On a website, changing content is routine. Someone on your team logs into the CMS, edits a page or adds a product, and it’s live a moment later.
Your app can work the same way. New articles, products and promotions can appear in it as soon as you publish them, with no developer and no app store update in between.
The CMS behind your app makes that possible, and the right one depends on how the app is built and who will manage its content. This guide covers what a mobile app CMS is, how traditional and headless systems differ, the best platforms for different kinds of apps and how to choose.
What Is a Mobile App CMS?
A mobile app CMS (content management system) is where your team creates, edits and publishes the content that appears in your app, without writing code.
That content might be articles and videos, products and prices, home screen banners or the menus people tap through. The CMS stores it, and the app pulls in the latest version when people use it.
Content from a CMS can be updated at any moment. Anything built into the app’s code can only change with a new version, which goes through Apple’s and Google’s review before people get it.
That’s why a CMS matters most for apps whose content changes often, like online stores, news and media apps, membership sites and event apps. Editors and marketers publish when they’re ready, and developers stay focused on the app itself.
What’s the Difference Between a Traditional and a Headless CMS?
A traditional CMS manages both your content and the pages that display it, while a headless CMS manages only the content and leaves the display to your developers.
In a traditional CMS like WordPress or Shopify, you write a post or add a product in the back end, and your theme decides how it looks on the front end. Content and design come as one package, which is why these systems are easy for non-technical teams.
A headless CMS separates the two. It stores your content in structured fields and sends it through an API to whatever displays it: a website, an iOS app, an Android app or a screen in a store. Developers build each of those front ends and decide how the content looks in each one.
The line between them has blurred. WordPress and Shopify both have APIs that can send content to an app, and some headless platforms now include visual editors for marketers.
Pros and Cons of Using a Headless CMS for Your Mobile App
A headless CMS is often the default advice for apps, and it’s a strong choice for the right team. It gives you more control:
- You publish the same content to your website, iOS app, Android app and other channels from one place.
- Developers can design every app screen exactly as they want, with any framework.
- Structured content is easy to reuse, translate and rearrange for each channel.
The trade-off is more work and more cost:
- Developers have to build and maintain every front end that shows the content, including both apps.
- Editors don’t see how a page will look as they write, unless developers set up a live preview.
- You pay for the CMS and for the developer time to run it, which adds up quickly for a small team.
A headless CMS makes the most sense when your app is your main product, or when you publish to many channels and have developers to support each one. If most of your business happens on your website and your development team is small, a traditional CMS is usually the easier fit.
Mobile App CMS Options Compared
You can run your app’s content from four kinds of systems: a website CMS like WordPress or Webflow, an ecommerce platform like Shopify, a headless CMS like Contentful or Strapi, or the dashboard inside an app builder. Each one connects to your app in a different way.
| Website CMS | Ecommerce platform | Headless CMS | App builder | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| How content reaches the app | Through its API, or by building the app with your website | Through the platform's API, used by app builders and custom apps | Through its API, into app screens your developers build | Directly, since the builder runs the app |
| Shared with your website | Yes | Yes, for products, collections and orders | Yes, if your website uses it too | Usually only synced data, like products |
| Developer work | Low to high, depending on how the app is built | Low with an app builder, high for a custom app | High, for every app and website | Low |
| Typical cost | Free software or a monthly plan, plus hosting | A monthly plan, plus the cost of the app | Free plans to custom contracts, plus developer time | A monthly subscription |
| Best suited to | Publishers and businesses whose site already runs on it | Online stores of every size | App-first products and teams with developers | Simple apps with standard features |
The Best CMS Platforms for Mobile Apps
The best CMS for your app depends on what your business does and who builds the app. Below are the strongest options in each category and the businesses each one suits best.
WordPress: Best Overall
WordPress is the most popular CMS by a wide margin. It runs almost 40% of all websites and more than half of the sites that use a CMS, according to W3Techs.
That popularity makes it our pick for most apps. Your team may already know it, and its huge library of themes and plugins covers almost anything a content site or store needs.
It also connects to apps in more than one way. Its built-in REST API can send posts, pages and custom content to a separately built app, or your app can be built with your WordPress site, so whatever you publish appears in both.
WordPress itself is free and open source. Your costs are hosting, any paid themes or plugins and the developer time to connect it to your app. It’s ideal for publishers, membership sites and any business whose website already runs on it.
Webflow: Best for Design Flexibility
Webflow is a visual website builder with a CMS built in, used by more than 300,000 teams, according to the company. Designers get close control over how every page looks, without writing the code by hand.
Its CMS stores collections like blog posts, case studies and team profiles, and Webflow’s API gives developers access to those items, so an app can use the same content as your site.
Sites that need the full CMS start at $25 a month, billed yearly. Webflow is a strong fit for design-led brands whose website is the heart of their marketing, as long as you have a developer to connect it to your app.
Shopify: Best for Ecommerce
Shopify is the second most used CMS on the web, behind WordPress, according to W3Techs. For a store’s app, it’s usually the simplest choice.
Products, collections, prices, inventory and orders all live in one admin. Shopify’s Storefront API lets apps on any platform show products, add them to a cart and take people through checkout.
Most stores never touch that API themselves. They use one of the Shopify mobile app builders that connect to it for them, or have developers build a custom app on top of it.
A separate headless CMS rarely earns its place in a Shopify store’s app, unless you publish a lot of editorial content alongside your products. Shopify is the best fit for online stores that want their products and orders managed in one place, for both their website and their app.
