Exploring and Getting Started with Contentful CMS

Feb 10, 2025

#learning

2 minutes

Recently, I started exploring Contentful, a headless Content Management System (CMS) that makes content management more flexible. Unlike traditional CMS platforms, Contentful separates content from its presentation, allowing it to be used across websites, mobile apps, and even IoT devices. It’s been interesting to see how it simplifies content updates and integrates with different platforms.

What I like about Contentful:

Content is stored independently, giving full creative freedom.
RESTful and GraphQL APIs make integration easy.
Works well for both small projects and large-scale applications.
Clean and intuitive interface for content management.
One content source can serve multiple platforms like websites and apps.

Getting started was simple. I signed up for a free account on Contentful and created a space to store content. Then, I defined a content model—for a blog, I set up a Blog Post type with fields like title, slug, body, author, and published date. Adding content was straightforward using the dashboard’s editor.

Once I had content, I pulled it into a basic HTML page using JavaScript: https://github.com/Akbarsait/akbarsaitblogposts/blob/main/code-snippets/contentful-js-example.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>My Blog</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Blog Posts</h1>
    <div id="blog-container"></div>

    <script>
        const spaceId = 'your_space_id';
        const accessToken = 'your_access_token';

        fetch(`https://cdn.contentful.com/spaces/${spaceId}/entries?access_token=${accessToken}`)
            .then(response => response.json())
            .then(data => {
                const blogContainer = document.getElementById("blog-container");
                data.items.forEach(post => {
                    const postElement = document.createElement("div");
                    postElement.innerHTML = `<h2>${post.fields.title}</h2><p>${post.fields.body}</p>`;
                    blogContainer.appendChild(postElement);
                });
            })
            .catch(error => console.error('Error fetching content:', error));
    </script>
</body>
</html>

Here are a few resources that I found really helpful while getting started:

So far, I’ve enjoyed experimenting with Contentful. It’s developer-friendly and makes content management easier for modern web apps. Looking forward to exploring more advanced integrations soon! Have you used Contentful? I’d love to hear about your experiences!

Title Photo by Akbar Noormohamed on Unsplash