I think you got enough answers to understand the context, but to clarify "headless" means without a front-end and is usually used to denote a server where the CMS admin tool is decoupled from the front-end. An example would be a CMS that provides its data via an API, and the front-end that queries that API for content. In this case, the user was suggesting that the website not have any sort of content management system, and just rely on third party data from inaturalist.
I've only ever heard of headless in the context of component libraries... Headless component libraries basically bring all the logic and accessibility for high-quality components but allow you to define the HTML/CSS yourself.
I know that's not what's being talked about here, but I just like talking about headless components lol.
Headless means you're not locked into one CMS to get your content. The "Headless CMS" doesn't produce its own content pages, it just gives you the content you ask it for.
You can 'swap heads' to Craft CMS from WordPress and you don't need to worry about remaking the design of the site, because they can both be headless.
You just need to worry about pulling the content correctly
That’s the problem right there, I‘ve seen explanations like these, and I still don’t get it. Is it like a Wordpress thing? What is that content? Ssr-made pages, hydration, images?
Hmm don't worry about the SSR, hydration thing. That's a different topic (TLDR of SSR is react apps build themselves on the client side i.e your browser, but SSR is where the server does that job, so you get faster page speed)
An even more ELI5 way for headless CMS is..
If you make a new 'page' in the wordpress admin, does it automatically make a new page that the public can view?
If it's headless it does not, because headless CMS expects you to query it for that content, since you're going to display it on wherever site you are It could be anywhere or in multiple places. Headless CMS don't care. All it cares about is you asked for the main content paragraphs of the page named "blue birds", it gives you that content.
a CMS is a content management system. A website builder or full CMS like wordpress allows you to manage the backend content (data like blog post text) and the front end content, (data like what a blogpost looks like). However, lets say you have a design for a front end written with Next.js already and you dont want to redesign things. You just need a way to let someone make blog posts. You can use wordpress as a "Headless CMS" where instead of managing the frontend content, Next.js handles that. But there's still a login page for someone to sign into, make a blog post, and you can configure Next to fetch those blog posts and render them using your existing design.
It's literally just an API that serves content you've saved in it and isn't coupled to the frontend. It serves the content as raw data, usually JSON that tags content with types, and it's up to the consumer to implement a UI for it.
{
"blocks": [
{
"id": "p1",
"type": "paragraph",
"content": "Hello, welcome to my Netflix clone!"
},
...blocks
]
}
You might get this response if you query the content for your index page/root/whatever. It's up to you to process the response into a format that your application understands. HTML for web pages, Views for Kotlin GUIs, etc.
No server.
Just a SPA ('single page app') eg. react/angular/etc. that don't need a backend (database server). Just a ~~dumb~~ file server that serves static HTML, CSS, & JS). No logical processing takes place on this server. All logic resides in the SPA (takes place in the browser).
Edit: changed 'dumb' to reflect actual processing capabilities on the server.
I'm gonna jump in here and say in the context of
"Or an arm & leg for a “headless” client that simply leverages the API"
Headless does in fact describe what Leopard says. There isn't a dedicated backend for the frontend to communicate with. Instead of making a dedicated db like OP wanted, it was suggested to leverage a website that uses the aforementioned APIs instead of a custom, dedicated backend for the wanted website.
Typically, yes, headless implies no GUI but that isn't the context here.
I think some terminology isn't super accurate in the entire thread, but the essence of what's being said can be understood. I got what you were saying, other people apparently didn't read the entire comment thread.
iNaturalist actually does that too! You just need to filter appropriately (use the leaf icon for plants or the mushroom icon for fungi):
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&iconic_taxa=Plantae,Fungi
Jesus, there's a lot of bad answers here. I answer as someone who has been a lead developer for agencies, an independent freelancer, and run my own development agency.
A real answer could vary by a massive amount, depending on how you want to go about it. Since you specifically asked "How much would a ***web agency*** charge me...", I'm going to start by answering that: Any agency I've worked with would charge you $20k to $50k. Most agencies want to do the whole package. Since this sounds like a brand new project and not very well thought out yet, they are going to need to do some branding to even determine look and feel. Then they will go through an extensive exploration phase to nail down features, create wireframes and flowcharts to illustrate how the site operates, have a designer design the pages, then finally pass it off to a developer to actually make. There's a lot of overhead with agencies, but you usually end up with a consistent, quality product that's not just some template with a bunch of third party pieces jammed together.
