Contentful Composable Content Platform

I have been using Contentful for around two to three years. Initially, we used Contentful as our CMS. From there, we transitioned from using it as a basic CMS to extensively using it for all the features that it supports. We work with web applications and mobile applications. Initially, I integrated Contentful into our front-end applications simply as a CMS. Later, we worked on a project involving multiple brands, and that is where I really got to explore the platform in depth.

One of the things I really appreciate about Contentful is its flexibility. It does not force you to solve a problem in only one particular manner. It provides building blocks to developers, and we can extend it according to our requirements or our business requirements. For example, we developed several custom apps using Contentful's framework. We use content apps in different areas, including fields, dialogs, the side panel, the right-side panel, and the editors.

This was really useful because whenever the standard Contentful functionality was not enough for a particular business requirement, we could build our own solution and integrate it directly into the Contentful experience. We have also extensively used Contentful APIs, especially CDA and CMA APIs. We have automated a lot of development and maintenance tasks, such as creating content models, managing workflows, teams, localizations, and even taxonomies, installing our custom apps into the Contentful cloning environments, and cleaning them when we want the content to be cleaned.

We also used taxonomies for things including product filtering. Localizations were particularly useful when working with multi-brand. We have also used the access restrictions that Contentful supports. We have customized it to our needs, and we have segregated the level of users into different categories, including the basic, the advanced, the core user, the admin user, and the reviewers. From a content authoring perspective, I find Contentful very user-friendly. The interface is quite intuitive. Publishing content is very straightforward. Content authors do not need to understand the technical side of the system.

The best features Contentful offers are custom apps, localizations, taxonomies, support for CDA and CMA APIs, and a beautiful and very interactive user interface. Out of those features, I find myself relying on custom apps the most and use it every day. Since we have been using custom apps in most of our content models, these custom fields help us in modifying content in our day-to-day work.

I would prefer a model where template changes are stored locally in the browser or somewhere as an incomplete draft. If there is an explicit save or create draft action, that would make it easier without every small change becoming part of the entry's change history. Whenever we accidentally change some value or if we are experimenting with the editor interface by changing and modifying the existing content, that will already become the draft. This is an improvement that Contentful could make. Users can change content and choose to save only when they want to.

The most annoying feature that I have experienced is that when we are editing the content, it is automatically saved, no matter what. I prefer it in that it helps in not losing data when you are disconnected or the system has crashed or something has happened, but it is saving as the draft. Instead of that, I would prefer to save the edited content to the local browser's cache specific to that user. When the user wants to save it manually, they can press a save or save-to-draft button, so that it will be saved as a draft and be available to all other people. They can see it, and it can be added to the change history after clicking manually. Currently, it is just saving automatically, which is quite annoying. Sometimes, even if you revert your changes, it still says something has changed. I prefer manual buttons to save the changes and have a cache at the browser level.

In my current field as a developer, I have been working for almost four years.

Contentful is stable.

Contentful's scalability is very high. You can build basic applications, and you can build whole enterprise-level applications with it with ease.

We have been using databases and some other systems before Contentful. We thought that for a CMS, Contentful would be the most helpful for our requirements. When we got used to it, we got to explore all the features of it that I mentioned earlier, and we are now using it extensively.

Before choosing Contentful, we evaluated Shopify and some other platforms which I do not want to name.

Contentful has been affecting us positively. We never came across a situation where we have to switch to other CMS systems. We can do anything with Contentful. It has a lot of options and enhancements happening, so it is a very good option for us. We have zero regrets choosing it.

While I cannot recall specific numbers, I can give you an overview. It would take us weeks or months to do the content model changes and the updates that we were required to do. However, with the automation scripts that we have written for the CDA and CMA APIs, it is now happening in minutes. You can imagine the numbers from that perspective.

Regarding Contentful's AI capabilities, we have not explored the AI capabilities of Contentful yet. Since we have worked in an organization where that was handled at the organization level, we have not been exposed to that pricing.

I give Contentful an overall review rating of ten out of ten.

My main use case for Contentful involves developing e-commerce storefront applications that require displaying dynamic content like banners for hero images on the homepage or product sliders, which cannot be hard-coded in the application but are driven by a third-party system like Contentful. We also have other products primarily used by marketing personnel to develop and create content in various formats, allowing the website to gather and publish content dynamically through the front end, managed separately in a different system. Additionally, it can manage scheduled content for special occasions, like Thanksgiving or New Year's Eve, with a workflow that allows content to be authored, reviewed, and published as needed.

A recent project where I used Contentful for dynamic content management involved a client called Curio in the UK, which mainly sells home decor products through their website Curio.space, and I have also utilized Contentful for several demo applications for different clients like Virginia ABC, which proved very useful.

I had an opportunity in a demo to show a bunch of products using a Contentful slider, which allowed us to get data from Contentful to display commerce products and choose them from Commercetools, aided by a plugin that integrates Contentful with Commercetools, making it very helpful.

Contentful offers great features such as various plugin options, an excellent preview option, scheduling, and workflows, making it simple to create, author, and publish content efficiently with an intuitive interface.

The preview in-context feature greatly benefits customers by allowing them to see how content will look on the website before it is published, especially for scheduled content that cannot be live yet, such as a homepage banner image, which can be previewed in a staging area before actual publishing, allowing for modifications and re-previews.

The workflow in Contentful ensures that content goes through a proper review process, allowing an author to submit content for review by another person, which is crucial for maintaining quality. Scheduling content to be published at a future time ensures smooth operations, automatically deploying new content and undeploying old content as needed.

The ease of use translates into real outcomes for my clients by significantly reducing the time it takes to publish content; without a CMS like Contentful, it could take days, but with it, content can go live within minutes, saving time and making the process more efficient for content creators.

While Contentful already incorporates a lot of AI integration, improvements could be made in feature-wise AI integrations, such as generating SEO data for product catalogs or assisting marketers in writing new articles, which would make it more future-ready.

The interface and workflows of Contentful are already intuitive and user-friendly, so I do not see any major improvements needed in those areas, as they work well as they are.

Contentful is good as it is, with no further improvements needed in terms of integrations or performance.

I have been using Contentful for about two years.

Contentful appears to be stable.

Regarding scalability, I have observed good performance with loading product images and importing assets from different systems into Contentful, although I have not tested it with a massive amount of content.

Customer support for Contentful seems to be quite good, with the ability to create support tickets quickly and receive prompt and accurate responses to help unblock any issues.

I previously used Amplience, Contentstack, and Magnolia CMS, with the decision to switch being primarily made by the client.

I have seen a return on investment with Contentful as it saves significant time and effort for content creators, translating into time saved and thus money saved, as the process becomes much more efficient.

Before choosing Contentful, I evaluated Amplience and Contentstack as options, with the decision leaning towards Contentful ultimately being made by the client.

I advise others considering Contentful to utilize it, as it is very easy to use for both content marketers and developers, particularly if the data model is set up properly, ensuring it will be very useful.

Contentful is an overall good product, and I would be happy to help other clients with system integration needs using it.