Headless 360 is a gift to developers, and to Salesforce's margins
Salesforce #Headless 360 is a gift to developers. It is also a gift to their shareholders... for now, anyway.
I've posted about my team's experience building React on #Salesforce data in relation to Headless 360. Then I'm reading up on it, trying to find the answer to my question: what, if any, changes to the API does this bring? I already built a React app on Salesforce (and other) data. What does this announcement enable me to do?
No API changes that I can find (and do correct me if I'm wrong), but then I think to ask, "Does the core React in Headless give developers a way to access data in a user context, where the user has logged in to Salesforce?" and come to realize that it does indeed give you an easy way to leverage their security. That's the win for developers: skipping all of the security hoops my team and I jumped through to secure our mobile/portal app.
That is also a win for Salesforce's profit margin. The security was absolutely the heaviest lift of that project, and the riskiest, and Salesforce is offering to handle that for you like they always have, for a premium like they always have.
The difference now? You build the UI. That declarative, low-code glory that allowed Salesforce to blow past being a mere sales platform, bragged about for decades? With Headless 360, you don't get that... but you still pay for it.
Which brings me back to my original question: will there be significant shifts to Salesforce pricing in this Brave New Headless World? 😏 Or will headless customers (sorry not sorry) pay for those years of R&D for a low-code product they're not using?
Our React project, while it had the advantage of giving us a robust development framework, was more about saving cost on the Partner + FSC licenses we'd have to buy to use Experience Cloud.
My opinion stands: Headless 360 has advantages for existing customers, perhaps as a stepping stone for a full Salesforce exit (Codality can help with that). For new customers? I don't know that it's as appealing.
#TrailblazerCommunity #Headless360
Jessie Grenfell
Jessie has spent 20+ years architecting and delivering software for organizations where complexity is the norm — financial services, insurance, nonprofits, and regulated industries where getting it wrong isn't an option. She specializes in the hard problems: unique operational workflows, cross-system integrations, and the kind of compliance requirements (HIPAA, CCPA, SOC 2) that most developers treat as someone else's job.
At Codality, she leads every principal engagement from discovery through delivery — because she's seen what happens when that thread gets cut.