The Contentful stack: what companies run alongside Contentful

Companies using Contentful in these interviews are more likely than similarly sized companies to also name specialist tools for customer data, analytics, search and messaging. Buyers describe different ways these tools fit together, from direct integrations to connections through commerce platforms or data layers. Segment and Iterable each appear nearly four times as often, product analytics tools such as Amplitude and Mixpanel about three times as often, Algolia over three times as often, and nearly half name a data warehouse, about twice the size-matched rate. Klaviyo, by contrast, is less common. Buyers describe choosing Contentful to reuse content across channels and to avoid being tied to one front end, and some describe the trade-off as development work: building and maintaining the front end, connecting commerce and search, and adding personalization the CMS does not provide on its own.

What tools do companies commonly run alongside Contentful?

Google Analytics 4 is the most commonly named tool alongside Contentful, appearing in just over half of these companies' stacks. Compared with similarly sized companies, Contentful users are more likely to name Segment, Hightouch, Snowflake, BigQuery, Amplitude, Mixpanel and Algolia, along with Braze and Iterable for messaging, Optimizely for experimentation and Figma for design. Shopify appears at about the same rate as at similarly sized companies; some buyers describe using Contentful for storefront content alongside Shopify's commerce capabilities. Buyers describe different relationships between these tools, including direct connections, integrations through commerce platforms and systems that operate separately.

Why do companies choose a headless CMS like Contentful?

Buyers describe two reasons: reusing content across channels and not being tied to one front end. One describes being able to “easily create the content once and then publish it across all of our different touch points,” and another is “moving to a much more modular component-based architecture, which ensures that we're not tied in too heavily to any one solution.” The same buyers describe the cost. “You always have to do some development with it, so the actual setup and the implementation does take a bit of time, as well as to integrate the front end,” one says, and another finds that Contentful “can get very expensive with API calls, locales, and team sizes as the team will grow.”

Can marketers use Contentful without developers?

Buyers split. Some describe marketers publishing on their own once the system is set up — “my team can go into Contentful and build these stories within an hour, after we have the creative for it,” one says, and another reports being able to “manage product content without requiring a developer to support us to make those changes.” Others describe the editing experience as built for developers. One notes that “the preview workflows can probably need some custom work, and it requires development for content model planning for sure,” and one of the stories below describes hiring a dedicated Contentful operations role for that reason.

What do companies move to Contentful from?

In these interviews, most often from Adobe Experience Manager, Sitecore or the content tools built into a commerce platform. Of Sitecore, one company says it “was just this platform that was extremely clunky, very difficult to update your content or your copy easily enough”; another moved off Adobe Experience Manager because “from a headless standpoint” Contentful “was much more forgiving and would better associate with our overall stack.” A third found content management inside its commerce platform too limited: “it was very difficult for us to do the content management in Hybris, so we had to go through get this Contentful.” A few are weighing a move away — for lower cost and easier editing, or back to the tools that come with their commerce platform. Some references to other CMS platforms describe migrations rather than ongoing side-by-side use, so naming Contentful and another CMS does not necessarily mean both remain active.

How does Contentful work with Shopify and other commerce platforms?

Among buyers who describe how Contentful works with their commerce platform, some use Contentful to manage website content while Shopify or another commerce system handles product data, cart and checkout. Others describe more customized connections between the CMS, storefront and commerce services — one retailer describes “the Shopify and Contentful hacks,” though it added that Contentful “just came out with a integration out of box recently, and we have tested it in a POC.” On a composable commerce platform, Contentful is one of several services hanging off the core: “commercetools is connected to SAP, and then to commercetools, there are like a bunch of other things that are connected, such as Algolia, Contentful, like other products.” In some buyer accounts, search tools such as Algolia connect through the commerce platform rather than directly to Contentful.

The Contentful stack, layer by layer

How often Contentful companies name a tool in each layer, against companies of similar size, which tools they name, and how buyers describe the connection to Contentful. How often tools appear together is separate from how well they connect, which is what the last column reports.

Where do customer data and personalization fit with Contentful?

Mostly outside it. Several buyers keep customer data in a CDP or warehouse and use Contentful only for content — “Contentful doesn't handle any data; it's really just for our website,” one says. Personalization is where they describe the most work: one company built it themselves “because we do a lot of personalization on our site, which does not come out of the box from Contentful,” and another is still “trying to decide from a Contentful perspective, where does the personalization fit?” Some feed Contentful content into email instead — “Contentful is what we use to kind of make collections, I guess, that then would be ported into our email experiences via those content calls or the API calls.”

The stories behind the stack

What this means for your stack

Contentful companies often name additional tools for customer data, warehousing, product analytics, search and messaging. Those selling online may also use a separate commerce platform. Buyers describe Contentful as flexible and reusable across channels, and describe the work around it — front end, commerce connection, personalization and editor experience — as the part to plan for. Our recommendation, not a practice buyers describe: before choosing a headless CMS, list which features your current platform provides natively, such as reviews, recommendations and personalization, and decide who will build and maintain each one once content and commerce are separated.

What this page does not show

It shows which tools Contentful companies run, not which ones they should. How often tools appear together says nothing about satisfaction, and a tool appearing beside Contentful does not mean the two are connected. Contentful companies are compared with companies of similar size, but they may still differ in industry and in how much engineering they have in-house, so part of the difference reflects the kind of company rather than the choice of Contentful. The group is smaller than for some other stack pages, so individual multiples carry more uncertainty.

Common questions