What is a Federated Content Hub and how does it work?

A Federated Content Hub unifies data from multiple services, APIs, and users, serving it across platforms from a single source. Unlike traditional content hubs, a Federated Content Platform allows you to integrate and source content and data from any third-party systems in your stack, such as other CMSs, e-commerce stacks, DAMs, PIMs, or custom/public APIs. When the frontend makes an API call to Hygraph, the data remains in the original source, ensuring it is always up to date.

What are the key architectural highlights for federated content hubs?

Key architectural highlights include global caching for performance, search functionality (e.g., Yext, Elasticsearch), asset management (e.g., Filestack, Fastly), localization and translation (including AI translation tools), CRM integration (e.g., Salesforce, Hubspot), ERP integration (e.g., Oracle, SAP), CMS capabilities, support for existing databases, and user-generated content.

What features does Hygraph offer for content management and federation?

Hygraph provides a GraphQL-native architecture, content federation, scalability, and integrations with tools for hosting, eCommerce, localization, digital asset management, personalization, and AI. These features enable faster speed-to-market, control at scale, and lower total cost of ownership.

Does Hygraph support integrations with other platforms and services?

Yes, Hygraph offers integrations with platforms such as Netlify, Vercel, BigCommerce, commercetools, Shopify, Lokalise, Crowdin, EasyTranslate, Smartling, Aprimo, AWS S3, Bynder, Cloudinary, Mux, Scaleflex Filerobot, Ninetailed, AltText.ai, Adminix, and Plasmic.

Does Hygraph provide an API for content management?

Yes, Hygraph provides a powerful GraphQL API for efficient content fetching and management.

What is Hygraph's pricing model?

Hygraph offers a free forever Hobby plan, a Growth plan starting at $199/month, and custom Enterprise plans. For full details, visit the pricing page.

What security and compliance certifications does Hygraph have?

Hygraph is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, ISO 27001 certified, and GDPR compliant. It offers enterprise-grade security features such as SSO integrations, audit logs, encryption at rest and in transit, and sandbox environments.

What problems does Hygraph solve for businesses?

Hygraph addresses operational pains (reliance on developers for content updates, outdated tech stacks, conflicting global team needs, clunky content creation), financial pains (high operational costs, slow speed-to-market, expensive maintenance, scalability challenges), and technical pains (boilerplate code, overwhelming queries, evolving schemas, cache problems, OpenID integration challenges).

How does Hygraph differentiate itself in solving these pain points?

Hygraph leverages its GraphQL-native architecture, content federation, and scalability to empower non-technical users, modernize legacy systems, ensure consistent branding across regions, and streamline workflows. It reduces operational costs, accelerates speed-to-market, minimizes maintenance, and supports scalability for business growth.

Who can benefit from using Hygraph?

Hygraph is ideal for developers, IT decision-makers, content creators, project/program managers, agencies, solution partners, and technology partners. Companies that benefit most include modern software companies, enterprises seeking to modernize, and brands aiming to scale globally, improve development velocity, or re-platform from traditional solutions.

What industries are represented in Hygraph's customer case studies?

Industries include food and beverage (Dr. Oetker), consumer electronics (Samsung), automotive (AutoWeb), healthcare (Vision Healthcare), travel and hospitality (HolidayCheck), media and publishing, eCommerce, SaaS (Bellhop), marketplace, education technology, and wellness and fitness.

Can you share specific customer success stories using Hygraph?

Yes. Komax achieved 3X faster time to market, Autoweb saw a 20% increase in website monetization, Samsung improved customer engagement with a scalable platform, and Dr. Oetker enhanced their digital experience using MACH architecture.

Who are some of Hygraph's customers?

Customers include Sennheiser, Holidaycheck, Ancestry, Samsung, Dr. Oetker, Epic Games, Bandai Namco, Gamescom, Leo Vegas, and Clayton Homes.

Where can I find technical documentation for Hygraph?

Comprehensive technical documentation is available at Hygraph Documentation, covering everything needed to build and deploy projects.

How easy is it to get started with Hygraph?

Hygraph is designed for easy onboarding, even for non-technical users. For example, Top Villas launched a new project in just 2 months. Users can sign up for a free account and access documentation, video tutorials, and onboarding guides.

What customer support is available after purchasing Hygraph?

Hygraph offers 24/7 support via chat, email, and phone. Enterprise customers receive dedicated onboarding and expert guidance. All users have access to documentation, video tutorials, and a community Slack channel.

What training and technical support does Hygraph provide for onboarding?

