Headless WordPress CMS in 2025: Should You Make the Switch?

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Table of Contents

• What is a Headless CMS?
• WordPress as a Headless CMS
• Benefits of Headless WordPress
• Potential Challenges with Headless WordPress
• How do you set up WordPress as a headless CMS?
• Tools and Plugins for Headless WordPress
• Future of Headless WordPress
• Examples of Headless WordPress
• Conclusion
• Make Creative WordPress Websites with WP Creative

In 2025, 64% of large-scale companies are switching to headless CMS for speed and flexibility.

The reason is simple. Traditional WordPress can feel slow, restrictive, and outdated.

With headless WordPress, you are free of such constraints. Your content stays in WordPress, but the design and front end run on modern frameworks like React, Vue, or Next.js.

As a result, you have a blazing-fast, fully customisable, and future-proof website with the headless CMS.

In this guide, we’ll dive into how headless WordPress works, its benefits, challenges, and how you can set it up for success.

What is a Headless CMS?

As the name suggests, a headless CMS is a CMS without a “head”. It means that there’s no built-in front end to display your content. Instead, it focuses purely on managing your content behind the scenes.

Traditional CMS setups, like regular WordPress, mix content management and how your website looks into one package. But with headless, you separate these two parts.

WordPress manages your articles, and something like React or Vue shows them to visitors. The headless CMS approach gives you more freedom, better performance, and lets you easily share your WordPress content on websites, apps, or even smart devices.

WordPress as a Headless CMS

WordPress started as a traditional CMS, a platform where content management and website appearance are tightly connected.

Normally, you’d create pages, posts, and pick themes all in one spot. However, as websites grew more complex, this traditional approach felt limiting.

This is where headless WordPress comes in. In this setup, WordPress still manages your content, functioning as just a content database, but now it delivers it through APIs like REST or GraphQL. The frontend is built separately, using modern frameworks like React or Next.js.

This transition happened because WordPress users wanted more flexibility, faster performance, and better control. And headless WordPress delivers exactly that.

Decoupled vs Headless WordPress CMS

Benefits of Headless WordPress

WP Headless CMS isn’t just a trendy solution; it solves real challenges. By separating your content from your design, you escape traditional WordPress limitations.

You gain flexibility, improve site performance, and unlock full control of your website.

Here are the top benefits that make headless WordPress a smart choice:

1. Faster Website Performance

Headless setups allow your site to load quickly by separating the front end from the WordPress backend. With less clutter, visitors enjoy a faster experience, and your website climbs higher in search rankings.

2. Unlimited Design Flexibility

Traditional WordPress themes limit your creativity. A headless setup lets you design freely using frameworks like React or Vue. You can create unique experiences tailored exactly to your audience’s needs.

3. Easily Publish Content Everywhere

Headless WordPress makes it simple to share content across multiple channels. Create content once and publish on websites, apps, or even smart devices, all from a single content management platform.

4. Enhanced User Experience

A fast, responsive site leads to happier visitors. Headless architecture ensures smooth interactions and seamless navigation, improving conversions and user satisfaction.

5. Simplified Maintenance

Separating content from your front end simplifies updates and maintenance. You face fewer technical issues, fewer update conflicts, and spend less time troubleshooting.

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6. Future-Proof Your Content

Digital trends evolve rapidly. With headless WordPress, your content remains adaptable. You can easily connect to multiple platforms and technologies without completely rebuilding your system.

Potential Challenges with Headless WordPress

Going headless with WordPress offers many benefits, but there are also a few challenges to consider. It’s important to understand these before making the switch.

1. Loss of Native WordPress Features

One downside is losing access to traditional WordPress themes and plugins. Since your frontend is separate, many familiar WordPress plugins like page builders and visual editors may no longer work. You’ll need custom solutions to replace them.

2. Increased Development Complexity

Building and managing a headless site can be more complicated. You’ll need headless frontend developers comfortable working with APIs and frameworks like React or Vue. This complexity can mean higher costs and longer development times.

3. SEO Challenges

Headless WordPress can complicate your SEO strategy because traditional SEO plugins might not work out of the box.

To solve this, you’ll need to set up SEO features manually, such as metadata, sitemaps, and structured data.

4. Content Preview Issues

Previewing your content before publishing can be trickier in a headless setup. Editors might struggle to visualise final layouts, which can slow down your content creation workflow.

5. Maintenance Overhead

Maintaining two separate systems (front-end and back-end) can mean more effort and resources.

Updates require coordination between frontend and backend developers, which may increase management complexity.

How do you set up WordPress as a headless CMS?

Setting up WordPress as a headless CMS might seem complicated at first, but it’s simpler than you think. You’ll keep WordPress for managing content but use a separate front-end for displaying it.

Here’s how to get started step-by-step:

Step 1: WordPress Installation

• Install a fresh WordPress site or use your existing one.
• Choose a reliable hosting provider.
• Configure your basic settings (site name, permalinks, etc.).

