Strapi

Strapi provides two primary methods for securing your API endpoints: Role-Based Access Control and API Tokens. By default, new content types have public read access disabled or restricted, requiring you to explicitly configure permissions in the admin panel under Users & Permissions. For server-to-server communication or authenticated user sessions, you can generate permanent API tokens or use JSON Web Tokens passed through the HTTP Authorization header as Bearer tokens. Additionally, you should configure CORS settings in your `config/middlewares.js` file to restrict API consumption exclusively to your frontend application's domain name.

Under the hood, Strapi uses an internal schema engine that inspects your model definition files stored in the `api/*/content-types/*/schema.json` directories whenever the Node.js server boots up. When a change is detected in the administrative UI or local JSON files, Strapi's database query builder automatically generates and executes SQL Data Definition Language (DDL) statements to alter table columns or create new mapping tables. While this visual migration approach speeds up local development, production environments require careful coordination of schema changes alongside zero-downtime database deployment strategies to prevent data corruption.

To switch databases, first install the PostgreSQL node driver package by running `npm install pg` in your project root terminal. Next, open your database configuration file located at `config/database.js` and modify the connection settings to target your PostgreSQL instance URI, username, password, and SSL parameters. Ensure your remote PostgreSQL database server is running and accessible from your application server network. Finally, restart your Strapi development server, and the automatic migration engine will initialize all necessary database tables and relations on boot.

Traditional CMS platforms like WordPress are monolithic systems where the backend database, business logic, and PHP rendering engine are tightly coupled into a single application that outputs finished HTML pages. Strapi is a headless CMS, meaning it strips away the presentation layer entirely and exposes your content strictly as raw JSON data via REST and GraphQL APIs. This allows frontend developers to build user interfaces using modern JavaScript frameworks like React, Vue, or Svelte, while content editors manage text and media inside an independent administration dashboard.

A 403 Forbidden error occurs when your API request attempts to access a collection type whose public read permissions have not been explicitly enabled in the Strapi administration panel. By default, Strapi locks down all newly created endpoints to protect sensitive user data from unauthorized external scraping. To resolve this issue, log into your admin dashboard, navigate to Settings, select Roles under the Users & Permissions plugin, click on the Public role, and check the boxes for the `find` and `findOne` actions associated with your specific collection type before saving your changes.