Case Study
View Case StudyTray.ai
Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform
From Payload to Uniform
We are the Payload to Uniform migration experts
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Challenges with Payload
Key pain points
Payload’s biggest issue is how quickly it hands you the responsibility baton. Because it leans so heavily on self-hosting, you’re suddenly running databases, managing infra, dealing with scaling, and debugging auth quirks at 11 pm. And since the platform is still maturing, updates can feel unpredictable, and the surrounding ecosystem isn’t quite deep enough yet to soften the landing when something breaks. The recent Figma acquisition didn’t help either. Support has felt a bit lighter, and some priorities clearly shifted, alongside pricing.
Payload feels flexible on day one, the moment your project grows you’re either engineering around gaps or paying more than expected. If you're debating whether Payload fits the future of your stack (or you’re already feeling the cracks), we’re always happy to help you plan a cleaner path or a migration that won’t come back to bite you.
Steep learning curve
Payload’s code-first approach means you need solid dev experience to use it effectively. Non-technical teams will struggle, and onboarding takes longer compared to more guided CMSs.
Smaller ecosystem of plugins
There aren’t many ready-made extensions, so you’ll end up building features yourself. This adds development time and increases long-term maintenance.
Potential performance overhead
Because it’s a full JavaScript backend, Payload can get resource-heavy under high traffic. You’ll need to optimise your server setup and monitor performance more closely.
Gaps in documentation
The docs are improving, but there are still missing pieces and unclear sections. New users often have to dig through GitHub issues to find answers.
Small community
The community is growing but still small, so there’s less shared knowledge, fewer tutorials, and slower troubleshooting compared to bigger CMS ecosystems.
Requires separate hosting
Payload doesn’t come with built-in hosting, so you’re responsible for setting up and managing your server. That adds extra cost, extra setup, and extra operational overhead.
Benefits of Uniform
Key advantages
Uniform positions itself as a “composable DXP,” which is enterprise-speak for “it does a bit of everything on top of your actual CMS.” To be fair, the visual workspace is genuinely useful. Marketers get drag-and-drop control, personalization, and A/B testing without pinging developers every five minutes. And if you’re already juggling multiple systems (CMS, commerce, DAM), the orchestration layer can tidy up the chaos.
That said… we’ll be honest, we don’t really build with DXPs like this anymore. Whenever a headless tool starts shouting “DXP” from the homepage, it usually means heavyweight architecture, unnecessary complexity, and a bill only Fortune 500 companies would smile at. If you’re considering it anyway, feel free to get in touch. We’ll happily walk you through better, modern alternatives before you sink a quarter’s budget into something you probably don’t need.
Visual experience composition
Uniform’s visual builder lets marketers piece together pages without pinging developers every 5 minutes. It’s basically a drag-and-drop layer on top of your headless stack.
Multi-source content federation
Uniform pulls content from multiple CMSs, DAMs, and commerce tools into one interface, so you don’t need 10 tabs open to build a single page
Real-time collaboration tools
Teams can edit, plan, and experiment together without overwriting each other’s work. It’s built for big organisations where ten people touching the same page is a weekly occurrence.
Enterprise-grade scalability
Uniform is built to handle traffic spikes and heavy personalisation workloads. It’s overkill for small sites but a safe bet for enterprises terrified of a Black Friday outage.
Omnichannel content management
You can pipe the same content across web, apps, and any other channel marketing dreams up. Useful for brands juggling multiple experiences without wanting to rebuild the same page three times.
Built-in A/B testing
Uniform ships with native testing and targeting, so teams can experiment without gluing together half a dozen tools. It’s marketer-friendly and fast.
Common questions
Payload to Uniform migration FAQs
Answers to the most common questions about Payload to Uniform migration
How hard is it to migrate away from Payload CMS?
Payload stores content in MongoDB or Postgres, so extracting your data is straightforward compared to proprietary platforms. The real work is restructuring your content model for the target CMS and rebuilding any custom access control logic you've written. We typically complete Payload migrations in 3 to 6 weeks depending on how much custom backend logic is involved. The code-first nature of Payload means most of the content model is well-documented in your own codebase, which actually makes migration planning easier.
What are the main reasons teams leave Payload?
The most common reasons we hear are infrastructure fatigue and ecosystem gaps. Payload requires you to manage your own database, hosting, auth, and scaling. Teams that chose Payload for its developer flexibility eventually realise they're spending more time on DevOps than on content features. The Figma acquisition in 2024 also shifted priorities, and some teams feel the platform's direction became less predictable. Visual editing and live preview still require significant custom engineering compared to platforms that ship them natively.
What does a Payload to Sanity migration cost?
For a typical content site with 200 to 1,000 documents, we estimate 4 to 6 weeks of work. The bulk of effort goes into rebuilding the admin experience and frontend integration, not the data transfer itself. Payload's MongoDB exports are clean, so content migration scripts run reliably. The cost depends heavily on how much custom auth logic and access control you've built, since that needs to be rebuilt in the target platform's permission system. We scope every migration individually after reviewing your Payload config.
How do we migrate away from Uniform?
Uniform is an orchestration layer, not a traditional CMS, so migration means detangling it from the systems it sits on top of. Your actual content likely lives in a separate CMS, DAM, or commerce platform. The Uniform-specific parts, including composition layouts, personalisation rules, and A/B test configurations, need to be rebuilt in your target platform or replaced with dedicated tools. We typically spend 2 to 4 weeks on Uniform-specific teardown, on top of whatever migration the underlying content sources require.
Why do teams leave Uniform?
The price-to-value ratio is the most common complaint. Uniform's enterprise pricing is steep, and teams find they're paying premium rates for an abstraction layer that adds complexity rather than removing it. The learning curve is real. Teams consistently need weeks of onboarding to become productive, and the orchestration model introduces debugging overhead that frustrates both developers and content editors. When the contract comes up for renewal, many teams conclude they'd be better served by a simpler architecture.
Do we actually need a DXP like Uniform?
Probably not. We've worked with teams that adopted Uniform because they were managing content across 4 or 5 different systems and wanted a single editing interface. In practice, most of those teams would have been better off consolidating into one strong headless CMS and using it as the single source of truth. The "composable DXP" pitch sounds good in a sales deck, but it often means you're paying enterprise prices to glue together tools that could be replaced by a cleaner architecture. We're happy to audit your stack and give you an honest answer.
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