11 Hygraph myths busted

Previously, we debunked 13 CMS myths and found that if you get to the root of some dubious statements, they can easily be discredited. In light of this, we have decided to debunk the Hygraph myths as part of this series.

Throughout the years, the community, peers from the ecosystem, and customers have asked us many questions that resemble Hygraph myths. These questions cover a wide range of topics, such as: Is Hygraph only for technical users? Can you use REST with Hygraph? Can you even customize Hygraph? Keep an eye out. You'll get all of that answered today.

#Myth: Hygraph is only about Content Federation

Fact: Hygraph is still a headless CMS, the kind that unlocks true composability

You may remember Hygraph for its Content Federation and GraphQL-native API, but in essence, Hygraph is a headless CMS. By decoupling the frontend from backend, Hygraph is entirely headless, and you can implement it with any frontend framework: React, Vue, Svelte, etc.

Additionally, Hygraph's API-first nature offers more possibilities, such as Content Federation, a feature that lets you fetch content from any external source with a single API, allowing you to build a future-ready stack. As an example, you can unify your stack into a single API to reduce the complexity of your architecture and seamlessly integrate all your services via one API to enable programmatic data flow.

#Myth: Hygraph only works with JavaScript frameworks

Fact: Hygraph is frontend agnostic

Jamstack's popularity further contributed to the rise of headless CMSs. This does not mean, however, that Hygraph is a JavaScript-only CMS.

As a headless CMS, Hygraph is frontend agnostic. While it is often used with JavaScript frameworks due to its strong support for modern web technologies, Hygraph can be integrated with any technology stack. It provides a GraphQL API that you can use in any programming language or framework, such as Django, Flask, Laravel, etc. You can learn more about the frameworks you can integrate with Hygraph on this page.

Hygraph was in many ways technology agnostic, and it was something we really needed. We have not run into any limitations that would make us concerned about scaling further with Hygraph. It has been an incredibly stable and reliable platform.

#Myth: Hygraph lacks third-party integrations

Fact: Do you know about Hygraph's marketplace?

We get asked a lot about the availability of additional third-party integrations. It is surely our responsibility to educate our users on what we offer, so we want to take this opportunity today to highlight these three ways to extend Hygraph functionality and connect with other components in your tech stack:

• Ready-made integrations: The Hygraph Marketplace is a collection of apps built by either Hygraph or our partners for developers to supercharge your Hygraph projects.

• App Framework: Developers can use the App framework to extend the UI of Hygraph. You can build apps integrating Hygraph with third-party services or custom integrations tailored to specific needs.

• Remote Sources: If you don’t want to build a service or store data in your own stack, Remote Sources allow you to fetch data from external sources. This Content Federation utility enables teams to add content from other systems and sources to the Hygraph API without migrating content. This allows you to enrich your content entries or fetch third-party data from your Hygraph GraphQL endpoint and use only one API endpoint on your frontend.

#Myth: Hygraph lacks customization

Fact: Hygraph is highly customizable

Some may believe custom CMSs are the only way to meet their specific content needs. However, it is always resource-intensive to create and maintain a CMS from scratch. Others might think Hygraph doesn’t offer much customization due to its cloud-based nature. The truth is, Hygraph is highly customizable thanks to its decoupled architecture and flexible setup.

On the one hand, the schema you get in Hygraph is like a blank canvas, which you can tailor to your project. On the other hand, Hygraph provides customization options through its App Framework, ready-made integrations, and Remote Sources, allowing developers to tailor it to specific project needs and integrate any third-party tool.

#Myth: Hygraph sacrifices editorial features

Fact: Hygraph strives to make editors happy, too

Some believe Hygraph lacks traditional CMS features like content preview, scheduling, and role-based access control. Perhaps this stems from the stereotype that headless CMSs sacrifice editorial experience. As a matter of fact, Hygraph provides all of those features and more.

With Hygraph, your development team can customize the editorial experience that works best for you, including a preview option and a WYSIWYG editor. While it does not feature a page-building experience like some monoliths, this is better since getting rid of templates means more flexibility, and you can request new content types as reusable components.

