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GatherContent Review and Features
Written by Thom Krupa
Last update: 6/11/2024
| Feature | GatherContent | |
|---|---|---|
CMS Type | API | |
Editor Experience | ||
Dashboard Internationalization The CMS interface can be displayed in multiple languages, making it accessible for non-English speakers. | ||
Multilanguage Content Support for creating and managing content in multiple languages. Useful for global websites that need to cater to different regions. | ||
Scheduling & Releases Allows you to schedule content to be published at a specific time and date in the future. | ||
Content Versioning Keeps track of different versions of content, allowing you to revert to previous versions if needed. Like an "undo" button for your content. | ||
Autosave Automatically saves changes as you work, preventing data loss if something unexpected happens, like a browser crash. | ||
Preview Content Lets you see how content will look on your live site before publishing it. Like a sneak peek before it goes live. | ||
Multiple Environments Support for different stages of content (e.g., development, staging, production). This allows testing changes in a safe environment before going live. | ||
Workflow Sets up an approval process for content creation. For example, a writer might submit content, then an editor reviews and approves it before publishing. | ||
Customizable UI Allows customization of the CMS user interface to match your brand or specific needs. | ||
Team Management | ||
User Roles Predefined roles (like admin, editor, viewer) with specific permissions. | ||
Custom User Roles Ability to create custom roles with specific permissions tailored to your organization’s needs. | ||
Organization Management Allows you to manage different user groups and access within the CMS. | ||
Developer Experience | ||
REST API An API that follows REST principles, allowing developers to interact with the CMS using standard HTTP requests. | ||
GraphQL API An API that uses GraphQL, allowing clients to request exactly the data they need, making data fetching more efficient. | ||
Images API API specifically for managing images, including uploading, processing, and retrieving images. | ||
Content Management API API for managing content, including creating, updating, and deleting content items. | ||
Field Types Different types of data fields available for content, such as text, number, date, media, etc. | ||
Custom Field Types Allows you to create even more specific field types beyond the basic ones, to perfectly match the type of content you manage. | ||
Webhooks Allows the CMS to send real-time notifications to other systems or services when certain events happen (e.g., content published). You can use these to trigger actions in other applications. | ||
CLI Command Line Interface tools that allow developers to perform tasks and manage the tool via the command line. | ||
SDK A set of tools and pre-written code snippets that developers can use to integrate the CMS with their project more easily. | ||
Free Tier | ||
Free Plan Available Some headless CMS providers offer a free plan with limited features, allowing you to try it out before committing. | ||
Team Members The number of users (team members) that can be added to the CMS. | N/A | |
Locales The number of different languages and regional settings the CMS supports for content creation and management. | N/A | |
Projects Support for managing multiple projects within the same CMS account. | N/A | |
Security & Compliance Offerings | ||
Two-factor authentication Adds an extra layer of security when logging in. | ||
Team Logs Tracks user activity within the platform for better accountability. | ||
GDPR Compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation for handling personal data. | ||
SOC2 Service Organization Control 2 compliance for managing customer data. | ||
ISO27001 International standard for information security management. | ||
Others | ||
Extensions Additional plugins or add-ons that can enhance the functionality of the platform. | ||
Built-in Backups & Restore Features that automatically back up content and settings, allowing easy restoration in case of data loss. | ||
What is GatherContent?
GatherContent started in 2012. Created by ex-founders of a digital agency who knew the pain of running and maintaining content-heavy projects. It offers quite a unique way of organizing content. It looks a bit like a folder structure, each folder can represent a different part of your company. One folder for a blog. Another for job list, etc.
Is GatherContent a headless CMS?
It's been a full monolithic CMS until recently. GatherContent launched a basic Rest API. You can fetch and create Items, Templates, Structures, and Folders. Last year we had a chance to work together with the GatherContent team on a gatsby-source-gathercontent plugin. It enables easy integration with Gatsby and gives you a GraphQL version of the API.
User Interface
GatherContent's Content dashboard looks similar to an OS file browsing app. On the left is a sidebar with Folders and Subfolders. And on the right is a list of all items.
You have access to your Files & Media:
And here is how the Hierarchy page looks like:
Apart from the main Content tab, there is Structure tab you can define fields for every template you create. Each item needs to have a template set up:
Editing Content
Editing view looks very clean, all you can see are tabs and fields inside every tab. Those are configurable via structure settings.
Workflow
GatherContent allows you to set up a basic workflow that is helpful especially when a lot of people work on a piece of content. You can set multiple steps before content goes live. On each step, you can leave a note and mention someone from your team.
Once the content is live, you can lock its editing to make sure no one does changes by accident.
Integrations
You can import data to GatherContent from a spreadsheet file (CSV, XLSX, XLS or ODS). You can seamlessly connect it to other CMS, currently, a few are supported out-of-the-box - WordPress, Kentico, Craft, and many others.
Webhooks
You can create a webhook in GatherContent that will be triggered on every event. That's a bit tricky if you want to rebuild a Jamstack project only on selected actions like publishing or deleting. There will be information about event names in the webhook's payload, but if you want to filter out some actions before you trigger building you need a middleware between GatherContent and CI/CD, for example, a cloud function.
GatherContent Pricing
GatherContent doesn't offer a free plan at all. That might be a bummer. There is not even a developer plan which is very popular for testing purposes. All you have for testing is a free 14-days trial.
There are 3 options to upgrade:
GatherContent Pros and Cons
GatherContent is a great CMS for large content teams when you don't need a lot of customization. It doesn't offer custom field types like a color picker. You won't build dynamic layouts. But if you have thousands of posts and other content formats across dozens of people, GatherContent will do the job.