The Best Next CMS (Headless): Highest-Rated on G2

ButterCMS is Uniquely-Suited for Next.js Dev Environments

ButterCMS is designed to seamlessly integrate with Next.js applications. It offers several features that harmonize with Next.js's powerful capabilities. This synergy empowers developers to effortlessly create dynamic and lightning-fast Next.js applications.

Components

Next.js allows developers to harness server and client components to build highly responsive UIs. Likewise, ButterCMS offers a composable, component-based architecture that simplifies the creation of user-friendly and dynamic web pages.

Optimizations by default

Next.js and ButterCMS both prioritize optimization for effortlessly smooth user interfaces. Next.js offers built-in features to automatically optimize images, fonts, and static assets. ButterCMS centralizes asset management and auto-compresses images in webp format, ensuring a fast loading website.

Next’s rendering flexibility and Butter’s APIs – a perfect match

Next.js' versatile rendering patterns and the robust APIs provided by ButterCMS are a match made in development heaven. Next.js offers different rendering techniques, including Server-Side Rendering (SSR), Static Rendering, and HTML streaming.

With ButterCMS APIs integrated, developers can leverage these rendering techniques to build dynamic server-rendered and client-rendered pages, tailored to the unique needs of their application. This collaboration ensures that your content is not only optimized, but also beautifully presented, meeting the exacting standards of modern web applications.

E-commerce

Next.js and ButterCMS come together seamlessly to power your e-commerce website. Next offers optimal rendering for product pages with SSR and static rendering. It also provides Next.js Commerce, a production-ready React starter kit for speedy e-commerce sites.

ButterCMS offers powerful content management, which allows you to effortlessly handle product catalogs and promotional content. Together, they enable you to build a lightning-fast e-commerce platform that adapts to your store’s needs and delivers a superior shopping experience to your customers.

Built for scalability and resilient

ButterCMS and Next.js are built for scalability and robustness. ButterCMS optimizes performance and scalability through a globally cached API, while also ensuring data safety with daily automated backups.

Next.js supports different server runtimes, including serverless and edge options. With serverless, you can create auto-scaling deployments, which eliminates the need for infrastructure management. Meanwhile, the edge runtimes excel in delivering content with minimal latency, ensuring a snappy user experience.

Multi-channel and multi-site

Next’s dynamic rendering and routing capabilities and component-based architecture align perfectly with Butter’s multi-channel and multi-site support. Developers can build content components that span different Next applications, saving valuable development time and ensuring a consistent UI.

Moreover, Next’s dynamic content rendering and Butter’s multi-channel content delivery (via APIs) allow businesses to tailor content based on user preferences, and efficiently deliver it across various channels.

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Marketing site

Next.js is an excellent choice for creating modern marketing sites, particularly when paired with ButterCMS. Marketing sites often require frequent content updates to stay current with the market dynamics, promotions, or events.

ButterCMS simplifies this process with its user-friendly dashboard, allowing easy backend updates at scale. Next.js, with its versatile component rendering strategies, seamlessly handles these changes on the frontend.

Next.js blog engine

ButterCMS comes with a built-in Next.js blog engine, sparing businesses the need to build one from the ground up. Instead, they can simply integrate with Butter’s Next.js blog engine in minutes.

This not only saves time but also leads to your blog being powered by a battle-tested, user-friendly, API-first, and SE-optimized engine that works well with new and existing Next.js apps.

Developer-friendliness

ButterCMS and Next.js both shine in terms of developer-friendliness. Next.js builds upon React's developer-friendly foundation to make it even easier for developers to implement complex rendering, routing, and caching logic.

ButterCMS complements this by providing client libraries and starter kits for various languages and frameworks, including Next.js. With a well-documented API, webhooks support, one-click migration, and WYSIWYG power-ups, developers can work efficiently and with ease.

Compare Next.js CMS Solutions

In a marketplace flooded with Next.js CMS solutions, finding the one that aligns most closely with Next.js design principles can be a challenge. That's where ButterCMS comes into play. Not only does it seamlessly integrate with Next.js, but it also offers unique features that set it apart from other top CMS options.

These aren't empty claims; they're backed by official G2 ratings. G2 ratings are a testament to real-world user experiences. They highlight Butter's effectiveness, reliability, and the satisfaction it brings to its users.

As you can see, Butter consistently outperforms other leading Next.js CMS options, such as Sanity, Contentful, and Strapi, across a range of critical criteria. Whether it's meeting requirements, ease of use, administration, or the quality of support, ButterCMS takes the lead.

ButterCMS has also earned the title of "easiest to use headless CMS" for Next.js and other frontend frameworks on G2. This recognition cements its reputation as a user-and-developer-friendly choice in the realm of Next.js CMS solutions.

“Best CMS on the market”

After shopping the market, it was clear that ButterCMS was the perfect choice. It allows our developers to build powerful components and makes it easy for our marketing team to drive a better customer experience. Hampton Catlin Creator of Sass and Haml

Deploy our Next.JS starter in 30 seconds

Or follow the below commands to clone a copy of the repo from github, install dependencies, set your free Butter token, and run your local server on localhost:3000/.

