What is a Hybrid CMS?
A hybrid CMS is the next generation of content management, with all of the advantages of a headless CMS with those of a traditional, enterprise class CMS. Find out more.
The Hybrid CMS
A Hybrid CMS uses a Headless Architecture with REST-ful Content API to provide Content as a Service (CaaS) for your existing and upcoming touchpoints, while also offering deep 3rd party integrations (your e-commerce system, for example) where necessary.
Hybrid CMSs offer additional features that today's pure play headless CMSs are lacking, such as the ability to preview channel content, support workflows and collaboration across teams, scale content management across multiple brands, countries and languages, ease of use for non-technical users, and interoperability with key components of your technology stack in order to enable a next generation digital experience (DX) ecosystem tailored to your exact business needs.
Benefits of Hybrid CMS
Combining the best features of a Headless CMS (including decoupled) with those of a traditional, enterprise-class CMS gives you many advantages:
- Agility: Leverage the power of deep integration offered by a more traditional decoupled CMS to enable fast, powerful interconnections within any DX ecosystem; while also freeing up content, with headless CMS capabilities, to be used by any next generation front-end or device (e.g., SPAs, PWAs, conversational platforms, digital signs or IoT devices) without costly and time intensive replatforming of your existing CMS. (i.e., a hybrid CMS can work alongside of your existing CMS)
- Empowerment: A hybrid CMS is a key part of modernizing your technology stack to establish one source of content truth, manageable and/or accessible by anyone within or outside of your organization to drive a more consistent, inspiring and relevant experience for customers no matter where they are or what stage they are at in the buyer’s journey.
- Intelligence: Today’s leading hybrid CMS also offers the ability to personalize content-driven experiences at scale, tapping into the power of internal, external and behavioral data to not only drive engagement with your audiences, but to create fans out of them for your brand enabled by data-driven intelligence.
Learn more about Hybrid CMS in our newest e-book
Download now!Crownpeak’s Hybrid Headless CMS Capabilities
Our Hybrid Headless CMS, FirstSpirit, is the next generation of content management. It combines the best of two worlds: The benefits of modern headless architecture (high agility, short time-to-market and easy expansion to new touchpoints) and the power and ease of use of traditional content management including collaboration, workflow and scalability for large and high growth organizations, deep integration into any application as needed versus relying solely on simply API connections, and powerful WYSIWYG capabilities. Key differentiators of Crownpeak’s hybrid CMS include:
- The power of a headless CMS for true omnichannel marketing.
Headless is the state-of-the-art approach to create digital experiences at scale. It decouples the presentation (layout, UX etc.) of digital experiences from the orchestration and creation of content. That enables much higher agility and a shorter time to market for all DX projects for editing, updating and creating new touchpoints (mobile apps, digital signs, wearables, augmented and virtual reality devices, and digital and voice assistants). It also provides IT with freedom of choice of front-end technology for any touchpoint or device and is easy to integrate with any tool of a DX ecosystem. - Coupled with enterprise-class content management to complete a scalable solution that can be leveraged by business users and technical teams.
Crownpeak’s Hybrid Headless CMS offers both headless and coupled/decoupled capabilities within the same architecture to serve all digital touchpoints and guarantee maximum agility and future-readiness with an enterprise-class CMS. While pure play headless CMSs are exclusively designed for developers, Crownpeak’s Hybrid Headless CMS is made for marketers and other business users. It helps these teams achieve their goals fast, intuitively and without involving IT. (e.g., no code environments, easy provisioning of new channels) - Touchpoint editing to view AND edit content on any device within or outside of your company’s channels.
Marketers have full control over the touchpoint experience on any device or channel as well as access to powerful CMS tools including content reuse, analytics, third-party system integration and more. Crownpeak’s unique Touchpoint Editing allows content not only to be previewed but to be edited intuitively and directly in the context of any output channel - without the need for complex CMS integration by IT. Our tools integrate seamlessly and with minimal effort into every channel. That way every touchpoint is turned into a enterprise-class DX cockpit for marketers. - Fragment creator for creating a more cohesive experience across many channels and devices, simultaneously.
Critical to omnichannel personalization, Crownpeak’s FragmentCreator helps marketers create content fragments that can be pulled to any channel or web page and reassembled for the perfect digital experience—with ease and without IT involvement.
Hybrid CMS in Short:
An enterprise-class hybrid CMS, including headless and decoupled capabilities, offers significant opportunity for companies to bring more inspiring, content-driven experiences to their B2B and B2C customers. No longer must developers, marketers and other digital experience professionals be limited to the monolithic, traditional CMS or pure-play headless CMSs which lack scalability and/or ease of use for non-technical teams. The result is the ability to create and deliver the ideal connected digital experience for each individual customer in the right context and at the right time and place to drive engagement and revenue.
