Frontend options for Contao: from CMS to live storefront

Contao is a DACH-rooted, accessibility-focused CMS you can run headless: it delivers content through its content API, but it does not ship a finished, production-ready frontend. Building that frontend is a separate decision, and a visual page builder is one of the routes for Contao.

What Contao gives you

Contao manages your content, editorial workflow and localization, and exposes it through its content API. What it does not give you is a ready storefront: layout, components and page logic are yours to build.

The frontend question

Every Contao project faces the same choice. Four options are established:

• Official starter or template: great to learn, you keep building the production frontend
• Community framework: active, but no official product and no enterprise support net
• Custom build (Next.js or Nuxt): full control, six to twelve months plus maintenance
• Visual page builder: components, hosting and a visual editor in the platform, live in weeks

Laioutr as the frontend layer for Contao

Laioutr reads your Contao content through its content API and renders it as a fast frontend, with 70+ components, EU hosting and Core Web Vitals by default. Contao stays your content backend; Laioutr delivers the frontend. See, for example, the Page Builder for TYPO3.

FAQ

Does Laioutr replace Contao? No. Contao stays the content backend; Laioutr is the frontend layer on top.

How does Laioutr connect to Contao? Through its content API, plus project-specific queries for custom logic.

More on the category: what a Frontend Management Platform is, or the Laioutr home page.