider this if: Your team is larger than 20 people, you have a significant amount of content to manage, or you require features beyond the Starter Plan, such as potentially unlimited API calls.
Here are some additional factors to consider:
- Scalability: If you anticipate your project growing, choose a plan that allows you to add users and content easily. Contentful’s plans are designed to scale with you.
- Technical Support: The Starter Plan includes technical support from Contentful, which can be valuable for troubleshooting any issues you encounter.
- Custom Needs: If you have specific requirements beyond what the Starter Plan offers, you’ll need to explore the Premium Plan and contact Contentful for a custom quote.
By considering these factors and exploring Contentful’s free tier, you can make an informed decision about the right plan to fit your project’s needs and budget.
What’s New in Contentful?
Contentful has introduced several new features and updates:
Contentful Studio: Contentful Studio is a new product that allows digital teams to assemble intelligent experiences at scale visually. It provides visual design tools that save time, ensure brand integrity at the enterprise level, and offer AI capabilities. For example, the AI Content Generator can quickly create new titles, copy, SEO, keywords, and more. The AI Image Generator can generate new images and edit existing ones. It’s designed to empower marketers, designers, and developers to execute their vision without having to wait for developers to build it out.
Multiple Workflows: Introduced on March 19, 2024, this feature allows different teams to use dedicated workflows for their specific review processes and governance requirements. You can create multiple workflows for a single content type. This means different teams working on the same content type can use dedicated workflows for their own review processes and governance. The Workflows app automates previously manual and error-prone processes to ensure seamless collaboration, editing, reviews, and approvals.
Idempotency Key Headers for Webhook Requests: Implemented on February 29, 2024, this feature prevents duplication of webhooks. It is recommended that you configure your webhook consumer to be idempotent, meaning that it will work exactly once for a given event, even if it receives duplicate webhook requests. To accomplish this, use the X-Contentful-Idempotency-Key header, a unique SHA256 hash of the webhook event, to deduplicate requests sent to your servers.
JavaScript SDK Plain Client: Introduced on February 28, 2024, this new way to interact with the SDK for the Contentful Content Management API offers several benefits to developers. The JavaScript SDK client libraries give you access to Contentful APIs and their features. The Content Delivery API client library interacts with the Content Delivery API, a read-only API for retrieving content from Contentful. The Content Management API client library interacts with the Content Management API, allowing you to create, edit, manage, and publish content.
Updates to App Definition Deletion Rules and Usage: Implemented on February 22, 2024, these improvements help prevent accidental deletion/unsharing and provide more information to manage apps at scale. An AppDefinition is the entity that represents an app in Contentful. It contains general app information, like where it is visible, and who can install the app, and provides settings for enabling it to run independently or enable particular settings for any current and future installations.
How does Contentful Work?
Contentful is a headless content management system (CMS) that offers a unique approach to managing content for websites and applications. Here’s a breakdown of how it works:
Content Modeling: Instead of directly creating pages like in traditional CMS, Contentful lets you define the building blocks of your content. Imagine these building blocks as data fields. You specify what kind of information each block holds (text, image, date, etc.) and how these blocks can be connected. This creates a blueprint for your content, ensuring consistency and organization.
Content Management: Content creators have a user-friendly web app to manage everything within this blueprint. They can create content entries (like filling out a form) based on the defined fields. This allows them to easily add text, upload images, and build content following the structure you set up. Collaboration features let them work together and keep track of changes.
Delivery via APIs: Here’s where Contentful gets unique. It doesn’t control how your content is displayed on a website or app. Instead, it provides special messengers called APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). These APIs act like waiters in a restaurant. Developers working on your website or app can use these APIs to request specific content entries from Contentful.
Headless Advantage: Because content creation and presentation are separate (headless approach), you gain flexibility. You update content in one place (Contentful) and those updates are delivered through the APIs to wherever your content is being used. This keeps everything in sync, regardless of the platform.
Contentful is a central database for your website and app content. It allows you to define how content is structured, create the content itself, and then deliver that content to any platform you use, all through a user-friendly interface and developer-friendly tools.
