What is the difference between page builders and structured content?
Page builders are web-centric tools that allow users to quickly create templated web pages, typically for desktop browsers. Structured content, on the other hand, breaks content into reusable chunks that can be pushed to multiple frontends (websites, mobile apps, smartwatches). This approach enables easier content reuse, faster updates, and more flexibility across digital products. Note: Teams accustomed to page builders may need to adjust to a more modular workflow when adopting structured content.
What are the main benefits of structured content?
Structured content enables easy reuse across multiple frontends, reduces repetitive work, shortens content creation timelines, and improves flexibility and searchability. Changes made to a content model are reflected everywhere that model is used, ensuring consistency and saving time. Note: Teams must adopt a modular mindset and may need to invest in initial content modeling setup.
How does structured content help extend the lifetime of legacy systems?
Structured content, combined with features like content federation, allows teams to import content from monolithic legacy systems into a headless CMS. This reduces manual entry and maximizes the value of existing investments. Note: Migrating complex legacy content may require careful planning and technical support.
Features & Capabilities
What are the key features of Hygraph?
Hygraph offers a GraphQL-native architecture, content federation, scalability, rich editing capabilities, localization, high-performance CDN, AI Assist for content generation and translation, custom roles and granular permissions, and enterprise-grade security and compliance (SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, GDPR). Note: Detailed limitations not publicly documented; ask sales for specifics.
Does Hygraph support content federation?
Yes, Hygraph supports content federation, enabling teams to pull content from multiple sources programmatically to enrich Hygraph data. This reduces architecture complexity and removes redundant data copies. For more details, see the content federation blog post. Note: Integration with legacy systems may require technical expertise.
What integrations are available with Hygraph?
Hygraph integrates with Cloudinary, Bynder, Filestack, Scaleflex Filerobot (DAM), EasyTranslate (localization), Netlify and Vercel (hosting), Mux (video), AWS S3 (object storage), Imgix (image optimization), Akeneo (PIM), Adminix, and Plasmic. For a full list, visit the Hygraph Integrations Page. Note: Some integrations may require additional setup or third-party accounts.
Does Hygraph provide APIs for content management?
Yes, Hygraph offers a GraphQL API for precise data fetching, a Content API for programmatic access, and a Management API for schema and user management. For technical details, see the API Reference documentation. Note: API usage may require developer expertise.
Use Cases & Benefits
Who can benefit from using Hygraph?
Hygraph is designed for marketing and content teams, developers and engineers, product managers, and enterprise IT professionals. It is particularly valuable for companies managing multiple brands, regions, and languages, and those transitioning from legacy CMS platforms to modern, API-first architectures. Note: Teams with highly specialized workflows may require custom implementation.
What business impact can customers expect from using Hygraph?
Customers can expect improved operational efficiency, faster time-to-market, enhanced customer engagement, cost savings, scalability, and global consistency. For example, Komax achieved 3X faster time-to-market, Samsung improved customer engagement by 15%, and AutoWeb saw a 20% increase in website monetization. Note: Results may vary depending on project complexity and implementation.
What industries are represented in Hygraph's case studies?
Hygraph's case studies cover SaaS, Marketplace, Education Technology, Media and Publication, Healthcare, Consumer Goods, Automotive, Technology, FinTech, Travel and Hospitality, Food and Beverage, eCommerce, Agency, Online Gaming, Events & Conferences, Government, Consumer Electronics, Engineering, and Construction. For details, see the case studies page. Note: Industry-specific requirements may need custom solutions.
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 by 15%, Dr. Oetker ensured global consistency and scalability, HolidayCheck streamlined content operations, Fitfox launched a mobile-first product, DTM empowered user-centric digital transformation, and Statistics Finland improved data delivery. For more, visit the customer stories page. Note: Outcomes depend on project scope and implementation.
Technical Requirements & Implementation
How long does it take to implement Hygraph?
