Top 6 Best Headless CMS Platforms for Healthcare Organizations in 2025

Before we begin, it's important to clarify who this content is for. This guide is written specifically for decision-makers in the healthcare industry. This guide isn't for generic eCommerce companies or software firms. It's crafted specifically for healthcare organizations like yours, with real-world challenges in digitizing patient care and operations.

It is not sponsored. It is not influenced by vendor partnerships.

At Weframe Tech, we have spent years helping healthcare organizations digitally transform. We've worked with healthcare providers who previously had no digital infrastructure, and we've helped them build everything from patient portals and telehealth platforms to custom electronic health record systems and pharmaceutical distribution networks.

Whether you're trying to build landing pages for patient acquisition, telehealth platforms for remote care delivery, or eCommerce solutions for medical supplies and pharmaceuticals, we understand the unique compliance, security, and user experience requirements of healthcare technology.

So if you are a CEO, CMO, CTO, VP of Digital Health, Chief Medical Officer, or a consultant evaluating CMS options for a healthcare organization, this content is written with you in mind.

 

Why Listen to Us?

We have also worked with 10+ headless and composable ecommerce platforms, so we know this space inside and out. We live and breathe CMS, and we are also top-rated developers on Upwork - here is a screenshot you can verify as well.

We've worked with enterprise-level and billion-dollar companies like Abaxx Exchange (a publicly traded company), as well as other large businesses.

So when it comes to headless CMS, we know what we're talking about.

 

Why choosing a CMS is a high stakes decision

You are not paid for the number of hours you work. You are paid for the quality of your decisions and choosing a CMS is one of those decisions that carries long term consequences across IT, operations, and scalability.

When this process begins, you will likely read every possible comparison and recommendation article online. But many of these blogs are either general in nature, optimized for retail and marketing teams, or created as promotional content for CMS vendors. A poor decision can create bigger problems down the line, especially in healthcare where patient trust and compliance are paramount.

We are writing this because we have seen most of the content online about CMS platforms for healthcare is written by people who have never worked in the healthcare industry. It usually ends up being generic content with no real understanding of HIPAA compliance, patient data security, or clinical workflow requirements.

So without wasting time, let's start with the list, followed by pricing. Next, we will discuss when, according to our opinion, each CMS makes sense and how to shortlist vendors. Here is the list

List of the Best Headless CMS for Healthcare

The following is a curated list of modern headless CMS platforms that are best suited for Healthcare

Directus

Overview: Directus connects directly to your database and turns it into a content management system. It's open-source and great for custom work.

Unique Strength: Gives full control over your data and setup, perfect for custom-built projects.

 

Notable Users:

• Walmart

• Adobe

• T-Mobile

 

Sanity

Overview: Sanity offers real-time editing, flexible content structures, and strong collaboration tools for teams managing complex content.

Unique Strength: Live editing and content customization make it perfect for large or fast-paced teams.

 

Notable Users:

• Puma

• Figma

• Aether

 

Strapi

Overview: Strapi helps teams create content APIs quickly. It’s flexible, open-source, and works well with many different front-end tools.

Unique Strength: Quick setup with full flexibility, great for fast-moving teams and developers.

 

Notable Users:

• PostHog

• Société Générale

• Mug and Snug

Payload CMS

Overview: Payload is a CMS built for developers. It’s easy to customize, has strong security, and can be fully hosted on your own servers.

Unique Strength: Full control and privacy with self-hosting, ideal for businesses with custom needs.

Used By:

• Blue Origin

• Sonos

• Microsoft

Contentful

Overview: Contentful is an easy-to-use online CMS that helps you manage and deliver content to websites, apps, and more. It works well for teams who want to update content without needing technical help.

Unique Strength: It’s a reliable cloud service that handles everything for you, making it great for businesses that want a hassle-free way to manage content and reach customers quickly.

 

Used By:

• BMW

• Ruggable

• Spotify

Builder.io

 

Overview: Builder.io is a visual content builder. Teams can create and update web pages using drag-and-drop tools without needing to code.

Unique Strength: Easy visual editing, ideal for marketing and design teams who want more control.

