What is a decoupled content management system?
I consider headless content management to be a sub-set of decoupled content management. That’s because a decoupled CMS is headless, and then some.
With a decoupled CMS – also known as a hybrid headless CMS – your content is managed separately and is front-end agnostic, just like a headless CMS. Yet, it has front-end delivery tools in the box, like templates, if you want to use them.
The difference is that the back-end and front-end are not “coupled” to each other through a database like with a traditional CMS. Instead, the front-end and back-end communicate to each other through calls to an API.
So, remember when we chopped the “head” off a traditional CMS to make it headless? Well, imagine the same scenario here, except this time, we kept the head. It’s not attached to the main body as with a traditional CMS — but you aren’t totally left to your own devices when it comes to front-end delivery, like with a headless CMS, either.