Do you ever wonder what happens if you run WordPress without a head? I’m not saying I’d be down with a decapitating WordPress mascot (though that’d be some real metal). What I’m discussing is running a WordPress without a front-end theme. Known as Headless WordPress.
But there are actually some really good reasons to do this. Today, let’s talk about headless WordPress, and the well the pros can offer.
And if you’re interested in finding out why creatures all over the world have a hard time mastering the art of killing each other, keep reading!
What actually is headless WordPress?
Headless WordPress means when you separate the back end of a WordPress site and the front end. So the WordPress site can be built with just anything of a front-end framework like (React or Angular).
The benefits of a headless WordPress setup are just too numerous to mention. That being said, in this blog post, we take you through the pros and cons of headless WordPress and how to take the first step towards it.
WordPress is a content management system that basically helps you build a website or blog from scratch or from an existing site. Millions of people all over the world use WordPress, including big organizations, like The Guardian, Forbes, and The New York Times.
Among the great things about WordPress is that you can adapt it to many different requirements. For example, you can use WordPress as a standard website, a Blog, or maybe an e-commerce site. This also means you actually have the option to install a headless WordPress setup, where you can use WordPress as a back-end for other applications.
The main benefit of a headless WordPress setup is that it’s perfect for decoupled apps where you’re building separate front and back. Such an approach can bring many advantages, including better performance, flexibility and scalability.
Monolithic WordPress Downsides
While monolithic WordPress (traditional with a front-end theme) has its obvious upsides, it also has its not-so-obvious downsides.
The monolithic structure is one of the biggest disadvantages of WordPress. WordPress is huge and complex, so it can be difficult to customize and extend WordPress. Additionally, WordPress can be slow and resource-intensive causing problems on sites that see high traffic.
Another weakness of WordPress is security. Hackers target WordPress and because it ships in a monolithic package, it’s very vulnerable to attack. Unfortunately, WordPress is fraught with security risks, and those risks are often tough to mitigate.
Overall, WordPress is a formidable CMS that people love, but it’s by no means perfect. But before we consider WordPress to start, we must weigh out the pros and cons to understand whether it is for the.
Benefits of Headless WordPress
To put it straight, WordPress (when I say that this version supports the front-end theme) has lots of limitations in terms of customisation and scalability. Headless WordPress is the solution to this.
A decoupled WordPress setup, where Headless means being decoupled from the front end, allows for greater flexibility and scalability. Frontend and backend in a headless WordPress setup refer to the frontend (or client-side) of the website independent of the backend (or server-side) of the website. Allowing these to be built using any language or framework of your choosing, lets developers create custom front-ends, but still have the full power of WordPress’ back-end.
One of the main perks of using headless WordPress is getting to create a more dynamic and personalized user experience.
Decoupling the front-end and back-end of WordPress allows the developers to create much faster, more responsive websites, that are a lot easier to maintain. Headless WordPress sites are in fact easier to navigate and use as end users, and this is a reason why many organisations opt for this.
If you’re looking to use WordPress for your next project, you should really look into the advantages of headless WordPress. In this article, we will present an overview of headless WordPress and how it can aid in the project you’re working on.
Speedy performance
However, the main nice thing about WordPress is that it’s flexible and can be used for a lot of different kinds of websites. But that’s also a disadvantage of it, WordPress can be slow and bloated if it’s not properly set.
Using a headless WordPress setup is one way to speed up WordPress setup. In a headless WordPress setup, the front end of your website is completely decoupled from the back end and can help performance.
If you need a fast and responsive WordPress website, then a headless WordPress setup is possible. In this article, we will give you an overview of what headless WordPress is.
Security Improvement
A current trend in WordPress websites is switching to a “headless” architecture. In a headless WordPress setup, the front end of your website runs independently from the WordPress backend. This is good in itself, and most of all, it is a thing of security.
If WordPress is being used as a monolithic site, in the traditional sense, we have all of the website’s front-end and back-end code in one code base. Hackers will then only have to discover one point of entry for the code to exploit vulnerabilities.
A headless WordPress setup splits the front end from the back end. In other words, even if it is possible for a hacker to gain access to the WordPress backend, this hacker won’t be able to access the front end of the site. This all makes it a lot less risky.
Vast Flexibility
With headless WordPress, you have more flexibility to customize a website. Whatever front-end technology you want to use, whether it be Hugo or Gatsby, React, Angular, or Next.Js (among many others), or you’re not stuck to a WordPress theme system. This means you can make a custom website, made just for you.
The great thing about headless WordPress is that it separates your content from your design so you can control how your content is shown. Any Content Management System (CMS) is allowed, and you don’t have to be linked to the WordPress backend. It implies you can build your website employing any language.
If you want to have more control over your website and use any programming language, headless WordPress is the call.
Conclusion
Lastly, the pros of a headless WordPress approach are plenty. It also gives a little more flex on the back end of content management. Secondly, it allows you to reuse that same bucket of content across many different outputs. Thirdly, it allows developers to use the front-end tools they’re used to using.