Why We Chose Payload CMS for Vooteam

When we started building the Vooteam website, we faced a critical decision: go the traditional route with a "coupled" CMS like WordPress, or embrace a modern Headless approach.

We ultimately chose Payload CMS because it is "Next.js Native." It doesn’t just talk to our website; it lives inside it. Combined with our AI-powered workflow, this foundation allowed us to launch with unprecedented speed and precision.

1. Code-First, Not UI-First

Many CMS platforms force you to build your data structures by clicking buttons in a web dashboard. As developers, we wanted our schema to live in our version control (Git). With Payload, we defined our collections in TypeScript. This meant:

Version Control: Every change to our content structure is tracked in GitHub.

Consistency: Our local development environment perfectly matches our production environment.

Speed: We can copy-paste fields and blocks between projects rather than re-creating them in a UI.

2. "The Best of Both Worlds" Architecture

We needed a system that was headless but didn't feel "disconnected." We paired Payload with Next.js, which allowed us to leverage a truly unified architecture:

The Local API: Since Payload can run within the same process as our Next.js app, we can query our database directly without the overhead of HTTP requests. This results in near-instant load speeds.

Unified Tech Stack: Everything—from the frontend to the backend logic—is written in TypeScript. No more context-switching between different languages or environments.

3. The 10x Accelerator: AI + Code-First Development

The biggest advantage for the Vooteam launch was how Payload’s code-first nature pairs with AI tools like GitHub Copilot. Because our schema is defined in code rather than a hidden database UI, we were able to develop 10x faster:

Instant Schema Generation: Instead of clicking buttons in a dashboard for an hour, we used AI to write our collections. We simply described the content structure, and the AI generated the entire TypeScript schema in seconds.

Seamless React Integration: Since our CMS fields are just code, our AI tools could read the schema and automatically suggest the corresponding Next.js React components.

Rapid Iteration: Changing the structure of our site became as simple as refactoring code. AI handled the heavy lifting of updating our types and components simultaneously.

4. Scalability from Day One

We didn't just build for today; we built for growth.

Omnichannel Ready: Because our content is delivered via an API, we can eventually use the same Payload backend to power a mobile app or other digital platforms without rebuilding our core logic.

SEO Excellence: By using Next.js, we achieved incredible SEO out of the box through Static Site Generation (SSG), while Payload gave our team an easy, intuitive admin panel to manage content without touching code.

Final Thoughts

For our website launch, we wanted a stack that felt modern, fast, and infinitely scalable. The Headless combination of Payload CMS and Next.js, amplified by AI-driven development, allowed us to ship a professional, high-performance platform in a fraction of the time.

We chose a foundation that doesn't just work for now—it's built to grow as fast as we do.