Statamic as Headless CMS: REST & GraphQL API Setup Guide

Monolithic Statamic architecture slows down when page count exceeds 200,000 — LCP jumps to 4 seconds, and TTFB increases due to overhead from Twig template execution. For example, an e-commerce store with 5,000 products after switching to headless reduced page load time from 3 to 1.2 seconds, boosting conversion by 15%. The solution: switch Statamic to headless mode, delegating rendering to a React application. On one project, we set up REST API in a couple of hours and added GraphQL within a day — performance improved by 40%: LCP dropped to 1.2 seconds, TTFB decreased by 35%.

REST API Setup in Statamic

To enable the REST API, simply set a flag in config/statamic/api.php. By default, all resources except forms and users are available — reasonable from a security standpoint. We recommend explicitly specifying the needed collections to avoid exposing extra data. After activation, you can fetch entries via GET requests with filtering, sorting, and pagination. For a blog, we use a filter by status, sorting by date, and a limit of 12 entries per page, reducing response time by 30%. For the frontend on Next.js, we wrote a simple helper that caches responses and updates them on publish via webhook.

Setup steps:

1. Enable the API in config/statamic/api.php.
2. Configure resources — disable unnecessary ones.
3. Verify endpoint availability via curl /api/v1/collections.

Example config:

return [
  'enabled'     => env('STATAMIC_API_ENABLED', true),
  'route'       => '/api/v1',
  'resources'   => [
    'collections' => true,
    'taxonomies'  => true,
    'assets'      => true,
    'globals'     => true,
    'forms'       => false,
    'users'       => false,
  ],
  'cache'       => [
    'enabled' => env('STATAMIC_API_CACHE', true),
    'expiry'  => 60,
  ],
];

Example request to the blog collection:

const res = await fetch(
  `${STATAMIC_URL}/api/v1/collections/blog/entries?` +
  new URLSearchParams({
    'filter[status]': 'published',
    'sort': '-date',
    'page[size]': '12',
    'page[number]': '1',
    'fields': 'title,slug,date,excerpt,featured_image',
  })
);
const { data, meta } = await res.json();

Choosing GraphQL for Complex Queries

If there is a lot of data and the client needs precise selection, GraphQL offers flexibility. Install the addon for the Pro version (paid license). On one project with five related collections, we reduced the number of requests from seven to one, which lowered TTFB by 60% and decreased database load by 4 times.

Installation:

composer require statamic/graphql
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=statamic-graphql-config

Schema configuration:

// config/statamic/graphql.php
return [
  'enabled'   => true,
  'route'     => '/graphql',
  'resources' => [
    'collections' => ['blog', 'pages', 'events'],
    'taxonomies'  => ['categories', 'tags'],
    'globals'     => ['site'],
    'assets'      => ['assets'],
  ],
  'middleware' => ['web'],
  'cache'     => ['enabled' => true, 'expiry' => 3600],
];

Example query:

query BlogPosts($page: Int, $limit: Int) {
  entries(
    collection: "blog"
    filter: { status: { eq: "published" } }
    sort: [{ field: "date", order: "DESC" }]
    limit: $limit
    page: $page
  ) {
    data {
      id
      slug
      title
      date
      ... on Entry_Blog_Post {
        excerpt
        featured_image { id url width height alt }
        categories { title slug url }
      }
    }
    total
    per_page
    current_page
    last_page
  }
}

Which API to Choose?

REST is simpler, but GraphQL is faster for complex pages — in one project, we reduced load time by 35% by using a single query instead of five. Learn more about GraphQL in Statamic in the official documentation.

Why Headless Statamic Is Better Than Monolithic?

The headless approach offloads rendering to a CDN, reducing server load. In a project with 200,000 pages, we achieved hosting cost savings of up to 60%, with TTFB consistently below 200 ms. Additionally, frontend development on React or Next.js speeds up thanks to component reuse and rapid prototyping.

What’s Included in Headless Statamic Setup

• API deployment (REST/GraphQL) with required resources
• Custom GraphQL types for business logic
• Integration with frontend (React, Next.js, Vue)
• Caching configuration and webhooks for invalidation
• Documentation of endpoints and example requests
• Access to repository and dev server
• One-hour consultation on usage

Our team's experience: 5 years with Statamic and 12+ headless projects. We guarantee the API will work stably under load. Contact us to evaluate your project.

Timeline

Pricing is determined individually. Get a consultation: send us a project description — we’ll provide a full estimate.

API Development with REST, GraphQL, WebSocket, and tRPC

A client comes to us with a Postman collection of 200 endpoints and says: 'Everything works, but the frontend is slow.' We open the Network tab — 47 sequential requests to load one dashboard page. Each one waits for the previous. This is not a server speed issue — it's an API architecture problem. With 10 years on the market, we've redesigned dozens of such integrations, and we guarantee: the right protocol and contract solve the problem at its root.