History
Contentful is a headless content management system (CMS) that was established in 2013. Sascha Konietzke and Paolo Negri in Berlin, Germany founded the company. The idea for Contentful was born out of their dissatisfaction with the existing web-focused content management systems. They felt the need for a more flexible and modern CMS, which led to the creation of Contentful. Before it got its current name, an earlier version of the platform was known as “Storageroom”.
As of June 2021, Contentful’s headquarters is in San Francisco, California, but it also has offices in Denver, Colorado, and Berlin. The company has been successful in securing several rounds of financing over the years. In 2018, it raised a series D round of financing amounting to $35.5 million. This was followed by a series E round in June 2020, where they raised $80 million. The most recent round was a series F in July 2021, where they raised $175 million, bringing the company’s valuation to $3 billion.
In March 2021, Contentful took a significant step towards promoting the creation of more apps on its platform. It created an online marketplace for third-party apps as well as apps built by the company. To further this initiative, the company made its APIs publicly available.
Contentful’s client list includes some notable names such as IKEA, Jack in the Box, the British Museum, Spotify, Red Bull, Twilio, Intercom, Inc., and Urban Outfitters. These clients use Contentful’s platform for their content management needs. This speaks volumes about the versatility and robustness of Contentful’s platform.
Competitors
Strapi
Contentful is a headless content management system (CMS) that was established in 2013. Sascha Konietzke and Paolo Negri in Berlin, Germany founded the company. The idea for Contentful was born out of their dissatisfaction with the existing web-focused content management systems. They felt the need for a more flexible and modern CMS, which led to the creation of Contentful. Before it got its current name, an earlier version of the platform was known as “Storageroom”.
As of June 2021, Contentful’s headquarters is in San Francisco, California, but it also has offices in Denver, Colorado, and Berlin. The company has been successful in securing several rounds of financing over the years. In 2018, it raised a series D round of financing amounting to $35.5 million. This was followed by a series E round in June 2020, where they raised $80 million. The most recent round was a series F in July 2021, where they raised $175 million, bringing the company’s valuation to $3 billion.
In March 2021, Contentful took a significant step towards promoting the creation of more apps on its platform. It created an online marketplace for third-party apps as well as apps built by the company. To further this initiative, the company made its APIs publicly available.
Contentful’s client list includes some notable names such as IKEA, Jack in the Box, the British Museum, Spotify, Red Bull, Twilio, Intercom, Inc., and Urban Outfitters. These clients use Contentful’s platform for their content management needs. This speaks volumes about the versatility and robustness of Contentful’s platform.
Prismic
Prismic and Contentful are both well-regarded platforms in the headless content management space, each with its own unique features and benefits.
Prismic is particularly well-suited for websites, as it supports modern web frameworks and offers content modeling that is specific to websites. One of its standout features is the provision of page types and page sections, also known as ‘slices’, which make it easy to create content. This feature not only helps developers build sites more efficiently but also provides marketers with a user-friendly Page Builder tool. In terms of pricing, Prismic’s plans are designed to scale with your growth, ensuring that you only pay for the value you receive.
Contentful, on the other hand, is a more flexible platform that can be used for a wide range of applications. It treats each content element as a type, allowing developers to design the content layout. However, this flexibility can sometimes result in complex models that may be difficult for marketers to understand and use independently.
When it comes to user satisfaction, both platforms have received positive reviews. According to G2, users found Prismic and Contentful to be equally easy to use. However, Prismic was found to be easier to set up and administer, while Contentful was considered easier to do business with overall.
If your focus is on website creation, Prismic might be a better fit for you. On the other hand, if you need a versatile solution that can be used for a wide range of applications, Contentful could be the right choice for you.
Sanity
Contentful is a well-regarded headless CMS that has earned its reputation through a developer-friendly interface, scalability, and an extensive integration ecosystem. It has been reviewed 383 times and holds a rating of 4.4 stars. One of the key strengths of Contentful is its wide range of features that come out-of-the-box. The service is highly scalable and integrating large amounts of data from the backend is quite smooth. However, one potential drawback of Contentful is its annual subscription price, which can be a significant consideration if your team is working with a tight budget.
