Headless WordPress: What is It & How Does It Work?

When WordPress was launched in 2005, its primary focus was just blogging. But 20 years since, this CMS has become a web development giant with over 30 million live websites on it. It maintains its position as the best CMS, or at least the most popular one.

But still, what if you could get better flexibility when it comes to the frontend? Well, that’s where Headless WordPress comes in. While it’s a technical jargon-like concept, the headless approach involves decoupling the frontend (what users see) from the backend (content management). So you can create the most well-customized website possible.

In this blog, I’ll show how a professional WordPress development company implements the headless approach to perfection. But first, let’s see how this concept works.

How Does Headless WordPress Work?

Headless WordPress is a concept in which WordPress is used as the backend, content management software. With it, you can manage the content and functionalities. But the frontend of the website, which is visible to the masses, is handled by a dedicated frontend platform, like React.js, Angular.js, etc.

WordPress offers a well-competent, easy-to-use admin dashboard, from where you can create and manage the content on the website effectively. Traditionally, this dashboard also offers you the themes to control the design of the website. But with headless, it’s different.

There’s also WordPress REST API, which the developers can use to access site data in JSON format.

This REST API is the center of headless WordPress as it helps the developers fetch site data from the CMS. With that, a frontend framework like React.js is at work to create a completely custom website. Speaking of the development, let’s look at how.

Key Features of Headless WordPress

• Flexibility: Developers can use modern front-end frameworks and tools to build user interfaces, providing a more dynamic and interactive user experience.
• Scalability: Since the front-end and back-end are separate, each can be scaled independently based on demand.
• Improved Performance: The front-end can be optimized for performance without being constrained by the WordPress back-end.
• Security: By exposing only the necessary endpoints, a headless setup can reduce the attack surface of a WordPress site.

These features are the reason why many WordPress developers use the headless approach for building robust websites. Now let’s learn the steps for setting up a headless WordPress in the next section.

How to Create a Headless WordPress Website?

For a WordPress website built through the headless approach, here’s how the process goes.

Step 1: Set Up a WordPress Website

First and foremost, you need to install and set up WordPress on a hosting platform. Or if you are in the experimental phase, you can go about the setup on a local server.

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Image Source: WordPress

Then, create and add the content that is to be displayed, including all the service and product pages, blog posts, and media files. That concludes the content management part of the process.

While covered in brief, this part is critical; so make sure to do your due diligence for it.

Step 2: Enable the WordPress REST API or GraphQL

After the content is ready on WordPress, fetch it using REST API or installing a plugin like WPGraphQL. With this API, your frontend can retrieve posts and pages along with other content as structured data (JSON).

Choose REST API for simplicity or GraphQL for more efficient data queries.

Step 3: Choose a Frontend Framework

At this point, you have a choice to make. Which frontend development platform to use? React.js, Angular.js, Vue.js, or something else? They all work well with APIs. 

Go to ‘Permalinks’ in WordPress settings and then select ‘Post name’ or ‘Custom Structure’ options. It ensures a clean, predictable URLs for your API endpoints.

Step 4: Install the Necessary Plugins

WordPress offers WP REST API built-in. It’s the foundation of headless functionality. Unless you are using an older version of WordPress, you won’t need to install this API separately.

Other than this, you’ll have to install the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), GraphQL for WordPress, etc.

Step 5: Choose Your Front-end Technology

There’s a range of front-end frameworks available that will suit your headless WordPress arrangement. Here are a few popular choices.

• React
• Vue.js
• AngularJS
• Next.js (React Framework)
• Gatsby (React Framework)

Other than these frameworks, you can also use static site generators (SSGs), like Jekyll, Hugo, etc.

Step 6: Develop the Frontend Application

After you have chosen your frontend platform, create a new project on it following the documentation.

Then, fetch the data from the WordPress API. You can use JavaScript’s fetch API to make HTTP requests to the WordPress REST API endpoints. Here are a few common endpoints.

/wp-json/wp/v2/posts: Get a list of posts.
/wp-json/wp/v2/categories: Get a list of categories.
/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/<id>: Get a specific post by ID.
/wp-json/wp/v2/tags: Get a list of tags.
/wp-json/wp/v2/media: Get media items.
/wp-json/wp/v2/users: Get user information (be mindful of privacy).
/wp-json/wp/v2/pages: Get a list of pages.

Are you using GraphQL? Then you will need to use Apollo Client, Relay, or another GraphQL client library to send the queries to the WordPress endpoint.

