Headless vs decoupled: What’s the difference?

Let’s dig a little deeper into what makes these two models so different.

With a headless CMS, you have modeling and editorial tools to create and edit content. But the concept of “publishing” content just means making it available via an API. It assumes that you and your nerdy front-end development team can handle the rest with whichever frameworks and tools you prefer.

A decoupled CMS, on the other hand, doesn’t assume anything. It does everything a headless CMS does, but it doesn’t stop there. It also says, “Hey, we’ve got some templating tools here so you aren’t working from scratch.”

That’s just good manners, right?

Blend Interactive CSO, Deane Barker, summed up the difference between decoupled and headless content management quite succinctly:

“A decoupled platform is proactive — it prepares content for presentation and pushes it into a delivery environment. A headless CMS is reactive — it manages content, then just sits and waits for some process to ask for it.”

For marketers, this subtle difference can be a significant one. While the decoupled system uses the templates, WYSIWYG editing, and other tools are customarily seen with traditional CMS systems, many of those tools are not available in a headless CMS architecture. However, purely headless systems allow more control over how the content appears on each type of device. So, more fun for eager front-end developers, less fun for non-tech savvy marketers.