Choosing a CMS in 2025 is no longer just a question of content management.
Whether you're a marketer, CTO, or digital project manager, your choice of CMS directly impacts your ability to produce, publish, and evolve your content.
It's a fundamental choice that affects your campaigns, integrations, agility, and ability to deliver quickly and effectively across multiple channels at once.
On the one hand, headless CMSs promise total flexibility, a decoupled architecture, and unlimited multichannel distribution, provided you have the right technical team.
On the other hand, HubSpot CMS focuses on integration: a CMS connected to its CRM, emailing, automation, and tracking tools, designed primarily for marketing teams.
Two approaches, two rationales.
The goal here is to help you understand what each solution really offers, so you can make a choice that aligns with your challenges, resources, and business priorities.
Headless CMS: more freedom, more responsibilities
How it works
A headless CMS (Content Management System) completely separates content from its display. You manage content on one side and display it however you want on the other, via API, on a website, in an app, on a smartwatch, or in an internal tool.
There are no themes, no templates, no native rendering: everything has to be built on the front-end.
This is what makes the solution powerful... but also demanding. You need a solid development stack (Next.js, Nuxt, Astro, etc.) and a well-designed ecosystem: CDN, security, authentication, cache, monitoring, etc.
It's an API-first approach: each piece of content is a structured, reusable, combinable, versionable object.
Perfect for complex architectures, but not ideal if you're looking to publish quickly without an intermediary.
Who is it for, and what is it for?
- For brands with significant multichannel challenges: the same content used in a mobile app, a public website, and an internal back office.
- For SaaS products or ecosystems with specific technical constraints (in-house framework, microservices, complex internationalization).
- For organizations where marketing knows what it wants and the product team knows how to deliver it, with a genuine culture of collaboration.
What to anticipate on the marketing side
- You will have very little autonomy without the support of a DEV team: page creation, AB testing, tracking, and layout changes all require code.
- “Classic” integrations (CRM, analytics, forms, SEO tools) are possible, but rarely ready to use. They will need to be thought out, chosen, connected, and tested.
- Every component, every feature, every template has to be built. This promises a tailor-made system, but nothing is provided by default.
Note: without a native visual interface, the entire content lifecycle - publication, testing, and development - depends on a well-oiled dev/design workflow. This is a powerful approach, but it can slow things down if the tech team is under pressure.
In other words, it's a stack designed for precision, scalability, and total control. But only if you have the right resources and timing.
HubSpot CMS: integration, speed, efficiency
How does it work?
HubSpot CMS is a proprietary CMS, integrated directly into the HubSpot ecosystem.
In practical terms, you manage your content in the same place as your emails, CRM, automations, forms, and analytics.
No need to connect 15 different tools: everything is already there, with a WYSIWYG interface, reusable blocks, customizable modules, and native personalization rules.
The front end is controlled via themes and templates, but you can go further with code (HubL, HTML/CSS, JS) if needed.
The result: a solution designed so that marketing can produce, test, and publish quickly, without depending on developers for every adjustment.
Who is it for, and what is it for?
- For autonomous marketing teams that want to keep control over content production and page management.
- For companies with a well-defined inbound strategy: SEO, downloadable content, landing pages, nurturing, scoring.
- For B2B, SaaS, and service environments where CRM-first, lead gen, and automation are central.
HubSpot CMS also works very well for smaller structures (freelancers, consultants, small teams) that want to launch a clear and clean website without worrying about technical issues.
What to anticipate on the tech side
- The front end is customizable, but limited. To go beyond the limits (advanced animations, complex structure), you will need a developer who is comfortable with HubSpot.
- Hosting, CMS, data: everything stays in HubSpot. No server access, no external database, little control over the infrastructure.
- It's smooth, fast, and robust, if you agree to play by the platform's rules.
In short: it's a stack designed to deliver quickly, independently, with an integrated marketing foundation.
It's not the most flexible in the world, but it's often the most effective when the priority is speed of execution and sales performance.
Headless vs HubSpot: the right choice depends on your constraints
There is no universal answer. The right stack is the one that fits your actual goals, your resources, and the maturity of your teams. Here are the five key questions to ask yourself to make an informed decision.
1. Your goals: performance, responsiveness, or scalability?
Are you looking to move quickly, launch campaigns, test pages, and capture leads? → HubSpot CMS is more suitable.
Are you preparing a scalable, multi-channel platform with specific needs? → Headless will give you more leeway.
2. Your teams: in-house developers or full marketing?
No developers available, or limited technical bandwidth? Choosing HubSpot CMS allows marketing to move forward on its own.
Do you have a development team that is capable of managing a front-end stack + API + integrations? Headless becomes a powerful lever.
3. Your uses: showcase website? Business app? Highly customized portal?
For a showcase website, a blog, or a well-oiled inbound strategy, HubSpot ticks all the boxes.
For an app, a portal with account management, or a business interface, headless is the way to go.
4. Your channels: web only, or multi-platform?
If the web is your only point of contact, you might as well use an integrated, optimized, ready-to-publish CMS.
If your content also needs to feed an app, back office, chatbot, or public API, headless is clearly more suitable.
5. Your budget and priorities: time-to-market or custom stack?
Short time-to-market, limited budget, need for immediate agility → HubSpot.
Structuring project, budget for development, need for total control → Headless.
What we recommend at if/else agency
We don't choose a stack because it's “modern.” We choose it because it serves a clear purpose, in a given context, with teams capable of bringing it to life.
HubSpot CMS shines in its speed, simplicity, and efficiency for marketing teams that need to produce quickly.
A headless CMS opens doors in terms of scalability, customization, and multi-platform distribution, provided you have the technical maturity to drive it.
The right decision is not a technical one. It is organizational and strategic.
A good tool is one that allows you to move forward now, without hindering your ability to evolve tomorrow.
And that's exactly where we come in as HubSpot experts.