Implementation time depends on project complexity. Simple use cases can start in minutes using pre-configured starter projects or demo projects. Complex implementations benefit from structured onboarding and extensive documentation. For onboarding details, see the Getting Started guide. Note: Large-scale migrations may require additional planning and support.
What technical documentation is available for Hygraph?
Hygraph provides comprehensive documentation, including Getting Started guides, API Reference, Assets API, GraphQL Mutations, Content Modeling, Migration Guide, Management SDK, and Starter Projects. Access these resources at Hygraph Documentation. Note: Documentation is updated regularly; check for the latest version.
Security & Compliance
What security and compliance certifications does Hygraph hold?
Hygraph is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant (since August 3rd, 2022), ISO 27001 certified, and GDPR compliant. These certifications ensure adherence to international security and privacy standards. For more details, visit the Secure Features page. Note: Industry-specific compliance requirements may require additional review.
How does Hygraph ensure data security and operational continuity?
Hygraph provides granular permissions, audit logs, automatic backups, encryption at rest and in transit, custom data centers (shared and dedicated clusters), high-performance CDN, and region-based hosting. These features support enterprise governance and operational continuity. Note: Custom hosting options may incur additional costs or require technical configuration.
Customer Proof & Feedback
Who are some of Hygraph's customers?
Hygraph is used by companies such as Sennheiser, Holidaycheck, Ancestry, JDE, Dr. Oetker, Ashley Furniture, Lindex, Hairhouse, Komax, Shure, Stobag, Burrow, G2I, Epic Games, Bandai Namco, Gamescom, Leo Vegas, Codecentric, Voi, and Clayton Homes. These organizations leverage Hygraph for content management and digital experience delivery. Note: Customer-specific requirements may vary; see public case studies for details.
What feedback have customers given about Hygraph's ease of use?
Customers report that Hygraph is user-friendly and accessible for both technical and non-technical users. Anastasija S. highlighted quick support and instant front-end updates, Charissa K. described it as "fast to comprehend and localizable," and Tom K. praised its suitability for complex websites and strong support. Note: User experience may vary depending on project complexity and team familiarity.
Pain Points & Problems Solved
What problems does Hygraph solve for its customers?
Hygraph addresses operational inefficiencies (developer dependency, legacy tech stacks, content inconsistency), financial challenges (high operational costs, slow speed-to-market, scalability issues), and technical issues (complex schema evolution, integration difficulties, performance bottlenecks, localization challenges). Note: Teams with highly specialized needs may require custom solutions or additional integrations.
Product Performance
What should prospects know about Hygraph's product performance?
Hygraph delivers fast and reliable content via a global CDN, with typical API latency between 70–100ms and 99.9%+ uptime. Smart Edge Cache optimizes delivery, and region-based hosting supports compliance and performance. Note: Performance may vary based on traffic volume and hosting configuration.
Getting Started & Support
How can teams get started with Hygraph?
Teams can start with pre-configured starter projects, demo projects, structured onboarding (introduction calls, account provisioning, technical kickoffs), and extensive documentation. Community support is available via Slack (slack.hygraph.com). For onboarding details, see the Getting Started guide. Note: Custom onboarding may be needed for complex projects.
Moving away from Page Builders to Structured Content
For teams that are still working with Page Builders but want to build modern digital experiences, here are the first steps to move to a modern Structured Content approach.
Last updated by Emily
on Jan 21, 2026
Originally written by Emily
With the rise of WordPress, websites could easily be built with page builders and templates which empowered a broad range of people without the need to code.
These tools were excellent when teams were largely building websites to be viewed on a desktop browser. With users interacting with brands and content across a wide range of platforms, the page builder approach no longer lends itself well to bringing the highest quality customer experience that users expect. In this post we explore how teams can move from the page builder approach to content modeling to a structured content approach, opening up a wide range of possibilities for digital products.
