Headless WordPress as Your API: Don't Overengineer
By Ehsan2025 Update: The headless CMS landscape has evolved dramatically since 2019. Modern alternatives like Strapi (open-source, self-hosted), Payload CMS (TypeScript-first), Sanity, and Contentful now offer compelling developer experiences with better APIs and type safety. However, the core argument still stands: don't overengineer. WordPress remains a practical choice for content-heavy projects where editors need a familiar interface. For greenfield projects with technical teams, consider modern headless CMSs. For existing WordPress sites or non-technical content teams, headless WordPress is still solid. Choose based on your team's skills and project requirements, not hype.
Introduction
There's a lot of hype around JAMstack, headless CMSs, and fancy backend frameworks right now. Gatsby, Next.js, Contentful, Strapi—everyone's talking about them. They're cool, but let me tell you something: you might not need any of that.
Sometimes WordPress as a headless CMS is all you need.
I just built a community-based platform for Persian speakers in Germany—a directory where people can find Persian-speaking services like doctors, restaurants, translators, and shops. The entire backend runs on a €5/month VPS, and with Cloudflare and caching, it handles thousands of requests per second.
Let me show you why headless WordPress might be perfect for your next project.
What Is Headless WordPress?
Headless WordPress means using WordPress only as a backend API, not for rendering the frontend. WordPress stores your content and exposes it through the REST API, and you build your frontend with whatever you want—React, Vue, vanilla JS, whatever.
Traditional WordPress:
WordPress → Themes → HTML output
Headless WordPress:
WordPress → REST API → Your frontend (React, Vue, etc.)
You get all the power of WordPress for content management, without being locked into PHP themes.
Why Not Use the "Cooler" Options?
Don't get me wrong—tools like Contentful, Prismic, or custom Node.js backends are great. But here's the thing:
They require more work - Building a custom admin panel, setting up authentication, creating content models, handling image uploads—it all takes time.
They cost more - Most headless CMS services charge based on API requests or content entries. That adds up fast.
You're reinventing the wheel - WordPress has solved content management for 15+ years. Why rebuild it?
For solo developers and small startups, time and money matter. WordPress gives you a battle-tested solution out of the box.
Why Headless WordPress Makes Sense
1. It's Super Easy
WordPress is everywhere. The documentation is massive. Any problem you hit, someone else has already solved it and posted the solution online.
Need to add custom fields? There's a plugin. Need user roles? Built-in. Need image optimization? There's a plugin for that too.
Compare that to building everything from scratch. Even with frameworks, you're still writing a lot of custom code.
2. Everyone Already Knows WordPress
This is huge. WordPress powers over 40% of the web. Chances are, your content editors have already used it somewhere—whether at a previous job, for a blog, or on a side project.
When you need content managers who aren't developers, WordPress is perfect. No training needed, no documentation to write. They log into the WordPress admin panel and immediately know what to do. Add a post, upload an image, set categories—it's all familiar.
Compare that to custom CMS solutions where you need to teach people your specific system, write guides, and answer questions every time they want to do something new.
3. The Plugin Ecosystem Is Gold
Thousands of plugins exist for WordPress. Need SEO tools? Yoast. Need form handling? Contact Form 7. Need multilingual support? WPML or Polylang.
For most projects, you'll need:
- Custom post types
- Custom fields
- User submissions
- Moderation workflows
All of this exists as plugins. Install, configure, and move on. No need to build these features from scratch.
A word of caution: Don't go overboard with plugins. Many things can be done with a few lines of code in functions.php. The fewer plugins you have, the easier it is to maintain your project and keep it secure from attacks. Only use plugins for features that would take significant time to build yourself.
4. The REST API Is Actually Good
WordPress REST API is solid. It gives you endpoints for posts, pages, custom post types, taxonomies, users—everything you need.
// Fetch posts from WordPress
fetch('https://your-site.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts')
.then(res => res.json())
.then(data => {
// You've got your content
console.log(data);
});
It's that simple. Add query parameters for filtering, pagination, search—it all works.
The Performance Story
Here's the part people doubt: "WordPress is slow!"
