Case Study
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Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform
From Craft CMS to Contentful
We are the Craft CMS to Contentful migration experts
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Challenges with Craft CMS
Key pain points
The elephant in the room is PHP. Craft requires a traditional LAMP-style hosting setup with PHP 8.2+ and MySQL or Postgres, which immediately rules out the serverless and edge-first hosting that modern JavaScript frameworks thrive on. You're managing servers, configuring OPcache, tuning database connections, and dealing with all the operational overhead that comes with self-hosted PHP applications. For teams already working in the JavaScript ecosystem, this is a hard sell.
Major version upgrades are genuinely painful. Craft doesn't support skipping major versions, so migrating from Craft 2 to 5 means stepping through every version in between. Each jump brings breaking changes to Twig templates, PHP requirements, and plugin compatibility. We've seen agencies spend weeks on upgrades that should have been straightforward. The Team tier starts at $279 per project and the Pro tier costs $399, plus $99 annual renewals for both. A free Solo tier exists for single-user projects, but costs still add up for agencies, especially when you factor in plugins and the recent trend toward stricter licence enforcement in the control panel.
The community, while passionate, is relatively small compared to WordPress or even newer headless CMS platforms. When you hit an edge case or need help with a niche plugin, you may find yourself digging through GitHub issues rather than finding a ready answer. And while Craft Cloud exists as a managed hosting option, it's still maturing and doesn't yet match the deployment experience you'd get with platforms like Vercel or Netlify.
PHP hosting requirements
You need a traditional server with PHP 8.2+, MySQL or Postgres, and proper configuration. No serverless, no edge deployment, no modern hosting shortcuts.
Painful major version upgrades
You can't skip major versions, so upgrades mean stepping through each release with breaking Twig, PHP, and plugin changes along the way.
Smaller community and ecosystem
The community is dedicated but small. Finding answers to niche problems often means digging through GitHub issues or waiting on forum responses.
Licence costs add up
The Team tier is $279 per project and Pro is $399, both with $99 annual renewals, plus paid plugins on top. A free Solo tier exists for single-user projects, but costs add up quickly for agencies managing multiple client sites.
Learning curve for non-developers
Craft assumes your team includes developers. Content editors coming from WordPress or simpler tools will need time to adjust to the more structured interface.
Twig templating limitations
Twig is clean but limited compared to modern component frameworks. Complex UI logic gets awkward, and you're locked into whatever Twig version Craft supports.
Benefits of Contentful
Key advantages
Contentful is one of the most established headless CMS choices, and we still see plenty of customers land on it after a shortlist.
It's built around structured content, so you model fields once and pull them into any front end you like. That means no copy-pasted components scattered across pages. It also has first-party support for A/B testing and personalization through its Studio add-on, which most competitors don't match natively. The app ecosystem covers SEO, translation, validation, and asset management, and editors get live side-by-side preview for content they're working on.
If your team has the budget and the developer resources to model content properly, it's a solid pick.
API-first design
Contentful was built for APIs from day one, which means your content plugs cleanly into apps, websites, and mobile.
Developer-friendly flexibility
Schemas, content models, and references can be tuned however you like. If your stack is anything beyond “cookie-cutter,” Contentful won’t get in your way.
User-friendly interface
Editors enjoy using it. Clean UI, quick search, structured fields, and no “where does this go again?” confusion.
Extensive integration capabilities
Plug in analytics, eCommerce, automation, and translation. Contentful plays nicely with almost anything. And if something isn’t supported yet, you can wire it up yourself without hacking the platform apart.
Scales under traffic
Contentful's global CDN holds up under heavy load. We've run it on sites pushing millions of monthly requests without needing bespoke infrastructure to handle spikes.
Cloud-based architecture
You don't have to install, patch, or maintain anything. It’s fast, globally distributed, and always up to date. Your content team can ship from anywhere without a DevOps babysitter.
Common questions
Craft CMS to Contentful migration FAQs
Answers to the most common questions about Craft CMS to Contentful migration
How much does Craft CMS cost for an agency managing multiple sites?