Used By: 

• Everlane

• Zapier

• PetLab

Note This is a focused list of the best headless CMS platforms for healthcare organizations, based entirely on our hands-on experience using 11+ CMS tools across real-world healthcare projects. These are our professional opinions on the platforms that consistently stood out when working with healthcare providers on digital transformation initiatives — including use cases like patient portals, clinical documentation, HIPAA-compliant content management, telemedicine platforms, and complex healthcare workflows. This is not an exhaustive comparison or a sponsored ranking. It is a reflection of what has actually worked in the field 

Decision Framework: How to Choose the Right Headless CMS for Healthcare

Comparing apple-to-apple features from each CMS doesn't make sense - a better approach is trying to figure out your team structure and use case. Here are the CMS platforms we'll focus on: Sanity, Builder.io, Directus, Payload, and Contentful.

Assess Your Team Structure

Choosing the Right CMS: What Type of Team Are You?

Developer-Focused Teams If your team is full of engineers and wants full control over how everything works behind the scenes, tools like Payload CMS, Strapi, and Directus are a great fit. They let you customize almost everything while maintaining HIPAA compliance requirements. Sanity also offers powerful developer tools with its GROQ query language for complex data relationships.

Operations or IT-Led Teams If your team is more focused on maintaining systems and doesn't want to write a lot of code, Directus and Contentful are smart choices. They have user-friendly interfaces and work well with your existing healthcare infrastructure. Builder.io also provides visual editing capabilities that reduce technical complexity.

Mixed Teams (Tech + Business) If you have both developers and business users working together — like healthcare administrators, content managers, or clinical staff — Directus, Contentful, and Builder.io are ideal. Developers get flexibility, while non-technical team members get easy-to-use dashboards to manage patient resources, documentation, and compliance content.

Evaluate Technical Requirements

Many healthcare organizations are still running on legacy systems

It's common to see healthcare providers using WordPress, legacy PHP systems, or managing content directly in MySQL or SQL Server databases. Migrating from these systems to a modern headless CMS can be time-consuming, risky, and expensive.

This is where Directus excels.

Unlike other CMS platforms that require a complete replatform or data migration, Directus connects directly to your existing SQL database — No need to move all your sensitive patient data or rebuild everything. Directus works with your current database and adds a clean, HIPAA-compliant interface on top, saving time and money. It instantly adds a secure admin interface, powerful API layer, and customizable permissions on top of what you already have.

If you're modernizing step-by-step, Directus turns a potentially months-long migration project into a smooth, incremental upgrade — crucial for healthcare organizations that cannot afford downtime.

Need full customization or complex content relationships

For healthcare organizations building custom patient portals, clinical documentation workflows, or regulatory compliance pipelines, Payload CMS, Strapi, and Directus offer complete schema flexibility, plugin extensibility, and custom API logic. Sanity excels at handling complex relational content with its graph-based content lake approach. They are best suited for developer-first teams.

Require visual page building with technical flexibility

Builder.io stands out for healthcare organizations that need both visual page building capabilities and headless flexibility. It's perfect for creating patient-facing pages, educational content, and marketing materials while maintaining technical control over the backend.

Enterprise-grade content infrastructure

Contentful provides robust enterprise features, extensive API capabilities, and strong security controls, making it suitable for large healthcare systems with complex content workflows and multiple stakeholder access requirements.

Require schema-level control with built-in access management

Payload CMS enables you to define access rules, localization, and data models in code — making it ideal for teams treating content as a software layer with strict healthcare governance and compliance requirements. Strapi also offers granular role-based permissions and custom authentication flows.

Consider Growth Trajectory

If you're just beginning your digital transformation journey

Start with Directus or Strapi — they're easy to set up, work with your current database, maintain healthcare compliance standards, and scale as your content operations mature. Builder.io is also excellent for organizations prioritizing visual content creation.

Mid-sized healthcare organizations scaling across locations or departments

Directus, Contentful, Sanity, and Strapi shine when it comes to modeling complex healthcare content structures and delivering multi-department content from a central, secure source. Builder.io excels for organizations needing rapid page deployment across multiple locations.

Enterprise-grade operations with engineering resources in-house

Sanity, Contentful, Payload CMS, and Directus provide unmatched flexibility for engineering-led teams that want to architect long-term, secure, and scalable healthcare digital ecosystems with full HIPAA compliance. Strapi offers enterprise features with its commercial plans for large-scale implementations.

