Directus

Best headless CMS on the market - powered by Open-Source

Comments: I loved the previous versions, but especially the new V9 really excites me. I never experienced any smoother experience setting up any content management system (including the old guys like WordPress or Drupal). From a product and/or IT lead perspective, it brings you so much power for so many use cases - without a huge price tag or complexity.

Pros:

It is free, if you are able to host it yourself! It is completely white-label, which makes your employees love it even more. It is perfectly customizable. In case you miss something, you can easily jump on the train and add it for your project - or all Directus users (contributing in the open-source community). If you want it fully managed, there is a cloud-version at a fair price (cheap compared to others) too.

Cons:

Potential con for some people: The PHP version got more or less deprecated. There might be one version again, but focus is definitely with NodeJS. If you want to host it yourself and are not able to run Node or Docker, you might run into problems. File management could be better and more customizable (in terms of conditional rules how uploads get processed per collection and field).

A great platform leveraged as a headless CMS

Pros:

After reviewing and trying a few headless CMS’, we selected Directus. We found that Directus was a comprehensive, feature rich, well supported and intuitive. The main differentiator for us was their implementation of a multi tenancy solution. I would highly recommend this platform to anyone who is looking to deliver a single CMS product across multiple organisation with discrete and granular controls and permissions.

Cons:

They’ve increased (not by that much) their lowest tier pricing. For us the previous pricing was a low barrier for entry for a lot of rich features. However saying that for the new pricing you are still receiving a lot of value.

Fantastic concept, medium user experience

Comments: Until now the experience is good: I like the idea and it works for the project that we started with Directus. We still need to resolve some issues, like how to properly manage pages and SEO data or how to overcome the lack of the repeater field, but it's working well. The experience with the support was fantastic. [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] was kind and friendly, in spite of my incompetence. I appreciate the enthusiasm and the open source spirit. Sometimes I experienced some limits for the reasons mentioned early, but I'm happy.

Pros:

I love the concept behind Directus: the idea to freely create a database in an easy way, organizing the content as you need or as you imagined it. I come from Kirby CM and Craft CMS and doing websites in which the custom design is the key, it's important to us to shape our content as we want. It's easy to install, the Slack support is friendly and helpful. In the search for the perfect headless CMS solution, it was my choice, also because it's open source and at the moment the pricing of others options is over budget for our clients. We were ok paying a fee for a license, but not a perpetual subscription. Moreover, a key point in the decision to adopt it is the self-hosted solution: we wanted to avoid every possible lock-in. Finally, the stack: working in a communication agency, we are not software engineers: PHP + Vue.js it's a perfect combination. React and node.js onthe server was a switch too big to take another leap.

Cons:

Above all, the bugs: being open source and free it's normal, but it is frustrating in the measure we decided to use it for clients works. Second: the lack of documentation for the interfaces or for the detailed use of the JS SDK. Moreover, sometimes I felt overwhelmed by the technical details of the interface. I don't have competence in relational databases and to me too much things doesn't have a meaning. But I'm mainly a front-end developer that try to be "independent", so I think that it's normal. Finally: the lack of a good repeater. At the moment it's impossible to use a file field in it, or to repeat a group of field. For us it's almost a strict requirement for clients projects.

Great headless CMS

Pros:

You can manage your collections and content through good looking administration, you create (even complex) relationships between the collections, there is a support to manage localized content. Your content is served through REST or GraphQL API that is simple learn. Good support of roles and permissions who can consume the content through API. There is a good extensions support for both APP and API. Easy deployement with Docker.

Cons:

Performance of API calls for more complex data (relation) can be a bit sluggish, but it can be solved by setting up cache. There are bugs that take a long time to solve. GraphQL API has still lacking features compared to REST API.

Excellent headless CMS

Comments: I have a very difficult multi-platform usecase involving languages from R/Python, reproducible data slicing, on the fly dataset creation all the way to front-end react, pregenerated app (gatsby) in a single build command. Directus is my sole source of truth, what I use to back this whole thing. This allows me to use the same translations and metadata for everything no matter if I am in R or Javascript consuming graphql, either on production client code or in static pregeneration stage in gatsby. There are other headless apis that can do this, but I cannot self host them and I need to be able to very quickly generate large datasets on the database as I research and tear them down in the same base as the CMS for the app. That is, I need this to run on my computer first. This is where directus knocked it out of the park for me. Also, docker setup is touch and go. Nothing needed. It is just great.

Pros:

This is Free and Open Source Software at its best. Directus has a great, well tended community, excellent developers, many options and lots of friendly answers to real questions. I have not found any other headless API I can self host in amazon or wherever I want. This makes for a local development cycle, short time to market, very easy to prototybe setup for example for react/gatsby apps.

Cons:

The app where you manage the database still needs a bit more documentation. It does not lack features, but some features lack propper documentation. I hope to help on this in the future!

Best headless open source CMS

Comments: We're creating a completely custom web in which you can reuse components.

Pros:

It's community support, open-source, and features. Nothing to envy from really expensive proprietary CMS.

