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 Tina CMS
We are the Agility CMS to Tina CMS migration experts
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Challenges with Agility 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.
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
Agility CMS to Tina CMS migration FAQs
Answers to the most common questions about Agility CMS to Tina CMS migration
How do we migrate away from Agility CMS?
Agility CMS content is accessible through their REST API, so extracting pages, content lists, and media is doable with scripted API calls. The trickier part is the page management layer. Agility's built-in sitemap and page routing don't have direct equivalents in most headless CMS platforms, so that logic needs to be rebuilt in your frontend. We typically budget 4 to 8 weeks for Agility migrations depending on how deeply the page management features are used.
Is Agility CMS worth the price?
At $1,249/month minimum with no free tier, Agility is one of the priciest headless CMS options available. For teams that genuinely need built-in page management, SEO tools, and generous API limits, the cost can be justified. But most mid-sized teams we work with find they can get the same results with a platform like Sanity at a fraction of the cost, especially when you factor in Agility's additional charges for template customisations that go beyond their standard offerings.
What are the biggest risks of staying on Agility CMS?
The small ecosystem is the long-term concern. With fewer community resources, plugins, and Stack Overflow coverage than competitors, you're heavily reliant on Agility's support team for edge cases. The preview delay frustrates editors who are used to real-time feedback, and component nesting limitations force workarounds as your design system grows. If Agility ever changes pricing or direction, the limited community means fewer migration guides and less shared knowledge to help you move.
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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