$ git clone https://github.com/ButterCMS/nextjs-starter-buttercms.git
$ cd nextjs-starter-buttercms
$ npm install # or yarn install
$ echo 'NEXT_PUBLIC_BUTTER_CMS_API_KEY=your_free_api_token_here' >> .env
$ npm run dev # or yarn dev

Learn More

What Key Criteria Should You Look for in a Next.js CMS?

When it comes to choosing a CMS for your Next.js application, the most viable option is to go headless. Attempting to integrate Next.js with a traditional CMS often requires a slew of workarounds and hacks, which can lead to architectural issues down the road.

In this section, we'll explore the key criteria you should consider when selecting a Next.js CMS, and explain why the headless approach is the most logical and future-proof choice.

Customizability

Next.js is known for its adaptability. It empowers developers to build fully customized UI applications. The ideal Next.js CMS should echo this flexibility, offering an extensive range of customizations to cater to your specific needs. Look for a CMS that allows you to effortlessly tweak templates, components, styles, and content structures.

Performance

Next.js is synonymous with high-performance web applications. The right CMS should complement this by offering robust APIs to ensure that the content delivery process aligns with Next's speedy rendering and routing capabilities.

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Scalability

Next.js facilitates the development of scalable applications by supporting different server runtimes and intelligent caching strategies. Ensure that the chosen CMS is capable of handling increasing amounts of content and users without a hitch. This guarantees that as your Next.js application expands, your CMS remains a robust and reliable partner.

Developer friendliness

Next.js's developer-friendly environment is a significant draw for many. A compatible CMS should align with this approach. Look for a CMS that simplifies content management and provides easy integration with Next.js. Extensive API documentation, starter kits, client libraries, and troubleshooting guides are a must.

Ease of use

Next.js-based web projects often require collaboration between developers, marketers, and content creators. An easy-to-use CMS is important to ensure that non-technical users can manage content without the need for constant developer intervention. This streamlines the content update process, and boosts productivity.

Security

Modern Next apps often leverage a lot of user data (activity, preferences) to deliver personalized experiences. Therefore, it’s important to choose a CMS that’s secure enough to safeguard this data and protect your Next application from potential threats. Look for features like encryption at rest and in transit, API keys, and automated backups.

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SEO

Flexible rendering and routing strategies make Next.js an SEO-friendly framework. The ideal CMS should complement this by offering features like SEO metadata, clean URL structures, and integrations with performance optimization tools. A Next.js CMS with built-in SEO ensures that your web application is search engine-friendly, which gives your content the visibility it deserves.

How to integrate ButterCMS into your Next application

Just follow the simple steps below to complete the integration and begin creating pages with Butter. Be sure to check out our full guide to creating pages using the ButterCMS Next API.

With your homepage defined, the ButterCMS Pages API will return it in JSON format like this:

{
  "data": {
    "slug": "homepage",
    "fields": {
      "seo_title": "Anvils and Dynamite | Acme Co",
      "headline": "Acme Co provides supplies to your favorite cartoon heroes.",
      "hero_image": "https://cdn.buttercms.com/c8oSTGcwQDC5I58km5WV",
      "call_to_action": "Buy Now",
      "customer_logos": [
        {
          "logo_image": "https://cdn.buttercms.com/c8oSTGcwQDC5I58km5WV"
        },
        {
          "logo_image": "https://cdn.buttercms.com/c8oSTGcwQDC5I58km5WV"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

To integrate this into your app, update pages/index.js:

import React from 'react'
import Butter from 'buttercms'
import Head from 'next/head'

const butter = Butter('')

export default class extends React.Component {
  static async getInitialProps () {
    const resp = await butter.page.retrieve('*', 'homepage')
    return resp.data
  }
  render () {
    const product = this.props.data
    const { 
      seo_title: seoTitle, 
      hero_image: heroImage, 
      call_to_action: callToAction, 
      customer_logos: customerLogos,
      headline } = product.fields

    return (
      <div>
        <Head>
          <title>{seoTitle}</title>
        </Head>

        <img src={heroImage} />
        <h1>{headline}</h1>

        <button>{callToAction}</button>
        // Loop through customer_logos
      </div>
    )
  }
}

That's it! If you browse to your homepage you'll see your homepage populated with the content you created in Butter.

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About ButterCMS

What kind of database can I use?

No database required! We're a SaaS CMS or CaaS. You simply call our Content API from your app. We host and maintain all of the CMS infrastructure.

Do you host my templates?

Unlike CMSs you might be used to, we don't control or host any of your templates. The design of your app (HTML + CSS) lives in your application along side the rest of your app. Your application calls our Content API and we return your content in JSON format. You can then render this content in any way you'd like.

Can I import my content?

Yep. To import existing content from another platform, simply send us an email.

How do you compare to WordPress?

In short, we offer all the same easy-to-use editing capabilities of WordPress but are significantly easier for developers to setup and maintain. This means you spend less time working on your CMS and more time focusing on things important to your business.

Can I self host Butter?

No, we're a SaaS CMS or CaaS. You simply call our Content API from your app. We host and maintain all of the CMS infrastructure.

For more information on how we compare to a traditional CMS, check out API-based CMS vs Traditional CMS on the Butter blog. Do you have more questions? Read our FAQ below, or feel free to chat with us directly.

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