# Choosing a Headless CMS: A Capability Checklist and Questions to Ask Any Vendor

> Source: https://agilitycms.com/docs/overview/choosing-a-headless-cms

This checklist works for any headless CMS, including Agility. It lists the capabilities that usually decide whether a project goes well, why each one matters, and the questions that get past a sales demo to a real answer. At the end, a table points to where Agility's own documentation answers each area, so you can check our answers the same way you check anyone else's.

## How to use it

1. **Weight the areas for your project first.** A single-site marketing team and a multi-brand enterprise will care about different rows. Decide what matters before you see any demo.
2. **Ask to see it, not hear about it.** For each must-have, ask the vendor to show it working, ideally on your content in a trial or proof of concept.
3. **Check the documentation.** If a capability matters, it should be documented. Undocumented features are hard to rely on and hard to hand over.
4. **Write down the answers.** Record who said what and when, and attach links to the documentation they gave you.

## 1. Content modeling

| Capability | Why it matters | Ask |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Structured fields and validation | Clean, reusable content instead of formatted blobs. | Which field types exist? Can we add validation rules and help text? |
| References between content | Reuse one item in many places and keep it in sync. | How do we link content? Can a field reference a list, a single item or several items? |
| Reusable page building blocks | Editors assemble pages from components your developers maintain. | How are components defined, and how do they map to front-end code? |
| Changing models after launch | Models evolve. Changing them shouldn't break content. | What happens to existing content when we add, rename or remove a field? |

## 2. Pages and the editor experience

| Capability | Why it matters | Ask |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Page management | Editors create pages and arrange components without a developer. | Can an editor create a new page, choose its layout and reorder components on their own? |
| Preview | Editors check work before it goes live. | How does preview work with our front end? What do we have to build? |
| Visual or in-context editing | Editors find and change content on the page they're looking at. | Does in-context editing work on our real site, and what code changes does it need? |
| SEO controls | Marketers own titles, descriptions and URLs. | Which SEO fields are per page? How are redirects managed and applied? |

## 3. Workflow and governance

| Capability | Why it matters | Ask |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Roles and permissions | Least privilege, especially for agencies and regional teams. | Can we create custom roles? Can we restrict access to a section, a list or a single item? |
| Approvals | Regulated or brand-sensitive content needs review. | Can we require approval before publishing? Who is notified? |
| Scheduling and coordinated releases | Launches happen at a set time, across many items. | Can we schedule publish and unpublish? Can we group items into one release? |
| Version history | Mistakes need undoing. | Is every version kept? Can editors compare and restore? |
| Audit trail | Security and compliance teams need to know who did what. | What is logged, for how long, and can we export it to our own tools? |

## 4. Localization

| Capability | Why it matters | Ask |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Locales | Language and regional versions of content and pages. | How are locales structured? Can pages differ by locale, or only their content? |
| Translation workflow | Translation is often the slowest step. | How do we send content for translation and bring it back? Are there machine translation integrations? |

## 5. Content delivery

| Capability | Why it matters | Ask |
| --- | --- | --- |
| APIs | Your front end and other channels read content through them. | REST, GraphQL or both? How do filtering, sorting and paging work? |
| Caching and invalidation | Speed, and fresh content right after publishing. | Is the API served from a CDN? How quickly does a publish reach it? |
| Change notifications | Your site, search and other systems need to react to changes. | Which events send webhooks? Are deliveries signed and retried? Is there a delivery history? |
| Copying content locally | Offline apps, search indexes and high read volume. | Is there a sync API that returns only what changed? |
| Usage limits | Limits shape your architecture and your bill. | What is metered? What counts as an API call? What happens when we reach a limit? |

## 6. Assets

| Capability | Why it matters | Ask |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Media library and CDN | Images and files served fast, everywhere. | Where are assets stored and served from? Can we use our own domain? |
| Image transformation | One upload, many sizes and formats. | Can we resize, crop and convert formats by URL? Is there a focal point? |

## 7. Developer experience and extensibility

| Capability | Why it matters | Ask |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Framework support | Your team's skills and your hosting choices. | Which frameworks have maintained SDKs and starters? |
| Management API and SDKs | Migrations, automation and integrations. | Can everything in the UI also be done through an API? Which SDKs are maintained? |
| Environments and CLI | Moving models and content between development, test and production. | How do we promote models and content between environments? Is there a CLI for CI/CD? |
| UI extensions | Custom fields and integrations inside the editing UI. | Can we add custom fields, panels or apps? How are they built and hosted? |

## 8. AI and agents

| Capability | Why it matters | Ask |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Agent access | AI assistants can model, migrate and edit content. | Is there an MCP server or similar? How does it authenticate? |
| Permissions and confirmation | AI should never exceed a user's rights. | Does an agent act with the user's own permissions? Are publish and delete confirmed? Do agent saves go live immediately? |
| Data handling | Buyers and security teams ask this first. | What data leaves the platform when an AI tool is used, and where does it go? |

