Case Study
View Case StudyTray.ai
Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform

From Agility CMS to Craft CMS
Key pain points
The pricing is the elephant in the room. Starting at $1,249/month for the lowest tier, Agility is significantly more expensive than most headless CMS competitors. For smaller agencies or startups, that's a hard sell when platforms like Sanity or Contentful offer free tiers and more gradual scaling. If a client needs template customizations beyond what's available, those changes often require going through Agility's team at additional cost, which can slow things down.
The editor experience, while better than most headless CMS tools, still has rough edges. The content preview has a noticeable delay which frustrates editors used to real-time feedback. Component nesting can feel limited when building complex layouts, and creating unique page designs sometimes requires creating an excessive number of components as workarounds. The initial setup and configuration is also more involved than the marketing suggests, particularly for teams coming from traditional CMS platforms.
The ecosystem and community are noticeably smaller than competitors like Contentful or Sanity. There's less community-generated content, fewer third-party plugins, and Stack Overflow coverage is thin. When you hit an edge case, you're more reliant on the support team than community knowledge. The platform also lacks JSON field support in content models, which limits some advanced use cases that other headless CMS tools handle natively.

Expensive entry point
Starting at $1,249/month with no free tier, it's one of the priciest headless CMS options. Hard to justify for smaller projects or clients with lean budgets.

Slow content preview
The preview function has a noticeable delay before changes appear, making it less immediate compared to tools like Sanity or Storyblok that offer real-time feedback.

Steep initial setup
Despite marketing claims of simplicity, the initial configuration requires significant effort. Advanced features and custom setups demand real technical expertise.

Limited component nesting
Building complex, deeply nested layouts can feel restrictive. You often end up creating numerous individual components as workarounds for unique page designs.

Small community and ecosystem
Far fewer plugins, community resources, and Stack Overflow answers compared to Contentful or Sanity. When you hit edge cases, you're mostly on your own.

Missing JSON field support
No native JSON datatype in content models, which limits flexibility for advanced structured data use cases that other headless CMS platforms handle easily.
Key advantages
Craft CMS is one of those platforms we genuinely respect from a developer standpoint. The content modelling is best-in-class for a traditional CMS. You define sections, entry types, and fields with real precision, and the authoring experience maps cleanly to the underlying data structure. If your content team needs a CMS that actually reflects how the site is built, Craft delivers that better than most. The Twig templating layer is clean and predictable, and the admin UI is fast and intuitive once editors get past the initial learning curve.
Where Craft really shines is in the middle ground between simple marketing sites and full-blown enterprise builds. It's flexible enough to handle complex content architectures without the bloat of something like WordPress, and the built-in GraphQL API means you can use it headless if you want to pair it with a modern frontend. The plugin ecosystem is smaller but noticeably higher quality than what you'd find in WordPress, and the Composer-based workflow means your whole project can live in version control properly.
We've seen agencies build genuinely impressive work on Craft, especially for content-heavy sites where editorial workflows matter. If your team includes developers and you want a CMS that rewards careful architecture, Craft is a solid choice. It's not trying to be everything to everyone, and that focus shows.
That said, we'd typically recommend a headless CMS like Sanity for most of the projects we take on. Craft is at its best when you're comfortable with PHP and want a tightly integrated traditional or hybrid setup. If you're building on Next.js or a modern JavaScript stack, you'll find more natural fits elsewhere.

Exceptional content modelling
Craft's field and section system gives you precise control over your content structure. You can model complex relationships between content types without fighting the CMS.

Clean authoring experience
The admin panel is fast, well-organized, and maps directly to how content is structured. Editors can work efficiently once they understand the layout.

Built-in GraphQL API
Craft ships with a native GraphQL API, so you can use it headless without plugins or workarounds. It's deeply integrated and well-documented.

Composer-based modern workflow
Everything is managed through Composer, so your project, plugins, and dependencies all live in version control. Deployments through CI/CD pipelines work smoothly.

Higher quality plugin ecosystem
The plugin store is smaller than WordPress but the quality bar is noticeably higher. Plugins are better maintained and less likely to break your site on update.

Granular user permissions
Built-in role and permission management is detailed and flexible. You can lock down exactly what each editor can see and do without needing third-party plugins.
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