Is a CMS overkill for a portfolio? Probably. Here's why I use one.

When building a portfolio that includes articles, one of the decisions you might face is whether to use a Content Management System (CMS) or manage your content manually. Having worked with Sanity.io for my portfolio, I’ve experienced both the benefits and challenges that come with it.

For those playing along at home - A Content Management System (CMS) is a software platform that allows users to create, manage, and modify digital content without needing to write code. It provides a user-friendly interface where content, such as blog posts, images, or other media, can be added, updated, or deleted. The CMS handles the backend operations, including data storage and retrieval, while offering features like version control and access management. Popular CMS platforms include WordPress, Sanity.io, and Contentful, and they are commonly used for websites that require frequent content updates or collaboration among multiple users.

I'll discuss some pros and cons of Sanity.io - but really these apply to most CMS platforms.

Pros of Using Sanity.io:

1. Generous Free Tier:

Sanity’s free tier offers more than enough resources for most personal portfolios, which is great for developers looking to showcase their work without incurring additional costs.

2. Easy API Integration:

Integrating Sanity into a React project is smooth. Sanity’s RESTful API is straightforward to work with, making it simple to fetch and display blog posts or other content dynamically. Sanity also offers a querying language called GROQ (Graph-Relational Object Queries) to retrieve content, which can be integrated with the API to fetch and filter data more efficientlyTheir documentation is really good too!

3. Simplified Content Management:

This is why you use a CMS - the ability to add or update posts via the Sanity studio, a web interface. This is far more efficient than managing posts manually in code, especially when content updates are frequent. It means I can update on the go, from my phone or any other device without worrying about GitHub or Netlify.

4. Collaboration:

A CMS allows multiple users to add or manage content simultaneously, making it ideal for businesses or teams where different contributors need to update the website without requiring access to the codebase. While this is less relevant for a personal portfolio, it’s a common advantage in larger projects or business websites.

Cons:

1. Not Always Necessary:

While a CMS like Sanity is fantastic for dynamic projects, if I were using a static site generator like Astro, I’d probably skip the CMS altogether. Astro’s native markdown integration is simple and effective, allowing me to manage content directly through files without the need for a full CMS.

2. Potential Overhead:

Although API integration is easy, it does add some overhead in terms of fetching and rendering dynamic content compared to Astro’s static generation approach.

Using a CMS can be a powerful tool for React-based portfolios - letting you spend more time focusing on creating content, and less time sharing it with the world. However, in simpler setups (like Astro with markdown support), a CMS may not be worth the additional complexity.