Content and data are at the core of every organization's business model; they hold the power to make or break an organization's future in the market. Leveraging content and data to your advantage can result in exponential growth within a short time frame, and managing them well, is therefore essential to success in today’s business environment. While there have been countless advancements within this domain, one of the most groundbreaking has been the development of the Headless CMS.
AHeadless CMS is a back-end content management system (CMS), built as a content repository that uses APIs to make content accessible. It’s “headless” because it’s decoupled from the front-end of the digital experience – developers have separated the head or front-end from the body or back-end. This is a departure from models in which the front and back-ends were combined into a simple monolithic system, placing limitations on an organization’s ability to manage and leverage the content across different applications. A headless CMS brings new options and possibilities for both engineers and users.
Prior to the term “headless CMS” being coined, Directus pioneered the technology and is now disrupting the space. Founded in 2004 by Ben Hayes, the company has been at the technological forefront for nearly two decades.
Since its inception, Directus has completed several major transitions. Rijk van Zanten joined Haynes in 2015 on the project and they dedicated themselves to democratizing data across the enterprise.
Operating from the New York headquarters of the parent company, Monospace Inc., Directus has since become fully decentralized with all employees working remotely. Key competitors have included WordPress and Drupal. However, with the release of Directus 9 – a new version of the platform was built from the ground up in JavaScript with a focus on data and expanded use cases, including the ability to power SaaS offerings, internal tools, and data & analytics platforms – Directus has moved beyond competing with monolithic CMS vendors to establish itself as a pioneering Open Data Platform that can be used to manage anything in a SQL database.
The rapid growth of Directus can be attributed to Haynes’s and Zanten’s passion for enabling technical and non-technical users to leverage content and data to support business initiatives and deliver data-driven digital projects to market rapidly and cost-effectively. The core team comprises roughly 50 people with 17 core members, including Haynes and Zanten.
Since the beginning, Directus has been an open-source platform that’s free and accessible to anyone and will remain that way.
Being open-source is one of the things that makes the Directus platform unique; thousands if not millions of developers and users from all parts of the world have contributed to the evolution of Directus, helping to shape the product roadmap and create an offering that meets the unique needs of developers building digital projects.
In Q1, 2022, Directus launched a tiered cloud version of the platform, Directus Cloud, a performant and scalable data backbone for powering digital projects. Today, anyone can get up and running on Directus for free, through the Directus Community Cloud offering.