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View Case StudyTray.ai
Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform

From Kentico to Hygraph
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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.
Key advantages
Hygraph's GraphQL-first setup isn't a gimmick. Queries are precise, you only fetch what you need, and the schema is generated from your content model automatically. Content teams get a clean UI, and developers get proper typing out of the box.
The standout feature is Content Federation: you can pull external REST or GraphQL APIs into Hygraph and query them alongside your content through a single endpoint. That replaces a lot of duct-taped backend glue. Workflows, localization, roles, and staging all come built in.
If you're weighing it up (or trying to untangle an existing setup), talk to us, we've shipped several Hygraph builds and know where the edges are.

GraphQL-first API architecture
Hygraph gives developers precise and predictable queries without over-fetching or duct-taping endpoints. If you're comfortable with GraphQL, go ahead with it.

Multi-region content delivery
Your content gets served from the closest region, so pages load fast everywhere without you having to think about infrastructure.

Fast geo-distributed responses
Because their CDN actually does its job, API calls resolve quickly across regions which is perfect for apps that can’t afford to wait on slow round-trips.

External API integration support
Hygraph’s content federation lets you pull in data from other APIs and treat everything like one unified system without any custom backend glue or microservice jungle.

Generous free tier offering
You can build real projects without paying a penny. It’s surprisingly capable for prototyping, small sites, or testing before you commit budget.

Automated webhook capabilities
All the updates trigger instantly with clean webhooks, which is great for syncing builds, triggering workflows, or piping data into other systems without manual overhead.
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