10 Most Popular Hybrid Headless CMS for Marketers

Hybrid headless CMSs, also known as decoupled CMSs, separate content from the front-end delivery without totally removing the ‘head’ of the CMS, enabling marketers to make use of templates and authoring tools when needed. 

Instead of looking at the design of a website like a traditional CMS would, headless CMSs focus on the data that drives that website.

A hybrid headless CMS blends the headless component with the traditional experience, giving marketers the best of both worlds in a single software.

Hybrid is the best of both worlds

The main advantage of a hybrid headless CMS is that it makes creating omnichannel experiences easier. With a hybrid CMS, content can be created, distributed, and repurposed within a user-friendly environment that includes WYSIWYG editing, author collaboration, and previews.

But don’t worry, hybrid is just a fancy name for a simple concept: a full CMS that also serves its content directly via REST API, enabling marketers to manage clean, presentation-independent content. 

In this article, we’ll show you the best ten hybrid headless CMSs for marketers. Read more and find out how marketers can benefit from a hybrid CMS. 

Why Hybrid Headless CMSs Are a Must for Marketers in 2020 

Nowadays, customers are not only consuming content on a single screen. They’re on different social media platforms and switch seamlessly from desktop to mobile. 

Reaching and converting those customers requires marketers to find a way to spread their messages across multiple platforms, making sure that their content is displayed on every device and optimized for every viewing environment.

For instance, with a hybrid headless CMS, rather than creating content ten different times --once for each channel, platform and device-- a hybrid CMS allows you to enter your content once and deliver it perfectly for whatever viewing environment your client may be in. 

As a marketer, you just need to create the right content and select the ideal media to pair it with. The CMS then does the work of optimizing and delivering that content on different screens and different platforms.

These are some features of hybrid CMSs that can make your life easier.

Marketer Friendly

Hybrid CMSs are specially made for marketers because they have a user-friendly interface that enables them to create and publish content with no-nonsense WYSIWYG editors. A hybrid CMS empowers your editors and developers to provide better experiences for your end-users.

Quick To Set Up 

Hybrid CMSes don’t require that you hire the services of a developer because they usually come ready for you to use them. 

Easy To Integrate

For marketers using many different platforms, a hybrid CMS can be the solution because they’re often easy to integrate with third-party platforms that offer complementary services. With a hybrid CMS, marketers can provide great content delivery, but also integrate with resources like Salesforce, Slack, Marketing platforms, IFTT, Microsoft Flow and Logic Apps.

Cloud-Based

Hybrid systems are often cloud-ready or cloud-based, which means that different members of the team can make changes and edit content in real-time without hindering the others.

Fosters Collaboration

Hybrid content management systems foster collaboration between the marketing and development team because it creates an environment where they can all deliver integrations with a phased approach. Start with a website, make it simple, but build the foundation of the complete long-term solution.

10 Hybrid Headless CMSs (That Marketers Won’t Hate)

Since we wanted to be fair, we decided to collect reviews from G2 Crowd and use that data to tell you a bit more about every CMS on this list.

Take a look at the list and feel free to share your comments with us.

Agility CMS

Agility is one of the first original hybrid headless CMSs out there. 

Agility CMS provides the fastest way to build and launch your website on a foundation that will last a lifetime. It integrates seamlessly with modern, blazing-fast website frameworks and enables high-performance websites. 

How Can Marketers Benefit From Agility CMS?

According to the reviews, Agility CMS enables teams to streamline communication and solve problems quickly and as they present themselves. Agility empowers marketing teams by giving them access to standardized documents so they can build whatever web asset they need, faster. 

Bloomreach

Bloomreach’s software enables personalized experiences for companies around the world, combining AI-driven product search with a powerful headless CMS that’s geared towards marketers and eCommerce professionals alike. 

How Can Marketers Benefit From Bloomreach CMS?

Most of the marketers who reviewed Bloomreach on G2 Crowd are using it to improve their site search capabilities. Also, they emphasize the fact that Bloomreach can be implemented in less than thirty minutes and that it’s possible to get help from an account manager in minutes. 

Core dna

Core dna is an all-in-one digital SaaS platform that enables marketers and developers to create solutions for content, marketing, eCommerce, intranets, and communities. Core dna helps manage content, communities, eCommerce and communications, all from one log-in. 

How Can Marketers Benefit From Core dna?

A big chunk of reviewers emphasized two things about Core dna: its customer success team and the fact that it enables marketing teams to reduce their dependence on developers for website updates. They also state that having a solid CS team helps Core dna helps the CMS roll changes faster, which adds to its potential for marketers.

Crafter CMS

Crafter CMS is an open-source CMS that enables marketers to build all types of digital experience apps and websites. The CMS is backed by Git and enables developers and marketers to work collaboratively.

How Can Marketers Benefit From Crafter CMS?

According to G2 Crowd, Crafter is best used as a multi-purpose CMS for blogs, content sections, and augmenting products with headless delivery, which makes it a great choice if you’re looking for a robust secondary headless CMS to integrate with your existing solution.

dotCMS

dotCMS is an open-source CMS built on Java that enables marketers to make their content authoring more efficient, empowering both marketers and developers with the ability to create and reuse content to build connected, engaging, and memorable products.  

How Can Marketers Benefit From dotCMS?

One of the things reviewers emphasized about dotCMS is that the CMS offers strong intranet capabilities that help marketing teams remain connected to the rest of their teams and strengthen team productivity.

Evoq Content

Evoq provides marketers with powerful features, including page management, workflow, granular permissions, localization, caching and search. Like other hybrid CMSs, they have an open API structure that enables them to extend their functionality. 

How Can Marketers Benefit From Evoq Content?

In this case, most reviewers consider that Evoq can help them manage their content in a single location while also providing granular access to individual website managers so they can complete their own updates without altering the main website. However, marketers also find the UI a bit confusing. 

Kentico Kontent

Kentico Kontent advertises itself as a Content-as-a-Service platform that empowers marketers to publish better content, faster. Kontent helps companies whose content is spread across systems keep things consistent. 

How Can Marketers Benefit From Kentico Kontent?

In this case, most reviewers in G2 Crowd see Kontent as a robust tool to create and update content as well as making comments and revisions. The tool lends itself well to the content creation process, even for marketers who hire freelance writers to create content for them. 

Magnolia CMS

Magnolia is a java-based, open-source, enterprise-oriented CMS that enables companies to scale by providing them with flexible integrations and great ease of use. 

How Can Marketers Benefit From Magnolia CMS?

According to G2 Crowd reviewers, Magnolia can help marketers by providing them with a centralized platform to deliver digital experiences to their visitors and clients. Magnolia enables marketers to create apps, and launch new websites without creating new content, reusing existing assets to create omnichannel experiences. 

Sitecore

Sitecore thinks of itself as more than just a CMS; the CMS is an ‘experience platform’ that combines customer data, analytics, and marketing automation capabilities to nurture customers in real-time.

How Can Marketers Benefit From Sitecore?

For most of the marketers who left a review, Sitecore provides a platform where business users and content authors can easily update and manage their content on-site without requiring extra help from developers. Also, marketers talk wonders about Sitecore’s personalization engine, that helps them tap into new audiences. 

Zesty.io

Zesty provides marketers with everything needed to create, deploy, maintain, and optimize enterprise web properties. The CMS helps business optimize their process and capture user data by giving them all the information they need in one place.

How Can Marketers Benefit From Zesty.io?

There are two things that reviewers emphasize: Zesty.io’s ease of implementation and how easy it is for marketers to create beautiful, functional websites in a short time. Also, marketers praise how Zesty enables them to manage multiple properties from a single web portal.