The costs add up quicker than most agencies expect. The Solo tier is free for single-user projects, Team is $279 per project, and Pro is $399 per project. Both paid tiers carry a $99 annual renewal fee. If you're running 10 client sites on Pro, that's $3,990 upfront plus $990 per year in renewals before you've paid for a single plugin. Popular plugins like SEOmatic, Blitz (caching), and Navigation run $99-$199 each. Factor in PHP hosting ($20-$100/month per site depending on traffic) and the total per-project cost lands between $500 and $1,500 in year one. It's reasonable for individual projects but the aggregate cost across a portfolio is where agencies feel the squeeze.
What are the hidden costs of running Craft CMS?
Beyond licensing, three costs catch teams off guard. First, PHP hosting. Craft needs PHP 8.2+, MySQL or Postgres, and proper server configuration. You can't deploy to Vercel or Netlify like you would with a headless CMS. Budget $20-$100/month per site for decent managed hosting. Second, major version upgrades. Craft doesn't let you skip versions, so going from Craft 3 to 5 means stepping through 3 to 4, then 4 to 5, each with breaking changes to Twig templates and plugin compatibility. We've seen agencies spend 20-40 hours per upgrade. Third, developer dependency. Craft assumes your team has PHP developers on hand. If your agency is moving toward JavaScript stacks, maintaining Craft expertise becomes an overhead.
Should I migrate from Craft CMS to a headless CMS?
It depends on your stack direction. If your team is comfortable with PHP and Twig, and your sites are traditional server-rendered builds, Craft still works well. But if you're building with Next.js, React, or any modern JavaScript framework, Craft becomes friction. Its GraphQL API exists but it's a bolt-on, not a native experience. The content modelling in Craft is genuinely good, and that translates well to headless platforms. We've migrated Craft sites to Sanity where the content structures mapped over almost one-to-one. The frontend rebuild in Next.js typically takes 6-10 weeks, and the result is faster, cheaper to host, and easier to iterate on.
What's the biggest challenge when migrating off Craft CMS?
Twig templates. Every piece of frontend logic in a Craft project lives in Twig, and none of it carries over to a modern JavaScript framework. You're essentially rebuilding every template from scratch. Content migration itself is manageable since Craft's data structures are well-organised, and you can export through the Element API or direct database queries. The other challenge is plugin replacement. If you rely on Craft plugins for forms, SEO, or search, you need to find equivalents in your new stack. We build a dependency audit before any Craft migration so there are no surprises mid-project.
How much does Contentful cost?
Contentful has a Free tier with 10 users, 100K API calls per month, 25 content types, and 10,000 records. The Lite plan is $300/month for 20 users, 1M API calls, and 100GB CDN bandwidth. Premium is custom pricing with unlimited API calls and a 99.99% uptime SLA. We've seen teams hit the free tier's API ceiling or content type cap fast, and the jump to Lite is often forced by a single limit rather than a feature need.
What are some alternatives to Contentful?
Sanity is the alternative we recommend most. It gives you real-time collaboration, a customizable studio, and pay-as-you-go pricing that doesn't punish you for scaling. Storyblok is worth considering if your editors want a visual builder. We've migrated teams off Contentful to both, and Sanity consistently gets the best feedback from developers and content editors alike.
How does Contentful compare to Sanity on pricing?
Contentful charges $300/month for its Lite plan with hard caps on API calls, seats, and content types. Sanity's pricing is usage-based, starting free and scaling with actual consumption. For most mid-size projects, Sanity ends up significantly cheaper. The real difference is that Sanity doesn't gate core features behind premium tiers the way Contentful does with roles, SSO, and content modelling limits.
Can I migrate from Contentful to Sanity?
Yes. We've migrated dozens of Contentful projects to Sanity. The structured content model in Contentful maps well to Sanity's schema, so most migrations are straightforward. Content, assets, references, and localized fields all transfer. Our typical migration takes 2-4 weeks depending on the number of content types and the complexity of your references. We handle frontend rewiring too if you're on Next.js or a similar framework.
Is Contentful good for large enterprise websites?
It can be, but the costs get steep. Enterprise plans are custom-priced and often land in the $50,000-$100,000+ per year range. If you have deep pockets and your team already knows the platform, it works. If you're evaluating from scratch, we'd push you toward Sanity for enterprise use. You get equivalent API performance, better real-time editing, and a pricing model that doesn't penalize growth.
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