According to the official documentation, Storyblok is an enterprise-level Headless Content Management System that empowers content creators and developers to build anything and publish everywhere, giving them the flexibility to create and scale better experiences across all digital channels with any technology stack.
Now, Storyblok is very far from the first to do this, but it does what it does really well, mostly combining a straightforward developing environment for developers and ease of use for content editors.
One of the key features of Storyblok is its friendly interface and real-time Visual Editor that makes content creation easy and intuitive. It allows the editorial team to manage, and organize the content visually and see a live preview of the current page that they are working on, even before those changes go live.
A Headless CMS is a content management system that delivers content over APIs, keeping its focus on giving content creators the ability to edit content independently of the developers, regardless of the platform, design, or layout. The headless approach to content management allows development teams to consume the information via APIs, which means that the developers can choose their preferred technology stack without restrictions or special requirements coming from the CMS part. In this way, the frontend can be easily changed while maintaining the backend or using the same content for different applications.
The key concepts behind Storyblok are inspired by the BEM and Atomic Design methodologies, seeking to help developers to create reusable components and code sharing in frontend development.
Having a structure like this, allows developers to create flexible layouts and reuse them in various places of the project avoiding duplicated work, and maximizing productivity.
Storyblok uses a component-based approach to content management. The components are divided into two categories - Content Types and Blok. A page can be composed of multiple Bloks stored as Stories. A Story is a content entry defined by one Content Type and filled with information by the content creator.
• Content Types
In Storyblok, a Content Type defines the type and structure of a Story and can hold the basic fields for the content entries.
Some examples of content types are “Page”, “Article Page”, “Blog Post” and other root-level entries.
• Bloks
Bloks are the heart of content creation, and are quite literally, the building blocks of all the content. They are simply some nestable, modular components that can stack on top of each other to create content and can be customized to any degree that is preferred. Basically, a Blok represents the template, the definitions of a component.
Some examples of Bloks are the “Contact Section”, “Featured Articles Section” and “Newsletter Section”.
Through the Storyblok UI or the Management API, Storyblok provides the infrastructure to create content and manage it without being tied to a specific presentation layer. That gives the possibility to use the content not only on a website but also on various devices such as iOS, Android, IoT, and Smartwatch. Basically, any other digital platform can benefit from a headless approach to content delivery.
In this scenario, a typical setup might look something like these steps:
• Define the Models – Create the schemas for the content by adding the desired fields such as text, date, image, or even custom field types.
• Create the content – Having all the components created, the content creators can add content by filling up the fields. Using the visual editor, they can also see a preview of the content in real-time which makes the process of creating and editing more intuitive and can help to catch potential mistakes before publishing the content.
• Use the content – Once the content is saved and published, it can be used and displayed on any platform using the provided Content Delivery API.
There are many reasons why you might consider using a headless CMS, here are some of the benefits that it can bring to your business.
• Faster editing experiences
As an editor, you can easily edit existing content and create new ones. The visual editor previews the changes you make to your website, even before those changes go live, making Storyblok simple to use, organize and adjust to create content throughout multiple channels.
• Speed and flexibility for developers
What truly makes a headless CMS a better choice than a traditional CMS is the fact that it doesn’t have to deal with the rendering side of things. By making the content accessible via APIs, you can use and display it in any way desired, allowing developers to work with their technology of choice.
• Scalability and future-proofing
Since the backend and frontend are separated you can structure your content and make it adaptable to future modifications. Future-proofing is another significant benefit because by having a flexible stack of technologies you can easily integrate with any technology and innovations, especially when the industry is changing as often as it is.
• Supports content for more channels
Storyblok is a headless system that gives you the flexibility and freedom to manage and distribute your content all in one place without any external help. This is due to the way Storyblok manages content and content types using modular blocks that can be reused in any digital channel, which is very intuitive and comprehensive for non-technical users.
• Enhanced security
Having the presentation and logic layers independent and using the API to consume and share the content, makes security testing more easily performed to ensure that the risk of vulnerabilities is remaining low.
If you want great flexibility and agility, a headless CMS might be a good option, but it really depends on the organization’s needs and resources. If you want to deliver a cross-platform digital experience, you might want to look into headless CMS.
As a headless CMS, Storyblok stands out by being easy to use thanks to the visual editor that makes the editing process quicker, user-friendly, and more intuitive. This creator-friendly approach means that you can independently create and organize content, change the layout, content, assets, and much more.
