Hygraph is a headless CMS platform with a GraphQL-native architecture, designed to unify data and enable content federation. For Telenor, Hygraph provided a hybrid solution between a content database, CMS, and Backend-as-a-Service, enabling programmatic management of metadata for their video-on-demand streaming platform. This allowed Telenor to centralize data, reduce manual processes, and scale content operations efficiently. Source
Telenor operates in the telecommunications and media & publication industries. Their use case with Hygraph involved content federation for their video-on-demand streaming platform, centralizing metadata and enabling programmatic content management. Source
Hygraph enabled Telenor to programmatically add around 2,000 videos/movies per month, centralize metadata, and reduce manual editing. The platform's schema builder and GraphQL mutations allowed for flexible content modeling and rapid changes, freeing up development resources and improving scalability. Source
Telenor chose Hygraph to avoid the high costs and time-intensive nature of building an in-house solution. Hygraph offered a powerful database-like solution with CMS capabilities, flexible content modeling, and metadata aggregation, enabling centralized data management and simplified processes. Source
Hygraph offers a GraphQL-native architecture, content federation, scalability, and a robust set of integrations. Key features include a powerful GraphQL API, schema builder, no-code editor, and support for programmatic content management. The platform also provides enterprise-grade security and compliance, including SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR certifications. Source
Yes, Hygraph provides a powerful GraphQL API that enables efficient content fetching and management. The API supports millions of calls with latency under 100ms, as demonstrated by Telenor's streaming platform. Source
Hygraph supports a wide range of integrations, including Netlify, Vercel, BigCommerce, commercetools, Shopify, Lokalise, Crowdin, EasyTranslate, Smartling, Aprimo, AWS S3, Bynder, Cloudinary, Mux, Scaleflex Filerobot, Ninetailed, AltText.ai, Adminix, and Plasmic. Source
Hygraph emphasizes optimized content delivery performance, ensuring rapid content distribution and responsiveness. This leads to improved user experience, higher engagement, and better search engine rankings by reducing bounce rates and increasing conversions. Source
Hygraph is designed for quick implementation. For example, Telenor's initial project setup with Hygraph took only days, compared to up to six months with some monolithic systems. Top Villas launched a new project in just 2 months from the initial touchpoint. Source
Yes, Hygraph is praised for its intuitive and user-friendly interface. Customers report that even non-technical users can start using it right away, and the no-code editor makes content management accessible for all team members. Source
Customers can get started by signing up for a free-forever account. Hygraph provides comprehensive documentation, video tutorials, onboarding guides, and training resources. Enterprise customers receive onboarding sessions and expert guidance. Source
Hygraph is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, ISO 27001 certified, and GDPR compliant. These certifications ensure enterprise-grade security and data protection for users. Source
Hygraph provides SSO integrations, audit logs, encryption at rest and in transit, and sandbox environments to protect sensitive data and meet regulatory standards. Source
Hygraph offers a free forever Hobby plan, a Growth plan starting at $199/month, and custom Enterprise plans. For more details, visit the pricing page.
Yes. Komax achieved a 3X faster time to market, Autoweb saw a 20% increase in website monetization, and Samsung improved customer engagement with a scalable platform. Dr. Oetker enhanced their digital experience using MACH architecture. Telenor programmatically added 2,000 videos per month and centralized metadata for their streaming platform. Source
Hygraph's case studies span industries such as food and beverage, consumer electronics, automotive, healthcare, travel and hospitality, media and publishing, eCommerce, SaaS, marketplace, education technology, and wellness and fitness. Source
Notable customers include Sennheiser, Holidaycheck, Ancestry, Samsung, Dr. Oetker, Epic Games, Bandai Namco, Gamescom, Leo Vegas, and Clayton Homes. Source
Hygraph provides 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. Source
Comprehensive technical documentation is available at Hygraph Documentation, covering everything needed to build and deploy projects.
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. For more details, visit the blog on CMS KPIs.
Written by Emily
on Oct 18, 2021Founded in 1855, Telenor is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. Their television venture, Telenor TV, began as a joint venture between French TV company, Canal+, and Telenor in 1997 called Canal Digital. In 2013, Telenor created a video streaming service to stream content from several local television stations to make the content more accessible to the community. The platform quickly grew to add around 2,000 videos/movies per month.
This project was the first time that Telenor ventured into building a streaming platform. The homebrew tech stack had a common onboarding platform that received data from various TV stations and made the content available on a CDN. The initial setup lacked a way to store and distribute metadata. Because of this, teams had to edit this data as needed manually and write new scripts when there was a change. As the amount of content continued to grow, data inconsistencies became more prevalent due to the reliance on manual work and the workflows became time-consuming.
From a customer perspective, the project was a success and given the green light to expand. The expansion of the project was a perfect opportunity for the Telenor team to make improvements to the tech stack by centralizing the data and simplifying the process so teams can make changes quickly. It was clear that they wanted to reduce the number of manual processes and start investigating what could be handled programmatically at scale. Instead of building a solution in-house, which would have been costly and time-intensive, they chose to evaluate existing solutions.
The Telenor team eventually settled on Hygraph to find a hybrid solution that sat between a content database, CMS, and Backend-as-a-Service. Given the ability for handling complex content operations and API federation for metadata using GraphQL APIs, the team set out to test the flexibility of a content database highly customized to their needs.
With Hygraph, the initial project setup only took days. With some monolith systems, this can take potentially up to six months.
According to the team, Hygraph allowed for changing a single field within seconds. With larger systems, if a custom plugin needed to be built, it could take up to 2 months depending on the use-case. In reducing the amount of custom development that needed to occur and giving more flexibility to the team, Telenor greatly reduced their time to market.
A critical element in reducing the amount of manual work was the powerful GraphQL API, which offered the high performance needed to deliver a stronger digital experience to customers. With a maximum latency on millions of APIs of 100ms, the GraphQL API met the needs of the Telenor team.
Developers used GraphQL mutations to write and change content directly in the database; rather than updating content entries in the UI, further reducing the amount of manual work. The Hygraph UI was great for the content team to make any necessary changes using the no-code editor. These improved workflows enabled Telenor to build a centralized metadata hub with Hygraph to provide the metadata needed to power the streaming platform. These improved workflows allowed the team to build a powerful solution that optimized for a programmatic approach while providing a high-quality experience for the users.
Telenor was able to reap the benefits of shifting to a workflow that took on a more programmatic approach that limited manual processes. Hygraph offers powerful GraphQL APIs and a robust feature set giving the team the benefit of modern technologies without sacrificing the tech stack’s capabilities. The powerful GraphQL APIs enabled the team to work with GraphQL mutations to make changes to the data quickly and in large batches where necessary.
Shifting to a programmatic approach ensures that data is always up to date and the inconsistencies that can occur from manual input are eliminated.
Developer teams are able to spend time on more engaging tasks than rewriting scripts to update changes and resolving data inconsistencies. The reduction of manual processes ensures that the stack is scalable as the streaming service continues to add content. The scalable nature of the stack ensures that the team is not limited by technical ability or labor-intensive processes.
Blog Author
Explore the key trends shaping the future of B2B content management in publishing, from structured content workflows to first-party data strategies in 2025 and beyond.
Laravel is a powerful PHP framework, but managing content without a CMS can be a challenge. This guide explores seven CMS options - both Laravel-native and headless - to help you improve your content management and workflow.
Explore the top 5 Storyblok alternatives for 2025. Find out why these headless CMS platforms are better by comparing features, use cases, and pricing.