Headless CMS startup Strapi launches Strapi Cloud

Strapi is releasing its cloud-hosted version of its popular content management system. With Strapi Cloud, developers don’t have to manage their own servers, as the company handles hosting for you. This way, you can focus on the front-end code.

If you’re not familiar with Strapi, the company has developed one of the leading open source headless CMS. A headless architecture means that the back end operates separately from the front end.

At its core, Strapi is a CMS with all the usual features that you can expect from a CMS. Content writers connect to an admin interface, write content, upload media files, create pages and more. Everything is stored in a database.

But unlike regular content management systems, Strapi doesn’t generate webpages directly. Instead, content is accessible through a GraphQL or RESTful API. Front-end developers can then use these APIs to fetch content and display it.

This decoupled architecture offers some flexibility as you can use different front-end frameworks like Gatsby, Vue.js and Nuxt.js. A single Strapi instance can also be used to distribute content across different platforms. For instance, if you are working for a company that has a desktop app and a mobile app, you can fetch new content from Strapi in these apps directly.

As for Strapi hosting, developers currently run their own Strapi instances on a third-party platform-as-a-service provider like Heroku, DigitalOcean App Platform or Platform.sh. Some developers also start with a vanilla virtual private server on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud.

With Strapi Cloud, small and medium companies can choose to pay Strapi to host their instance. The startup has tried to make Strapi Cloud as flexible as possible so that you can switch from one hosting provider to another or customize your infrastructure to your needs.

By default, Strapi Cloud includes a server, a database, a CDN and an email service. But if you want to use an external database, another CDN or email provider, you can replace Strapi Cloud’s default options with your own services.