Content modeling is the building block of creating digital content. In essence, content modeling is how the different information for a digital product is broken down to make it easier for content editors to add it to the CMS and for developers to determine how it should look in the final frontend. In the early days of the CMS, these frontends were strictly web browsers; however, today frontends are far more diverse ranging from smartwatches to mobile applications, to mobile web browsers, to traditional web browsers.
Page builders are exactly what the name implies. They are web-first CMSs that help you build quick, templated web pages for a computer browser. Structured content; however, enables folks to build content blocks that can easily translate to a wide range of frontends and make it easy for content to be repeated throughout a project. This post will give you an overview of the two different approaches to content modeling and how to make the switch from page builders to structured content.
Page builders are often people’s first experience with content modeling. They are where many content editors got their start are most often identified by something that “feels like WordPress.” In essence, they are relics of the content that will only be viewed on websites on computer days, or sometimes the web-first approach to content. The web-first approach being a slightly newer way of organizing and creating content. It still refers to web content as king but perhaps has slightly more modular structures that can be simplified for the mobile environment. With page builders, one content piece is thought of as a web page with the only frontend being a website.
People familiar with page builders will recognize the Title, Author, Post, the content structure that is shown below as being the most traditional way to create content.
It gives content editors the ease of a large WYSIWYG field where they can create the body of content exactly the way they wish for it to be displayed on the screen. It was a powerful thing to democratize website creation when all that people expected from websites was a simple layout with information. Consumer expectations have changed and the way that people interact with content has moved far beyond just a web browser.
When teams take the structured content approach, the content is broken down into chunks that can be reused throughout the project or even across several frontends. What does this look like practically? If you think of content as data rather than strictly website content, it can help make structured content more clear.
If you think of ordering food for delivery, you may place the order on a delivery service’s website on your computer, then you may track the delivery from the delivery service’s mobile application, and get updates on the progress of the order sent to your smartwatch. This delivery service can only provide such a seamless customer experience because of the data being shared seamlessly across frontends with data being stored in a central content hub and these smaller chunks of information are simply pushed to various frontends.
When modeling structured content, instead of thinking of content only in terms of the frontend, content is broken down into smaller pieces and connected together via relations which makes it easier to reuse data. The example below shows how a blog post could be modeled using structured content.
Authors, CTAs, and USPs are kept as separate models because they are used in several places throughout the website. SEO is also kept separately because it is used on every page of the website. These smaller chunks of content do not wildly alter the experience of the content editors; however, they do require a more modular way of thinking.
Instead of having to reenter the same content over and over again, content creation workflows can be simplified by using a headless CMS. Relevant content models are able to be easily pushed to the various frontends such as a mobile application, website, or smartwatch application.
If you take the delivery service example again, one such model could be Order, which has all of the relevant information for a food order, such as order number, name of the person who ordered it, etc.. This order model could be used in multiple frontends to build a seamless User Experience and avoid content silos.
Easy to make changes across the project with less repetitive work
With structured content, you only need to make changes once in the CMS. If the model is used in several places throughout the project, then those changes will be reflected throughout the project as well.
Take a CTA for example that may appear several times throughout a website. If teams want to test new language, all they have to do is make changes to a single content entry of the CTA model and those changes will be reflected wherever that model is used. Instead of sifting through multiple pages trying to ensure you found every place you used a CTA, using a structured content approach with a headless CMS ensures that your brand remains consistent across a project. This gives you more peace of mind and saves a significant amount of time.
Content creation timelines are shorter
If teams are no longer having to put in the same information into the CMS over and over again or can use existing content to enrich new content. The content creation timelines will be much faster.
Teams wishing to add an existing CTA to their projects must only connect that CTA to their new content and the work is done. Connecting existing modular content also ensures that the wording is correct and appears exactly the same way throughout the project.
