oliverdavies.uk/content/node.e88b4449-20b6-4165-880b-6d34b9579781.yml

80 lines
4.4 KiB
YAML

uuid:
- value: e88b4449-20b6-4165-880b-6d34b9579781
langcode:
- value: en
type:
- target_id: daily_email
target_type: node_type
target_uuid: 8bde1f2f-eef9-4f2d-ae9c-96921f8193d7
revision_timestamp:
- value: '2025-05-11T09:00:02+00:00'
revision_uid:
- target_type: user
target_uuid: b8966985-d4b2-42a7-a319-2e94ccfbb849
revision_log: { }
status:
- value: true
uid:
- target_type: user
target_uuid: b8966985-d4b2-42a7-a319-2e94ccfbb849
title:
- value: 'Should you have a separate front-end for your Drupal website?'
created:
- value: '2025-01-27T00:00:00+00:00'
changed:
- value: '2025-05-11T09:00:02+00:00'
promote:
- value: false
sticky:
- value: false
default_langcode:
- value: true
revision_translation_affected:
- value: true
path:
- alias: /daily/2025/01/27/separate-front-end
langcode: en
body:
- value: |
<p>A few years ago, "decoupled" or "headless" Drupal was a popular approach, leveraging Drupal's built-in JSON:API module to expose its data via an API which can be consumed by a separate front-end application.</p>
<p>The front-end application would retrieve the data from Drupal via the API and generate the appropriate HTML.</p>
<p>It's an approach I've used in the past and <a href="/presentations/decoupling-drupal-vuejs">spoken about at conferences</a>, but it comes with pros and cons.</p>
<p>In theory, as the Drupal (or back-end application) and front-end are completely separate, there can be two separate and independent teams working on them.</p>
<p>This adds overhead and complexity and I've found that one team will commonly be blocking the other instead of both being able to work in parallel.</p>
<p>As I said yesterday, <a href="/daily/2025/01/26/layout-builder">previewing content in Drupal can be an issue</a> - particularly with a decoupled approach which needs a front-end to be rebuilt before the changes can be seen.</p>
<p>If you have a separate front-end, you'll need to create everything from scratch, such as writing accessible HTML markup and othe standard features that would normally be provided by Drupal and, because you've got two separate front-end and back-end applications, you've got twice the amount of maintenance.</p>
<p>You could also be excluding yourself from any new features that will be available in future versions of Drupal or Drupal CMS, such as the new Experience Builder.</p>
<p>Whilst decoupled/headless builds are a viable option and can work well in some situations, it's not something I recommend often.</p>
format: full_html
processed: |
<p>A few years ago, "decoupled" or "headless" Drupal was a popular approach, leveraging Drupal's built-in JSON:API module to expose its data via an API which can be consumed by a separate front-end application.</p>
<p>The front-end application would retrieve the data from Drupal via the API and generate the appropriate HTML.</p>
<p>It's an approach I've used in the past and <a href="http://default/presentations/decoupling-drupal-vuejs">spoken about at conferences</a>, but it comes with pros and cons.</p>
<p>In theory, as the Drupal (or back-end application) and front-end are completely separate, there can be two separate and independent teams working on them.</p>
<p>This adds overhead and complexity and I've found that one team will commonly be blocking the other instead of both being able to work in parallel.</p>
<p>As I said yesterday, <a href="http://default/daily/2025/01/26/layout-builder">previewing content in Drupal can be an issue</a> - particularly with a decoupled approach which needs a front-end to be rebuilt before the changes can be seen.</p>
<p>If you have a separate front-end, you'll need to create everything from scratch, such as writing accessible HTML markup and othe standard features that would normally be provided by Drupal and, because you've got two separate front-end and back-end applications, you've got twice the amount of maintenance.</p>
<p>You could also be excluding yourself from any new features that will be available in future versions of Drupal or Drupal CMS, such as the new Experience Builder.</p>
<p>Whilst decoupled/headless builds are a viable option and can work well in some situations, it's not something I recommend often.</p>
summary: null
field_daily_email_cta: { }