Cons:

Breaking changes in updates, lack of Many to Any support on App, failures updating large datasets with relationships, lack of a tool to perform migrations between environments and long URLs to consume. All of which are getting addressed at the moment :)

Great product that is still young

Comments: We had departments using many different CMS's. They ranged from extremely expensive to open source projects. While Directus is not perfect, it has proven to be better than all the others. We have actively tried to improve the product, and we find that the others in the community do the same.
Also, and this is a HUGE value, the response to questions and issues within the Directus-Slack channel is amazing! Actually, the communication and support from this organization is impeccable. Friendly, helpful, understanding. Just out of a sense of loyalty to such good people, I will want to stay with them.

Pros:

The interface is very friendly, and as the product matures, the installation is becoming better.

Cons:

This is not an enterprise-level application, yet. It has a number of tiny gotchas that one has to learn about. One can still do most anything they desire.

Awesome piece of software

Comments: I've had to learn express and knex to implement custom endpoints and I really enjoy doing things this way. I also started using it's javascript sdk client and it's simply awesome!

Pros:

It's really easy to setup and encourages to learn new technologies

Cons:

It's not really done yet, I mean Directus is switching from PHP to Nodejs and this is a long proccess that is still happening and the documentation is not complete yet.

A Great Headless CMS

Pros:

Easy to setup, no code configuration was a big time saver. Once I figured out what was necessary for deployment, it was a breeze. Future deployments (if we ever even need to deploy it again) will be drag-and-drop.

Cons:

The docs for deploying to Elastic Beanstalk were pretty much useless. I had to figure it out by myself even though there is a whole page dedicated to saying that it's easy to deploy. Lost about a day when it would've taken half-an-hour with some good documentation.

Good product with some good features but expensive for smaller projects

Comments: Great, we went from a free to a paid plan but eventually stopped using it due to the price increase for a paid plan.

Pros:

We used it on a few projects as easy to setup API for the various projects. Overall it's a good product, some issues are solved by the new versions.

Cons:

Recent price changes make it very expensive for small projects.

One of the best Headless CMSes in the market

Comments: Directus has been our agency's love child for quite awhile. And it's our go-to CMS for anything bespoke. It's even more customizable than many paid competitors around that we tried.

Pros:

Extremely pleased and surprised that this a open-source software. The features provided out of the box is extremely robust and reliable. I've never had an issue with it and have been onboarding a lot of clients to switch to Directus from other CMSes for the past few years.

Cons:

There are pretty much no cons except that we have to set it up ourselves, but it's not too difficult once you get the hang of it.

Directus, your friend and your first backend services (headless cms)

Comments: We build our api with the minimum technical ressources. Since I'm the only dev, it allow me to stay focus on the main product. A must have for starting projects.

Pros:

Directus will allow you to create instant database with all security layers you may need for an api (auth, ...)

Cons:

The data ownership by users is quite a pain (e.g : You want to create an item through a webhook and attribute it to a specific user) and user registration through api require some custom code to follow your expectation.

Exceptional Product

Comments: Both my clients and I update our content through Directus and we find it very easy to do so!

Pros:

Directus is Open-Source and provides an easy-to-use interface that allows myself and my users to navigate the system and update data and content as needed. The Rest API is well-documented making integration into any system very easy! I love being able to get setup with a new project in minutes rather than hours.

Cons:

There's nothing I don't love about Directus, there's always something that could be added to make the product better, but it all requires financing and I can't complain when it's free

Feature-Rich Admin panel

Comments: I have created a headless API that serves JSON metadata about podcasts, including a link to the MP3 file (in an S3 bucket), the name of the presenter, the series of talks to which it belongs, and a boolean isPrivate. I have created related collections in the Admin panel, and now the 1 or 2 admins who add new recorded alks can add a series easily, add a speaker easily, add a category easily, and then add a lecture - using a dropdown to select which speaker, topic, category, and series this lecture belongs to. Now the management of organizing these assets can be handled by anyone who knows how to use a web browser!

Pros:

The admin panel has an intuitive interface for managing database relationships (collections), users, fields for your data types. I feel excited to present my non-technical media producers with a way to add their media files, tag them appropriately by creator, relate them to 'topics' stored another table, and be able to update and add new topics with no technical expertise.

Cons:

I had some challenges in setup that came down to outdated or incomplete documentation, but that may also be lack of experience on my side. Perhaps some things that were not explicit were actually expected knowledge that I was lacking.

One of the greats

Pros:

I'll start with the flexibility, you can create and edit every table in real-time and in an easy-to-use GUI. Best part is this can be clamped onto any SQL database and it will just start working then you can setup the table existing into the software.

Cons:

Well I mean it's not quite and intuitive as something like WordPress but point people in the correct direction and they soon get the hang of it

Directus: A Rapid, Hands-Off-Your-Data, Headless CMS

Comments: Directus is fantastic for both building out databases without the tedious headaches of old, and for allowing end-users to manage and post content. There's a field for pretty much every scenario, and if there isn't one, the platform is built in a way that's extensible. The bonus on top of everything is the built-in API, which allows me to get projects up and running and cut out basically two thirds of application development. With Directus, I only have to worry about building the front-end—it's nice to know that I have the backing of an entire system as the other half of my team!