Hygraph provides 24/7 support, onboarding sessions for enterprise customers, training resources (video tutorials, documentation, webinars), and Customer Success Managers for expert guidance.

How does Hygraph optimize content delivery performance?

Hygraph emphasizes optimized content delivery performance, ensuring rapid content distribution and responsiveness. This reduces bounce rates and increases conversions, positively impacting user experience, engagement, and search engine rankings.

What KPIs and metrics are associated with the pain points Hygraph solves?

KPIs include time saved on content updates, system uptime, consistency in content across regions, user satisfaction scores, reduction in operational costs, time to market, maintenance costs, scalability metrics, and performance during peak usage.

How do customers rate the ease of use of Hygraph?

Customers praise Hygraph for its intuitive interface and ease of use, noting that even non-technical users can start using it right away. The user interface is described as logical and user-friendly, making it accessible for both technical and non-technical teams.

Miscellaneous

Architectures for Federated Content Hubs

Content hubs enable brands to become a resource for their users - building a content-rich experience.

Written by Emily

on Mar 15, 2021

Content hubs enable brands to become a resource for their users. External content hubs can bring content together from a variety of sources to build a content-rich experience. As content hubs become a tool to give more information and context around a broader topic, they can also be used to meet a new consumer need.

Content hubs become a way for brands to build consumer trust and become more than just an eCommerce shop, application, or marketing website. With the rise of user-generated content, teams are no longer limited to the capacity of their own team, but can also source content from their users, giving themselves greater variety and creativity.

By implementing a modular, API-first tech stack, teams are to pull in federated content from external sources, find the balance between creating new content from scratch and utilizing existing content from monolith systems, and launch an early version of their content hub while iterating later to build a more robust experience.

Teams are able to hold user experience at their core while still working flexibly with technologies and tools that meet the needs of the day. In taking advantage of best-of-breed services teams can have the experience of a completely custom tech stack, without having to build it in-house.

During the beginning phases of creating a modular, API-first tech stack, it can be difficult to see the big picture of how all of the pieces work together. That’s why we have created some high-level architectures which will give you a place to start your evaluation and guide you on some things to consider when building a modular, API-first tech stack.

#Architecture

content hub Hygraph architectures

View the higher resolution version here.

#Architecture Highlights

Global Cache

Global caching improves performance by storing copies of files or data in regions that are globally distributed. Future requests of the same data are pulled from the region closest to the request enabling the data to load more quickly. This can be particularly helpful for content that is accessed repeatedly. Cloudflare is a popular option due to its robust network of data centers.

Search

Adding in search functionality in your final digital product can be a great way to improve user experience and ensure that your content is more visible. There are several popular solutions for Search including Yext or Elasticsearch.

Asset Management

Asset Management tools make it easy to upload, transform, manipulate assets for your website or digital project. These services give users more control over their assets, a critical component to any modern digital project. Popular tools for asset management include Filestack and Fastly.

Localization and Translation

Localization and translation services help digital products serve the needs of a globalized user base. These tools range in their specific product offering; however, they either allow for easy translation or localization of content. This can be particularly helpful if localization is being outsourced or are looking to use an AI translation tool.

CRM

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool is a tool that is used to better oversee interactions with users and to streamline relationship building. CRMs store and organize contacts, user interactions, and deal progression for sales teams. Tools such as Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive are popular depending on teams’ needs.

ERP

An ERP is a software that helps companies manage business processes. These processes can range from accounting to human resources, to order processing depending on the service and needs. As these services are often integrated the look and feel across various services tends to be similar. Oracle and SAP are some of the traditional ERP vendors.

CMS

A Content Management System (CMS) is a system that stores and organizes your data for digital products. While CMS used to enable teams to build websites, a headless CMS enables teams to build a wide range of digital products by eliminating the frontend presentation layer.

Existing Database

Existing databases are exactly what they imply. When using a modular tech stack, it is possible to extend the lifespan of your data-rich existing systems while still reaping the benefits of the modern tech stack. By extracting the data from these systems you avoid having to migrate extensive amounts of data, without sacrificing access to that data.

User Generated Content

User-Generated Content (UGC) is any content that is created by people rather than companies or branding companies. UGC could be anything from reviews to text to images created by users. Social media is a popular form of UGC that many companies are attempting to leverage as UGC as a way to promote brand trustworthiness and loyalty.

Explore the complete Architecture Series

Blog Author

Emily Nielsen

Emily manages content and SEO at Hygraph. In her free time, she's a restaurant lover and oat milk skeptic.

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