After that, use the frontend templating or component system for structuring the data. And, implement routing in the frontend for effortless navigation between pages and other sections of your website.

Step 7: Deploy the Headless Website

This is the final piece of the puzzle. You need to deploy the WordPress backend and the newly-set up frontend application.

With this final part, you will officially have a headless WordPress. But of course, this process can be a little complicated. So we suggest you hire our professional WordPress development company for creating a headless website.

Benefits of Using Headless WordPress

As compared to its traditional alternative, Headless WordPress offers a range of outstanding benefits. From greater flexibility and improved performance to enhanced security, here are a few perks of this development approach:

1. Greater Flexibility in Frontend Development

Developers can use flexible, modern frameworks like React, Next.js, and Vue.js instead of traditional WordPress themes. That means full control for anything regarding design, interactivity, and user experience.

Companies can build their unique, fast, and heavily customized frontends without being limited by WordPress.

2. Improved Performance

Another massive benefit of Headless WordPress is better performance. You can optimize the frontend for speed through Static Site Generation (SSG) and Server-side Rendering (SSR). It’s done with the frontend hosted on CDN services like Vercel or Netlify for accelerated load times worldwide.

Fewer requests made directly to PHP and MySQL mean performance and scalability increase.

3. Omnichannel Content Delivery

With headless WordPress, content can be delivered across websites, mobile apps, smartwatches, and more. The REST API or GraphQL enables seamless content distribution to multiple platforms.

That makes it ideal for businesses needing a single content source for multiple digital experiences.

4. Enhanced Security

Separating the frontend from WordPress reduces the risk of direct attacks like SQL injections and DDoS. The WordPress admin panel remains hidden from the public, making it harder for hackers to exploit vulnerabilities.

Since there’s no direct PHP execution on the frontend, security threats are minimized.

5. Scalability for Large Websites

Headless WordPress allows the frontend to scale independently, making it ideal for high-traffic websites and large eCommerce stores. The decoupled architecture ensures that content updates do not slow down the website. Businesses can deploy content quickly without affecting site performance.

By separating backend from frontend, headless WordPress enables you to create well-designed and robust websites.

Headless WordPress Vs Traditional WordPress

We have understood headless WordPress now let’s check out how it differs from traditional approach with a simple difference table:

Best Plugins for Creating Headless WordPress Website

Choosing the right plugins is crucial for a successful headless WordPress website. Below are some of the best plugins for headless WordPress:

1. WPGraphQL

WPGraphQL is a free plugin that enables GraphQL support for WordPress, allowing developers to query content efficiently. It provides an alternative to the REST API, offering more flexibility in data fetching.

Key Features:

• Enables GraphQL for fetching WordPress content
• Fetches only the required data, improving performance
• Works well with React, Next.js, and Gatsby

2. Headless Mode

Headless Mode is a simple plugin that disables the default WordPress frontend and redirects all visitors to an external frontend application. This plugin ensures WordPress only functions as a backend technology.

Key Features:

• Automatically redirects frontend traffic away from WordPress
• Keeps the WordPress admin panel accessible for content management
• Lightweight and requires minimal configuration

3. Faust.js

Faust.js is a plugin and framework developed by WP Engine that simplifies headless WordPress development using React and Next.js. It streamlines the integration of WordPress and the frontend framework used.

Key Features:

• Provides built-in authentication for WordPress APIs
• Includes React hooks for fetching WordPress content
• Optimized for Next.js and SSR (Server-Side Rendering)

4. CoCart

CoCart is designed for headless WooCommerce. It allows developers to build a seamless eCommerce experience with APIs. This plugin provides REST API extensions for handling shopping cart functionalities.

Key Features:

• Enables WooCommerce cart management via REST API
• Supports custom endpoints for enhanced eCommerce features
• Works with React, Vue.js, and mobile apps

These plugins make it easier to build a headless WordPress site by improving API communication and development flexibility.

FAQs About Headless WordPress

Let’s Summarize

Headless WordPress development approach separates the backend from the frontend, offering more flexibility and scalability. Unlike traditional setups, it enables developers to use frameworks like React and Next.js, leading to better design and performance.

You can make the development easy by using headless plugins such as WPGraphQL, Faust.js, CoCart, and more. By choosing the right frontend technology based on your requirements you can build a customized website.

If you are looking to build a WordPress site with a headless approach, contact us today!