React Bricks vs Headless

React Bricks is the first headless CMS for Content creators, with true visual editing: easy as Wix, but for corporate.

A clarification on terms

React Bricks is itself a headless CMS in the sense that it has APIs as a service, but:

• It is also a React library which you use to create your React content blocks
• The Admin interface is hosted by you, it uses the react-bricks library and so it knows how your content blocks are rendered.

These two features together make it unique, and allows magic that cannot be done with a "normal" headless CMS: the magic of direct Visual editing.

What is a Headless CMS

Once there were the monolithic CMSs, like Worpress and Drupal (and they are still there). Then came APIs and the separation of concern between the server APIs and the frontend website. Developers want to do the frontend part, creating websites using React (with Next.js, Gatsby or Remix). And so came headless CMSs, the server part of a monolithic CMS as a service (admin interface and APIs).

But headless CMSs don't know how the content is presented on the frontend (they are decoupled from the frontend, which developers like), and so you cannot have visual editing any more.With headless CMSs, we lost the direct visual editing of content, which was replaced by gray forms.

Visual editing is a much better UX for content creators, because they can see how the content looks as they create it.

The best headless CMSs try to fill this gap providing an instant preview: you edit the code on a form which lays on a sidebar and you see the result on the page.

Unfortunately that is not direct visual editing. Writing in one place and looking for result in another place causes a much higher cognitive load. Developers are used to this: edit code in your IDE and see the result in the browser. Content creators are used to the much better experience of Word or Pages: you just click on the text that you want to change and write.

Why React Bricks

React Bricks combines all the advantages of a headless CMS and a visual site builder, improving on both: it is better than a headless for developers and better than a visual builder for marketing and content creators. Let's see why!

Advantages for developers

You get all the advantages of a Headless CMS:

• APIs as a service
• Image optimization and serving from CDN
• Use a React framework on the frontend

and much more:

• Born for React with TypeScript
• Work faster: as you define the fields in your React components, you need no back and forth between the headless and your code editor: you stay in the flow
• Switch framework in minutes: from Next.js to Gatsby or Remix, it is really a matter of minutes. New starter from the CLI » copy the `react-bricks` folder » good to go!
• Make your marketing or customers happy with visually editable blocks

Advantages for content creators

You get all the advantages of a Visual builder like Wix or WebFlow:

• Best in class Visual editing experience
• No need for training because the interface is very intuitive

and much more:

• Your own corporate design implemented in React components
• Easy interface: understanding CSS properties is not a content creator's job, right?
• The right level of freedom: all the freedom you want and no more than you need. Get your job done, quickly!