Pros:

I am impressed with the continuous development of Directus and the commitment to deploying frequently. There are always new features and fixes and the team releases at a pace that would make a commercial team sweat, let alone an Open-Source team.

Cons:

The only challenge I faced while setting up Directus was a little confusion about the config of setting up multiple projects on the same install. However, the documentation was thorough and the Slack talkative, and I was soon up and running with a shared instance that eliminates the maintenance of multiple instances.

One of the best open source Headless CMS alternatives

Comments: We use directus for rapid database management, and for API endpoints to the data. We are customizing the solution to better fit with our needs and it works great.

Pros:

1. Documentation has been on point. 3. The easie in which it is to get started is excellent with multiple alternatives like docker, 1click digital ocean setup etc. 2. I love the "project" aspect that allows you to connect multiple database instances within the same Admin App. 3.The Admin App is written made in VUE . Its super easy to pull it locally and connect it to your existing api if you need to fiddle with it. It also has a very modern design which is appealing. 4. Easy to add custom extensions in both the API and Admin App. 5. Good code design. For example the Admin App makes use of the same API endpoints intended external use. Anything the Admin App can do you can replicate with your own API calls. I use this as a cheat sheet when i'm too lazy to look at the documentation. 6. New release come regularly, and it's really getting better all the time. 7. Can import databases that were not created within the CMS

Cons:

1. Support for only mysql. MongoDB support would have been magical. I have seen it in the roadmap, so let's hope it comes soon. 2. API response time. It's not bad, but its not great. I know they are working on it.

Directus... You will love it!

Pros:

Directus, as a Headless CMS pioneer, offers entirely free software that within a few minutes can have a full API, an easy to travel and learn app, and available with an SDK to easily develop applications. The GraphQL has been a great addition to the latest technology, and additionally, the community support is one the best I have had experienced. As I said, you will love it!

Cons:

The latest version is written on NodeJS but uses a snake case compared to camelcase which is a JavaScript standard.

A fair customizable CMS

Comments: Directus allowed me to quickly build up a multilingual CMS for various client projects. It was not so complicated to setup although the overall UX could be improved, especially for the newcomers.

Pros:

I really appreciated the potentialities to adapt the CMS to many various environments and contexts.

Cons:

It it sometimes cumbersome to understand the logic when discovering Directus. It lacks a comprehensive support for beginners, for usual and advanced use scenarios.

Using Directus since v6.x

Comments: we needed an headless CMS which we can self host and Directus was perfectly for this part. Easy to install and to set it up.
Specially the translation part was necessary for our first project and even without it we're still using Directus.
Version 7 was great and now we're about to upgrade some of our projects to Version 8 (the demo looks awesome so far)

Pros:

I really liked the headless aspect and how easy it is to build up the overall construct for your data. The API is nice documented and easy to understand.

Cons:

In version 6 the API is really slow when your database is quite huge. The issue was reported but couldn't be solved in this version so we had to upgrade the whole project (loading time for a site was 6s+...)

Headless CMS, easy to use and administrate

Comments: It's a central piece of our organization, with thousands of DB items that are exported through multiple JSON feeds, so that they are consumed by several clients on a daily basis. Very happy with Directus, it's an upgrade over the solutions we used before that.

Pros:

I like that Directus is free and open source, with an active community over Slack and that the software evolves very quickly. I also *love* the fact that you can access the whole SQL DB schema besson Directus.

Cons:

New versions sometimes introduce critical bugs. The Directus team is responsive on GitHub and Slack, but it needs some time to validate new versions before upgrading production DBs.

Great Potential

Comments: I'm currently using Directus and working on customizations, sometimes it appears hard to add custom modules or to work on the already existing architecture but I'd say that I'm generally positive about Directus.

Pros:

Directus is quite impressive about the potentials it have from a business point of view. The software is easy to configure and the community is very active continously improving the available functionalities and solving known issues

Cons:

Some features are still not fully working (i.e. forgot password and reset password needs some work) PHP in my opinion is not very flexible for developer, so it require lots of components to be added

Directus works fine

Pros:

Directus covers almost entirely the needs of the project. Many improvements are currently being developed that help make things easier, in addition to new features

Cons:

There is a lack of regression tests that validate when new features are developed, that everything is still working correctly. Sometimes some new developments break previous ones.

Best Headless CMS we experienced

Comments: We were in search of a very customizable CMS for our project, but we didn't found anything in the market proper for our needs until someone recommended us Directus. We instantly jumped with this CMS. The overall App and API are outstanding and highly flexible for all kind of project.

Pros:

The interface is so user friendly and has a solid and highly customizable backend for all the needs.

Cons:

The new version is fully functionnal but still has some issues that can appear during the implementation. But the team is phenomenal and is pushing updates and fixes all the time and have a helpful community to guide you to use properly the platform.

Beginning with Directus

Pros:

The best thing about Directus is the community. It is great to be able to ask questions and get a real person to walk you through a solution.

Cons:

Difficult to get started. Documentation is a bit lacking / confusing.