Personal Opinion

For Simple Landing Pages with Visual CMS Needs

If you're trying to build just a landing page and need a visual-based CMS, then consider Sanity or Builder.io. Here's one example we worked on in healthcare - it was just an information-related landing page and we used Builder.io:

• Case study one

• Case study two

• 

 

For Complex Applications Beyond Basic CMS

If you're building something more complex and need more than just a CMS, you should consider a backend-as-a-service platform that can also function as a CMS, like Directus. Or Payload

We have built an end-to-end backend in healthcare for gut health - the entire backend operation is powered by Directus CMS:

• [Schedule a meeting to access the case study]

For Telehealth Platforms

If you're trying to build a telehealth platform like ro.co or hims.com, here is a detailed article and guide:

https://medium.com/@kechamadavipul/how-to-build-a-website-like-ro-co-3a5a82c3dbbf

An AI-powered Solution for the Pharmaceutical Industry

 [Here is the case study]

Summary

To be honest, we believe the solution you use should always adapt to your business, but most companies pick the wrong solution where they have to adapt to the platform, which eventually becomes a burden.

Solutions that adapt to your business are only possible with open-source technology.

Open-Source Leadership

The world's most advanced and widely adopted software solutions are open-source, proving that transparency, flexibility, and community-driven innovation drive technological progress.

Here are some examples of leading open-source projects that power global infrastructure:

1. Linux — Runs 96% of web servers, all top 500 supercomputers, and powers major tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

2. Docker — The industry standard for containerization, enabling scalable application deployment.

3. Kubernetes — The leading container orchestration platform, used for managing cloud-native applications at scale.

4. PostgreSQL & MySQL — Open-source databases powering enterprise applications for companies like Apple, Netflix, and Spotify.

5. Apache Kafka — The backbone of real-time data streaming, used by LinkedIn, Uber, and Twitter.

6. Git — The world's most widely used version control system, enabling collaboration on software development.

7. TensorFlow & PyTorch — Open-source AI and machine learning frameworks, adopted by Google, Tesla, and OpenAI.

Just like these industry-defining technologies, Directus ,Payload Strapi offer enterprise-grade performance, security, and scalability, ensuring that businesses can own their content infrastructure without vendor lock-in.

 

Pricing of the Healthcare CMS Solutions

When evaluating a headless CMS for your healthcare organization, cost is just one part of the equation. While it's important to consider your current needs, it's equally crucial to plan for your organization's growth and patient volume expansion in the next 3 to 5 years.

Selecting the right CMS for healthcare means assessing key factors such as HIPAA compliance, scalability, API flexibility, user management, patient data security, and the overall pricing structure of the platform.

Pricing Analysis

Let's consider this example: Imagine a growing healthcare organization with:

• 500,000 monthly patient portal visits

• 10 million API calls per month (patient records, appointments, documentation)

• 25 users and roles managing content (doctors, nurses, administrators, content managers)

This healthcare organization is rapidly expanding across multiple locations and needs a flexible, HIPAA-compliant CMS solution that can manage large volumes of patient content, support multi-location operations, and facilitate secure omnichannel patient communication.

Choosing the right healthcare CMS solution means ensuring that the platform you select can handle both your current patient load and future expansion—while maintaining compliance and staying within budget.

Investment Comparison: Healthcare CMS Platform Pricing at Scale

How to Shortlist Vendors for a Headless CMS in Healthcare

Choosing the right headless CMS is a critical decision for healthcare organizations undergoing digital transformation. Whether you're launching a new patient portal, centralizing medical documentation, or scaling your multi-location content infrastructure, selecting the right platform can significantly impact patient experience, operational efficiency, and long-term compliance.

Key Factors to Consider

1. Enterprise Solutions vs. Practical Alternatives

Enterprise platforms offer robust features, but pricing can quickly escalate — especially with API usage, multilingual content, and role-based access across multiple healthcare facilities.

On the other hand, flexible solutions like Directus ,Payload Strapi provide healthcare organizations with:

• Full control over patient data models

• Freedom to self-host or scale gradually while maintaining HIPAA compliance

• Lower TCO compared to traditional enterprise CMS

These alternatives are especially valuable for healthcare organizations with complex operational structures and strict regulatory requirements.

2. Agency Recommendations and Platform Bias

Many digital agencies and system integrators recommend CMS platforms based on existing partnerships or commissions — not necessarily what's best for your healthcare use case.

Always validate:

• Does the platform support HIPAA compliance requirements?

• Can it handle structured content like patient records, treatment protocols, compliance documents?

• Will the licensing model work as you scale content across multiple locations and departments?

Choose a platform that matches your healthcare operational complexity, not just what fits a basic marketing use case.