On the other side of the comparison, we have Sanity. Sanity also holds a rating of 4.4 stars, but it has been reviewed 216 times. What sets Sanity apart is its flexibility, lightning-fast performance, and affordable pricing. It is a composable content cloud that enables businesses to build composable, customizable, and data-driven content architectures.
Kentico Kontent
When it comes to overall ratings, both Contentful and Kentico Kontent are highly rated. They both have a rating of 4.4 stars, with Contentful having 384 reviews and Kentico Kontent having 197 reviews. On G2, Contentful has a rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars from 298 reviews, while Kentico Kontent has a rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars from 310 reviews. On FinancesOnline, both platforms have an overall score of 8.8.
In terms of user satisfaction, both platforms are highly satisfactory. Contentful has a user satisfaction rate of 97%, while Kentico Kontent has a slightly higher user satisfaction rate of 98%.
Pricing is another important factor to consider. Contentful offers a free tier, and its basic plan starts at $300.00. On the other hand, Kentico Kontent’s pricing starts at a higher point, at $12,500.00.
When it comes to features, reviewers found Contentful easier to use, set up, and administer. However, they felt that Kentico Kontent meets the needs of their business better than Contentful. For feature updates and roadmaps, reviewers preferred the direction of Kentico Kontent over Contentful.
Lastly, in terms of ongoing product support, reviewers felt that Kentico Kontent is the preferred option.
GraphCMS
When it comes to data modeling and schema, Contentful provides a flexible approach. Users can define their own content types and fields using a powerful JSON-based schema definition language. On the other hand, GraphCMS utilizes a GraphQL schema to define the data model, which provides a strongly-typed and easily manageable structure for content.
In terms of developer experience, Contentful offers a user-friendly web app interface. It’s easy for developers to create and manage content, and it provides a range of SDKs and APIs to interact with the platform programmatically. GraphCMS, being built on top of the GraphQL data query and manipulation language, provides a highly customizable and scalable solution. This is particularly beneficial for developers who are familiar with GraphQL.
Rich text handling is another area where these two platforms differ. Contentful provides native support for rich text fields, allowing users to create and edit content with rich text formatting and media embedding capabilities. GraphCMS, while not offering native rich text support, allows for greater flexibility by providing a more general content field type that can be used for rich text or any other type of content.
Workflow and collaboration features are also important to consider. Contentful offers built-in collaboration features, such as content approval workflows, content versioning, and role-based access control. GraphCMS provides similar features but with a stronger focus on team collaboration and advanced workflow management. This allows for more complex approval processes and content staging capabilities.
Internationalization and localization are well-supported by both platforms. Contentful provides comprehensive support for these features, allowing users to easily manage translated content in multiple languages. GraphCMS also supports internationalization features but with a slightly more limited feature set compared to Contentful. This makes it suitable for simpler multilingual content requirements.
Lastly, when it comes to third-party integrations and extensions, Contentful has a wide range of pre-built integrations and extensions available. This allows users to connect their content with popular tools and services. GraphCMS also offers integrations with popular services but with a slightly smaller ecosystem compared to Contentful. This may require more custom development work for certain integrations.
Storyblok
Both Storyblok and Contentful are well-regarded in the field of Content Management Systems (CMS), with each platform having its own unique strengths. They have both received a user rating of 4.4 stars, indicating a high level of satisfaction among their users.
Contentful is often described as a premium CMS product that comes with a wide range of features. However, some users have pointed out that it lacks certain features such as real-time collaboration and the ability to customize the frontend GUI. In contrast, Storyblok is known for its powerful and flexible set of tools that can be customized to suit each user’s role and responsibilities. It also provides a visual editor interface that users find easy to understand and use.
When it comes to integration and scalability, both platforms perform well. Contentful is highly scalable and users have reported that integrating it with large amounts of backend data is quite smooth. Storyblok also offers seamless integration and scalability.
In terms of pricing, Contentful is considered a premium platform and is priced accordingly. Storyblok, on the other hand, offers clear and transparent pricing, with no sudden charges for content creation features.