Step 2: Enable WordPress REST API or GraphQL

• Activate the built-in WordPress REST API (it’s already there!).
• Or install the WPGraphQL plugin if you prefer GraphQL.
• Test the API to ensure it’s serving content correctly.

Step 3: Choose Your Frontend Framework

• Select a frontend tool like React, Next.js, Vue, or Gatsby.
• Set up a new frontend project using your chosen framework.

Step 4: Connect Frontend to WordPress

• Fetch your content using REST or GraphQL APIs from WordPress.
• Set up routing to display your WordPress posts and pages.
• Test everything to ensure data flows smoothly.

Step 5: Style and Design Your Frontend

• Design your website exactly how you want (no theme limitations)!
• Implement styling using CSS or popular libraries like Tailwind or Bootstrap.

Step 6: Deploy Your Frontend

• Choose a platform like Netlify, Vercel, or AWS for deployment.
• Connect your frontend presentation layer to the web server hosting platform.
• Launch your new headless WordPress site and enjoy the flexibility!

Tools and Plugins for Headless WordPress

The process of adding and setting up headless WordPress becomes easier with the right tools and plugins. Here are some popular options to make your life simpler:

WPGraphQL

This powerful plugin lets you use GraphQL to fetch data from WordPress. It’s faster and more efficient than traditional REST APIs, making data retrieval quick and precise.

Advanced Custom Fields

ACF helps you manage custom fields easily. It integrates smoothly with WPGraphQL, allowing you to deliver custom content effortlessly to your frontend.

Headless CMS Starter Kit

This starter kit provides pre-configured settings and tools, simplifying the setup of your headless WordPress environment.

Frontity (for React Users)

Frontity is specifically built for headless WordPress with React. It offers optimised performance and makes connecting React frontends to WordPress easy.

Faust.js (Next.js & React Framework)

Faust.js simplifies building headless WordPress sites using Next.js and React. It provides tools designed specifically for WordPress developers.

Other Useful Tools and Plugins:

• WP REST API (default WordPress REST API)
• Yoast SEO or Rank Math (SEO setup)
• Custom Post Type UI (content creation)
• JWT Authentication (for secure API access)
• Gatsby Source WordPress (Gatsby frontend integration)
• Next.js WordPress Starter (pre-built Next.js starter template)

Future of Headless WordPress

Headless WordPress is quickly changing as businesses want more flexibility and speed. The biggest changes include the growth of modular setups, letting brands easily combine different tools based on their needs.

Another important change is the rise of multi-channel content delivery, which pushes WordPress into headless setups as companies try to create consistent experiences on websites, mobile apps, and smart devices.

Frontend technologies like React and Vue are now often used with WordPress to boost speed and improve user experience.

With 64% of large companies planning to use headless systems, WordPress’s flexibility helps it stay a popular CMS choice.

Examples of Headless WordPress

A list of websites that use headless WordPress for the front end. See how they have improved the visuals and as a result the whole user experience.

1. TechCrunch

TechCrunch wanted to make a design that would be beneficial for them as well as their guests.

Thus, they decided to make use of the state-of-the-art technology available to them by adopting the headless WordPress method and a few other technical tools.

They have a new, minimalist design that loads rapidly for better user experience and easy administration.

2. Meta Brand Resource Center

To maintain consistency across all of Meta’s many properties, the company maintains a Meta Brand Resource Center.

This is another excellent use of the headless WordPress framework.

This headless WordPress website’s open and distinctive layout adapts gracefully as you explore the many product lines.

Once you’ve navigated to a subpage, you’ll see that the menu and other fixed parts of the page will always be visible, even while additional content loads in the background.

3. Beachbody on Demand

Workout videos, meal plans, and more may be found on Beachbody on Demand, a streaming service.

The fitness company’s website has a sleek JavaScript user interface and looks to be built on the popular content management system WordPress.

As a result of partitioning their front- and back-end operations, they are better equipped to distribute content across their many channels.

This site’s design is flawless, and it’s easy to see how the headless WordPress setup simplifies administration and automates asset management.

Conclusion

A headless CMS architecture gives you more flexibility, quicker loading times, and better control over design. It separates your content from the layout, letting you easily publish to multiple channels.

However, it can also be harder to set up and you might lose some regular WordPress features. With the right people, tools, and planning, headless WordPress helps create fast and effective websites.

If you want to keep up with trends and provide a great user experience, headless WordPress is a smart choice.

Make Creative WordPress Websites with WP Creative

WP Creative is your trusted team for fast and effective WordPress websites. With a decade of experience, we build custom WordPress sites that clearly meet your business needs.

Our team has years of experience working with both traditional and headless WordPress setups. We help you choose the best option to improve your website performance.

Whether you want a traditional WordPress site or a modern headless solution, we create websites that attract visitors and increase conversions. Partner with WP Creative, Australia’s top WordPress web design agency, and make your ideas a reality.

Get Your Free Website Audit

($3,000 Value)

• Uncover performance issues
• Identify SEO opportunities
• Security gaps, and quick wins

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