Headless CMS agency: architecture first, tooling second.
As a headless CMS agency we plan the architecture, pick the content system with you and build the presentation layer with Astro. We sell no CMS licences.
Vendor-neutral advice
We sell no licences and take no commission. Sometimes the recommendation is no CMS at all.
Astro as the presentation layer
Astro is CMS-agnostic and ships static HTML by default. Content arrives from your content API.
The counter-argument included
Headless buys multi-channel content. It costs preview convenience, integration effort and a second system.
See what we build.
Mini Marvin is our own progressive web app, designed, built and running live in the browser.
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What to settle before picking a tool.
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Content model first, tool second
Start with the tool selection and you end up shaping your model around the tool.
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We begin with a content inventory: page types, required fields, translations, who changes what and how often. From that comes a vendor-independent model that survives a later system change. Then two or three candidates and a real editorial test with your own content. An hour of practice beats any feature table.
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Often the answer is no CMS
Astro content collections keep content type-safe inside the project, validated through a Zod schema.
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For a marketing site maintained by two or three people that usually suffices, see Astro and CMS options. Where nobody wants to open a Git interface, you can edit your website by chat. A CMS earns its place once people without Git write regularly, approvals are required, or content has to reach several channels.
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Preview and approval are built, not shipped
A headless CMS brings fields, roles, media management and versions. The preview of the finished page does not.
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The draft preview is its own route that pulls unpublished content from the API and renders it in the live layout. Add a webhook on publish, then a rebuild or targeted invalidation. Every new page type has to be covered. On the front-end side see Astro web development.
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Two systems run instead of one
CMS, front end, build and deploy chain, webhooks, image pipeline. More moving parts need an operations plan.
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The public site carries no admin login, no plugin ecosystem and no database in the delivery path. The attack surface moves rather than disappears: the CMS login, API tokens, webhooks, form endpoints and the pipeline remain. Where the build lives and who reads the logs is covered under Astro hosting.
Unsure whether headless fits?
Describe in three sentences who maintains your content and where it hurts. You get an assessment with reasoning.
Headless CMS options at a glance.
| Option | Suits | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| No CMS: content collections | Marketing and documentation sites maintained by a few people who work with Markdown and Git. | Off the table without a technical team. Then a form interface or the chat route helps. |
| Storyblok | Marketing teams that want to assemble landing pages from approved blocks themselves. | The preview route has to be built and maintained. The block list sprawls without discipline. |
| Sanity and Contentful | Content teams with many relations, approval stages, several brands, markets and languages. | Cost out the licence and seat model up front, and settle the content model early. |
| Strapi, Payload, Directus | Organisations that have to run the CMS themselves for regulatory or internal reasons. | Updates, backups and security sit with you, which is the maintenance many wanted to shed. |
| WordPress headless | Editorial teams that know WordPress and keep it while the front end is rebuilt. | WordPress keeps running and keeps needing updates. Preview and cache invalidation are manual work. |
How a headless project runs.
Content inventory
What you actually maintain: page types, required fields, images, translations, change frequency.
Draft the content model
Which content types exist, how they relate, what is reusable and what is page decoration.
Shortlist and editorial test
Two or three candidates, one real content type, your editors typing for themselves.
Integration and front end
Content API, rendering, image pipeline, navigation, search, forms, draft preview.
Migration and go-live
Move the content, settle the URL structure, map every old address, then measure.
Common questions about headless CMS.
What is a headless CMS, in plain terms?
A traditional CMS stores content and builds the finished page from it. A headless CMS does the first part only: it manages content and exposes it through an API. A separate presentation layer handles the display, in our case usually Astro.
Do we even need a headless CMS?
Often no. When a few people maintain a marketing site, content collections suffice: content sits as files in the project and a schema checks it at build time. A CMS earns its place once people without Git write regularly, approvals are required, or content has to reach several channels.
Which headless CMS suits us?
Your editorial routine decides. If marketing should assemble landing pages, the route leads to a visual editor. If the model has many relations, Sanity fits. Where approvals, brands and languages dominate, Contentful is in the running. Self-hosting lands at Strapi, Payload or Directus.
Can we keep WordPress as a headless CMS?
Yes. WordPress exposes content through its API, Astro renders the public site from it, and your editors stay in the editor they know. The URL structure and redirects come before the move; on revenue-critical pages we suggest an SEO audit first.
What does a headless CMS project cost and how long does it take?
The selection alone is two to four weeks, a marketing site with a CMS eight to twelve, multilingual with approval stages from fourteen. Three cost lines: integration, migration and the running licence or hosting cost. See Astro development cost.
Could we maintain content with AI and skip the CMS?
For small changes yes: an agent writes into the same schema-validated model, produces a commit and sends back a preview, see edit your website by chat and our WhatsApp AI agent. New page types and approval workflows stay untouched by it.
More from the Astro cluster.
The pages adjacent to content and editing:
Let us talk about your content.
Tell us what content you maintain and where it needs to go. Answer usually within 24 hours.
Start a headless CMS project.
Briefly describe your current system, who maintains content and what needs to change.
We usually reply within 24 hours.
Remote and on site in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. International projects on request.
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