What is Payload?

As a UX/UI designer and developer, I’ve worked with countless content management systems over the years. But as projects became more complex and design systems more nuanced, I found myself hitting frustrating walls with traditional CMSs like WordPress.

Enter Payload CMS — a modern, developer-first headless CMS that has completely changed the way I build and structure content-heavy applications. If you're tired of bending WordPress to your will or constantly installing plugins to do basic things, let me show you why Payload is a game-changer — and possibly the best WordPress alternative out there.

1. Developer-First Without Sacrificing UX

Payload is designed with developers in mind, but unlike many developer-first CMSs, it doesn’t overlook the content editing experience. Its clean, modern admin panel is intuitive for clients and teams, while under the hood, it gives you full control over your backend.

As a designer who also builds, this balance is golden. I can craft the content model I need — with relational fields, localization, media, rich text, access control — all using TypeScript. And then I can style the front-end however I want, without being locked into a theme or PHP templating system.

2. Fully Headless, Fully Customizable

WordPress has Gutenberg and REST APIs, but let’s be honest — making WordPress truly headless can feel like hacking around its monolithic structure.

Payload, on the other hand, was born headless. It exposes a powerful REST and GraphQL API out of the box, and everything is self-hosted. You write your content schema in code (just like your components), making content types as maintainable and version-controlled as any other part of your app.

Need a custom hook before saving a document? Want to integrate authentication with a third-party service? You can do all of that with Payload’s extensible Node.js architecture — no bloated plugins required.

3. Built on Modern Technologies

Payload runs on:

Node.js + Express — easy to extend and integrate

MongoDB/PostgreSQL/SQLite — easy integrate one of the most popular database solutions

React (Next.js) — which powers the clean, customizable admin UI

This makes it especially appealing if you're building modern apps. It integrates beautifully with your frontend stack, and you can deploy it anywhere — from traditional VPSs to modern platforms like Vercel or Docker containers.

4. Design Systems and UX Consistency

From a UX and UI design perspective, Payload supports creating structured, repeatable content patterns that reflect your design system. Reusable blocks, nested layouts, and component-driven structures allow your CMS to reflect your frontend architecture, not work against it.

Instead of force-fitting your design into WordPress blocks, you define your components and your logic — then render them however you need on the frontend.

This turns the CMS from a bottleneck into a seamless part of your design and development workflow.

Furthermore, payload is natively built using ultra flexible ShadCN components that developers love.

5. No Plugin Hell, No Theme Lock-in

WordPress sites often become fragile because they rely on dozens of plugins. Security updates break things. Plugins conflict with each other. And clients are left wondering why their site is slow or broken.

Payload removes all of that. No themes. No plugin clutter. If you need functionality, you build it with confidence, knowing exactly how it works and where it lives. You keep full control over performance, scalability, and security.

6. Great for Teams and Projects That Scale

If you’re working on a growing startup, SaaS platform, or any digital product where content needs are evolving, Payload shines. Its access control and user management are first-class, making it ideal for collaborative environments.

Multilingual support, drafts, autosave, version history — it’s all there, thoughtfully designed and ready for production use.

Why I Chose Payload

I discovered Payload while searching for a CMS that wouldn’t fight my frontend code, wouldn’t make me write PHP, and wouldn’t frustrate my clients with clunky interfaces.

Today, I use it as a core part of my tech stack. Whether I'm building a portfolio, a documentation site, or a full-blown web app, Payload gives me the tools I need without the baggage.

It respects both design systems and developer workflows, which is a rare and refreshing combination.

Final Thoughts

If you're a designer-developer hybrid like me — someone who cares about code quality and the editorial experience — Payload might just be your new favorite tool.

WordPress still has its place, but if you’re building modern web applications and want full control over UX, code, and performance, I highly recommend giving Payload CMS a try.

Want to see how I’ve used Payload in real projects? See my Payload CMS implementation