Headless & composable web · Udupi & Mangaluru

Write it once, show it on every screen

We build headless websites for businesses whose content must reach more than one screen: your team edits it once, and the website, app and shop displays all update. Our Udupi studio keeps the editor and each screen up to date after launch.

Demo screen with made-up data.
Edit in one place
the website, app and shop screens follow
Preview before publish
editors see the real page before it goes live
Readable by search
full pages for Google and AI assistants
In your name
the CMS, the hosting, the domain and the code

In short

What is a headless CMS?

A headless CMS is a content editor kept apart from the website that displays the content. Your team writes pages, offers and product details once, and a connection called an API delivers them to a website, a mobile app or a screen in a shop. Whirl Designs builds headless setups from its Udupi studio in coastal Karnataka, and says plainly when an ordinary website would do the job.

Updated · Whirl Designs, Udupi

Start here

Do you need headless at all?

Headless is one of four ways to run a website's content. Here is when each one fits, simplest first. The first is right more often than people expect.

An ordinary website

Best for: One website, edited by one or two people

  • The editor and the pages come together, as in WordPress
  • Preview, forms and SEO tools work from the first day
  • Fewest parts to build, host and hand over

Headless WordPress

Best for: A WordPress team that now needs an app or more screens

  • Editors keep the WordPress screens they already know
  • The pages visitors see are built separately, often in Next.js
  • Plugins that change the visible page have to be rebuilt

A headless CMS

Best for: One set of content for a website, an app and shop screens

  • Content is kept as pieces, such as offers, rooms or products
  • Each screen fetches only the pieces it needs
  • Strapi on your own server, or a hosted editor such as Sanity

Composable

Best for: Several services joined up: shop, search, payments

  • Each part is a separate service, linked to the others
  • One part can be replaced without rebuilding the rest
  • More logins and updates to watch, so it needs regular care

We move down this list only when the same content truly has to reach more than one screen. Otherwise we build the first card and tell you why.

Our work

No headless build to show you yet

Not one of our clients runs a headless website yet, so this page has no headless case study. The resort shown at the top, with its offer and its three screens, is invented for this page. What we have built is the idea headless rests on: content kept apart from the pages that display it.

Padmavathi Tours & Travels rents out vehicles with a driver in Udupi. We built its 190-page site, which covers every vehicle, route and town its customers search for. Its route and fleet pages are not written one by one. They are generated from a single data file, so each fact is kept in one place and the pages are built from it. A headless build takes that idea one step further: the data file becomes an editor your staff can use, and a connection hands the same content to more than one screen.

  • Padmavathi Tours: every vehicle, trip and FAQ on the site carries structured data, so search engines can read each one as what it is
  • Our own site, whirldesigns.com: its written content, about 260 passages of services, FAQs and articles, also feeds an on-site assistant, and the site publishes an llms.txt file for AI assistants
  • Times of Karkala: a WordPress news portal with an editor workflow for same-day publishing in Kannada and English, the kind of editor side a headless build must not make harder

Closest projects

What you get

What every headless build includes

Headless projects tend to go wrong in the same places: editors who cannot preview, pages that search engines cannot read, and services nobody remembers setting up. Each of these is planned with you and written down before we start.

  1. A content model, agreed firstEvery type of content, such as rooms, offers, products or branches, and every field inside it, is written down with you. This decides what your staff can change on their own and what needs a developer.
  2. An editor your staff can useThe CMS is set up with only the fields your team needs, in plain labels. Roles decide who drafts and who publishes, so a new member of staff cannot put a page live by mistake.
  3. A preview that shows the real pageIn a headless setup the preview button does not work by itself. We build one, so an editor sees the draft on the actual design, at phone and desktop size, before any visitor can.
  4. Pages built for searchPages are built on the server or ahead of time, usually in Next.js, so Google and AI tools receive every word on the page. Page titles, sitemaps and structured data (labels that tell search engines what each detail means), the jobs a WordPress SEO plugin used to do, are built into the site.
  5. Publishing that reaches every screenWhen an editor presses publish, the CMS sends an automatic signal that tells the website, the app and any shop screen to fetch the new content. Saved copies of old pages are cleared at the same time, so an offer that has ended does not stay up for hours.
  6. A written map of the partsYour business holds the accounts for the CMS, the hosting and the domain, and the code is handed to you. You also get a one-page map of which service does what, where each login lives, and what to do if one of them stops.

How it runs

From the first question to a live site

Your editors work with real content on a real page early in the project, not only at the end.

  1. Where must the content go?

    We list every screen the content has to reach and every person who edits it. If the answer is one website and one editor, we say so here and suggest an ordinary build.

  2. A written plan

    The content model, roles, languages, the CMS we suggest (Strapi, Sanity, Contentful or WordPress) and the reason for it, and where each part will be hosted. You approve it before building starts.

