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 Dato 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
DatoCMS has a low learning curve, clean UI, and a drag-and-drop schema builder that lets teams shape content without a single existential crisis. Editors love it. Developers tolerate it. Everyone gets to ship faster.
The APIs are solid, the media pipeline is excellent, and the multilingual tooling is actually usable. But lto be honest, it’s expensive, and the drag-and-drop approach means it’s not exactly winning awards for flexibility. Still, if you want something that feels polished out of the box and integrates nicely with Next.js, Shopify, and friends, DatoCMS delivers a pretty smooth experience.
User-friendly interface
DatoCMS has a clean, approachable UI that editors can pick up instantly. Little training needed, and teams can publish content without tripping over the system.

Flexible API-based approach
With both GraphQL and REST, you can query content however you prefer. It gives developers freedom to shape data flows without fighting the CMS.

Seamless integration
DatoCMS works smoothly with popular frameworks and tools like Next.js, Gatsby, and Shopify. Plug it in, fetch content, and you’re off.

Efficient data retrieval
The GraphQL API is fast and predictable, making it easy to pull exactly the data you need without overfetching or messy workarounds.

Powerful image tools
Dato handles image optimisation, responsive resizing, and transformations automatically. Your site stays fast without custom pipeline work.

Real-time updates
Content changes sync instantly across environments, giving teams quick feedback and reducing the “save, refresh and hope” cycle.
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