Open-source content management system (CMS) provider, Umbraco, has announced the latest major release of its core CMS, Umbraco 12, which includes headless functionality to support multi-channel content delivery.

To deliver seamless digital experiences across multiple digital touchpoints, a growing number of brands are extending web content to mobile devices, wearables, gaming platforms, kiosks and smart speakers. By decoupling back-end content from traditional front-end web interfaces, thus making the CMS ‘headless’, the same marketing content can be adapted to different publishing environments to provide a consistent brand experience, regardless of the interface.

Explaining the time-saving benefits of the latest major release, Head of CMS, Bjarke Berg, says, “Previously, when clients commissioned an omnichannel project, digital agencies had to use a package or develop their own headless functionality. With Umbraco 12, headless is already enabled within the core CMS to make content available on multiple digital touchpoints.”

With the Content Delivery API included in the core CMS, developers working with Umbraco 12 will benefit from using a common headless foundation, making it easier to collaborate on projects and move between Umbraco 12 projects, Heartcore, and hybrid environments to meet client requirements.

Key features of Umbraco 12 include:

• Content Delivery API to publish content across multiple digital touchpoints
• Common headless foundation within the core CMS eases project collaboration and migration
• End-clients’ omnichannel projects can be more easily supported
• Entity Framework Core support speeds development when working with custom database tables
• Includes ImageSharp 3 for improved image processing
• Retains Umbraco’s user-friendly editor interface
• Includes the latest updates for add-ons: Umbraco Forms, Deploy and Workflow 12
• Available on Umbraco Cloud or on-premise

Explaining why web developers and digital agencies might still opt to use Umbraco’s headless SaaS, Heartcore, Kristian Egebæk-Carlsen, Head of Cloud at Umbraco, said, “As Heartcore is delivered as a cloud-based service, it offers many benefits including automated updates and the inclusion of GraphQL querying language, content delivery network features and image caching, so it’s incredibly fast. For projects that are 100% omnichannel, but don’t require the development and integrations involved in a full site build, Heartcore is still the best option for pure headless content. The great news is that, because the same Content Delivery API can now be the foundation for all headless and hybrid projects, everyone will benefit from the Umbraco open-source community collaboration, feedback and contributions.

For more information on the latest major release, read the Umbraco 12 release blog post at: https://umbraco.com/blog/