Case Study
View Case StudyTray.ai
Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform
From Adobe Experience Manager to Tina CMS
We are the Adobe Experience Manager to Tina CMS migration experts
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Challenges with Adobe Experience Manager
Key pain points
AEM’s biggest flaw is simple: everything about it is expensive. The license, the hosting, the maintenance, the consultants, the upgrades, and the people required to even use it. The learning curve is a cliff, implementation cycles move at glacial speed, and the UI feels like punishment for asking to edit content. Performance tanks the moment you customise anything, and collaboration is basically “email the PDF and pray.” If you ever see the word specialised in an AEM context, just assume the invoice comes with an extra zero.
It’s the definition of a heavyweight DXP built for organisations with more bureaucracy than sense. For everyone else, it becomes a slow-moving, over-engineered system that requires Adobe-certified babysitters just to stay alive. If you’re considering scrapping it for something faster, saner, and built this decade, we can help you migrate without dragging the AEM baggage along for the ride.
High complexity and cost
AEM is one of the most expensive CMS/DEXP platforms on the market, with licensing, hosting, and maintenance costs that only make sense for very large enterprises.
Steep learning curve
The platform is dense and requires specialised training just to perform routine tasks. Most teams can’t operate it without dedicated experts.
Prolonged implementation periods
Even simple projects take months. Rollouts, upgrades, and workflow changes move slowly and require careful planning to avoid breaking things.
Challenging navigation of capabilities
AEM packs in a huge feature set, but finding and configuring what you actually need can feel like wading through molasses.
Necessary reliance on Adobe partners
You’re essentially forced into using Adobe-certified agencies or consultants for setup, maintenance, and troubleshooting and they don’t come cheap.
Not ideal for smaller companies
The cost, complexity, and operational overhead make AEM a poor fit for startups or mid-sized teams. Most will drown in it long before they benefit from it.
Benefits of Tina CMS
Key advantages
Tina CMS has a genuinely compelling core idea: real-time visual editing backed by Git. Instead of your content living in some opaque database, every change becomes a Git commit. For developer teams that already live in Git, this feels natural. The local development workflow is solid too — you can iterate on schema and content simultaneously, merge everything in a single commit, and keep your content pipeline tightly coupled with your codebase. That's a meaningful advantage over CMS platforms that treat content as a completely separate concern.
The inline editing experience is where Tina really shines. Content editors can see their changes in context on the actual live site, which dramatically reduces the feedback loop between "I changed something" and "here's what it looks like." For marketing teams and content creators who are tired of editing fields in a dashboard and then previewing on a separate URL, this is a breath of fresh air. It bridges the gap between developer-friendly and editor-friendly in a way that most headless CMS platforms don't even attempt.
Since going fully open-source under Apache 2.0 and being acquired by SSW, the self-hosting story has improved significantly. You can run your own backend with your own database and auth, which gives you more control than relying on TinaCloud. If you're building a Next.js or React-based project and want a CMS that lives close to your code, Tina is worth serious consideration. If you want help evaluating whether Tina fits your stack, or you're looking at alternatives, we're happy to chat.
Real-time visual editing
Editors can make changes directly on the live site with instant visual feedback. This is genuinely one of the best inline editing experiences in the headless CMS space.
Git-backed content workflow
Every content change becomes a Git commit, so your content versioning, branching, and collaboration all flow through the same tools your developers already use.
Schema defined in code
Content models are defined in your codebase alongside your components, keeping your content structure and frontend tightly aligned and version-controlled.
Strong local development experience
You can develop locally with full CMS functionality, iterate on schema and content together, and push everything in a single commit. No cloud dependency during development.
Markdown and MDX support
Tina works natively with markdown and MDX files, making it a natural fit for documentation sites, blogs, and any project that already uses file-based content.
Fully open-source and self-hostable
The entire backend is open-source under Apache 2.0. You can self-host with your own database, auth, and Git provider, giving you full control over your content infrastructure.
Common questions
Adobe Experience Manager to Tina CMS migration FAQs
Answers to the most common questions about Adobe Experience Manager to Tina CMS migration
How much does Adobe Experience Manager cost?
AEM is one of the most expensive CMS platforms on the market. Adobe doesn't publish list prices, but AEM Sites licensing typically starts around $60,000 per year on its own, and full AEM as a Cloud Service deployments usually land in the $200,000 to $300,000+ range annually. Implementation adds $500,000 to $1M, and Adobe support contracts add another 15-25% of licensing on top. We've seen companies paying more for their AEM contract than their entire engineering team's salaries. If that ratio sounds familiar, it's time to rethink the stack.
How long does it take to migrate off Adobe Experience Manager?
Plan for 4-8 months minimum for a full migration, depending on how customised your AEM instance is. The biggest bottleneck is usually content extraction. AEM's JCR (Java Content Repository) stores everything in a proprietary node structure that requires custom tooling to export cleanly. If you've built custom OSGi bundles, Sling models, or heavy DAM workflows, those all need to be rebuilt or replaced. Our approach is to run a parallel build, standing up the new stack while the old one stays live, then cutting over once everything is validated. That way editorial teams never lose a day of productivity.
Is AEM worth it for companies not using the full Adobe suite?
Honestly, no. AEM's biggest advantage is its tight integration with Creative Cloud, Analytics, Target, and the rest of the Adobe ecosystem. If you're not using at least three or four of those tools, you're paying a premium for a CMS that's slower to develop on, harder to maintain, and more expensive to staff than modern alternatives. We've worked with companies who adopted AEM because a consultant recommended it, only to discover they were using 15% of its capabilities. A well-architected headless CMS with a Next.js frontend would have cost them a fraction of the price and shipped faster.
What do you need to watch out for when leaving AEM?
Three things catch teams off guard. First, asset migration. AEM's DAM often holds thousands of assets with custom metadata, renditions, and smart crops that don't transfer automatically. Second, URL structures. AEM's dispatcher and Sling resource resolution create URL patterns that need careful redirect mapping to preserve SEO value. Third, Adobe contracts. Many AEM agreements include multi-year lock-ins with steep early termination fees. Check your contract terms before you start planning the migration timeline. We always audit all three of these before scoping any AEM migration project.
How do we migrate content out of Tina CMS?
Tina stores content as markdown and MDX files in your Git repository, which makes extraction the easiest part of any CMS migration we do. Your content is already files on disk. The work is in transforming those markdown files into the structured format your new CMS expects. Rich text blocks, custom components embedded in MDX, and frontmatter fields all need mapping. For a blog or docs site with 100 to 500 pages, we typically complete the migration in 2 to 4 weeks.
Why are teams leaving Tina CMS?
Three issues come up repeatedly. First, the React-only constraint for visual editing blocks teams that want to use Astro, SvelteKit, or other frameworks. Second, the development environment is unstable. The admin interface loads external assets that update independently of your codebase, so it can break without you changing anything. Third, the 2024 security breach involving compromised AWS keys shook confidence in the platform's operational maturity. Teams with enterprise compliance requirements found that hard to overlook.
Is it worth self-hosting Tina instead of migrating away?
Self-hosting removes the TinaCloud dependency, but it introduces its own gaps. There's no search functionality, no Git LFS support, and reference fields timeout on large collections. If you're already frustrated with Tina's instability, self-hosting adds more operational burden rather than solving the root problems. We've found that teams considering self-hosted Tina are usually better served by migrating to a platform with proper managed hosting and a more mature editorial experience.
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