The visual builder revolution: how Contentstack is redefining content editing for the modern enterprise

The CMS landscape has evolved significantly over the years, starting with traditional CMS platforms that offered visual editing capabilities tailored to marketers and content teams. These tools were user-friendly but lacked scalability and flexibility, which led to the rise of headless CMS solutions. Headless CMS platforms solved the issues of scalability, omnichannel delivery, and responsiveness but at the cost of making content editing more complex and reliant on developers.

As headless CMS solutions started to gain traction, thanks to advancements in web technology like web APIs, JSON, and scalable cloud infrastructure, Contentstack emerged to address the challenges that come with traditional CMS platforms. By embracing these modern technologies, Contentstack created a solution that tackles the issues of scalability, reliability, and omnichannel delivery, while also catering to the needs of marketers and content teams. Contentstack offered previewing capabilities early on, allowing marketers to see how their changes would appear live before publishing. Now, with the introduction of Contentstack’s Visual Builder, the platform provides an intuitive visual editing experience that marketers have been missing, in a way that’s grounded in the flexibility and power of a headless architecture.

For those using or considering traditional CMS

If you’re working with a traditional or monolithic CMS, you’re probably familiar with the convenience of a visual drag-and-drop (or WYSIWYG) editing and page-building experience. But you’ve likely also run into problems with scaling, performance, and keeping your brand experiences consistent across the ever-growing number of digital channels. These systems often struggle to keep up as your needs grow or as you try to adapt to new technologies.

Contentstack’s Visual Builder offers a path forward, allowing you to maintain the visual editing experience that content editors prefer while gaining the scalability and flexibility of a headless CMS. This means your marketing teams can continue making updates and changes directly on the page without sacrificing the speed, control, and performance needed to support a growing digital presence.

For those using or considering other headless CMS solutions

If you’re already using or looking into other headless CMS options, you might have found that while some offer visual editing, they often fall short when it comes to the infrastructure, stability, and features needed for enterprise content teams. Many of these systems started as visual page builders or simple headless CMS platforms, but they can struggle with things like workflows, governance, permissions, or developer-focused needs like deep API integrations, robust SDKs, and quality documentation that are essential for large-scale enterprise operations.

Contentstack was built from the ground up as a headless CMS, with a solid, scalable foundation that supports enterprise needs. Adding the Visual Builder to that foundation means you get the best of both worlds: structured control and scalability, combined with a visual editing experience that lets marketers and content teams make changes or create new pages using drag-and-drop blocks—all without compromising on brand consistency or breaking layouts.

Why Contentstack is the ideal visual headless CMS for modern enterprises

Contentstack offers the best of both worlds: the scalability, flexibility, and reliability of a true headless CMS combined with the intuitive visual editing experience that marketing and content teams need. The Visual Builder allows teams to create and edit content with the ease they were accustomed to in traditional CMSs but with the added control and structure necessary for consistency and reliability at scale.

The Visual Builder experience can be broken down into three core aspects:

1. Previewing: In the Timeline experience, you can see how your content will appear at any given point in time. This makes it easy to plan and visualize how different pages or even your entire website will look based on upcoming releases, campaigns, or other scheduled updates. For those using Personalize, you can also see how the content or website will appear to different audience segments, giving you a complete picture of how your content will reach and engage users.
   

2. Editing: With live editing, marketers and content teams can make real-time, in-line updates directly on the page. This allows them to easily make updates on the fly like text changes, image swaps, or minor adjustments to other elements—and then see exactly how it’ll all appear live before publishing, all without requiring developer support.
   
3. Building: The Visual Builder includes drag-and-drop blocks, empowering users to construct and customize layouts with flexibility and control. With role-based permissions and governance controls, you can be sure that only the right team members have access to edit and manage content, keeping everything on track and on-brand.
   

What really sets Contentstack’s Visual Building experience apart is how it brings together other platform capabilities in one place. The AI Assistant, integrated directly into the Visual Builder, helps generate, revise, or fine-tune content in real-time, all while staying true to your brand voice using Brand Kit. It also connects with Personalize, allowing you to include any selected audiences and their associated details directly in your AI prompts. This means you can generate content that’s tailored to specific audience segments, making it easier to craft variations that resonate with each target group.

This integration with Personalize carries over into the visual building experience itself. Embedded into Visual Builder, Personalize lets content teams create experiments and tailored content variations, and allows them to see exactly how that content will appear to different audience segments. And lastly, Automate is a built-in visual workflow builder that makes it easy to automate content processes, connect with third-party tools, and streamline workflows across your systems—all without writing a single line of code.

Contentstack’s approach combines a headless, API-first foundation with a visual editing experience that offers the right balance of flexibility and control. It’s the only visual headless CMS that includes built-in AI-powered content generation, a personalization and experimentation engine, and a fully equipped automation platform. This makes Contentstack not just capable of meeting the needs of developers looking for structured, scalable solutions, and marketers who need speed and flexibility, but it also helps you rethink what’s possible and deliver powerful, personalized digital experiences at scale.

See it live

To see it in action, check out the recording from our recent Introduction to Visual Builder small group demo. To stay informed on all our product updates, visit the Contentstack Pulse page.