Hocus Pocus 3: Unweaving the homebrew CMS spell

In the heart of New England, nestled among the quaint and cobblestone streets of Techtonia, lies a tale that blurs the lines between technology and the supernatural. Forget what you know about the Salem witch trials; this Halloween, we’re diving into a different kind of magic—the magic of headless CMS.

Join us as we explore the enchanting world of Techtonia and discover the secrets to reverse the business curses.

#Setting the stage

Techtonia - the town where the story takes place. There are many talented local folks, all willing to contribute to building a better future for the town. Techtonia wants to attract visitors to the town and enjoy their experience there. To do that, people in Techtonia must unite and break the spells together.

Max - the protagonist of our story, a tech-savvy guy who is in charge of the modernization project of Techtonia (let’s get back to the reality a little - yes, it’s the Head of Development we are talking about) who witnessed the born of Sandox and realized that things have gone out of control with it.

Dani - a townsfolk who is in charge of telling stories to town visitors (and yes, it’s the Content Editors we refer to). Dani is a good storyteller however lacks technical abilities. When Sandox was used at Techtonia, Dani often couldn’t present content the way he wanted and had to rely a lot on the help of Max.

Sandox - the naughty homebrew CMS. Sandox was created as a means to present Techtonia as a beautiful, engaging town for its visitors. However, as Techtonia keeps growing, Sandox has grown out of control and started to disturb Techtonia’s development. As Sandox wishes to stay immortal and keep its power within Techtonia, it occasionally creates trouble by cursing the town.

Hygrinx - a mysterious newcomer in town who is a headless CMS. Hygrinx is from the realm of Modernia and claims it knows how to reverse Sandox’s spells.

#The tale of Techtonia

Once upon a time, when Max was exploring the solutions to present Techtonia, Max and his team decided to build a CMS in-house because they couldn’t find any CMS that perfectly suited their need. In the meantime, there’s an enchanting story that’s spread around Techtonia, saying that every second developer can build a CMS. So Max and his team thought it was not a bad idea to build their in-house solution, and it would provide the off-the-shelf features they were looking for. There, Sandox was born.

Sandox was a clever, comprehensive tool that helped Max and his team when they were first building the project, but as time went on, Techtonia needed a more modernized way of presentation. Sandox malfunctioned, becoming a bad-tempered, naughty CMS solution that started putting spells on Techtonia. Luckily, there came Hygrinx, a newcomer in town who is a headless CMS and said that it knew how to break Sandox’s spells…

#Unweaving the homebrew spells

Curse: Solo guardianship of an enchanted CMS

Little did Max and his team know that Sandox is a high-demanding CMS. The effort that it took to build and maintain Sandox was greatly underestimated. Soon, Max and his team found themselves managing a fairly complex solution as they added more layers to Sandox.

With Sandox, Max took on the responsibility of maintaining all the moving pieces required to keep Techtonia’s system healthy. This included duties like performance testing, security updates, and continuous monitoring, along with ensuring that Sandox stays compatible with any changes to the other platforms of Techtonia and the services it depends on.

Max also has to make sure the system performs as Techtonia scales. Quick fixes worked initially, but over time, Sandox tends to get so bad-tempered that making any change risks a waterfall of errors and requires a long testing process.

Reverse: Rest assured with skilled guardians of CMS

Hygrinx, the headless CMS from the distant realm of Modernia, was like no other CMS Techtonia had encountered. It had traversed digital landscapes far and wide, gathering knowledge and power along the way. Hygrinx came from a place where the concept of Software as a Service (SaaS) was woven into the very fabric of their existence.

Hygrinx had a team from its own realm ready to assist Techtonia in maintaining the CMS from beyond the town's borders. They will take care of infrastructure maintenance, as well as ensure the platform works smoothly with any major changes in the whole system.

Curse: Nightmares of developer onboarding

The curse of Sandox had another dark facet–nightmares of developer onboarding. Max had to resemble a team with expertise in various development and design skills. This ordeal left them with a limited pool of available engineers, as most were unfamiliar with their homebrew platform.

Eventually, the team who built Sandox became the sole keepers of its arcane knowledge. Training a new developer could take months, creating a dependency that couldn't be broken easily. This isolation also made working for Techtonia less appealing, as their custom solutions didn't translate to other positions in the broader industry.

Reverse: Let the headless Sage guide you

With Hygrinx, onboarding was a breeze, and Techtonia could rest assured with a team of experienced professionals. The dark cloud of dependency lifted as Hygrinx provided an easy onboarding process, backed by an extensive team of experts who knew the CMS inside out.

Curse: Crafting CMS fundamentals from the ground up

While off-the-shelf features are what Max and his team were after, they had to build all the core capabilities of any typical CMS from scratch. This meant handling intricate infrastructure elements like data structure, security, API management, etc. They also had to ensure that usability features met the high standards expected from business tools, and the editing user interface (UI) had to be designed and maintained meticulously.

Reverse: Harnessing external synergy for CMS power

Hygrinx offered a different path. Instead of rebuilding the wheel, they had the flexibility of a headless CMS. Techtonia discovered that with Hygrinx, they could simply compose the features they needed using app integrations and Content Federation. This meant they didn't have to reinvent the wheel or spend precious resources rebuilding core CMS capabilities.

In the meantime, Hygrinx has flexible content modeling, structured content, and modular components, all suitable for the creation of any type of content on Techtonia’s presentation layer, making sure that content is reusable to maximize Max’s team’s efficiency and that Dani can create out-of-the-box content as he wanted.

Curse: Wandering off the path of your true calling

Dani, the town's storyteller, suffered from Sandox’s spell too. The mischievous Sandox constantly tampered with Dani's stories, turning them into something unrecognizable. To counter this, Dani had to rely heavily on Max's help. Max and his team ended up dedicating so much of their resources and time to fighting fires and maintaining the status quo. They had very little time and budget left to innovate for Techtonia.

Reverse: Embrace the boundless versatility of a headless CMS

With Hygrinx, Max found himself liberated by the headless capabilities. The modular architecture of Hygrinx facilitated rapid development and effortless scalability. Max could now focus on crafting visionary features and applications to propel Techtonia into the digital future.

Simultaneously, Dani felt the transformative power of Hygrinx’s intuitive user interface. Hygrinx empowered Dani’s content team, granting them the autonomy to craft and curate captivating narratives independently.

#From dusk to dawn, a new era has come

Now, the dawn has come. With Hygrinx as their guiding light, the development and content teams of Techtonia found themselves working in unison, each contributing their unique talents to create a digital realm unlike any other.

The boundless versatility of a headless CMS allowed Techtonia to follow its true calling — to captivate and enchant its visitors with immersive experiences and innovative features.