A headless CMS separates where content is edited from where it's displayed. Editors manage content in a friendly interface; your front end pulls it over an API and renders it however you like. That decoupling is powerful — but the market is crowded, and picking wrong means either a frustrated content team or a fragile integration. The right choice depends less on feature checklists than on who edits the content and how it's structured.
The categories that actually matter
Ignore the marketing. Headless CMS options cluster into a few real types:
API-first, developer-centric (Sanity, Contentful, Strapi): flexible content modeling, strong APIs, editors work in a structured admin UI.
Git-based (content stored as files in your repo): great for developer-owned content like docs, awkward for non-technical editors.
