In the battle between KeystoneJS vs Strapi, traditional vs headless CMSs’, which one is a better fit for you?
What is a CMS? A Content Management System is a developer-friendly application that can be used to manage the creation and modification of digital content. A CMS should have all the needed functionality everyday users need, and should be developer-friendly too; it should integrate to any modern JS front-end framework, and power your website with high speed. Keystone Js and Strapi are both popular CMSs’, with Strapi being more popular than Keystone Js currently.
Keystone Js: The Traditional CMS
npm init keystone-app my-keystone-app
cd my-keystone-app
yarn dev
Sign in to the admin panel using the initially generated user credentials
Example ‘list’ model:
Creating “lists” in keystone is easy, here are 2 examples:
Adding a todo using the auto-generated admin ui:
Example 2:
To use Keystone’s API, we make a POST with a query to “/admin/api”
Keystone’s starter “todo” project’s front-end:
Why do developers like Keystone Js?
- Express.js and MongoDB
- Fast definition of schema and application structure
- Content management that matches any application structure
- Auto-generated Admin UI
- Access control configuration
- GraphQL API
- Supports independent packages
- Open-source
STRAPI: The next-gen Headless CMS
What is Strapi & why should I use it? Strapi markets itself as an efficient API creation tool, that helps you get an application up and running quickly.
- Install Strapi and Create a new project
OPTIONAL: Strapi Docker
Using this docker file should allow you to follow along regardless of your operating system: https://github.com/shahinrostami/stra…
yarn create strapi-app my-project --quickstart
npx create-strapi-app my-project --quickstart
Now that our project is created, we have a final step to create our first administrator login. To do so, navigate to http://localhost:1337/admin
Once our admin user is created, we’re redirected to the Admin dashboard. From here, you can manage and configure your API quickly.
Let’s create our own content type!
We can do this through the admin panel using the default content-type builder plugin.
Click “+ create new collection type”, here I’m creating a collection “Notes,” then continue.
Here, we have different types of data supported by Strapi and some example use cases.
Choose ‘text’, here we’re adding the name of who created the note
Using advanced settings, we can add “Anonymous” as our default value for our “Name” field, and make it a required input.
We can quickly add additional fields to our Notes collection type by clicking “+ Add another field.” Once finished, click continue.
Be sure to click “Save” once finished building your content type. Our Strapi server needs to restart.
When it’s done, our content type is ready to view through the admin panel.
If we click ‘+ Add New Note,’ we can create our first note through the admin panel. Click save, now you can see our newly-created note in this list.
Quickly add a second note. Now we’re going to interact with our API and content using web requests. Navigate to https://localhost:1337/Notes DOCKER: https://YOUR_IP_ADDRESS/Notes
Currently, we get a 403 status because we don’t have permission to do this. For the purpose of this demo, let’s expose all of our actions publically. This is for demonstration purposes only!
Navigate to Roles & Permissions in the admin panel, choose ‘Public’ from the list and ‘select all’ under Permissions. Then click ‘Save.’
Now, navigate back
Using Postman:
Why do developers like Strapi?
- Generate the admin panel in a few clicks and get your whole CMS setup in a few minutes
- Fetch any data you might need via a REST API or GraphQL endpoint.
- Access Control
- Plugin system
- Strapi’s architecture allows you to customize your app to match your exact use case
- MongoDB / SQLite
- open-source
The Verdict
Using a CMS is a better option if you’re creating a large website or will make additions to your site down the line. A good CMS will make it easier to do things like edit existing pages, publish new pages, add an online store, create web forms, and so forth. In my opinion; if you’re looking for something to run a small site, that’s not for a client, not much risk, I believe Keystone Js is great for node.js developers. Else, I would use Strapi.
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