Built on the Django framework, Wagtail is a robust, open-source CMS that provides a great experience for developers and content editors alike.
From SMEs to enterprise, it's used by some of the most well known organisations in the world, like NASA and the NHS, to name just two. Wagtail is well known for its versatility, scalability, and community-driven development.
Here's some reasons for why we think Wagtail stands out as an excellent CMS choice:
Intuitive and Easy to Use
Wagtail's admin interface is intuitive and very user-friendly. It makes it easy to manage content without technical expertise, and is designed with content editors in mind. Editors can create, edit, and publish content through a clean organised dashboard. There's drag-and-drop functionality and completely customisable publishing workflows.
Flexibility and Scalability for Any Project
Wagtail is often referred to as the “Swiss Army knife” of CMS solutions. It provides all the essentials for managing content but also has the flexibility to handle complex customisations and integrations. Wagtail has a modular structure, so developers can choose only the components they need, keeping projects lightweight.
Out of the box Wagtail can easily handle any manner of portfolio type site — yet its architecture is highly scalable, and can handle large volumes of content and traffic without compromising performance. It's as suitable for small data driven sites as it is for large-scale enterprise applications. Wagtail’s Django foundation ensures robust performance as your needs grow.
Search & Performance Capabilities
Wagtail includes a very flexible search API that can be implemented against your models, and/or perform queries on Django QuerySets. Out of the box, it provides a database-backed search using the database's built-in full-text search capabilities. But Wagtail can also be easily configured to use various search backends — like Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, or AWS OpenSearch. And if you have really specific needs, you can even implement your own custom search backend.
The platform excels in handling images and documents. Its image management system includes built-in focal point selection for responsive images, automatic format conversion, and intelligent cropping. Allowing a very straightforward approach to serving multiple device contexts .
Content Modelling Flexibility
Wagtail's StreamField feature definitely deserves special mention. The TLDR: Streamfield lets editors add any type of content block at any time (and then move them around).
StreamField provides a content editing model suitable for pages that do not follow a fixed structure – such as blog posts or news stories – where the text may be interspersed with subheadings, images, pull quotes and video. It’s also suitable for more specialised content types, such as maps, charts, code snippets — in fact, any kind of custom content you're created. These different content types are represented as a sequence of ‘blocks’, which can be repeated and arranged in any order.
Going Headless?
In today’s multi-platform, multi-context world, headless CMS solutions are in high demand. As part of a MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless) architecture, Wagtail provides frontend agnostic API access to all of its content.
Wagtail integrates perfectly with a MACH architecture, and is fully equipped to operate as a headless CMS. It exposes robust, well defined APIs, and provides a very straightforward approach to extend and customise any custom content you want available via API.
Internally, Wagtail’s REST API is powered by the Django REST Framework, and it offers a GraphQL API through Wagtail Grapple.
By operating as a headless CMS, Wagtail decouples content management from the presentation layer, so you can build and control your frontend separately while delivering content effortlessly through APIs.
Enterprise-Ready with Advanced Features
Part of the reason we love working with Wagtail is its flexibility. It's designed to meet the needs of both small teams and large organisations. It includes advanced features like granular user permissions, content moderation workflows, and extensive version control. Large teams can benefit from Wagtail’s comprehensive permissions system, which allows administrators to assign specific roles, ensuring only the right people have access to particular parts of the CMS.
Wagtail’s maturity is another standout benefit. With a decade of development and input from a thriving community of developers, Wagtail has been refined to address real-world content management needs. As a result, it’s a CMS with a balanced approach, and scores highly for both developer experience and intuitive content editing.
Secure, Reliable, and Community-Driven
Security is a core part of Wagtail’s design. Built on Django, Wagtail inherits Django’s security features, which include protections against SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and cross-site request forgery. This provides a secure foundation for managing sensitive data and handling large numbers of users. Wagtail also offers peace of mind with regular security updates and best practices built in.
Additionally, Wagtail has an active and engaged community. With over 700 contributors, including organisations like Torchbox (Wagtail’s original developers) and Mozilla, Wagtail is constantly evolving to meet new demands and incorporate new features. A vibrant ecosystem means extensive resources, plugins, and integrations. This is great news for businesses looking to build things fast and cheaply.
Why Partner with Flowmoco for Your Wagtail Project?
At Flowmoco we understand Wagtail inside and out. We know how to tailor Wagtail for a simple website or a complex multi-platform experience. And we know how to assess whether it's the right choice or not for your business objectives.
Start a conversation with us today, and lets explore how we can bring your content vision to life.