Independent developer field guide
Edition 0012026
Category 09 / 12

CMS & Content

Content modeling, editorial publishing, and document authoring.

This layer structures, edits, and delivers marketing copy, documentation, help articles, and editorial blogs across web platforms. First decide whether content should live in the code repository as Git-managed Markdown, using a framework like Astro, or in a hosted headless CMS with a visual editor for non-technical writers. Content-first frameworks turn Markdown files into fast, light pages with no client-side JavaScript by default. A common mistake is building a custom relational database schema and admin dashboard for simple articles and landing pages. That adds maintenance and infrastructure cost when flat Markdown files would do.

4 tools
Astro Web framework for content-focused websites, using any UI component libraryCMS & Contentopen source → Eleventy Zero-config JavaScript static site generator that transforms templates into static HTMLCMS & Contentopen source → Sanity Composable content platform and headless CMS with structured content and real-time collaborationCMS & Contentfreemium → Payload CMS Open-source TypeScript headless CMS and application framework that runs inside Next.jsCMS & Contentopen source ↗