Finally, both platforms have strong communities and support systems. Contentful, being the most popular and widely-used CMS platform, has a large community of developers and advocates. Storyblok also has a good community and support system.
Netlify CMS
Contentful is a cloud-based content management system (CMS) that allows you to manage content across multiple platforms. It offers an interactive editing interface that lets you manage your content and gives developers the freedom to deliver the content using their preferred programming language and template framework. One of the key features of Contentful is that it is fully API-driven, meaning your content is stored in a database. This allows for a high degree of flexibility and integration with other systems. Contentful also provides the option to assign different roles to users, such as super admin access and editor-only roles. This can be particularly useful in larger teams where different levels of access are required. Additionally, Contentful allows you to schedule content publishing for a later date, which can be a valuable feature for planning content releases. However, it’s worth noting that Contentful is a closed source.
On the other hand, Netlify CMS is an open-source CMS that is Git-based and designed for static site generators. Unlike Contentful, Netlify CMS runs entirely in a browser. It uses Git and GitHub for content storage, meaning your content is stored as Markdown files in a GitHub repository that you provide. This can be a great advantage if you prefer to have your content stored in a version-controlled environment. However, while Netlify CMS allows access to multiple team members, it does not clearly define roles as Contentful does. Also, it does not provide the ability to schedule content publishing for a later date out of the box. But being open source, Netlify CMS allows for a high degree of customization, as you can add and tweak existing features.
In terms of user ratings, Netlify CMS has a higher score of 9.3 out of 10 compared to Contentful’s score of 8.1 out of 10. However, the choice between the two often depends on your specific needs and preferences. For instance, if you prefer a fully API-driven CMS, Contentful might be a better choice. On the other hand, if you prefer a Git-based CMS that allows for more customization, Netlify CMS could be the way to go. It’s also worth noting that while Contentful has a starting price of $489, Netlify CMS is free. This could be a significant factor in your decision if budget is a concern.
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) and Contentful are both well-regarded in the field of Digital Experience Platforms (DXP). They each have their own unique strengths and areas for improvement, and the choice between them often depends on the specific needs and circumstances of the user.
AEM has received a rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars based on 280 reviews. Users have praised AEM for its robust feature updates and roadmaps. However, it’s worth noting that AEM has a steeper learning curve compared to Contentful, and it requires more effort to set up and administer. On TrustRadius, a popular review site, AEM has a score of 7.9 out of 10.
On the other hand, Contentful has a slightly higher rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars, based on 298 reviews. Users have found Contentful to be easier to use, set up, and administer compared to AEM. In fact, many users have reported that Contentful meets the needs of their business better than AEM. On TrustRadius, Contentful scores slightly higher than AEM, with a score of 8.1 out of 10.
When it comes to pricing, Contentful seems to have a slight edge over AEM as it offers a free trial and a free or freemium version, which AEM does not offer.
Crafter CMS
Contentful is a headless CMS, which means it allows you to manage and deliver content across multiple channels and devices using its API. This API-first approach makes it easy to integrate with other tools and platforms. The APIs provided by Contentful are well-documented and offer a wide range of functionalities, making it simple to integrate with other systems. It also has a relatively large and active development community. According to reviewers, Contentful is easier to use, set up, and administer. They also preferred the direction of Contentful over Craft CMS when it comes to feature updates and roadmaps.
On the other hand, Crafter CMS is a web-based content management system built on the PHP programming language. It is known for its flexibility and ease of use, making it a popular choice for small to medium-sized websites and web applications. Crafter CMS allows for easy customization through plugins and templates. It has a robust plugin ecosystem, with a wide range of official and third-party plugins available. Reviewers felt that Craft CMS meets the needs of their business better than Contentful. They also preferred doing business with Craft CMS overall.
For instance, if you prioritize an API-first approach and ease of use, Contentful might be a better fit. On the other hand, if you value flexibility and customization, Crafter CMS could be the better choice.
Acquia Content Cloud
Acquia Content Cloud and Contentful are both popular choices in the Web Content Management market. They each have their unique strengths and areas for improvement.
