Reach Every Channel, Everywhere with Liferay's Headless Content Management System (CMS)

Create, manage, and deliver engaging content globally. 

Easier Content Management at Every Stage = Better Digital Experiences

With a consistent content creation and editing experience, create and manage content you can publish on every channel.

  • Structured content. Use pre-defined structures for blogs, news, knowledge base articles, and other digital content types, so your teams can immediately start creating content that’s consistent and on brand without thinking about the technical details.  
  • Flexible content modeling. Administrators can create custom structures without any coding knowledge and launch new content models or modify existing ones quickly to support changing business requirements. 
  •  AI generation. Integrated tools like ChatGPT help you create text and images for blog posts, web pages, product pages, and more. 
  • Automated tagging. Categorize assets automatically upon upload, saving your team hours of manual work.

Streamline collaboration with a centralized set of tools.

Hunting for content across platforms at best wastes time and at worst leads to no results. Use Liferay CMS as a single repository with a user-friendly interface to manage and organize all your assets for easier sharing and publication.
  • Centralized content management. Consolidate web content, documents, images, videos, and other file types into one unified view. A separate view for content and files makes filtering or searching for a specific asset easy.
  • Shared spaces. With spaces, organize content and assets based on specific projects, brands, teams, and more.
  • DAM preview. Organize your media in Liferay DAM or manage and view documents stored outside Liferay CMS by integrating your own DAM.
  • Simplified collaboration. Share multiple assets (including folders) simultaneously and facilitate collaboration by allowing recipients to view, comment, or update them.

Simplify translation and localization.

Managing translations manually can be time-consuming and error-prone. With Liferay CMS, translate and localize content for any region automatically.
  • Side-by-side translation. Translate manually or use an auto-translation service, with translated and untranslated fields clearly marked to help you keep track.
  • AI-powered translation. Translate categories, images, structures, and content in bulk using services like Amazon Translate or Google Cloud Translation.
  • Localization framework. Liferay CMS supports 50+ languages out of the box with differences such as date format, region-specific spelling, and culturally-appropriate images and copy.

Get complete control over your global content.

Built-in governance tools help you eliminate content risks and inconsistencies to make sure every asset is on brand and legally compliant.
  • Publishing workflows. Use built-in publishing workflows or create custom ones to automatically route content to the right reviewers (e.g. Legal or Design) before publishing.
  • Granular permissions. Control access to sensitive information by configuring role-based permissions, ensuring the right people see the right content, folder, or space. 
  • Lifecycle control. Oversee the content creation lifecycle by setting publication, review, and expiration dates.
  • Powerful version control. Integrated version history lets users track changes or revert to previous versions while providing an audit trail.
  • Custom structures. Define the elements you need to include in a piece of content (e.g., Title, Subtitle, Description, Legal Disclaimer) with custom structures and use them as a framework for enforcing content standards. 

Understand how your content is performing with built-in analytics.

Get insights into the effectiveness of your content so you can boost engagement and conversion rates and focus on content quality.
  • Content performance. Use the content dashboard to easily identify what content is being used where and see metrics on views, reads, and traffic
  •  In-context analytics. Select a piece of content in Liferay CMS and view insights like views and shares immediately.

Let your developers use the tools they prefer.

Liferay CMS's API-first approach and flexible architecture enable faster development cycles, easier integrations, and a tech stack that's ready for the future.
  • Flexible APIs. Build digital experiences using any front-end technology or framework, like React, Angular, or Vue.
  • Seamless integration. Integrate with your existing tech stack and other third-party applications.
  • Headless architecture. Go to market faster with architecture that allows developers and content teams to work in parallel on both new and legacy systems.
  • Developer tools. Get access to tools like REST APIs and comprehensive documentation.

How Liferay Content Management System (CMS) Works with Other Product Modules

CMS + AI

Automate time-consuming tasks with built-in AI. Generate and translate content, create images, add meta descriptions, and automatically tag and categorize assets. When paired with Sites or Commerce, AI can also surface relevant content and product recommendations.

CMS + Sites

Turn content into fully personalized digital experiences to engage site visitors. With Sites, you can use content from Liferay CMS to build websites, intranets, portals, and online storefronts — and preview everything before it goes live to ensure quality and consistent branding.

CMS + DAM

Organize and manage your digital assets with ease. Liferay DAM lets teams store assets in libraries, publish them to multiple sites, and control access. Automatic tagging and categorization keep content structured and easy to find.  

CMS + Personalization

Deliver experiences that adapt to each user. Personalization works with the CMS to dynamically change page layouts and content based on user segments, helping you increase engagement and relevance.

Financial Services

Swiss Bank Uses Headless API Technology to Power Their Intranet

BancaStato's new intranet improves employee productivity with quick access to information, documents, and day-to-day applications.

100 +

years of experience

16

agencies

8

month go live

What Is a Headless CMS?

A headless CMS is a content management system that separates the "back-end" (the content repository) from the "front-end" (the user-facing presentation.) Unlike a traditional CMS, which tightly bundles content and its display, a headless CMS handles the content storage only and delivers content via APIs. This allows developers to use any front-end technology they choose (like React, Angular, or Vue) to show content on a website, mobile app, smart device, or any other digital channel. Discover more benefits of a headless CMS here.

Frequently-Asked Questions

A traditional CMS platform (like WordPress or Drupal) is “monolithic,” meaning the content creation, management, and delivery are tightly linked. A traditional CMS is built mainly to publish to one website using predefined themes and templates.

 

Headless CMS software separates content management from presentation, managing the content only so the front end can be built with any framework. This lets you manage your content and digital assets in one place and publish it across websites, apps, mobile devices, and other channels.

  • Omnichannel delivery. Manage once, publish anywhere—websites, mobile apps, smart devices, and more.
  • Developer freedom. Developers can use any frameworks or tools, speeding up cycles and making workflows more agile.
  • Future-proofed architecture. As new technologies and channels emerge and as your business grows, structured content is ready to be delivered.
  • Enhanced security. The back end is separate from the front end, reducing exposure to attacks.
  • Improved performance. Decoupling the content from the presentation layer results in faster page load times and a better user experience.

Liferay combines headless delivery with a rich authoring experience. With a decoupled CMS, marketing teams and creators can:

 

  • Use predefined content structures.
  • Collaborate across teams and regions.
  • Use AI for content creation and translation.
  • Apply governance tools to maintain consistency and compliance.
     

Liferay is a strong fit if your organization needs to:

 

  • Publish content to multiple channels and regions.
  • Give developers more flexibility and agility.
  • Streamline content workflows and improve cross-team collaboration.
  • Maintain strong governance, consistency, and compliance.
Yes. Even with a headless setup, Liferay lets you preview how content will look on different channels before it goes live. The Sites module provides visual previews, and APIs allow developers to test the same content across devices and channels.
Generally, yes. By decoupling the presentation layer from the back end, a headless architecture reduces the attack surface. The CMS database isn’t directly exposed to the public-facing site, helping protect against security threats like DDoS attacks and malware injections.

Additional Resources

Get your content everywhere, faster with Liferay CMS.