  3. One page type, end to end

    A single page type is built all the way through: editor, preview, live page and publishing. Your editors try it on their own content while it is still easy to change.

  4. Move the content and the old links

    Existing pages are moved into the CMS, and every old web address is redirected to its new one, so links that people and Google already have keep working.

  5. Launch and editor training

    Your team learns the editor on its own pages. Before launch we publish test changes and check that each one appears on every screen it should.

  6. Looked after once it is live

    The CMS, the code libraries and the hosting all need updates. Those updates, new page types and fixes come from the people who built the setup, so nobody has to learn it from scratch.

Not a fit

When we will advise against headless

  • You have one website and one or two people who edit it. A well-built ordinary website does the same job with fewer parts to look after.
  • Your team relies on WordPress plugins for forms, sliders or SEO. Most of them stop working once the pages visitors see are built separately, and each one would have to be rebuilt.
  • You want headless mainly because the current site is slow. A slow site can usually be made fast without rebuilding it, so start there.
  • You want to set it up once and never think about it again. Several services with their own updates and logins need looking after, by us or by your own developer.

5.0 on Google — read our reviews

Questions

Questions people ask about headless

Is a headless website good for SEO?

Yes, as long as each page reaches search engines already filled in. The risk is a site that assembles each page inside the visitor's browser: Google may add it to search late, and many AI tools that read websites do not run the code that fills such pages, so they see an empty shell. Every page we build arrives complete, and before launch we fetch pages the way a search engine does to check that nothing is missing.

Which headless CMS should we use?

Strapi suits a business that wants its content on its own server, WordPress suits a team that already knows it, and Sanity or Contentful suit a team that would rather not look after a CMS server at all. With the hosted ones, your content sits on their platform under their terms. The written plan names one option and explains why it fits the people who edit and the screens the content must reach.

Can we keep WordPress and still go headless?

Yes. WordPress can pass its content to a website built separately, and your editors keep the screens they know. The catch is plugins: anything that changes what visitors see, such as forms, sliders or SEO output, stops working on the new site. We list those plugins first and plan how each one is replaced.

What is the difference between headless and composable?

Headless separates the content editor from the website that shows it. Composable goes further: the whole site is put together from separate services, such as content, shop, search and payments, joined by APIs, and any one of them can be swapped. You may also see the word MACH, which is a name for the same idea. Most small businesses need headless at most; composable fits when several such services are already in use.

When does headless Shopify make sense?

Usually only once a store has outgrown what a Shopify theme can do. Shopify keeps the checkout, stock and orders, and headless replaces only the shop front with a separately built site. It fits when the store needs pages a theme cannot make, or when the same catalogue has to appear in an app too. Otherwise a well-tuned Shopify theme is simpler, and your Shopify apps keep working.

How long does a headless website take to build?

A small headless site with a few content types usually takes eight to twelve weeks. A setup that also feeds an app or shop screens, or that moves a large old site, usually runs to four or five months. Moving content and training editors often take as long as the build itself, so both are in the plan from the start.

Can the same content appear in Kannada and English?

Yes. Each piece of content can hold a Kannada and an English version side by side in the editor, and each screen asks for the language it needs. Each language also gets its own web address, so Google can show Kannada searchers the Kannada page. For teams in Udupi, Manipal, Mangaluru, Karkala or Kundapura, we can train your editors in person.

Is a headless website more secure?

It removes one common risk: the admin login is not part of the public website, and many pages are served as ready-made files. But the CMS, the keys that let the services talk to each other, and each connected service still need updates and strong logins. So the security work moves to new places rather than going away, and it is part of the support we give after launch.

Worth reading first

WEB & E-COMMERCE

Engineering you can build on.

Clean, documented, tested code on a modern, proven stack — the foundation that keeps your headless & composable web fast and dependable for years.

Next.jsReactSanityStrapiContentfulGraphQLVercelNext.jsReactSanityStrapiContentfulGraphQLVercelNext.jsReactSanityStrapiContentfulGraphQLVercelNext.jsReactSanityStrapiContentfulGraphQLVercelNext.jsReactSanityStrapiContentfulGraphQLVercelNext.jsReactSanityStrapiContentfulGraphQLVercelNext.jsReactSanityStrapiContentfulGraphQLVercelNext.jsReactSanityStrapiContentfulGraphQLVercel
queries/page.graphql
query Page($slug: String!) { page(slug: $slug) { title body } } ✓ served from edge cache · 12ms

Ready when you are

Let's build something that lasts.

Tell us which screens your content must reach and who edits it, and you will get a written plan in plain words that also says whether headless suits you at all.

50+
projects shipped for local & global clients_
100%
of the code is yours to keep_
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real, live projects on our work page — from our Udupi studio_
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