3. Real-World Reviews and Healthcare Use Cases

Explore reviews on platforms like G2, Capterra, and Reddit — but prioritize feedback from companies in healthcare, medical devices, or healthcare technology sectors.

Pay attention to:

• API reliability for patient data access

• Integration capabilities with EHR, HMS, or medical device systems

• Support responsiveness and security update transparency

The experiences of other healthcare organizations can reveal crucial insights into real-world usability, security, and platform maturity.

4. Open-Source Flexibility and Developer Control

Healthcare organizations often require full backend control, custom workflows, and secure role-based access for different medical staff levels. This makes open-source headless CMS platforms like Directus and Payload CMS particularly attractive.

With these solutions, your engineering team can:

• Define your own HIPAA-compliant schema

• Enforce strict security models

• Customize integrations with minimal vendor restrictions

This level of control is especially valuable for healthcare-grade systems that manage highly sensitive, regulated, or patient-specific data.

Final Thoughts

For healthcare organizations handling millions of patient records, medical documents, treatment protocols, and user access levels, the decision to go headless isn't just about modernization — it's about control, scalability, security, and patient care efficiency.

When shortlisting a CMS vendor, focus on:

• HIPAA compliance and security

• Long-term scalability

• Operational control

• Cost efficiency at scale

• Developer-friendliness

Summary: The Future of Content Management in Healthcare

In an increasingly digitized healthcare landscape, the CMS you choose becomes part of your patient care backbone.

The healthcare organizations who succeed in 2025 and beyond will treat content infrastructure as a strategic asset — powering everything from patient onboarding and telemedicine portals to multilingual patient education and regulatory compliance documentation.

The limitations of legacy CMS platforms no longer serve today's healthcare needs.

The real question is no longer "Should we go headless?" — but rather, "Which platform will best align with our patient care goals, compliance requirements, and operational complexity?"

 

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Summary

Transitioning to a headless CMS can significantly improve operational efficiency, reduce manual workload, and streamline patient content and medical data management across your healthcare organization. Whether you're enabling digital patient portals, telemedicine platforms, or multilingual patient education resources, a headless CMS delivers measurable ROI in under 12 months.

For healthcare organizations investing in digital transformation, this move is not just a cost-saving measure — it's a strategic upgrade that supports scalability, patient satisfaction, and multi-location expansion.

 

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About Us

Weframe Tech is a global leader in composable solutions and system integration, specializing in headless CMS and modern content infrastructure. We help organizations across ecommerce, healthcare, B2B, SaaS, fintech, manufacturing, and enterprise sectors modernize their operations with flexible, scalable, and compliant content solutions that bridge the gap between technology, operations, and user experience.

Our Vision

To be the most trusted and innovative partner for headless CMS and composable architecture across industries — enabling content-led digital transformation that drives business growth, operational efficiency, and exceptional user experiences.

Why Work with Us?

Deep Expertise in Composable Solutions Across Industries We specialize in 10+ headless CMS platforms, building solutions for organizations who need control over their content, structured data, and multi-layered access across teams, departments, and customer touchpoints.

Proven Impact Across Diverse Clients We've helped organizations across multiple industries manage:

• Ecommerce platforms

• Healthcare systems 

• B2B portals 

• SaaS applications 

• Enterprise solutions 

High-Performance, Industry-Compliant Content Management Our clients have seen improved user engagement, faster product/service launches, increased conversion rates, and enhanced operational efficiency — all through expertly implemented headless content systems that meet industry-specific compliance requirements.

Tailored to Complex Business Operations From multi-brand ecommerce stores and patient portals to B2B distributor networks and SaaS customer dashboards, we customize every build to match your real-world business processes — enabling smooth integration with existing systems like ERP, CRM, PIM, EHR, and other critical business applications.

Get in Touch

Let's future-proof your content infrastructure — and build a platform that grows with your business objectives, not against them. Contact us for a strategy consultation tailored to your industry and specific operational needs.

 

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About the Author

Vipul Uthaiah is the Founder and CSO of Weframe Tech, a leader in composable solutions and headless CMS implementations across multiple industries. With deep expertise in digital transformation for ecommerce, healthcare, B2B, SaaS, and enterprise organizations, Vipul specializes in helping businesses transition from legacy systems to flexible, API-first architectures. His work focuses on enabling modern content operations that support scalable growth, enhanced user experiences, and operational excellence across diverse industry verticals.