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Types and Definitions of CMS

Introduction​

This chapter provides concrete definitions of CMS and subclasses thereof.

Absolutely watertight, simple, and generally accepted definitions could not be found in an internet search when writing this text (the various definitions usually describe roughly the same product). Therefore an own attempt was made to develop hopefully universally applicable definitions, which are approximately assembled from a mosaic of the following internet pages / definitions:

This chapter and the following chapter can be skipped if the meanings of CMS and especially Headless CMS are already known.

Definition Content Management System (CMS)​

Definition Content Management System (CMS):

A Content Management System (CMS) is a system that enables the storage, management, and publication of information of any kind, especially media data such as text, image, video, and audio, on digital platforms (clients).

Notes: For the sub-variants and relatives of CMS defined below, the transitions are often fluid and there are overlapping contents.

Definition Web Content Management System (WCMS)​

Definition Web Content Management System (WCMS):

A Web Content Management System (WCMS) is a CMS that specialises in content displayed on websites. As a rule, websites can also be structurally adapted via the WCMS to a certain degree.

Examples:

Definition E-Commerce Content Management System (E-Commerce CMS)​

Definition E-Commerce Content Management System:

An E-Commerce Content Management System (E-Commerce CMS) is a CMS that specialises in online shop websites. In particular, the products to be sold including product information, prices, etc. can be managed here.

Examples

Definition Digital Asset Management System (DAMS)​

Definition Digital Asset Management System (DAMS):

A Digital Asset Management System is a system that helps an organisation to store, manage, organise, and share digital content in one or more locations.

The focus of a DAMS lies in centrally managing all digital content of an organisation (e.g. a company). Part of this content can then (among other things) be made available to various CMS, which then publish the content on other devices / software. A DAMS can therefore be viewed as a superordinate content management system.

The advantages of using a DAMS lie above all in the fact that members of the organisation can quickly and easily find the media content they need, without possibly having to search in many places and then possibly finding outdated content. A DAMS will usually be an important part of the Enterprise Content Management2 of at least larger organisations.

Examples:

  • Adobe Experience Manager Assets
  • Bynder
  • (Simpler solution especially for smaller organisations: defining a folder structure on a network drive or cloud including corresponding processes in the organisation)

Definition Headless CMS​

Definition Headless Content Management System (Headless CMS):

A Headless Content Management System is a CMS that does not contain an integrated (frontend) presentation layer for the data managed within it. Access to the data managed in the CMS is via a defined API.

Additions / explanations to this definition:

  • The first and overall earlier CMS, especially web CMS or e-commerce CMS, consist of two parts: the so-to-speak administrative area in which data / content can be managed, and a frontend area, more precisely a presentation layer, which presents the data to the end customer. These two parts are relatively tightly coupled.
  • A Headless CMS, on the other hand, contains no frontend area or, more precisely, no presentation layer for the managed data.
  • Via an API, raw data such as texts, images, videos (and not e.g. complete websites) can generally only be retrieved, which are then used by client applications (museum exhibit software, web application) to render a complete multimedia experience for end users of the client applications.
  • In practice you can think of a Headless CMS as a database that has been optimised for media data and access to it via API

NeuroomNet is a Headless CMS​

NeuroomNet is a Headless CMS, i.e. the content is stored as raw data in the Headless CMS and is requested programmatically via an API (HTTP requests) by clients. The content in the CMS can however be easily maintained at any time via a graphical user interface (which is a separate and optional web app). This graphical user interface is not a presentation layer for end customers, but rather a kind of administrative back-office web app.

Further description of NeuroomNet follows in the next main chapter.

Footnotes​

  1. WooCommerce is a plugin for the WCMS WordPress that essentially extends the WordPress installation with E-Commerce CMS functionality. ↩

  2. A definition of the more complex topic area Enterprise Content Management (which usually also encompasses more than one software / system / tool) would exceed the scope of this briefly planned introduction. For those interested, we refer to Wikipedia as a first port of call: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_content_management. ↩