u/dogfrogfogg

At FocusReactive we build projects on different CMSs - Sanity, Storyblok, Strapi, Payload. Each platform has its own unique features and limitations. And sometimes for one project we need a feature that it doesn't have, but another CMS does.

So we decided to build all of that into one open source project, we call it “Ideal CMS”. Best features from every CMS we've worked with. You can use project with everything integrated or install individual plugins to get features you need. This often helps our clients free up budget for things we believe should be included from day one.

Here's what we've developed so far:

• Presets: multiple pre-configured block configurations you can use to build up you pages. It’s like having multiple versions of default values. Because content people like editing more, then creating from scratch.
• A/B Testing: native experiments with dynamic % of traffic going to each of the content variants. Control everything from the same page you are working on.
• Comments: the way to collaborate inside CMS. It’s helpful for both content team and devs who work on the CMS. Allowing to leave feedback directly inside the admin.
• Multi-Language + AI Translation: Payload already has a localization plugin, so we built plugin to do AI translations on top of it.
• Scheduled Publishing: Payload CMS natively supports this feature, but not for the serverless platforms like Vercel. Since we deploy mainly there, we needed way to do it.
• Semantic search: locale scoped semantic search will help you visitors get more accurate results and make sure they find what they are looking for.
• SSO: for enterprise clients this is common requirements and could save you a lot of time. We support different identity providers, and you can leave the one you want.

We are actively working on two more game changing (in our opinion) plugins: “Releases” and "Visual Editing".

• Releases will help scheduling publishing of multiple resources in Payload CMS, allowing for complex launches with no surprises.
• Visual Editing is a UI overlay over your content in preview mode, to navigate to to the content field you want to change faster.

Every plugin works independently in any Payload project. For new projects we recommend start off the repository, that combines all those plugins and basic setup you will need - Ideal CMS on GitHub.

Excited to share more updates in the future! For now would love to hear your thoughts on what you think brings the most value to your and your clients' Payload CMS projects.

Lets grow the ecosystem together!

A lot of people who are working with CMS products know, they aren't perfect. They have the same problems across the board. But there are certain solutions to this problem. I hope this post will inspire you to evaluate migration options from your legacy to a modern CMS stack. That will help you drive business results much faster and more efficiently.

Our recent client was stuck on legacy WordPress and hated everything about it (well, maybe except one or two things). We suggested migrating them to open source solution: Payload CMS. We kept original designs, page structure, data collections and reworked everything under the hood.

The result was stunning to the team of our client. Every click and page loaded faster and smoother, and together with minimal UI it made a huge difference to them. The team was surprised, that we can add custom UI and logic, tailored to their operations, to save valuable time. and improve operational velocity. They really started benefiting on day one after the release. Everyone was exited to work with the CMS for the first time in a long time. Now they were able to focus on business outcomes and moving the needle, rather than hitting the limits of legacy software.

Results in metrics:

Performance

• PageSpeed score: ~40-45 → 90+ (including mobile)
• Core Web Vitals: ~20-25% → ~95%

Marketing impact

• Organic traffic: +47% (6 months post-launch)
• Conversion rate: +18%
• CPA (paid): -22%

Marketing velocity

• Landing page launch: days → hours
• A/B tests per quarter: 0 → 10+
• New market launch: impossible → days

Now in more details, what we actually changed in the stack to achieve those results

So the client was on WordPress, 25+ plugins for all sorts of things. Bugs and problems added up and eventually made website hard for clients to use. Clunky, slow admin, a pain to work with, hard to customize something without breaking other parts of the site. The content team was limited, often required dev time to be unblocked.

After carefully analyzing all the core features, pages, and data collections, we migrated them to a modern stack - Next.js based Payload CMS. The stack your developers won't complain about and actually like (in most of the cases 😁). We used our open source project Ideal CMS as a foundation - it's a production-ready Content Operating System we built on top of Payload CMS.

This type of migration requires some experience, but generally it's a straightforward technical problem. Sometimes clients take migration as an opportunity to redesign, reconfigure, and enhance their websites with new logic, but in this case we preserved everything and migrated only what's under the hood. The interesting part isn't the migration itself - it's how big of a difference it made for business. Now let me go through the needle movers to give you more context.

1. Content team independence. The team can now launch pages on their own with "page builder". 60+ designed configurable blocks to use for pages. Tweak settings of each block and completely change look and feel of the block. Now content team can create a page → check it with integrated “live preview” → publish the page instantly. More landing pages, more offers, a wider funnel, and as a result - more clients for the business.
2. Collaboration inside the CMS. We built an open source comments plugin, so the team can leave feedback and check notes right next to content, inside the CMS, instead of sharing links and ideas on Slack. Seems like a small thing, but it's actually hugely beneficial to have everything in one place, within the same context.
3. Integrated A/B testing solution. One of the core features of this stack is a plugin for A/B testing. No third-party services, it's built right into the platform, you own everything. So now the client can test different versions of a page, different CTAs, different copy, and optimize conversion rates and engagement based on actual data. For marketing this is a huge unlock.
4. Multi-language by default. The new CMS has multiple languages by default and AI translations. Before the migration, our client didn't have a since place to manage and launch markets. Now they do. This is a strategic unlock that can bring a lot of new customers for you product or service. To be honest, I think this is the highest ROI play.
5. Industry-standard infrastructure. With the new stack, data is stored in clear format inside simple Postgres database and not some CMS-specific format. You own your data and can do anything with it, integrating it with apps and AI agents. We're hosting the Payload CMS project on Vercel and the Postgres database on Neon. This is the best model for us today, with scalability and predictability. This type of infrastructure simplifies things a lot, but also doesn't lock you in. At any point, if costs become high due to traffic, both Payload CMS and the Postgres database can be easily migrated to an on-premises solution with significantly lower prices.

The whole thing is open source. You can setup new project for yourself or your clients in matter of clicks and start building off it. Example. If you already have a Payload project, you can integrate the plugins separately.

The biggest shift after migration was to have all those features combined. Now it's a strategic content center that gives the business a competitive advantage. It's better to have this type of advantage than competing against companies that has it.

We're planning more plugins, more features, working toward parity with proprietary big names such as Sanity, Storyblok, Contentful, etc. In some dimensions we've already surpassed them.

The most valuable thing for us would be to get your feedback on projects, including each individual plugin. Share your biggest CMS pains and maybe we could sole it together 😄

Hope this gives you an idea of what an open source CMS can actually do for you in practice and that it's worth exploring.