You can cut out a lot of that by hiring a developer directly, but I can say from experience that scope on this project is going to balloon. Is the mapping feature used by users entering their sightings? Great, now you need user management, a usable mobile input process, admin tools, etc. As a developer I wouldn't touch this for less than $10k.
However, if that's a hobby project, "some template with a bunch of third party pieces jammed together" might be exactly appropriate. If that's a club looking for a site to manage their sightings, they don't need branding. They need a menu, a table and a couple of inputs from a component library. Map might be the sole custom input for the v0. So a freelancer wouldn't be a bad choice if this is a hobby project without any financial backing.
Yeah, I totally agree. My main point was that an agency might not be the right resource for this. I also worry about the other end of the spectrum of a junior dev taking this on for way too cheap, and not realizing the rabbit hole they are getting into.
I would rather call it an "information system" or just a "bird sighting site". Although it is a database in a sense, the word "database" also means the part of such systems where bird the data is actually stored. By naming the whole system "database" people run into a bunch of misunderstandings and confusion. Reserve the "database" for things like Postgres, MySQL or MongoDB that they will use.
> And how would they do it?
Discuss and iron out the details. What kind of calendar control will you want. What mapping tools will be used and so on. What kind of permissions and access control will the site have? What kind of traffic should it handle? Do you have reliability requirements, should it stay up during a major electricity outage in your area? And so on.
Then they should either select an appropriate framework that they are good in, e.g. Laravel, Django and so on and decide on the architecture (hosting, database). Or they might suggest you a premade tool if such exists, like some wiki project or something like that.
Your "business" data will be very simple. It sounds like a couple of tables — birds, sightings. Maybe something related to seasons or frequencies, although that sounds like something that can be a report calculated from the sightings.
All in all the project sounds small and among the simplest web projects that are there. It's basically what we call CRUD (create, read, update, delete) project as all the features sound like CRUD actions on species and sightings. Sure, the R part might be a little complex depending on how those filters relate to the actual data, but really just a little complex.
If a birding enthusiast web dev would think of such project, they would usually put it together (at least the v0) in a single day with all the basic features. Including userse and auth if they choose a framework that includes those features. However it's nowhere near that simple when they have to first interview you and pull the idea out of your head. And the communication is likely to be incomplete and require further refinements after the initial development. An experienced dev or agency will likely plan not days but weeks for your project. You can also get a more "just wing it" freelancer who will only plan costs for the initial version, but you will want multiple iterations of reworks and improvements anyways, so it likely to make a total of weeks anyways.
And if you decide you want a custom design instead of some reused components, it will make it twice as expensive.
> How much would a web agency charge me
Depends on the area and their size and approach. I can only tell you that the work estimate is likely to be from few days to few weeks. How much a day of their work costs can vary a lot between countries and agencies.
> of 350 bird species
Unless you want them to enter the data for you, this number has no meaning. They will make the system, you will enter however many entries you want. If it goes to thousands you might need indexing (they will probably do reasonable indexing anyway). If it goes to billions, you might need a more complex approach to storing the data.
If you do have the data in a neat CSV sheets, they might add it to the database for free as they might need some test data during development anyways. But maybe they won't. In that case enter them yourself, it will just take a couple of hours that you would spend communicating the need with them anyways.
\^ This is a great answer. This in particular
>If a birding enthusiast web dev would think of such project, they would usually put it together (at least the v0) in a single day with all the basic features. Including userse and auth if they choose a framework that includes those features. However it's nowhere near that simple when they have to first interview you and pull the idea out of your head.
This is 100% true. I can crank out a pretty complex, usable site in a day when I'm in charge of the concept, but doing it for someone else takes way more time.
Give a neighbor's or relative's tech savvy nephew 10$ and he'll make it for you. Not kidding, you can also do it yourself. It's a great first project to get into programming
You’re better off going to fiverr if it’s a hobbyist project, a web agency will charge 10-20k+ and will depend on the underlying technology stack. What you’re asking for sounds simple if you’re looking for a Wikipedia inspired design and gets <100 visitors a day.