Acquia Content Cloud has an overall rating of 4.3 stars based on 80 reviews. Users have praised it for its ease of use and learnability, even for those who are new to the system. It’s considered a good basic CMS with limited integration possibilities. However, some users have mentioned that it takes a long time to have the Drupal 9. Key features of Acquia Content Cloud include its scalability, integration capabilities, customization options, and ease of deployment, administration, and maintenance.
On the other hand, Contentful has an overall rating of 4.4 stars based on 384 reviews. Users have found Contentful to be a premium CMS product packed with features that help keep website content organized efficiently. However, the annual subscription price can be a major drawback for teams with a tight budget. Some users have also pointed out that key features are missing compared to some other alternatives, such as real-time collaboration and customizability of the frontend GUI.
Bloomreach Experience Manager (brX)
Bloomreach Experience Manager (brX) has an overall rating of 4.3 stars based on 21 reviews. It is appreciated for its scalability, integration, and customization capabilities, earning a rating of 4.3 stars. The ease of deployment is rated at 4.0 stars, indicating a relatively smooth implementation process. The quality of end-user training is highly regarded with a rating of 4.4 stars. However, the ease of integration using standard APIs and tools is slightly lower at 3.8 stars. One of the strong points of brX is the timeliness of vendor response, which is rated at 4.6 stars. The quality of technical support is a bit lower, with a rating of 3.5 stars.
On the other hand, Contentful has an overall rating of 4.4 stars based on 383 reviews, slightly higher than brX. It also scores well in scalability, integration, and customization with a rating of 4.4 stars. The ease of deployment is rated at 4.1 stars, slightly higher than brX. The quality of end-user training matches that of brX with a rating of 4.4 stars. The ease of integration using standard APIs and tools is rated higher than brX at 4.1 stars. The timeliness of vendor response is slightly lower than brX at 4.3 stars.
Contentstack
Contentful, with an overall rating of 4.4 stars based on 383 reviews, is a well-regarded choice in the Web Content Management market. It offers a wide range of features right out of the box. Users have found that the service is highly scalable and that integrating large amounts of data from the backend is quite smooth. Additionally, Contentful provides many ready-to-use templates for popular frontend frameworks such as Next.js, Angular, and Gatsby. However, it’s not without its drawbacks. Users have reported that the drag-and-drop functionality for adding new rows to existing content lists is not user-friendly. Furthermore, the annual subscription price can be a significant consideration, especially for teams working with a tight budget.
On the other hand, Contentstack, with an overall rating of 4.6 stars based on 95 reviews, is also a strong competitor in the market. While it may not have as large a user base or as many reviews as Contentful, it does have a slightly higher overall rating.
Directus
Contentful has an overall rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars based on 297 reviews. It scores 8.5 out of 10 in terms of ease of use and meeting requirements. The quality of support is rated at 8.4 out of 10, and the product direction has a positive rating of 7.4 out of 10.
On the other hand, Directus has an overall rating of 5.0 out of 5 stars based on 31 reviews. It scores higher than Contentful in all aspects. The ease of use is rated at 9.6 out of 10, and it meets requirements with a score of 9.5 out of 10. The quality of support is rated at 9.3 out of 10, and the product direction has a positive rating of 8.9 out of 10.
Reviewers have found Directus to be easier to use, set up, and administer. They also preferred doing business with Directus overall. Reviewers felt that Directus meets the needs of their business better than Contentful. When comparing the quality of ongoing product support, reviewers felt that Directus is the preferred option.
Amplience
Amplience and Contentful are both well-regarded in the Content Management System (CMS) market. They each have their unique strengths and cater to different needs.
Amplience has an overall rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars based on 32 reviews. Users have found Amplience easier to set up, which can be a significant advantage for businesses looking to get their CMS up and running quickly. Amplience also seems to meet the needs of businesses better than Contentful, indicating that it might offer features or capabilities that are more aligned with what businesses are looking for in a CMS. Amplience is also preferred when it comes to ongoing product support, suggesting that users are satisfied with the level of service they receive after the initial setup. Furthermore, Amplience has a higher rating for feature updates and roadmaps, indicating that users appreciate the direction in which the product is evolving.
