seastian

The question is if one considers layout as content or not

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That sentence is basically the whole argument in one line.

Whether WordPress is a CMS or a site builder comes down to this:

Is layout itself content?

If layout is content

Then Gutenberg is right.

A “page” is not:

title: About Us
body: We are a company founded in 1998…

but:

  • a hero block
  • followed by a 3-column feature grid
  • followed by testimonials
  • followed by a CTA banner

In that worldview:

  • Layout is meaningful information.
  • The page is its visual structure.
  • Content is not reusable — it is authored for this exact page.

This is how marketing teams actually think.

So WordPress becomes a correct CMS for marketing websites.

If layout is not content

Then Directus is right.

“About Us” is:

company_founded_year: 1998
mission_statement: …
team_members: […]

And layout is:

  • A projection of that data
  • A rendering concern
  • A frontend problem

In that worldview:

  • Content must survive redesigns.
  • Layout must be disposable.
  • A website is just one consumer of your content.

This is how engineers think.

So Directus is a correct CMS for information systems.

Why mixing them breaks everything

The trouble is WordPress tries to live in both worlds:

  • It stores layout as content
  • While still pretending content is reusable

So you get:

  • Blocks embedded in HTML
  • Content that only renders properly in its original theme
  • Exports that are meaningless without Gutenberg

It violates both models:

  • Not clean enough for CMS purity
  • Not clean enough for builder simplicity

The real divide

This is not about tools.

It’s about whether your organisation believes:

“A page is a designed artefact”
or
“A page is a view over data”.

WordPress chose the first.
Directus chose the second.

Neither is wrong — but once you choose, you can’t pretend the other one still holds.

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