Alternatives for Ecommerce Apps
Shopify isn’t the only ecommerce platform that works well for apps. Two others are worth a look:
- WooCommerce is the open-source commerce platform for WordPress. Its REST API lets apps read and update store data like products and orders, and your store and your content share one WordPress dashboard.
- BigCommerce is a hosted platform that can act as the back end for headless storefronts, which its developer docs say can include a native mobile app. It suits brands that want a hosted platform and plan to build their own front ends.
Learn more about mobile apps for headless commerce brands
Contentful: Best Headless CMS for Mobile Apps
Contentful is one of the best-known headless CMS platforms, built for businesses that publish to many channels at once.
It stores your content as structured entries and delivers it through REST and GraphQL APIs to your website, your apps and anything else you build. Editors get scheduled publishing and live preview, and Enterprise customers can add Studio, a drag-and-drop canvas for assembling pages.
There’s a free plan for small projects, a Lite plan at $300 a month and custom pricing for Enterprise. Its customers include Atlassian, Notion, Danone and Audible.
Contentful is the best fit for larger businesses with their own developers, where the app is one of several channels that share the same content.
Alternative Options for a Headless CMS
Contentful isn’t the only strong headless CMS. These four suit different teams and budgets:
- Strapi is an open-source headless CMS you can host yourself for free, or run on Strapi Cloud from $35 a month per project. Rakuten and Société Générale use it, and it suits developers who want full control of the code and hosting.
- Sanity treats content as structured data that one API sends to websites, mobile apps and other software. It has a free plan and paid seats from $15 a month, and brands like Skims, PUMA and Figma use it.
- WordPress VIP is an enterprise WordPress platform with headless support, for organizations publishing to a website, a mobile app and other channels from one source. Its customers include TIME and Al Jazeera, and pricing is quoted on request for annual contracts.
- Ghost is an open-source publishing platform with newsletters and paid memberships built in. Its Content API can deliver published posts to any website or app, and independent publishers like 404 Media and Platformer use it.
App Builders With a Built-In CMS
Some businesses skip a separate CMS and use an app builder, where the content tools come with the app.
General app builders like Buildfire give you a no-code editor, ready-made features as plugins and built-in content management for articles, videos and other media. Shopify app builders like Tapcart sync your products and orders from your store, and you design and manage the app’s screens in their editor.
App builders are quick to set up and need little or no developer time. The trade-off is a second place to manage content: a new landing page or campaign on your website has to be set up again in the builder.
They’re the best fit for simple apps with a standard set of features and for businesses that don’t have a website.
How Do You Choose a CMS for Your Mobile App?
The right CMS for your app comes down to four things: who will edit the content, whether you already have a website, how much developer time you have and what the whole setup costs to run.
Who Will Edit the Content Every Day?
The people who publish your content, like writers, merchandisers and marketers, should be comfortable in the CMS. A system they already use for your website saves time on training and cuts down on mistakes.
Think about whether your editors need to see a page exactly as it will appear before it goes live. A traditional CMS shows that by default, while a headless CMS needs developers to set up a preview.
Do You Already Have a Website?
If you have a website, most of the content your app needs already lives in its CMS. Running both from the same system means your team publishes once, not twice, and your site and app stay in step.
If your app is the product and your website is only a landing page, there’s less to share, and a headless CMS or an app builder makes more sense.
How Much Developer Time Do You Have?
A headless CMS always needs developers to build the app’s screens, connect them to the API and update both apps as iOS and Android change. With a website CMS or an ecommerce platform, the developer time you need depends on how the app is built, and an app builder needs very little.
Think about whether you have that team today, and whether you’ll still have it in two years.
What Will It Cost to Run?
Look past the subscription to the total cost of running your app: hosting, the developer time to build and maintain it and any plan upgrades as your content and traffic grow.
Check usage limits too. Headless plans often cap the API calls or requests you can make each month, and a popular app can reach those limits quickly.
Do You Need a Separate CMS for Your App?
Most apps end up with content of their own to manage, because they’re built separately from your website. That means a second codebase to build and maintain, and often a second place to update content, whether it’s app screens your developers connect to a headless CMS or the editor inside an app builder.
With MobiLoud, your app doesn’t need a CMS of its own. We transform your website into a custom native app, powered by the same underlying code as your site, so the CMS you already use manages the content for both.
Publish a post in WordPress or add a product in Shopify, and it’s on your site and in your app at the same time.
On top of that, our team designs a custom native experience for your app, with native navigation, push notifications and pages just for app users. We publish it to the App Store and Google Play and keep it up to date, and most brands go live in a few weeks.
Learn more about turning your website into an app
Canadian beauty retailer Kiokii launched its app this way, after an earlier app left its small ecommerce team doing the same work twice. The app now brings in 35% of the brand’s online revenue.
"MobiLoud made launching our app fast, simple, and incredibly effective. With minimal effort, we're seeing strong results and higher engagement. It runs almost on autopilot."
Which CMS Is Best for Your Mobile App?
The CMS you pick decides who can update your app, how fast changes reach your customers and how much developer time the app needs for as long as you run it.
- Choose WordPress if you publish content and your website already runs on it.
- Choose Shopify if you run an online store and want products and orders managed in one place.
- Choose Webflow if design control matters most and you have a developer to connect your app.
- Choose a headless CMS like Contentful, Strapi or Sanity if your app is your main product or one of many channels, and you have developers to build and maintain it.
- Choose an app builder if you want a simple app with standard features, and you’re happy to manage it separately from your website.
- Choose MobiLoud if you want a custom native app run from the CMS behind your website, with no separate app content to manage.