When REST stops being enough

REST works well for simple CRUD operations. But as soon as a mobile app appears alongside the web interface, over-fetching begins: the mobile app requests /api/users/123 and gets a 4KB object, but only needs name and avatar. Multiply that by a list of 50 users — 200KB traffic instead of 8KB.

GraphQL solves this with selection sets. The client describes exactly the fields it needs, and the server returns only those. On a project with React Native + Next.js, we migrated from REST to Apollo Server: payload size on the main screen dropped from 340KB to 28KB — a 92% traffic savings. Our certified engineers confirm: the typical pain when adopting GraphQL is N+1 query. A resolver for the author field on a post calls SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ? for each post in the list. On a page with 20 posts — 21 database queries. Solved with DataLoader — it batches queries and turns them into one SELECT * FROM users WHERE id IN (...).

What is tRPC and how is it better than REST/GraphQL?

If the entire stack is TypeScript (Next.js + Node/Bun), tRPC removes a whole layer of problems. You define a procedure on the server — the client gets full type-safety automatically, without code generation and without Swagger. Renamed a field in the Zod schema — TypeScript highlights all places on the frontend where it's used. tRPC reduces code by 2 times compared to REST + Swagger + openapi-typescript: no need to maintain a separate specification and generate types — everything is inferred from runtime validators. However, tRPC is not suitable if the API is consumed by third-party clients or mobile apps in other languages — in such cases we use GraphQL or REST with OpenAPI specification.

WebSocket and real-time: when SSE, when WS?

HTTP polling every 5 seconds is an illusion of real-time with up to 5 seconds delay and useless server load. For chats, live notifications, collaborative editing — WebSocket or Server-Sent Events. SSE is a one-way stream from server to client, works over ordinary HTTP, automatically reconnects. Suitable for notifications, data streaming, progress bars. WebSocket is bidirectional, needed for chats and collaborative features. Experience shows: 80% of 'real-time' tasks are solved with SSE, not WebSocket — fewer infrastructure complexities.

A typical mistake: opening a WebSocket connection for each page component. On one project, the dashboard opened 12 parallel WS connections. The correct approach is one connection manager at the application level, subscriptions through it. In our work results, we always transfer the connection scheme and a ready solution.

Swagger / OpenAPI as a contract

Documentation written after the fact becomes outdated the day after release. We write the OpenAPI 3.1 specification before development starts; it becomes the contract between frontend and backend. The frontend generates types via openapi-typescript, the backend validates incoming data using generated schemas. Contract deviation from implementation is caught on CI, not during review. For Laravel — l5-swagger or dedoc/scramble. For Node.js — @fastify/swagger or Zod + zod-to-openapi.

How to properly authenticate an API?

JWT with long-lived access tokens without rotation is a source of problems when compromised. The correct scheme: access token for 15 minutes, refresh token for 30 days with rotation on each use. Refresh token stored in an httpOnly cookie, access token in memory (not in localStorage). For inter-service communication — API Keys with scope limitations or mTLS. OAuth 2.0 with PKCE for public clients (SPA, mobile).

How to handle versioning and backward compatibility?

Breaking changes in an API without versioning break clients. Three approaches we use in projects:

We guarantee backward compatibility through automated checks (oasdiff) on CI.

How we develop APIs: step-by-step plan

1. Analysis — audit of current integrations, data schema compilation, protocol selection (REST/GraphQL/tRPC/WebSocket).
2. Contract design — OpenAPI or SDL (GraphQL) before the first line of code.
3. Development — implementation per contract, unit tests for each endpoint.
4. Load testing — k6: 500 virtual users, 10 minutes, p95 latency ≤ 200ms.
5. Deployment — CI/CD with backward compatibility check, automatic documentation publication.
6. Team training — handover of Postman collection or Playground, connection instructions.

What is included (deliverables)

• OpenAPI 3.1 specification (or SDL for GraphQL).
• Generated client types for TypeScript / Dart / Kotlin.
• Set of automated tests covering all endpoints (unit + integration).
• Load tests (k6) and report (p50/p95/p99 latency, RPS).
• Documentation in Swagger UI / Redoc / GraphiQL.
• Team training (2–4 hour workshop).
• Support for 30 days after delivery (per contract).

Our experience

• 10+ years in the API development market.
• 200+ completed projects (REST, GraphQL, WebSocket, tRPC).
• 50+ certified engineers (AWS, Kubernetes, API Design).
• Traffic savings averaging 85% when migrating from REST to GraphQL for mobile apps.
• 100% backward compatibility — not a single broken client in the last 3 years.

Timeline

API development for a typical SaaS project with 30–50 endpoints: from 3 to 8 weeks depending on business logic complexity and number of external integrations. Migration of an existing REST API to GraphQL: from 2 to 6 weeks. Adding a WebSocket layer to an existing backend: from 1 to 3 weeks. Cost is calculated individually after an audit. Get a consultation — contact us to discuss your project.