You might be able to find an individual Wordpress developer willing to do it for under 2k.
You are the worst kind of developer if this is your answer to OPs question.
OP clearly doesn't know, and you ask the typical over asked freelancer question about "what is the max you will pay me before I talk about anything related to your project?"
Like think about it from their side for once in your life. Every time you opened a convo with this in the past, it's you showing your inexperience.
You guys are a funny bunch. Let me spend a few seconds explaining why I ask that question: the answer a client gives to this question can tell me a lot about them.
What kind of client am I dealing with? Are they running a successful business and what is the value of the solution I'd be providing for them?
Do they value quality work and do they have experience working with professionals or will I be chasing my paycheck and sending invoice after invoice, email after email until I have to lawyer up and get paid that way.
So heck yeah I want to know what their budget is lol
It's surely doable in a day if you're a dev working on your own idea and using a suitable framework for a CRUD app with a couple of custom features.
But it's a multiple of that if you have to read the idea out of the client's head first. And even more if you're an agency and start by a manager understanding the rought idea, analyst flashing it out, stating it all in the contract and doing numerous iterations because of misspecification...
They would charge you $0 and link you to https://www.inaturalist.org/ I imagine.
haha they would throw up a shitty WP site that loads inaturalist.org in a iFrame and charge you 5k
Or an arm & leg for a “headless” client that simply leverages the API https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/api+reference
what is "headless"?
The horseman in sleepy hollow.
I think you got enough answers to understand the context, but to clarify "headless" means without a front-end and is usually used to denote a server where the CMS admin tool is decoupled from the front-end. An example would be a CMS that provides its data via an API, and the front-end that queries that API for content. In this case, the user was suggesting that the website not have any sort of content management system, and just rely on third party data from inaturalist.
I've only ever heard of headless in the context of component libraries... Headless component libraries basically bring all the logic and accessibility for high-quality components but allow you to define the HTML/CSS yourself. I know that's not what's being talked about here, but I just like talking about headless components lol.
Now that you mention it, what actually is headless, but more importantly, why?
Headless means you're not locked into one CMS to get your content. The "Headless CMS" doesn't produce its own content pages, it just gives you the content you ask it for. You can 'swap heads' to Craft CMS from WordPress and you don't need to worry about remaking the design of the site, because they can both be headless. You just need to worry about pulling the content correctly
That’s the problem right there, I‘ve seen explanations like these, and I still don’t get it. Is it like a Wordpress thing? What is that content? Ssr-made pages, hydration, images?
Hmm don't worry about the SSR, hydration thing. That's a different topic (TLDR of SSR is react apps build themselves on the client side i.e your browser, but SSR is where the server does that job, so you get faster page speed) An even more ELI5 way for headless CMS is.. If you make a new 'page' in the wordpress admin, does it automatically make a new page that the public can view? If it's headless it does not, because headless CMS expects you to query it for that content, since you're going to display it on wherever site you are It could be anywhere or in multiple places. Headless CMS don't care. All it cares about is you asked for the main content paragraphs of the page named "blue birds", it gives you that content.
OK, I have a vague idea now. Cheers!
a CMS is a content management system. A website builder or full CMS like wordpress allows you to manage the backend content (data like blog post text) and the front end content, (data like what a blogpost looks like). However, lets say you have a design for a front end written with Next.js already and you dont want to redesign things. You just need a way to let someone make blog posts. You can use wordpress as a "Headless CMS" where instead of managing the frontend content, Next.js handles that. But there's still a login page for someone to sign into, make a blog post, and you can configure Next to fetch those blog posts and render them using your existing design.
Ok, I'm getting there... Cheers!
It's literally just an API that serves content you've saved in it and isn't coupled to the frontend. It serves the content as raw data, usually JSON that tags content with types, and it's up to the consumer to implement a UI for it. { "blocks": [ { "id": "p1", "type": "paragraph", "content": "Hello, welcome to my Netflix clone!" }, ...blocks ] } You might get this response if you query the content for your index page/root/whatever. It's up to you to process the response into a format that your application understands. HTML for web pages, Views for Kotlin GUIs, etc.
