I love it. Congrats for launching!
Launch HN: Payload (YC S22) – Headless CMS for Developers
41–50 of 139 posts
Re: Launch HN: Payload (YC S22) – Headless CMS for Developers
#42In my previous job we struggled to get a CMS for our app: it was a medical app with articles embedded in it, and we wanted a way to have doctors and translators work independently in a CMS environment, with the final product being released in the normal way. We never found anything that would have done the CI automation we wanted, or not without significant customisation. Do you support CI workflows at all?
Just about anything CI-wise you can think of is completely doable with Payload. That's the beauty of being staunchly code-first.
I would love to hear more about this at some point too, btw.
Re: Launch HN: Payload (YC S22) – Headless CMS for Developers
#43Great site and product. How will you monetize this? An obvious way is to offer a hosted version of the product on a subscription basis, but that doesn't seem to be possible in this case considering the whole value prop is to embed this in your own server.
In my original post, I've outlined our monetization strategy at a high level. And cloud hosting is certainly an aspect of our approach.
It's true that some will self-host Payload, and that's awesome. But look at NextJS - you can self-host NextJS as well, but most people go to Vercel. Hosting a CMS is quite a bit more complicated than a static site or a set of serverless functions, because you need to have a database and permanent file storage as well. Payload will provide all of that out of the box with a one-click Git integration.
Our users thus far have been telling us that they struggle with cobbling together vendors and wish that this was easier, so we're building Payload Cloud as a result.
One other aspect of Payload Cloud is that even though we -provision- the infrastructure for you, you'll always have access to it. You'll be able to connect to your DB, back it up, export it, etc. This is all in the works now!
Re: Launch HN: Payload (YC S22) – Headless CMS for Developers
#44Was a complete turned off by the original monetization model, what has changed?
Re: Launch HN: Payload (YC S22) – Headless CMS for Developers
#45Was a complete turned off by the original monetization model, what has changed?
Sharp eye - we threw it away and went MIT a few months ago! Basically.... we listened to our audience. And it was a great move. So, thank you for giving us the push if you commented or provided feedback in any way!
Re: Launch HN: Payload (YC S22) – Headless CMS for Developers
#46Similar to https://pocketbase.io ?
Yep, but with a lot more admin-specific features like field conditional logic, block-based layout editors, customizable React components, localization, versions / diffs / drafts / preview / autosave, etc. Payload ships with way more than just a CRUD UI!
Re: Launch HN: Payload (YC S22) – Headless CMS for Developers
#47This is great, I can stop emailing markdown files back and forth with my content writers.
Would this work as a sort-of wiki, for crowd-sourced documentation and translations? Or is it a bad idea to let the public edit things?
Re: Launch HN: Payload (YC S22) – Headless CMS for Developers
#48As someone who's been actively looking for a headless CMS recently, I'm curious about how you compare yourselves to Contentful [1]?
From a quick look the key difference is that Payload's backend can be self-hosted, but Contentful is SaaS only.
You've said that you're targeting enterprise customers and mention an SLA in that respect. Does that mean your enterprise offering is also SaaS only?
Re: Launch HN: Payload (YC S22) – Headless CMS for Developers
#49As someone who's been actively looking for a headless CMS recently, I'm curious about how you compare yourselves to Contentful [1]? From a quick look the key difference is that Payload's backend can be self-hosted, but Contentful is SaaS only. You've said that you're targeting enterprise customers and mention an SLA in that respect. Does that mean your enterprise offering is also SaaS only? [1] https://www.contentful…
Hey there - your points are accurate! Here are a few more:
- We are open source / MIT
- You can re-use Payload's auth layer in your own apps and with Contentful you can't
- Contentful has rigid RBAC, but Payload features function-based access control down to the field level
- Payload supports field conditional logic, meaning "check a checkbox, see more fields, uncheck it, extra fields disappear". This is huge. And is super hard to build right but it's very important for a good admin experience.
- Payload gives you a local Node API (note: not HTTP / REST / GraphQL.) Contentful does not. With Payload's local API, you can do lots of awesome things within hooks, access control, etc. - and even reuse it in your own endpoints. All of this is impossible with Contentful without going through their HTTP layer
- Payload lets you add your own admin UI views
- Payload has no usage limits
- Payload is code-first, Contentful is "point and click"
Phew. There's a lot more. This all is just top-of-mind word vomit.
Our enterprise offering can either be self-hosted or it can leverage Payload Cloud, once we have it built. Some enterprises opt to manage Payload on their own infrastructure, and just pay us for SLA and premium features like SSO, audit logs, etc. But we do have enterprises in line to use our managed infrastructure as well... so basically, the answer is "both".
Does that help answer your questions?
Re: Launch HN: Payload (YC S22) – Headless CMS for Developers
#50This is great, I can stop emailing markdown files back and forth with my content writers. Would this work as a sort-of wiki, for crowd-sourced documentation and translations? Or is it a bad idea to let the public edit things?
You can absolutely do this. You can bake in any type of "review" workflow you can think of, and Payload comes with versions / drafts out of the box as well. It's easy to control who can update the "main" published doc, vs. who can submit drafts.
Would love to see if you gave this a shot, and we'd be happy to help along the way on Discord!