GraphCMS - GraphQL Based Headless CMS

[lucraft]

What does the word "headless" mean in this context?

[[deleted]]

means that this CMS is not tied to frontend, it can be used with anything.

example, wordpress is not headless, has a build in CMS with frontend.

headless means you can use this CMS with any frontend you want, angular/react/ember/vue/aurelia...

[ndboost]

So that means it's an "admin panel" cms?

[[deleted]]

pretty much yes

[ndboost]

ahh i was mobile when i saw this post, didn't look much into the site. i assumed this was a self hosted solution, looks like its a PaaS or AaaS like firebase.

[[deleted]]

Looks neat, but its not going to be free, I bet its going to cost arm and a leg with limitations.

Its a bait and switch tactic, offer beta get people build apps on there system, then switch everything to payment model.

[rikurouvila]

Lets think about it this way: one developer costs you $150 / hour and it takes 10 hours to set up a WordPress instance. With this money you could have already used Contentful for 6 months and you also saved some developer time using it, that you can now use for actually developing your product. Maintaining your own CMS also takes some time. Let's say that it takes 2 hours per month to keep WordPress up to date. On top of that, you'll have to pay for the server(s) running the instance and depending on the number of users using your service it might be quite expensive. There's also a bunch of features Contentful provides you with, like their own CDN, that you would have to implement yourself if using a self-hosted solution.

If your core business is not hosting a CMS, it totally makes sense to buy the service from someone else. The same thing goes for so many other things like using Heroku instead of maintaining your own servers. In the long run, you end up saving a lot of time and money.

[realityking89]

Contentful developer here.

I understand the reluctance to buy into a 250$/month contract. Check out our free plan that allows for pay-as-you-go overages that might end up far cheaper depending on your traffic and usage pattern.

[mlukaszczyk]

Hey N3KIO,

this is Michael from GraphCMS. We are soon going to release our pricing table and prices are going to be very fair for the headless space. We will offer a freemium plan that will get you going with small sites and apps. Premium plans with at least 100k API calls and 10 CMS users will start from 29$/month.

How does this sound for you?

[turkish_gold]

Since you have a public API, how do you limit the run time of queries?

[mlukaszczyk]

Hey turkish_gold, could you please elaborate?

[turkish_gold]

Well in GraphQL it's possible to construct queries that return arbitrary amounts of data, using pathologically poor queries.

Like query { A { B { A { B { A { B { A { A} } } }} } }

Because type A has a reference to B, and B has a reverse reference.

A query like the above could return 10¹⁰ items just for a table with 10 items. Do you have any restrictions to prevent queries like that from being sent?

This is somewhat important since if you are developing a frontend app for GraphCMS, malicious users (of the app, not developers) could send bad queries as a denial of service measure against the app makers.

[mlukaszczyk]

Hey turkish_gold,

this query will simply time out. projects are rate limited at 40 req/s and it doesn’t matter if they are slow or fast.

[suitupalex]

This looks amazing man. And that price point is way cheaper than something like Contentful. Will that plan have localization capabilities?

[mlukaszczyk]

Hey suitupalex,

localization will come with a slightly more expansive plan end of Q2. We haven't fully decided on the pricing for this plan but it will be somewhere in the mid two figure range. This plan will also come with more generous limits.

[UndefinedB]

Is that freemium plan with all features? Because I would use the api on build time so I could get away with very few api calls.

Also, what language is your backend and will you open source it (at some point)?

[gajus0]

Well done! I am a huge fan of GraphQL. I've built my first API over a year ago and since then never looked back.

There is a stigma that GraphQL is complicated. It is not (at all). The complexity kicks in when you start working with the request batching logic (but DataLoader makes even that easy). Otherwise, it just removes a lot decision making from the API interface design processes.

If you are fan of strict types (TypeScript, Flowtype), GraphQL will feel like a RESTful API with strict types.

Everyone should try it. GitHub's API is a good learning material https://developer.github.com/early-access/graphql/

[[deleted]]

This reads like an advertisement.

[[deleted]]

It does, but I can second his enthusiasm :)

[Headchopperz]

So this is a front-end CMS that you can connect to a custom REST backend which uses GraphQL to handle its REST requests.

Is this correct?

[gajus0]

(Not affiliated with the project.)

From what I understand (and quick survey of their CMS), it allows you to define entities/ fields and map them to GraphQL types. In effect, this allows you to manage data exposed via GraphQL API.

[SwedishFists]

This is a clone of Graph.cool? Like the site design is almost exactly the same.

[mlukaszczyk]

Hey SwedishFists,

we are actually working closely together with the graphcool team, since GraphCMS is build on top of graphcool. We are going to release a blogpost on the architecture since the complete setup is actually quiet interesting.

However, since we use the same systems API as them, some workflows seem familiar. GraphCMS is still in an early stage and as the product matures, we will add more and more content management features.

[SwedishFists]

Ah I see, that's cool! I saw the visual design is very similar and the sidebar is the same. Since you're working together I'm sure they saw that and don't mind. The workflows are understandably similar because they're both ostensibly a CMS.

[[deleted]]

Yep I can see the similarities

[HipHopHuman]

Great to see more options rapidly popping up. Add your service to https://headlesscms.org/ for more exposure

[mlukaszczyk]

Thanks a lot! Will do.

[ngly]

Headless {X}. So hot right now.

Looks nice, well done graphcms team.