Liferay Headless Content Management System

Release Feature (LPD-17564) Liferay DXP 2026.Q1+

Headless content delivery requires two things: a unified interface for creating structured content and headless architecture for consuming it. Liferay’s headless CMS, released in Liferay DXP 2026.Q1, gives you both elements. You can create, manage, and organize structures and assets in the headless CMS administrative interface, then display the content wherever you want: on Liferay DXP pages, external applications, or any other channel that can consume its headless APIs. This flexible CMS is available for Self-Hosted, PaaS, and SaaS deployments, and is the recommended standard for managing articles, documents, and other content types. By separating content from the presentation layer, you can reuse structured content across different delivery channels while maintaining a consistent authoring and publishing workflow.

The headless CMS is built on Liferay objects, which means content is stored as structured, reusable data rather than static pages. Content and file structures define the data schema, including custom fields, references to other structures, and workflow configurations. Spaces organize these objects, control visibility, and tailor content to specific teams or projects.

Because it uses an object-based architecture, the headless CMS supports consistent content modeling and flexible delivery through both the Liferay UI and headless APIs.

Activating the Headless CMS

To use the headless CMS, you must activate it using release feature flags. First, enable its dependencies: LPD-34594 and LPD-11235. Then, enable the headless CMS feature flag: LPD-17564. Read Feature Flags for details on configuring feature flags and Feature Availability for availability details.

Visibility and Insights

Liferay’s headless CMS centralizes content across spaces, reducing the need to navigate multiple sites and libraries.

• Consolidated view of content across multiple spaces

• Advanced filtering and search for quick access

• “Shared with Me” shows content explicitly shared with you

• Home and Dashboard highlight other content relevant to you

• Embedded analytics provide both content-specific and contextual insights

• Strong preview capabilities

• Flexible sharing options

These capabilities help you evaluate performance and refine content strategy using real-time data.

Standardization and Workflow

Standardized governance ensures consistent content across all delivery channels. The CMS enforces business logic and approval processes before publication.

• Built-in versioning and friendly URLs

• Configurable workflows for content approval and publishing

• Headless-first APIs and object-driven strategies for consistent content management

• REST and GraphQL APIs for full access and portability

This ensures that only approved, validated content reaches end users.

Scalability and Extensibility

By separating management from delivery, the CMS enables you to scale operations across multiple platforms without duplicating effort or fragmenting data.

• Centralized content management decoupled from sites

• Deliver content to multiple channels simultaneously

• Shared categories and tags across spaces for standardized metadata

• Object-driven content supports validations, dynamic actions, and rules-based experiences

• Supports fragments, multi-step forms, and progressive page experiences

This approach keeps content reusable and portable as your digital ecosystem expands.

Granular Control

The CMS permission model enables administrators to define access patterns that scale automatically as content grows.

• Configurable default permissions for spaces and folders establish consistent access patterns.

• Default permissions apply to newly created items, and you can propagate updated defaults to existing items.

• Folder-level defaults in the CMS behave differently from classic Liferay DXP, where permissions do not automatically cascade to sub-folders or items.

Default permissions reduce manual configuration and protect sensitive content by design.

Using the CMS

Building on the capabilities above, the CMS provides intuitive tools for day-to-day content creation, organization, and delivery.

• Use the homepage to access shortcuts for creating content, view analytics, and navigate all assets, organized content, and files.

• Create and manage content structures in the content structure builder, including content and file types, custom fields, and workflows.

• Organize content into spaces, which include folders, space-specific categories, and favorites in the sidebar. Spaces function like asset libraries and are integrated into the CMS interface.

• Continue using asset libraries as global content repositories. Asset libraries remain available under the global menu and can be connected to sites for content delivery, but do not appear in the CMS interface.

• Apply advanced categorization and tagging, including categories scoped to specific spaces.

• Manage multilingual content and accessibility compliance with built-in tools.

• Deliver content across sites and spaces, supported by updated APIs for headless and hybrid CMS use cases.

These tools enable you to maintain a single source of truth while supporting diverse presentation requirements across the platform.

Note

The classic CMS features and the CMS can be used in parallel. Existing sites and applications that depend on Classic CMS features continue to work, while new projects can adopt the new CMS for a seamless transition experience.

Note

Publications do not track CMS site content or structure changes.

When you switch from a publication context to the Content Management System (CMS), CMS changes run outside the publication scope. The Publications top bar remains visible to preserve the selected publication, but CMS changes never appear in the change list.

Get started with the Content Management System

Feature Availability

Here’s more detailed information about the Liferay Headless Content Management System and its availability.

Liferay Version	Feature Status	Feature Flag Label	Dependencies
Liferay DXP 2025.Q4	Beta	CMS (LPD-17564)	Release LPD-32050 and LPD-34594
Liferay DXP 2026.Q1	Release	CMS (LPD-17564)	Release LPD-34594 and LPD-11235