Case Study
View Case StudyTray.ai
Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform
We are the Joomla to Kentico migration experts
Challenges with Joomla
Joomla sits in the same category as WordPress, except somehow even harder to explain to anyone under 40. If your C-suite is filled with boomers who think “PHP developer” is still a personality type, Joomla will make them feel right at home. You might also have a vested interest in making your hosting provider very rich, because nothing about this platform is light, modern, or low-maintenance.
The dev experience still feels trapped in a pre-composer, pre-type-hints era. Migrations are a genuine horror story: extensions break, templates implode, and you’ll often rebuild the whole site because Joomla decided versioning should be a personality test. The community is smaller, the documentation is hit-and-miss, and the admin panel feels like a UI from a government portal that accidentally became a CMS. Performance on shared hosting is questionable at best, workflow is clunky, and there is barely any modern DX. But if you really, truly want Joomla… we’ll point you to another agency or just sit down with us for half an hour and we'll talk you out of your biggest digital regret.
Key pain points
Steep learning curve
Joomla makes even simple tasks feel like you’re onboarding into a new corporate ERP system. If you’re not already fluent in its quirks, prepare to lose a weekend (or three).
Outdated coding standards
Still clinging to older PHP conventions, missing modern practices, and generally stuck in a time capsule. If you enjoy fighting your own tools, you’ll love it.
Complex migration process
Upgrading versions feels less like an update and more like a full-blown rebuild. Random extensions break, templates combust, and you’re left questioning your career choices.
Extension compatibility issues
Half the ecosystem works… depending on your version, your template, the time of day, and whether Mercury is in retrograde. Reliability is not its strong suit.
Limited template selection
Unless you’re aiming for “government website from 2011,” the design ecosystem doesn’t give you much to work with.
Interface complexity barriers
The admin panel still feels like an escape room puzzle. Everything is technically there, but actually finding or using it is another story.
Benefits of Kentico
If Corporate Memphis art, dashboards, and spreadsheets are what you need, Kentico might be your happy place. The interface feels like Microsoft Office; that is, it is familiar, editor-friendly, and hard to break. And unlike platforms that need 14 plugins and a prayer, Kentico ships with the whole toolkit. It has marketing automation, e-commerce, workflows, multisite, multilingual, and the entire lot.
It scales well, handles heavy enterprise workloads, and integrates cleanly through APIs. But it is not the right fit for tiny brochure sites, but for large organizations that want everything under one roof, it’s a serious contender. If you’re unsure whether you really need the full armoury, send it our way and we’ll tell you if you’re ready for Kentico or if you’re just buying a tank to deliver pizza.
Key advantages
User-friendly interface
Kentico’s UI feels familiar with “Office toolbar,” like functions, rather than “developer terminals.” Editors can publish, schedule, and update content without needing a developer on standby.
Built in tools
You don’t need to glue together 12 plugins just to run campaigns or sell products. Kentico ships with automation, personalization, analytics, and e-commerce baked in.
Flexible API and extensibility options
If your team speaks .NET, Kentico supports it. Its APIs and integration options make it easier to connect CRMs, ERPs, BI tools, and custom services without duct-tape engineering.
Workflow and role management system
It has multiple approvers, granular permissions, and strict publishing rules. Legal, marketing, and IT can all sign off without stepping on each other.
Fast onboarding + safe staging
Training is quick, publishing is simple, and staging environments keep mistakes from going live. Teams can work confidently without “oops, wrong button” moments.
Headless-ready
If you want speed, security, and headless flexibility, Kentico delivers. Content moves fast, scales well, and supports multi-site or multilingual setups without falling over.
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