MDX is NOT the file format CMSs should use.

Structured content is the future instead. @NotionHQ and @sanity_io are the prime examples.

Here's why

MDX is slow, you have to:

- Learn Markdown
- Learn MDX/JSX and imports
- Work with plain files (or really bad editors)
- Use git to make changes

That's not how content creators should have to work.

Arguably, tools like Netlify CMS automate a lot of these things, BUT

these small hurdles still slow big teams down quickly.

Imagine supporting a team of 100 non-developers who don't know what JSX is and the time it takes to fix their broken imports and syntax.

One thing I learned from startups is that speed is key, and MDX is not fast at all

Don't get me wrong, I actually love MDX but I also know that non-devs are having a hard time writing this:

But Alex, aren't people having a much harder time reading and writing structured content that looks like this?

Yes, structured content is a pain to read/write as a human, but not so as a machine, and that's the whole point.

Machines are much better suited at rendering and understanding structured content than we are.

The things you can do with "ugly" data compared to "readable" text are infinite.

It's up to content editors to make reading and writing structured content enjoyable!

Take @NotionHQ as an example. Both devs & non-devs love it. It's my favorite note-taking app and yours probably too.

And it's based on structured content.

Some people like it so much, they even wrote a renderer for it. @linstobias , @timolins

The thing is, once you've used Notion, nothing compares. Especially markdown or MDX editors.

And understandably, people now want to use notion as their CMS for their own webpage. Or even build their whole website with notion.

That's why paid tools like http://super.so  ( @super_) exist that do just that.

Think about this: people want to use Notion as a CMS so badly, they are even willing to pay for a third-party service, even though it's nowhere near perfect.

Now, imagine using something like Notion but with your own components .

This is exactly what is enabled by @sanity_io with their "portable text" specification:

https://www.sanity.io/docs/presenting-block-text

If I had more money, I would definitely try to invest in this company.

Notion and Sanity are only just the beginning of a whole new different kind of web - powered by structured content.

Get ready to see a lot more structured-content based tools in the future (btw, this will also drastically improve #NoCode software)

What are your thoughts?

Some cool stuff to read up on:

https://www.knutmelvaer.no/blog/2020/02/on-the-limits-of-mdx/

https://www.notion.so/Does-Notion-have-an-API-I-can-use-4541b07a5caa46dba0026624646118c0

https://github.com/splitbee/react-notion

Special thanks to @kmelve for putting valuable content about MDX and structured content on the internet!