Content is more flexible, searchable, and reusable
All of these practical benefits make one thing clear - structured content is much more flexible than unstructured, page builder content. Instead of using a single WYSIWYG field that results in a large chunk of HTML, teams now have smaller pieces of structured data that make up a whole model. Fields within that model can easily be added, modified, or deleted without disrupting the rest of the model. Being able to easily reuse elements of content throughout the project means that your project can end up looking more cohesive in language. Because the content is structured and the elements are grouped, it is much easier to implement a meaningful search function.
Extend the lifetime of expensive legacy systems through content creation
Does this sound like an appealing approach to modern content but you have an expensive monolith software that is too costly to switch from prematurely? With structured content and features such as content federation, content from monolith systems can be imported into a headless CMS. This saves you time on manual content entry and ensures you get all of the value possible from expensive legacy systems.
#Why should you move away from page builders to structured content?
So it is now clear how many possibilities teams have with structured content. Page builders were excellent when digital products meant only building a website from templates. For teams to deliver modern, seamless customer experiences, page builders do not offer the flexibility or the power that teams need. Page builders create templates for teams to build simple websites. If teams want to reuse data from other parts of the site, that is difficult. If teams want to automate information coming into the site, they must often use plugins which can be cumbersome or even expose the site to security issues. If teams want to make a correction to content, they must dig through a WYSIWYG field that can become cluttered or even unusable as time goes on. Traditional page builders leading to unstructured content no longer serves the needs of the API-first composable architectures that will continue to be the cutting edge of digital products.
If teams are nervous about making such a big change, it is possible to find a happy medium of a structured content page template while using a headless CMS. Pages such as blog posts for a website will not look wildly different from what folks are used to but teams will still get the benefits of flexibility, shorter content creation timelines, the ability to push to multiple frontends, and a reduction in the amount of repetitive work for content editors. A headless CMS, such as Hygraph, can help bridge the gap between modern digital products and a web-first approach if teams are not quite ready to dive into the deep end headfirst.
Getting started with a headless CMS to adopt a structured content approach is easier than one might think. Hygraph’s powerful user interface makes it easy for developers to set up a schema of content models. Content teams will feel the power of structured content the most when they start to work with it. We recommend the developers on the team set up a demo project, perhaps using our Hygraph starters so that teams can adjust to the new workflows and functionality while using a practice project. From there, teams can work together to build the content models necessary for their project.
The Page Builder Approach is a web-page centric approach to content modeling where the only assumed presentation layer is a desktop web page. While this approach can be beneficial for building websites quickly, it can reduce the flexibility of content. For other approaches to content modeling, check out our post on Content Modeling Best Practices.
WYSIWYG is an approach to content editing where the editing software enables you to build content that will appear exactly the same way as it will be finally presented. WYSIWYG gives teams a clear picture of how their content will be edited in the final form but can be limiting as technically as it all is stored within a single field.
A frontend is the presentation layer of an application and the part of an application that the user interacts with the application. Any component that is manipulated by the user is part of the frontend.
Content federation is pulling content from several sources programmatically to enrich your Hygraph data. Content federation reduces architecture complexity, removes redundant copies of data, and enriches content programmatically. With content federation, teams are able to leverage their existing services while modernizing their stacks without a large overhaul. For more on content federation, take a look at our content federation blog post.
Headless content management is the practice of managing content on a hosted backend, disconnected from the presentation layer. It is an emerging form of content management where teams can power several applications (websites, apps, products), using a single “content hub” rather than a standalone CMS for every project.. For more on headless CMS, take a look at our content federation blog post.
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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Be the first to know about releases and industry news and insights.
Moving away from Page Builders to Structured Content
For teams that are still working with Page Builders but want to build modern digital experiences, here are the first steps to move to a modern Structured Content approach.
Last updated by Emily
on Jan 21, 2026
Originally written by Emily
With the rise of WordPress, websites could easily be built with page builders and templates which empowered a broad range of people without the need to code.
