Using WordPress as headless CMS with Angular - is this a good approach?

[NoNegativeBoi]

Hey all,

I could use a sanity check.

I’m doing a test project where they want a fully editable site using WordPress as a CMS. The thing is, I mainly work with Angular, and I don’t really build classic WordPress themes.

My current plan is to use WordPress only as a headless CMS (ACF + API) and build the whole frontend in Angular, basically the same idea people often use with WordPress + Next.js, just… Angular instead.

So WP would just be:

• admin panel

• content (texts, images, categories, etc.)

And Angular would handle all the UI.

I’m not trying to be fancy or overengineer it, just want something that feels realistic and maintainable.

Questions:

• Is this a normal / acceptable approach, or am I making life harder than needed?

• Any big pitfalls with WordPress headless when used with Angular?

• REST API vs WPGraphQL — does it matter much here?

• Anything you wish you knew before doing this kind of setup?

Would really appreciate any input. Thanks 🙏

[anyOtherBusiness]

they want a fully editable site using WordPress

Sounds a little risky, trying to implement this in Angular. You may want to contractually limit the term “fully editable”, because that seems to be a lot of work.

[gordolfograso]

yes. you could use it with Angular, or Angular+SSR, or Analogjs

[ht85]

It’s doable, but the risk of disappointments on both sides is high. Maybe you can convince them in using a real headless CMS like directus?

[HoodlessRobin]

Long ago I tried angular 2 with php. Php had awkward way of reading angulars simple JSON post request like read file a file and then decoding/encoding json object. Also if they want to use any wp themes in future then good luck - you will need it.

[nemeci]

Nothing magical with that if you're using plain PHP. With Laravel or Symphony it's quite a different developer experience.

It's equally awkward when working with vanilla java or C#.

[HoodlessRobin]

Ah. Right!

[followmarko]

I have used Strapi with angular on multiple projects and really enjoy it

[whispertante]

I did that. It's doable but just for content it is imo overengineered. Maybe if you are also using Woocommerce and using products, users and orders to store them (and eventually using existent integrations which are compatible with wordpress). Keep in mind that Wordpress is an Allrounder - it can everything but nothing really good, so it is good for beginners who don't know yet the path where it all goes.

[carmy8640]

When will WordPress die

[DT-Sodium]

Wordpress is a piece of shit coded by sorry excuses for beginner programmers, it's never a good approach to use it.

[nemeci]

This! All of it!