From Kentico to Builder.io

We are the Kentico to Builder.io migration experts

Challenges with Kentico

Key pain points

Here’s the reality check about Kentico. It isn’t cheap. Licensing, implementation, and support can feel like a CFO jump-scare. And while the interface is friendly at first glance, once you get into migrations, upgrades, or deeper customisation, things get… heavy.

Major version updates can introduce breaking changes, permissions get messy at scale, and multi-tenant setups mean one bug can take down every project sharing the stack. The docs and community aren’t as deep as the open-source world either, so when something goes wrong, you’ll likely need a developer rather than a forum thread to save you. If you can absorb the overhead and like Corporate Memphis art, go ahead. But before you go ahead, give us a call, and we will try to set up a better solution for you.

Steep learning curve

Kentico’s power comes with complexity. Newcomers and smaller teams often need time (and developers) to actually start working.

High cost for licenses and maintenance

Licensing and maintenance can add up quickly, which makes Kentico a harder sell for startups or smaller organizations.

Upgrades can get messy

Major version jumps, migrations, or deep API changes sometimes introduce breaking changes, which, trust us, is not fun if your site has years of custom logic.

UI feels dated at scale

As projects grow, the dashboard can get cluttered and less intuitive. It works, but it’s not winning design awards, unless you are still competing in 2015.

Limited community support.

Support exists, but the ecosystem isn’t as loud or as active as WordPress (not our first choice), Webflow, or headless-first platforms like Sanity.

Customizations risk impacting all sites

In multitenant setups, a poorly built custom feature can impact every site in the cluster, which means you can't move or change a single line of code, unless you love 404 messages.

Benefits of Builder.io

Key advantages

Builder.io occupies a unique spot in the headless CMS landscape. It is not really a traditional headless CMS in the way that Sanity or Contentful are. It is more of a visual page builder with headless capabilities bolted on. That distinction matters because if your marketing team needs to ship landing pages fast without filing Jira tickets, Builder.io genuinely delivers on that promise. The drag-and-drop editor is solid, and the ability to register your own React components so that non-developers can compose pages from your actual design system is a legitimately powerful idea.

Where Builder.io really shines is in bridging the gap between developers and marketing teams. You build the components, register them with Builder, and then hand the keys over. Marketers can assemble pages, run A/B tests, and publish without touching code. For agencies like ours, this means fewer "can you just move this banner" tickets and more time spent on actual engineering work.

The framework support is also genuinely broad. Next.js, React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, Qwik, SolidJS, and React Native all have SDKs. If you are running a modern JavaScript stack, Builder.io probably has an integration for it. The AI features they have been shipping are interesting too, though still early days in terms of real production reliability.

Visual drag-and-drop editing in Builder.io

Visual drag-and-drop editor

The visual editor lets non-technical users build and edit pages using your actual codebase components. It is one of the better implementations of visual editing in the headless space.

Custom component registration

Developers can register their own React, Vue, or Angular components so editors drag and drop real design system pieces rather than generic blocks.

A/B testing and personalisation built in

Native experimentation tools let marketing teams run split tests and personalise content without needing a separate optimisation platform.

Broad framework support

SDKs for Next.js, React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, Qwik, SolidJS, and React Native mean you are not locked into a single frontend framework.

Marketing team using Builder.io autonomously

Marketing team autonomy

Content and marketing teams can ship landing pages, campaign pages, and promotions independently, which frees up developer time for product work.

Structured and visual content modes

Builder.io supports both structured data models for developer-driven content and visual page building for marketing-driven content, giving teams flexibility in how they work.