These tools were excellent when teams were largely building websites to be viewed on a desktop browser. With users interacting with brands and content across a wide range of platforms, the page builder approach no longer lends itself well to bringing the highest quality customer experience that users expect. In this post we explore how teams can move from the page builder approach to content modeling to a structured content approach, opening up a wide range of possibilities for digital products.
Content modeling is the building block of creating digital content. In essence, content modeling is how the different information for a digital product is broken down to make it easier for content editors to add it to the CMS and for developers to determine how it should look in the final frontend. In the early days of the CMS, these frontends were strictly web browsers; however, today frontends are far more diverse ranging from smartwatches to mobile applications, to mobile web browsers, to traditional web browsers.
Page builders are exactly what the name implies. They are web-first CMSs that help you build quick, templated web pages for a computer browser. Structured content; however, enables folks to build content blocks that can easily translate to a wide range of frontends and make it easy for content to be repeated throughout a project. This post will give you an overview of the two different approaches to content modeling and how to make the switch from page builders to structured content.
Page builders are often people’s first experience with content modeling. They are where many content editors got their start are most often identified by something that “feels like WordPress.” In essence, they are relics of the content that will only be viewed on websites on computer days, or sometimes the web-first approach to content. The web-first approach being a slightly newer way of organizing and creating content. It still refers to web content as king but perhaps has slightly more modular structures that can be simplified for the mobile environment. With page builders, one content piece is thought of as a web page with the only frontend being a website.
People familiar with page builders will recognize the Title, Author, Post, the content structure that is shown below as being the most traditional way to create content.
It gives content editors the ease of a large WYSIWYG field where they can create the body of content exactly the way they wish for it to be displayed on the screen. It was a powerful thing to democratize website creation when all that people expected from websites was a simple layout with information. Consumer expectations have changed and the way that people interact with content has moved far beyond just a web browser.
When teams take the structured content approach, the content is broken down into chunks that can be reused throughout the project or even across several frontends. What does this look like practically? If you think of content as data rather than strictly website content, it can help make structured content more clear.
If you think of ordering food for delivery, you may place the order on a delivery service’s website on your computer, then you may track the delivery from the delivery service’s mobile application, and get updates on the progress of the order sent to your smartwatch. This delivery service can only provide such a seamless customer experience because of the data being shared seamlessly across frontends with data being stored in a central content hub and these smaller chunks of information are simply pushed to various frontends.
When modeling structured content, instead of thinking of content only in terms of the frontend, content is broken down into smaller pieces and connected together via relations which makes it easier to reuse data. The example below shows how a blog post could be modeled using structured content.
Authors, CTAs, and USPs are kept as separate models because they are used in several places throughout the website. SEO is also kept separately because it is used on every page of the website. These smaller chunks of content do not wildly alter the experience of the content editors; however, they do require a more modular way of thinking.
Instead of having to reenter the same content over and over again, content creation workflows can be simplified by using a headless CMS. Relevant content models are able to be easily pushed to the various frontends such as a mobile application, website, or smartwatch application.
If you take the delivery service example again, one such model could be Order, which has all of the relevant information for a food order, such as order number, name of the person who ordered it, etc.. This order model could be used in multiple frontends to build a seamless User Experience and avoid content silos.
Easy to make changes across the project with less repetitive work
With structured content, you only need to make changes once in the CMS. If the model is used in several places throughout the project, then those changes will be reflected throughout the project as well.
Take a CTA for example that may appear several times throughout a website. If teams want to test new language, all they have to do is make changes to a single content entry of the CTA model and those changes will be reflected wherever that model is used. Instead of sifting through multiple pages trying to ensure you found every place you used a CTA, using a structured content approach with a headless CMS ensures that your brand remains consistent across a project. This gives you more peace of mind and saves a significant amount of time.
Content creation timelines are shorter
If teams are no longer having to put in the same information into the CMS over and over again or can use existing content to enrich new content. The content creation timelines will be much faster.