On the other hand, Contentful, with an overall rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars based on 298 reviews, is also a strong contender. Reviewers have expressed a preference for the administration and ease of doing business with Contentful overall. This could mean that Contentful offers a more user-friendly interface or more straightforward business processes.
When we look at specific features, both Amplience and Contentful are found to be equally easy to use. However, Amplience scores slightly higher in ease of setup with a score of 9.0 compared to Contentful’s 8.2. In terms of administration, Contentful edges out Amplience with a score of 8.4 to Amplience’s 8.3. For quality of support, Amplience takes the lead with a score of 8.6, while Contentful follows closely with 8.4.
Magnolia CMS
Contentful and Magnolia CMS are both well-regarded in the Web Content Management market. They each have unique strengths that make them appealing to different users.
Contentful has an overall rating of 4.4 stars based on 384 reviews. It is praised for its wide range of features that come ready to use out of the box. Users have found that it scales well and handles large amounts of data smoothly. It also offers many templates that are ready to use with popular frontend frameworks. However, some users have found that the drag-and-drop functionality for adding new rows to existing content lists is not as user-friendly as they would like.
On the other hand, Magnolia CMS has an overall rating of 4.2 stars based on 29 reviews. Users have found it to be a robust and user-friendly solution for managing website content. The reviews did not mention any specific weaknesses for Magnolia CMS.
When comparing the two solutions, reviewers found Contentful to be easier to use, set up, and administer. They also preferred doing business with Contentful overall. However, when it comes to feature updates and roadmaps, reviewers preferred the direction of Magnolia over Contentful.
Companies Using Contentful
Spotify
Contentful is a content management system (CMS) that provides a platform to create, manage, and distribute content. It offers a suite of APIs that allow developers to fetch and send data to their applications. Spotify, a digital music streaming service, uses Contentful in a variety of ways.
One of the key ways Spotify uses Contentful is for image manipulation. They use the Contentful Image API to manage and manipulate images. This allows Spotify to deliver the right image in the right format to their users, enhancing the user experience.
Spotify also uses Contentful’s powerful personalization technology to create AI Playlists. This feature allows Spotify Premium users to generate personalized playlists based on unique prompts. The prompts can reference places, animals, activities, movie characters, colors, and even emojis. The AI Playlist feature uses Contentful to manage the content related to these prompts and deliver personalized playlists to users.
In addition, Contentful’s content model plays a crucial role in how Spotify manages its content. A content model is like a big-picture view of your content, and the kinds of content (or content types) you want to create are the pieces that make up that big picture. This allows Spotify to effectively organize and manage their content.
Urban Outfitters
Urban Outfitters, Inc., a United States-based retail organization, selected the Contentful Content Platform for Web Content Management in 2017. This decision was made to displace their legacy systems and integrate them with the existing systems being used.
Contentful is a headless content management system (CMS) that allows businesses to manage and distribute content across multiple platforms. It serves billions of pieces of content to digital experiences every month. Urban Outfitters is one of the many companies that rely on Contentful for their content management needs.
Urban Outfitters uses Contentful to curate visually appealing and engaging content. This content is used to pique the interest of their followers on social media and entice them to explore more on their website. Additionally, they optimize their content for search engines, incorporating relevant keywords and meta tags, which helps improve their website’s visibility and attract organic traffic.
In summary, Urban Outfitters uses Contentful to manage their web content, enhance their digital experiences, and improve their online visibility. This has allowed them to effectively engage with their customers and drive traffic to their website.
Jack in the Box
Jack in the Box is a customer of Contentful and utilizes this platform. Jack in the Box used Contentful for their Super Bowl campaign where they gave away one million free burger coupons. This campaign generated a large number of requests.
The strength of Contentful lies in its ability to handle such high traffic without any issues. Even with the large number of requests generated by the ad campaign, Contentful’s Content Delivery Network (CDN) was able to deliver the content smoothly. This shows the robustness and reliability of Contentful as a content management platform.
In essence, Jack in the Box leverages Contentful’s microservice-oriented way of delivering content to manage their digital campaigns effectively. This allows them to reach a large audience and handle high-traffic scenarios with ease.
