Frontend options for Contentful: starter, custom build or page builder

Contentful is a headless CMS: API-first, with a strong content model and an app framework. It delivers content through the Content Delivery API and GraphQL, 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 Contentful.

What Contentful gives you

Contentful manages your content model, editorial workflow and localization, and exposes everything through the Content Delivery API and GraphQL. What it does not give you is a ready storefront: layout, components and page logic are yours to build.

The frontend question

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

• Official starter or example: 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 Contentful

Laioutr reads your Contentful content through the Content Delivery API and GraphQL and renders it as a fast frontend, with 70+ components, EU hosting and Core Web Vitals by default. Contentful stays your content backend; Laioutr delivers the frontend. The same pattern works across CMS platforms, see for example the Page Builder for TYPO3.

FAQ

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

How does Laioutr connect to Contentful? Through the Content Delivery API and GraphQL, plus project-specific queries for custom logic.

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