## 9. Security, compliance and operations

| Capability | Why it matters | Ask |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Sign-in and identity | Central control of who can sign in. | Which single sign-on standards are supported? Can we enforce MFA? |
| Certifications and reviews | Required by most security reviews. | Which certifications do you hold? Can we see the reports? |
| Data residency | Legal or policy requirements on where data lives. | Which regions are available? What leaves the region, and when? |
| Availability and recovery | The CMS is part of your publishing chain. | What is the uptime commitment? How are backups and recovery handled? What happens to our live site if the CMS is down? |
| Shared responsibility | Clear ownership avoids gaps. | Which security tasks are yours and which are ours? Is that documented? |

## 10. Portability and exit

| Capability | Why it matters | Ask |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Full export | You should be able to leave with your content. | How do we export all content, models, pages and assets? In what format? |
| History and relationships | Exports that lose references or history are hard to reuse. | Do exports keep links between items? Can we export version history? |

## Red flags

- A capability that "is on the roadmap" for a must-have requirement.
- Answers that exist only in a slide deck and not in the documentation.
- Limits or pricing that can't be explained in terms of your own expected traffic and team size.
- No clear answer to "how would we get all our content out?"
- A demo that only ever runs on the vendor's sample content.

## How Agility answers these

Use the same test on us. Each area links to the Agility documentation that answers it.

| Area | Agility documentation |
| --- | --- |
| Content modeling | [Content Models](/docs/developers/content-models), [Component Models](/docs/developers/component-models), [Fields](/docs/developers/fields), [Linked Content Field Types](/docs/developers/linked-content-field-types) |
| Pages and the editor experience | [Page Management](/docs/overview/page-management), [Setting Up Preview](/docs/developers/setting-up-preview), [Getting Started With Web Studio](/docs/overview/web-studio), [URL Redirections](/docs/editors/url-redirections) |
| Workflow and governance | [Approvals and Workflows](/docs/editors/workflows), [Custom Roles](/docs/owners-admins/custom-roles), [Item-level Permissions](/docs/owners-admins/item-level-permissions), [Scheduling Overview](/docs/editors/scheduling), [Version History](/docs/editors/versioning), [Audit Trail, Logging & SIEM Integration](/docs/owners-admins/audit-trail-logging-and-siem-integration) |
| Localization | [Locales](/docs/editors/locales), [Copying and Translating Content Across Locales](/docs/editors/copying-and-translating-content) |
| Content delivery | [Content Fetch API](/docs/developers/content-fetch-api), [GraphQL API](/docs/developers/graphql-api), [Webhooks](/docs/developers/webhooks), [Content Sync API](/docs/developers/content-sync-api), [Content Delivery & CDN Architecture](/docs/developers/content-delivery-and-cdn-architecture) |
| Assets | [Introduction to Assets](/docs/editors/introduction-to-assets), [Transforming Images with Query Strings](/docs/editors/transforming-images-using-query-strings), [Custom Asset Domains](/docs/developers/custom-asset-domains) |
| Developer experience | [Developing with Agility](/docs/developers/developing-with-agility-cms), [AgilityCLI](/docs/developers/cli), [Extending the CMS](/docs/developers/extending-the-cms) |
| AI and agents | [Agility CMS MCP Server](/docs/developers/agility-cms-mcp-server), [Governing AI Access to Agility CMS](/docs/owners-admins/governing-ai-access) |
| Security and operations | [Hosting, Security & Compliance](/docs/owners-admins/hosting-security-and-compliance), [Enterprise Single Sign-On](/docs/owners-admins/enterprise-sso-with-agility-cms), [Data Residency & Data Regions](/docs/owners-admins/data-residency-and-data-regions), [SLA & Uptime](/docs/owners-admins/sla-and-uptime), [Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity](/docs/owners-admins/disaster-recovery-and-business-continuity) |
| Portability | [Getting Your Content Out: Data Portability and Exit](/docs/overview/data-portability-and-exit) |

## Related

- [Run a Two-Week Proof of Concept](/docs/overview/run-a-two-week-proof-of-concept)
- [Is Agility Right for Your Project?](/docs/overview/is-agility-right-for-your-project)

---

## Related pages

- [Evaluating Agility](https://agilitycms.com/docs/overview/evaluating-agility.md)
- [What Your Team Builds vs What Agility Provides](https://agilitycms.com/docs/overview/what-your-team-builds-vs-what-agility-provides.md)
- [How Agility Works: A 10-Minute Architecture Tour](https://agilitycms.com/docs/overview/how-agility-works.md)
- [Is Agility Right for Your Project? When It Fits and When It Doesn't](https://agilitycms.com/docs/overview/is-agility-right-for-your-project.md)
- [Run a Two-Week Proof of Concept](https://agilitycms.com/docs/overview/run-a-two-week-proof-of-concept.md)
- [Headless, Hybrid or Traditional: Choose Your Delivery Model](https://agilitycms.com/docs/overview/choose-your-delivery-model.md)
- [Getting Your Content Out: Data Portability and Exit](https://agilitycms.com/docs/overview/data-portability-and-exit.md)
- [Building the Replatforming Business Case](https://agilitycms.com/docs/overview/replatforming-business-case.md)
- [Evaluate Agility with an AI Agent in 30 Minutes](https://agilitycms.com/docs/overview/evaluate-agility-with-an-ai-agent.md)

Index of every docs page: https://agilitycms.com/docs/llms.txt