ALDO Group
The ALDO Group, a renowned footwear and accessories company, has adopted Contentful as a key part of their digital strategy. The composable content platform powered by Contentful serves as the foundation of their digital strategy. This platform is used across their various websites including Callitspring.com, Globoshoes.com, and Aldoshoes.com.
All UI elements across these websites, such as landing pages, promotion banners and tiles, and copy, are managed through Contentful’s content platform. This allows for a more streamlined and efficient content management process.
The marketing and merchandising teams at the ALDO Group, which consist of over 30 Contentful users, now completely own content publishing. This has allowed for faster campaign implementation from idea to delivery.
With Contentful, developers are freed from time-consuming approval workflows. Since no deployments are needed for content changes, the developer teams can focus on ‘higher-value’ initiatives as they move away from a content support role.
The adoption of Contentful has had a significant business impact on the ALDO Group. For instance, for large launches and initiatives, the marketing team can take care of content ahead of time and not worry about potential bugs or blockers related to the CMS. This has resulted in time savings for both marketing and technical teams.
The ALDO Group chose Contentful because they needed a product that would scale with their ambitions. As the company continues to grow and evolve, Contentful provides the robust and flexible solution they need to support their digital journey.
Shiseido
Shiseido, a multinational cosmetics company based in Tokyo, has integrated Contentful into its operations to streamline its digital content management. Before the integration, Shiseido faced several challenges in managing its digital content. The company lacked a consolidated platform and a centralized solution for content management, which made content management and content publishing a lengthy and costly process, involving several external partners and vendors. This also led to inconsistencies in brand voice across its markets and digital properties.
To address these challenges, Shiseido sought a unified platform that could centralize content that could be reusable to deliver more consistent brand messaging across multiple digital channels. The ultimate goal was to accelerate site traffic, engagement, and as a result, revenue. With Contentful as part of the stack, content and brand are easily kept consistent across all of Shiseido’s digital properties, as well as across social media and digital advertising. This has resulted in a 50% drop in content development costs and the time to publish now takes just minutes.
The integration has enabled internal content creators at Shiseido to work quickly and easily, in the language and manner appropriate to their specific markets. It has also increased site traffic and engagement, driven more revenue, and lowered development costs. In conclusion, Contentful integration into Shiseido’s operations has significantly improved the company’s digital content management, leading to increased efficiency, consistency, and customer engagement.
Nintendo
Contentful is a headless Content Management System (CMS) that allows businesses to create, manage, and distribute content across multiple platforms. It follows a headless CMS architecture, which decouples the content creation and storage from the presentation layer. This architectural approach allows flexibility and adaptability in delivering content across various platforms and devices.
Nintendo, being a global brand, needs to manage a vast amount of content across different regions and languages. Contentful’s CMS capabilities would allow Nintendo to easily manage and update this content in a centralized manner. Nintendo operates across various platforms, from gaming consoles to mobile apps and websites. Contentful’s headless architecture would enable Nintendo to deliver consistent content across all these platforms.
As Nintendo’s user base grows, so does the demand for content. Contentful’s infrastructure is designed to ensure high availability, scalability, and security, which would be crucial for a company of Nintendo’s scale. Contentful can be integrated with various development platforms. For instance, Contentful has been used in Unity, a real-time 3D development platform widely used in the video game industry. If Nintendo uses Unity or similar platforms for game development, Contentful could be used to manage and deliver game content.
Volkswagen
Volkswagen, a well-known automotive manufacturer, has been using Contentful, a content management system, to improve its online sales and customer experience. They have been focusing on a customer-centric approach, transforming their Voice of Customer (VOC) program into a real-time information system accessible to all team members with the help of Contentful.
In addition, Volkswagen has integrated employee experience into their workflows, finding a correlation between employee advocacy and customer metrics. This means that if employees are passionate brand advocates, customer metrics improve.
Furthermore, Volkswagen has extended improvements to both brand and product experiences. They have been able to make strategic decisions informed by real-time brand, product, employee, and customer data by leveraging the four main pillars of the Qualtrics experience management operating system (XMOS).
