Launched in 2013 by Sadek Drobi and Guillaume Bort, Prismic.io is a SaaS-based headless CMS, that is used by the likes of Google, eBay and Deliveroo. Prismic.io has been built to appeal to administrators, developers and marketers. Moreover, the pricing tiers reveal that Prismic.io isn’t just for enterprises, but for bootstrapped startups, too.Prismic.io was one of the thirteen headless content management systems that we believe should be kept on your radar in 2018 and beyond.

With Prismic.io, teams of developers and marketers can launch websites and apps while enabling front-end developers to customize anything using any technology, programming language and framework from React to Angular to Rails.

Prismic.io Features

Along with all the usual benefits of a SaaS product (hosting, security, upgrades and customer support are all taken care of), Prismic.io attempts to differentiate itself from its headless CMS competitors with the following features:

  • Custom type builder - Marketers can leverage content components and predefined blocks for composing rich pages without developer intervention.
  • Scheduling and previews - You can check out your content before it goes live, and set the publishing date according to your brands best interests.
  • Content versioning - Rollback revisions and check who changed what, and when they changed it.
  • Multi-language - Localize content to reach foreign markets.
  • Integration fields - Prismic can connect to your existing catalog to help bring products to your websites and apps.
  • Project management - Prismic conveniently categorizes content in three ways. “Work” for current projects, “planned” for future content and “archived” for content which has been abandoned.

Related Article: 11 Rules for Selecting the Right Content Management System (CMS)

Getting Started With Prismic.io

After signing up with Prismic.io, I was asked to enter the name of my repository, which I can use as a home for all my website and app content. After I chose my preferred language, Prismic.io whisked me off to my dashboard, where I was greeted with a four-step guide to help me launch my first project.

Launching My First Prismic.io Project

To get my first project up and running, I decided to follow the guide.

Creating a Custom Type

By clicking “Create custom type”, I was able to choose between a repeatable type and a single type. The former is best for multiple instances like blog posts, while the latter is more suited to one-off pages, like a privacy policy. I opted for the repeatable type, as I wanted to create a blog post.

With a drag-and-drop editor, I was able to populate my custom type with SEO friendly URLs, a header, featured image and a rich text editor. Along the way, Prismic.io allowed me to configure what each content block should contain.

For example, I was able to choose the formatting options that appear when content creators use the rich text editor to write a blog post.

Learning Opportunities

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Learn how to balance human intuition and interaction with the potential uses of AI to create delightful and lasting CX
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Writing Content

My next step was all about writing the content for my first blog post. I was able to give my content tags, set the URL, type out the title, add a featured image and type out text through my rich text editor — all exactly as I configured during my set up of my custom type.

There were no surprises, and everything worked quickly and smoothly, leaving me with my first blog post produced by Prismic.io. I was also able to duplicate, preview, archive and publish the blog post with ease. However, the rich text editor was a little plain, and didn’t exactly inspire me to write a long piece of content.

Initializing & Running a Project

Once you have all your launch content created, whether that’s a bunch of blog posts or a set of app interfaces, you can download Prismic’s PHP or Javacript SDK to get started with your build. Remember, Prismic.io is a headless CMS, which means it has no front-end delivery layer, so it’s up to your IT team to build a project (using any framework they like), before connecting that project to Prismic.io via the SDKs and APIs provided.

From there, Prismic.io advises users to “follow the instructions in your terminal window to run your project.”

Related Article: 13 Headless CMS to Put on Your Radar

Verdict

Prismic.io is a highly approachable headless CMS. The four-step guide to launching a project is both helpful and easy to follow.

I found the navigation responsive and easy to understand, while the complementary features — like the built-in project management system that helps users track future projects and archived content — all worked seamlessly. If you get stuck, Prismic’s documentation is helpfully extensive.

If you’re on the hunt for a headless CMS, Prismic.io is definitely worth trying out, particularly since a free plan exists. Having said all that, Prismic.io is not for brands without developers or brands that prefer visual website builders, as Prismic’s rich text editor is relatively basic.

Do you have any experience with Prismic.io? Share your story in the comments below!