Case Study
View Case StudyTray.ai
Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform
From Kentico to Strapi
We are the Kentico to Strapi migration experts
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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 Strapi
Key advantages
If you’re the kind of team that likes to get your hands dirty with real code instead of fighting a bloated enterprise UI, Strapi will feel like home. It’s open-source, customisable, and developer-centric. You get full access to the codebase, no licensing paywalls, and the freedom to shape your CMS exactly the way you want it.
It is flexible. You can use React, Vue, Angular, mobile apps, and smart displays to push content. And despite being dev-leaning, it still gives you GUI-based drag-and-drop schema generation, which means you can spin up content models fast without digging into JSON files every five minutes.
Node.js driven architecture
Built on Node.js, Strapi plugs straight into the modern JavaScript ecosystem. If your team already lives in JS-land, Strapi fits right in.
Seamless web technology integration
Pick your poison React, Vue, or Angular. Strapi plays nicely with all of them, making it easy to ship content.
Highly modular approach
Every part of Strapi is built like Lego. Add what you need, remove what you don’t, and customise endlessly. It’s great if you love building your CMS exactly your way instead of wrestling with rigid templates.
RESTful API flexibility
Out of the box, Strapi generates clean REST APIs that are easy to consume, easy to extend, and easy to customise. Ideal for multi-channel content delivery without rewriting half your backend.
Supports GraphQL APIs
With its GraphQL plugin, you get structured queries, reduced over-fetching, and a nicer developer experience with zero hacking required.
Flexible content management
Strapi lets you model content however you want, from simple pages to complex, relational structures. Combined with a drag-and-drop schema builder, it gives teams full control without feeling boxed in.
Common questions
Kentico to Strapi migration FAQs
Answers to the most common questions about Kentico to Strapi migration
How much does a Kentico migration typically cost?
Kentico migrations are enterprise-scale projects. For a site with 1,000 to 10,000 pages, expect the migration itself to run 8 to 16 weeks of development time. The cost depends on how deeply you've customised Kentico's marketing automation, e-commerce, and workflow features. Simple content-only migrations are faster, but most Kentico installations have years of custom .NET logic that needs to be rebuilt or replaced. We've seen total migration budgets range from $30,000 to $150,000 depending on scope, which still often pays for itself within 18 months through reduced licensing and maintenance costs.
Why are companies migrating away from Kentico?
Licensing costs are the initial trigger for most conversations we have. Kentico's annual fees add up fast, especially when you include maintenance, hosting, and the cost of .NET developers to keep it running. But the deeper issue is agility. Major version upgrades introduce breaking changes that can destabilise sites with years of custom logic. The admin UI feels dated as projects scale. Multi-tenant setups carry real risk since one bad customisation can take down every site in the cluster. Teams eventually decide the operational overhead isn't worth it.
What's the biggest challenge when migrating from Kentico?
Untangling the all-in-one features. Kentico bundles marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, workflows, and content management into one platform. When you migrate away, each of those capabilities needs a new home. Content goes to your new CMS, email automation might move to a tool like Resend or Customer.io, and e-commerce might need a dedicated platform. We map out every feature your team actually uses before writing a single migration script, because the biggest risk is discovering a dependency mid-project that nobody documented.
What is Strapi used for?
Strapi is an open-source headless CMS built on Node.js. Teams use it to manage content and serve it to websites, mobile apps, and other frontends through REST or GraphQL APIs. It's popular with JavaScript developers who want full control over their CMS without paying SaaS fees. Common use cases include marketing sites, blogs, e-commerce product catalogues, and multi-channel content delivery. It works well when you have dedicated developers on the team. Without them, it gets painful quickly.
How much does Strapi cost?
Strapi's Community Edition is free and self-hosted. That sounds great until you factor in hosting ($20-100+/month depending on traffic), database costs, backups, and the developer time to maintain it all. Strapi Cloud's Essential plan is $18/month per project, Pro is $90/month, and Scale is $450/month, each with higher entry, seat, and API limits. Enterprise Edition is custom pricing and adds SSO, audit logs, and review workflows. The hidden cost is always developer time. We've seen "free" Strapi setups cost $500-1,000/month in maintenance hours alone.
What are the best Strapi alternatives?
Sanity is our top recommendation for teams leaving Strapi. You get a managed platform with no server maintenance, real-time collaboration, and a content studio that non-technical editors can actually use. Contentful is another option if you want a large plugin ecosystem, though it's more expensive. If the self-hosted aspect of Strapi matters to you, Directus is worth a look. It gives you a similar open-source approach with a more polished admin interface.
Can I migrate from Strapi to a managed CMS?
Yes, and we do this regularly. We export your Strapi content types and entries through the API, then map them to the target platform's schema. Most Strapi-to-Sanity migrations take 2-4 weeks. The content itself transfers cleanly. The harder part is usually replicating custom controllers, middleware, and lifecycle hooks that teams built into Strapi. We rebuild that logic in the frontend or through serverless functions, so you're not losing functionality in the move.
Is Strapi good for production websites?
It can work, but self-hosting a CMS for production means you're responsible for uptime, scaling, security patches, and database management. Every Strapi version upgrade risks breaking custom plugins. We've rescued several production sites that went down because a Strapi update conflicted with a custom controller. If you don't have a dedicated DevOps person, we'd steer you toward a managed CMS like Sanity where infrastructure is handled for you and your team can focus on content.
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