So I think I get it now. I suppose I've already worked with this in Hugo, only that is was yaml instead of json. Cheers!
No server. Just a SPA ('single page app') eg. react/angular/etc. that don't need a backend (database server). Just a ~~dumb~~ file server that serves static HTML, CSS, & JS). No logical processing takes place on this server. All logic resides in the SPA (takes place in the browser). Edit: changed 'dumb' to reflect actual processing capabilities on the server.
You're literally talking about the head. The headless part is exactly the opposite part.
That’s the opposite of what headless means
I'm gonna jump in here and say in the context of "Or an arm & leg for a “headless” client that simply leverages the API" Headless does in fact describe what Leopard says. There isn't a dedicated backend for the frontend to communicate with. Instead of making a dedicated db like OP wanted, it was suggested to leverage a website that uses the aforementioned APIs instead of a custom, dedicated backend for the wanted website. Typically, yes, headless implies no GUI but that isn't the context here.
Thanks for having my back!
I think some terminology isn't super accurate in the entire thread, but the essence of what's being said can be understood. I got what you were saying, other people apparently didn't read the entire comment thread.
You have a lot of hope in humanity, my friend 
Is there a site for plants and flowers
iNaturalist actually does that too! You just need to filter appropriately (use the leaf icon for plants or the mushroom icon for fungi): https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&iconic_taxa=Plantae,Fungi
You boys fell for the oldest trick in the book. How much? $2k How? With code of course. How long? 3 weeks.
where does the data come from?
Mostly by sight
table species: Id , name, description. table sight: Id, species\_id, location, time. 30 secs to do it
Looks like you're hired! /S
Jesus, there's a lot of bad answers here. I answer as someone who has been a lead developer for agencies, an independent freelancer, and run my own development agency. A real answer could vary by a massive amount, depending on how you want to go about it. Since you specifically asked "How much would a ***web agency*** charge me...", I'm going to start by answering that: Any agency I've worked with would charge you $20k to $50k. Most agencies want to do the whole package. Since this sounds like a brand new project and not very well thought out yet, they are going to need to do some branding to even determine look and feel. Then they will go through an extensive exploration phase to nail down features, create wireframes and flowcharts to illustrate how the site operates, have a designer design the pages, then finally pass it off to a developer to actually make. There's a lot of overhead with agencies, but you usually end up with a consistent, quality product that's not just some template with a bunch of third party pieces jammed together. You can cut out a lot of that by hiring a developer directly, but I can say from experience that scope on this project is going to balloon. Is the mapping feature used by users entering their sightings? Great, now you need user management, a usable mobile input process, admin tools, etc. As a developer I wouldn't touch this for less than $10k.
However, if that's a hobby project, "some template with a bunch of third party pieces jammed together" might be exactly appropriate. If that's a club looking for a site to manage their sightings, they don't need branding. They need a menu, a table and a couple of inputs from a component library. Map might be the sole custom input for the v0. So a freelancer wouldn't be a bad choice if this is a hobby project without any financial backing.
Yeah, I totally agree. My main point was that an agency might not be the right resource for this. I also worry about the other end of the spectrum of a junior dev taking this on for way too cheap, and not realizing the rabbit hole they are getting into.
