For a lot of projects that require a CMS to manage content, Prismic has been fantastic but every time we have to build features like comments, or feedback from users, Prismic becomes useless as we can't write back to Prismic. So, in the end, we end up doing project using Firebase and build out a custom CMS panel which takes a lot of time.
If only Prismic could have a write API that would make Prismic a must for a lot of projects.
Hello @charles.dedreuille,
First of all, thank you for taking the time to give us feedback and share your use case.
There are certainly a lot of cases for a write API and I know that I won’t be able to address all of them in a single thread or response. Your own case is a very good example of how it could be used and I understand how painful it can be to build a comment system or feedback system for users. That being said, it is not currently on our roadmap and it is unlikely to be something that we will develop for the foreseeable future.
We feel that having Comments, Feedback, and Ratings at the same level as Blog posts, or Landing Pages will be confusing. These are different types of content that have different needs and different workflows that need to be maintained. There is only a small chance that you will have to update this content, schedule it in a release, or even preview it. At the moment, the main focus of the writing room is to provide tools that will help marketing and editorial teams to collaborate on creating rich content. And the features that I described earlier are meant to do that.
The type of content that you’re describing (comments, rating) doesn’t have the same lifecycle, the same needs. By default, they have to be attached to another document or a page and if we treat them like any other piece of content it could cause a lot of issues in terms of UX as it would become hard to browse a writing room full of comments. In addition, we fear it could even cause issues at the API level.
At the moment, we think that it’s good that this type of content lives in a different database and in a separate system that can offer their own management tooling to moderate or respond to comments.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t understand your frustrations, but we are, unfortunately, put in a position where no product decision can be taken independently of other needs and our overall vision for Prismic.
What we want from our user experience means that we can’t address your particular use case at the moment with a write API, but you’re not the first person to need comments and there are some solutions that our Education Team recommend. If you haven’t already, it would be worth your time to have a look at this article on how to add a comments section using DISQUS.
We’re always looking to find ways to address the needs of our users and we actually hope that this forum will help us to provide the best solutions for problems and use cases that we can’t immediately solve with new features or product updates.
To get back into the general write API subject
We have had a lot of requests to have a write API to build connections with external catalogs and we’re now offering a feature called Integration Fields that is meant specifically for this purpose.
Another use case that is often presented is for a Write API to make migration more straightforward; this is something that we are considering and that we might work on in the upcoming months, but, as of now, we can’t make any promises regarding that. We are still looking at the different uses cases to provide a specific answer to each particular problem. For now, you can work around that by using our Import / Export feature that will let you upload multiple documents into prismic.
I hope that you will appreciate that we take all of our user feedback on board and that it plays an important part in our product roadmap - even when we cannot immediately or directly address it.
I will let you know if we begin any work on this subject and I will be certain to reach out to ask for your feedback and input. Do let us know if the DISQUS solution addresses some of your needs and if it works well for you.
Thanks @renaud for the detailed answer. I now understand more clearly your approach. I think the confusing part is that you define yourself as a headless CMS. Traditional CMS’ like Wordpress or Joomla offers the full spectrum of actually managing all sorts of content coming from the admin who would like to push some content or the user wanting to answer back. Content is not only one way. Medium, for example, understands that and treat each answer as an article in itself.
If you’re saying that a lot of people are asking for a write API, why don’t listen to them? If I remember well, you had a similar position with booleans with a strong opinion on why you didn’t want to do it which was very frustrating at the time.
Platforms like Craft CMS or even Wordpress as a headless CMS offers the full spectrum. Your advantage is that you’re on the web, no need to download and maintain anything. Firebase is quite perfect but they don’t have an easy to use interface like you have to manage the content.
I found it quite sad that Prismic isn’t going to this route, I was really looking forward to it.
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This is definitely a bummer to hear that there are no plans for a write API. I really like Prismic, but without a write API to be able to create/update content, it becomes extremely restricted in its capabilities as a headless CMS. For this reason, I will be avoiding Prismic in the future in favor of Contentful.
Hey there!
I'm Alaina, a Product Manager at Prismic, and I want to share some exciting news: We've launched our Migration API in Beta!
What is the Migration API?
It's our way of addressing the content migration challenges you've shared with us.
While it's still in its early stages, it already offers:
Although the Migration API is not designed to encompass all Write API use cases mentioned here, it provides a strong foundation for accommodating more diverse content management needs in the future.
If you want to test out the Migration API, share your experiences, and actively shape its future, sign up for our Beta waitlist!
Join the Waitlist
Your insights have been invaluable so far, and we can't wait to see where this collaboration takes us!
Best regards, Alaina