#Myth: Hygraph is only for technical users

Fact: Hygraph enables cross-functional collaboration

Don't let the word headless scare you away. In reality, most headless CMSs are made to facilitate cross-functional collaboration, and Hygraph makes it frictionless. Being particularly good at modeling complex data, Hygraph lets developers create schemas and content models efficiently. This way, editors can also add and update content easily.

For non-technical users who are used to highly visual editors, Hygraph's user interface will indeed take some time to get used to. However, it’s a paradigm shift with many benefits. Hygraph's components ensure your content can be swiftly reused and simplify content managers’ jobs while keeping the design consistent across the entire website.

#Myth: Hygraph won’t fit my REST-based architecture

Fact: You can query through a REST API with Hygraph

While we are proud of the product history that our founders, Michael Lukaszczyk and Daniel Winter, began developing Hygraph because of their passion for GraphQL, and that Hygraph is a GraphQL-native headless CMS that uses powerful APIs to fetch content, Hygraph can still work with your REST-based architecture.

You can query through a RESTful API if you need to combine content from another system or product with Hygraph's Remote Sources. See our Remote Source Documentation for more details. Furthermore, if you need to send data back to your REST API, you can use Hygraph’s webhooks.

#Myth: Hygraph only operates during EU hours

Fact: Our support is available worldwide

If you have been a Hygraph user since about 6 years ago, we would like to take the opportunity to thank you for trusting us. However, if you are worried that Hygraph is only a small team operating from Berlin, you can rest assured that we provide timely support to users worldwide.

Over the years, Hygraph has grown to a team with over 80 people spread across five continents, many working in US time zones. The $30M Series B investment will help the company continue platform innovation and scale its go-to-market efforts. Enterprise customers get a service level agreement that specifies certain hours out of the box. Furthermore, our vibrant user community is always open to discussing Hygraph's use cases.

The customer support provided by the Hygraph.com team is exemplary. They are prompt, knowledgeable, and go above and beyond to assist with any queries or concerns. Their dedication to customer satisfaction is commendable.

#Myth: Hygraph does not offer dedicated infrastructure

Fact: You can work with dedicated infrastructure with Hygraph

Our customers often raise this out of regulatory and security concerns. While users on self-service plans are hosted on shared databases, you can opt for a dedicated infrastructure on enterprise plans. This way, your data is separated from others by a dedicated infrastructure, ensuring the highest level of security.

We can reduce the cost of ownership for the system setup and additional Ops resources with Hygraph.

#Myth: Hygraph cannot be hosted in a certain region

Fact: Hygraph can host worldwide

At Hygraph, we use the infrastructure from a major cloud provider, AWS, which has data centers worldwide. This allows us to provide hosting in multiple regions, ensuring that data can be stored close to users and enhancing performance and compliance with local regulations.

Hygraph allows for regional configuration during the setup of your project. You can specify the preferred geographical region for hosting. This ensures that all your data and services are provisioned in the chosen region, addressing concerns about data sovereignty and compliance.

#Hygraph does not offer much to its free users

Fact: You can create complete projects while on a free plan

Hygraph offers different plans, one of which is free. While different plans will afford you access to different features and feature limits, you can still do a lot with a free plan.

Suppose you’re looking to test Hygraph before deciding which CMS your company should use. In that case, our documentation offers a comprehensive Getting Started tutorial that allows you to build a project from scratch. You’ll have a chance to try out most of our important features while you learn about how our web app works.

#Wrapping up

Have we dispelled any doubts you had about Hygraph before, or are you more curious about Hygraph now than ever?

Hygraph offers the high-performance, future-proof severability your organization needs to deliver any digital product with excellence. Our team is willing to answer any questions you might have. Don't be shy! You can contact us via chat, through our community on Slack, or talk to our sales team directly.

We recently found that when you type in "Is Hygraph...", people most frequently ask whether it's free to use. The answer is YES. You can sign up for a free-forever account that is powerful enough to build any project you like. Why hesitate? Sign up now!