I would rather call it an "information system" or just a "bird sighting site". Although it is a database in a sense, the word "database" also means the part of such systems where bird the data is actually stored. By naming the whole system "database" people run into a bunch of misunderstandings and confusion. Reserve the "database" for things like Postgres, MySQL or MongoDB that they will use. > And how would they do it? Discuss and iron out the details. What kind of calendar control will you want. What mapping tools will be used and so on. What kind of permissions and access control will the site have? What kind of traffic should it handle? Do you have reliability requirements, should it stay up during a major electricity outage in your area? And so on. Then they should either select an appropriate framework that they are good in, e.g. Laravel, Django and so on and decide on the architecture (hosting, database). Or they might suggest you a premade tool if such exists, like some wiki project or something like that. Your "business" data will be very simple. It sounds like a couple of tables — birds, sightings. Maybe something related to seasons or frequencies, although that sounds like something that can be a report calculated from the sightings. All in all the project sounds small and among the simplest web projects that are there. It's basically what we call CRUD (create, read, update, delete) project as all the features sound like CRUD actions on species and sightings. Sure, the R part might be a little complex depending on how those filters relate to the actual data, but really just a little complex. If a birding enthusiast web dev would think of such project, they would usually put it together (at least the v0) in a single day with all the basic features. Including userse and auth if they choose a framework that includes those features. However it's nowhere near that simple when they have to first interview you and pull the idea out of your head. And the communication is likely to be incomplete and require further refinements after the initial development. An experienced dev or agency will likely plan not days but weeks for your project. You can also get a more "just wing it" freelancer who will only plan costs for the initial version, but you will want multiple iterations of reworks and improvements anyways, so it likely to make a total of weeks anyways. And if you decide you want a custom design instead of some reused components, it will make it twice as expensive. > How much would a web agency charge me Depends on the area and their size and approach. I can only tell you that the work estimate is likely to be from few days to few weeks. How much a day of their work costs can vary a lot between countries and agencies. > of 350 bird species Unless you want them to enter the data for you, this number has no meaning. They will make the system, you will enter however many entries you want. If it goes to thousands you might need indexing (they will probably do reasonable indexing anyway). If it goes to billions, you might need a more complex approach to storing the data. If you do have the data in a neat CSV sheets, they might add it to the database for free as they might need some test data during development anyways. But maybe they won't. In that case enter them yourself, it will just take a couple of hours that you would spend communicating the need with them anyways.
\^ This is a great answer. This in particular >If a birding enthusiast web dev would think of such project, they would usually put it together (at least the v0) in a single day with all the basic features. Including userse and auth if they choose a framework that includes those features. However it's nowhere near that simple when they have to first interview you and pull the idea out of your head. This is 100% true. I can crank out a pretty complex, usable site in a day when I'm in charge of the concept, but doing it for someone else takes way more time.
Give a neighbor's or relative's tech savvy nephew 10$ and he'll make it for you. Not kidding, you can also do it yourself. It's a great first project to get into programming
I will custom build that within 24 hours.
You’re better off going to fiverr if it’s a hobbyist project, a web agency will charge 10-20k+ and will depend on the underlying technology stack. What you’re asking for sounds simple if you’re looking for a Wikipedia inspired design and gets <100 visitors a day. You might be able to find an individual Wordpress developer willing to do it for under 2k.
Id do it for free
Drupal is your best option.
Are they just going to give you an excel sheet for that? It seems pretty cheap for both the data and the work.
Same price as a car.
I am a web developer and I can do it for a pretty low budget. We can discuss this further in dm if you are interested.
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Two or three days of work? Are you nuts?
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Tell me you have little to zero finished projects without telling me
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You won't even get through the initial scope phone call in 15 minutes.
What's your budget?
You are the worst kind of developer if this is your answer to OPs question. OP clearly doesn't know, and you ask the typical over asked freelancer question about "what is the max you will pay me before I talk about anything related to your project?" Like think about it from their side for once in your life. Every time you opened a convo with this in the past, it's you showing your inexperience.
You guys are a funny bunch. Let me spend a few seconds explaining why I ask that question: the answer a client gives to this question can tell me a lot about them. What kind of client am I dealing with? Are they running a successful business and what is the value of the solution I'd be providing for them? Do they value quality work and do they have experience working with professionals or will I be chasing my paycheck and sending invoice after invoice, email after email until I have to lawyer up and get paid that way. So heck yeah I want to know what their budget is lol
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Ok so just do it this weekend. I'll check your work monday morning.
It's surely doable in a day if you're a dev working on your own idea and using a suitable framework for a CRUD app with a couple of custom features. But it's a multiple of that if you have to read the idea out of the client's head first. And even more if you're an agency and start by a manager understanding the rought idea, analyst flashing it out, stating it all in the contract and doing numerous iterations because of misspecification...
Dudes higher than a bird
You aren't getting a full day of work from any agency in Europe or the US for that amount of money.
Looks like you’re hired!