With the data collected on the Qualtrics platform, Volkswagen determined that 30% of customers were willing to buy a vehicle online. Once they launched e-commerce access to one of their models, it sold out within 12 hours. So, in essence, Volkswagen has been using Contentful to improve their customer and employee experiences, enhance their brand and product experiences, and boost their online sales.
Technologies, Frameworks, and Languages Used
Contentful supports a wide range of technologies, frameworks, and languages. Here are some of them:
Next.js: Contentful provides quick start guides, videos, and tutorials for building your first Next.js starter with Contentful.
GraphQL: Contentful provides a demo project and space populated with a sample content model and a complementary example application to help you explore the capabilities of the GraphQL API.
React: Contentful provides a starter that shows you how to use the Contentful API to retrieve data from the headless CMS, display entries using React components, and filter those entries using Contentful tags and React hooks.
SvelteKit: SvelteKit is a framework for rapidly developing robust, performant web applications using Svelte.
JavaScript: Contentful’s Content Deliver API (CDA) is a read-only API for retrieving content from Contentful.
Hydrogen: Use Hydrogen, Shopify’s React-based framework, to build an e-commerce storefront that easily integrates Contentful’s flexible content models.
Remix: Combining Remix with a composable content platform like Contentful increases performance, speeds up build times, and greatly improves developer experience.
Angular: Contentful provides a beginner’s tutorial that demonstrates how to build a full-stack application using Contentful and Angular.
Ruby: Contentful provides a guide that demonstrates how Contentful integrates with Rails.
Jamstack: Contentful provides an example of how to hook up Jamstack to a demo space.
Java: Contentful provides a repository that shows you how to use Contentful and Java Spring Boot together.
PHP: Contentful provides a guide that shows you how to use their PHP SDK to consume content.
In addition to these, Contentful also provides a range of official and community-supported SDKs and libraries for popular programming languages such as TypeScript, Python, and more. Contentful is a cloud-based solution for content infrastructure, delivering content via its global CDN and restful APIs.
Integrations Used in Contentful
Contentful offers a wide range of integrations that extend and expand the capabilities of the Contentful web app. Here are some of the integrations available:
Contentful App Compose App: This is a tool developed by Contentful that provides editorial teams with a simplified interface to create, manage, and publish pages for any digital channel. It uses a page-based model to streamline the process of adding content and publishing to web properties and beyond. This makes it much easier for editorial users who are new to working with structured content.
Contentful App Launch: This is another tool developed by Contentful that provides editorial teams with powerful scheduling and publishing tools to automate both major and routine content launches. Teams can create releases, which group together content entries for simultaneous publication either immediately or on a schedule.
Acclaro Translations: Acclaro is a language translation services agency that helps the world’s top brands succeed across cultures through a fine-tuned process, top industry talent, and long-term investment in your global reputation in over 100 languages worldwide.
AI Content Generator powered by OpenAI: This is a tool that uses OpenAI to make your content creation process faster than ever. With AI Content Generator, you can generate content that matches your brand, reduce repetitive tasks like generating SEO keywords, and even translate content to nearly 100 languages.
AI Image Generator powered by OpenAI: This tool uses OpenAI’s DALL·E, a neural network that creates images from text captions for a wide range of concepts expressible in natural language. It can generate images based on the text description provided.
AI Image Tagging: This is a process that uses AI to tag media files with metadata. It analyzes objects within an image and generates a set of tags returned from a machine learning system.
AltText AI: This is a service that automatically generates alt text for images. You provide an image (either via URL or file upload), and AltText.ai will automatically create alt text for that image.
AI Content Generator powered by Amazon Bedrock: This is an app available on the Contentful Marketplace that allows users to create, rewrite, summarize, and translate content using cutting-edge generative AI models available and accessible through Amazon Bedrock simply and securely.
api.video: This is a cloud-based video hosting and live streaming platform that provides developers and businesses with an easy-to-use API to handle all video-related tasks.
Aprimo: Aprimo is a United States-based company that develops and sells marketing automation software and digital asset management (DAM) technology for marketing and customer experience departments in enterprise organizations.