Not when it's headless. Here's my setup:
Backend:
- WordPress on a €5/month VPS
- Basic LAMP stack
- WordPress configured as API-only (no theme rendering)
Caching:
- Cloudflare in front for CDN and DDoS protection
- WordPress caching plugin for database queries
- API response caching with proper cache headers
Frontend:
- React app (could be anything)
- Hosted separately
- Fetches from WordPress API
Result: Thousands of requests per second, no problem. The VPS barely breaks a sweat.
Why? Because WordPress only generates JSON, not full HTML pages. And with caching, most requests never even hit WordPress—Cloudflare serves them from cache.
When Headless WordPress Makes Sense
Headless WordPress isn't always the answer, but it's perfect when:
You're a solo developer or small team:
- Limited time to build custom backends
- Need to ship fast
- Want something you can maintain easily
Content management matters:
- Non-technical people need to manage content
- You need workflows (drafts, revisions, publishing)
- Multiple content types and relationships
Budget is tight:
- Can't afford expensive headless CMS subscriptions
- Cheap VPS hosting is enough
- Want predictable costs
You need it to just work:
- Mature, stable platform
- Tons of documentation and community support
- Plugin ecosystem solves most needs
When to Use Something Else
Headless WordPress isn't ideal if:
You need real-time features:
- Live updates
- WebSockets
- Collaborative editing
You're building a SaaS:
- Complex data relationships
- Need more control over the database
- Specific performance requirements that need custom optimization
Your content model is simple:
- Just a few pages of static content
- Markdown files would work fine
- Something like Netlify CMS or even just JSON files makes more sense
A Simple Stack Example
Here's a simple, cost-effective stack that works:
Backend:
- WordPress on a cheap VPS (€5/month)
- Custom post types for your content
- Advanced Custom Fields plugin for metadata
- WP REST API (built into WordPress)
Frontend:
- React, React Native, Vue, or anything else
- Fetches from WordPress REST API
- Hosted on Netlify (free tier) or similar
Performance:
- Cloudflare (free tier) for CDN and caching
- WordPress caching plugin (free)
- Image optimization plugin (free)
Total monthly cost: €5
That's it. No complex microservices, no expensive cloud hosting, no fancy database setup. Just WordPress doing what it does best—managing content—and your frontend framework doing what it does best—rendering UI.
For more details on maximizing performance with Cloudflare's free features, check out my guide on the power of Cloudflare's free plan.
Don't Overengineer
This is the real lesson. We developers love new technology. We love building things from scratch. We love the latest frameworks and tools.
But sometimes, the boring solution is the best solution.
WordPress isn't sexy. It's not the hot new thing at conferences. But it works, it's cheap, and it lets you ship fast.
You could spend weeks or months:
- Building a custom Node.js backend
- Setting up PostgreSQL
- Creating an admin panel
- Handling authentication and file uploads
- Writing content management workflows
Or you could install WordPress, add some plugins, and focus on building the actual frontend experience. Sometimes the choice is that simple.
Getting Started
If you want to try headless WordPress, here's the quick version:
- Set up WordPress - Any cheap hosting works, or spin up a VPS. You can use Amazon Lightsail if you want the convenience of AWS, but many other VPS providers give you way better CPU and RAM for the same price
- Install essential plugins:
- Advanced Custom Fields (for custom fields)
- WP REST API extensions if you need custom endpoints
- A caching plugin
- Configure for API use:
- Set up permalinks properly
- Configure CORS if needed
- Enable authentication if you need write access
- Build your frontend - Use whatever framework you want
- Add caching - Cloudflare free tier is perfect
That's it. You've got a headless CMS.
Final Thoughts
Before you reach for the latest headless CMS or start building a custom backend, ask yourself: does headless WordPress solve this?
If you need content management, want non-technical editors, and need to ship fast, WordPress might be your answer. It's not glamorous, but it works.
You can build platforms that serve thousands of users, handle tons of traffic, run on cheap VPS hosting, and ship in a fraction of the time a custom backend would take.
Sometimes the best technology is the boring technology that just works.