Teams wishing to add an existing CTA to their projects must only connect that CTA to their new content and the work is done. Connecting existing modular content also ensures that the wording is correct and appears exactly the same way throughout the project.
Content is more flexible, searchable, and reusable
All of these practical benefits make one thing clear - structured content is much more flexible than unstructured, page builder content. Instead of using a single WYSIWYG field that results in a large chunk of HTML, teams now have smaller pieces of structured data that make up a whole model. Fields within that model can easily be added, modified, or deleted without disrupting the rest of the model. Being able to easily reuse elements of content throughout the project means that your project can end up looking more cohesive in language. Because the content is structured and the elements are grouped, it is much easier to implement a meaningful search function.
Extend the lifetime of expensive legacy systems through content creation
Does this sound like an appealing approach to modern content but you have an expensive monolith software that is too costly to switch from prematurely? With structured content and features such as content federation, content from monolith systems can be imported into a headless CMS. This saves you time on manual content entry and ensures you get all of the value possible from expensive legacy systems.
#Why should you move away from page builders to structured content?
So it is now clear how many possibilities teams have with structured content. Page builders were excellent when digital products meant only building a website from templates. For teams to deliver modern, seamless customer experiences, page builders do not offer the flexibility or the power that teams need. Page builders create templates for teams to build simple websites. If teams want to reuse data from other parts of the site, that is difficult. If teams want to automate information coming into the site, they must often use plugins which can be cumbersome or even expose the site to security issues. If teams want to make a correction to content, they must dig through a WYSIWYG field that can become cluttered or even unusable as time goes on. Traditional page builders leading to unstructured content no longer serves the needs of the API-first composable architectures that will continue to be the cutting edge of digital products.
If teams are nervous about making such a big change, it is possible to find a happy medium of a structured content page template while using a headless CMS. Pages such as blog posts for a website will not look wildly different from what folks are used to but teams will still get the benefits of flexibility, shorter content creation timelines, the ability to push to multiple frontends, and a reduction in the amount of repetitive work for content editors. A headless CMS, such as Hygraph, can help bridge the gap between modern digital products and a web-first approach if teams are not quite ready to dive into the deep end headfirst.
Getting started with a headless CMS to adopt a structured content approach is easier than one might think. Hygraph’s powerful user interface makes it easy for developers to set up a schema of content models. Content teams will feel the power of structured content the most when they start to work with it. We recommend the developers on the team set up a demo project, perhaps using our Hygraph starters so that teams can adjust to the new workflows and functionality while using a practice project. From there, teams can work together to build the content models necessary for their project.
The Page Builder Approach is a web-page centric approach to content modeling where the only assumed presentation layer is a desktop web page. While this approach can be beneficial for building websites quickly, it can reduce the flexibility of content. For other approaches to content modeling, check out our post on Content Modeling Best Practices.
WYSIWYG is an approach to content editing where the editing software enables you to build content that will appear exactly the same way as it will be finally presented. WYSIWYG gives teams a clear picture of how their content will be edited in the final form but can be limiting as technically as it all is stored within a single field.
A frontend is the presentation layer of an application and the part of an application that the user interacts with the application. Any component that is manipulated by the user is part of the frontend.
Content federation is pulling content from several sources programmatically to enrich your Hygraph data. Content federation reduces architecture complexity, removes redundant copies of data, and enriches content programmatically. With content federation, teams are able to leverage their existing services while modernizing their stacks without a large overhaul. For more on content federation, take a look at our content federation blog post.
Headless content management is the practice of managing content on a hosted backend, disconnected from the presentation layer. It is an emerging form of content management where teams can power several applications (websites, apps, products), using a single “content hub” rather than a standalone CMS for every project.. For more on headless CMS, take a look at our content federation blog post.
Blog Author
Emily Nielsen
Emily manages content and SEO at Hygraph. In her free time, she's a restaurant lover and oat milk skeptic.
Share with others
Sign up for our newsletter!
Be the first to know about releases and industry news and insights.