How to Build a Scalable Headless CMS: Lessons from a Digital Coin Gallery Project

The Future of Content Management is Headless

If you’ve ever struggled with slow-loading image galleries or content that won’t display right on mobile, you’ll understand why I’m excited about headless CMS solutions. Today I’ll walk through building a scalable system based on our work creating a digital coin gallery – complete with celebrity comparisons and high-resolution images that load instantly across devices.

Understanding Headless CMS Architecture

Remember when editing a website’s content meant fiddling with WordPress templates? Traditional CMS platforms lock content and design together like conjoined twins. Headless CMS changes the game by separating your content storage (the brain) from its presentation (the body).

Core Components of Headless Architecture

• Content Repository: Your secure, cloud-based content vault
• API Layer: The messenger that delivers content anywhere
• Presentation Layer: Displays content on websites, apps, or even AR glasses
• Webhooks: Instant update notifications for live content changes

Why This Matters for Media-Heavy Projects

When we built our coin comparison gallery – think rare coins paired with celebrity lookalikes – we needed:

• Single source for thousands of high-res images
• Structured data to connect coins with famous faces
• Flexible display options for web, mobile, and future platforms

Choosing the Right Headless CMS

After testing dozens of systems, three stood out for our coin gallery project. Each brings unique strengths to media-rich applications.

Contentful: The Enterprise Powerhouse

Contentful’s structured content models proved perfect for organizing our coin collection. Here’s how we defined our celebrity-matched coins:

// Defining a coin content model in Contentful
{
"name": "Coin",
"fields": [
{"id": "title", "type": "Text"},
{"id": "description", "type": "RichText"},
{"id": "comparisonImage", "type": "Media"},
{"id": "celebrityMatch", "type": "Text"},
{"id": "metadata", "type": "Object"}
]
}

Strapi: The Open-Source Champion

When we needed custom API endpoints for quirky features like “find coins resembling Elvis,” self-hosted Strapi delivered:

// Custom API endpoint in Strapi
module.exports = {
routes: [
{
method: 'GET',
path: '/coins/similar/:celebrity',
handler: 'coin.findByCelebrity',
}
]
}

Sanity.io: The Developer-First Solution

Sanity’s real-time queries helped us create live-updating coin displays. This GROQ query powered our celebrity comparison feature:

// Querying coin comparisons in GROQ
*[_type == 'coin' && celebrityMatch == $name] {
title,
description,
"imageUrl": comparisonImage.asset->url,
metadata
}

Building with Jamstack and Static Generators

Pairing headless CMS with modern frameworks creates lightning-fast experiences – crucial when displaying hundreds of coin images.

Next.js for Dynamic Coin Galleries

We used Next.js’ hybrid rendering for our always-fresh but fast-loading gallery:

// Next.js page with ISR
import { getCoinContent } from '@/lib/contentful';

export async function getStaticProps() {
const coins = await getCoinContent();
return {
props: { coins },
revalidate: 60 // Incremental Static Regeneration
};
}

export default function CoinGallery({ coins }) {
return (

);
}

Gatsby for Media Optimization

Gatsby automatically optimized our heavy coin images without quality loss:

// Gatsby graphql query with image optimization
query {
allSanityCoin {
nodes {
title
comparisonImage {
asset {
gatsbyImageData(
width: 800
placeholder: DOMINANT_COLOR
formats: [AUTO, WEBP]
)
}
}
}
}
}

API-First Content Delivery Strategies

Fast content delivery makes or breaks media-rich sites. These techniques kept our coin gallery speedy:

GraphQL Federation for Complex Content

We connected coin data with celebrity bios and historical context:

# Apollo Federation type extending
extend type Coin @key(fields: "id") {
id: ID! @external
relatedCelebrities: [Celebrity]
}

type Celebrity @key(fields: "id") {
id: ID!
name: String!
coins: [Coin]
}

Smart Caching for Frequent Requests

Redis caching handled traffic spikes when celebrity coin comparisons went viral:

// Express middleware for API caching
app.get('/api/coins', cacheMiddleware(300), async (req, res) => {
const coins = await getCoinData();
res.json(coins);
});

Performance Optimization Techniques

Our coin gallery needed millisecond load times despite massive images. Here’s what worked:

Image CDN Magic

Automatic format conversion and sizing saved bandwidth:

// Contentful image API parameters
https://images.ctfassets.net/{space_id}/{asset_id}/{version}/
{file_name}?fm=webp&q=80&w=1200&h=630&fit=fill

Edge Caching Supercharger

Varnish cache near users sped up API responses globally:

# Varnish VCL configuration
sub vcl_backend_response {
if (bereq.url ~ "^/api/coins") {
set beresp.ttl = 1h;
set beresp.http.Cache-Control = "public, max-age=3600";
}
}

Case Study: Digital Coin Gallery Implementation

Let’s look at how these pieces created our successful celebrity coin comparison platform.

Structuring Coin Content

Our content models included:

• Key coin details (year, origin, denomination)
• Celebrity match explanations
• Multiple image angles with zoom points
• Historical context connections

Multi-Channel Tech Stack

Final architecture combined:

• Sanity.io CMS backend
• Next.js frontend with incremental updates
• Cloudinary for smart image handling
• GraphQL API gateway

Real-World Performance

The numbers spoke for themselves:

• Near-perfect Lighthouse scores (98/100)
• API responses under 300ms at peak traffic
• Content updates without downtime

Why Headless CMS Wins for Media Projects

Our coin gallery experience showed how headless systems deliver:

• Content that adapts to new devices easily
• Lightning-fast user experiences
• True omnichannel publishing

Whether you’re building a coin comparison site or the next great media platform, headless architecture gives you the flexibility to create without constraints. Our project proves that when you unleash content from presentation limits, you create experiences people remember – and keep coming back to.

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