Acquia CMS

Headless and Hybrid modes

The Headless starter kit comes with the following two modes:

Mode

Description

Headless

Designed for use as an exclusively headless CMS. In this mode, the ability for Drupal to render content is disabled and the admin navigation is simplified around content modeling and content management.

This simplified experience aims to make working with Acquia CMS easier and more intuitive as a frontend developer because it does not have any admin options that are not relevant for headless content delivery.

Hybrid

Designed for use when Drupal manages the display of content and also serves content through API endpoints. In this mode, the features of display management are retained within the CMS. Also, the admin menu navigation is not modified.

The Hybrid CMS is more difficult to navigate because it provides a level of display management that needs multiple functions to configure.

Next.js

Next.js is only available using the Headless mode because the community module relies on Drupal displays to render the preview window. Acquia is working to enable next.js in the Hybrid mode.