Case Study
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Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform
From Prismic to Craft CMS
We are the Prismic to Craft CMS migration experts
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Challenges with Prismic
Key pain points
We have a long history with Prismic, and at one point, we were agency partners, so count us as biased. However, if you're anything like us, we've had an absolutely terrible experience with Prismic.
They've historically changed their API ad hoc, resulting in many broken websites, which is especially bad for an agency. They've dumped infrastructure on the community, resulting in expensive migration bills and client dissatisfaction and they've updated their system with no way to migrate other than to rebuild your entire website for literally years.
If you're having a hell of a time, we can help you move away and do it without breakages. We've had to migrate quite a few folks and we have a standardised process that lets us migrate images, videos, text and content structure to the platform of your choice.
Dependency on third-party hosting
You don’t control the infrastructure, Prismic does. So you’re tied to their uptime, limits, and CDN behaviour.
Limited native integrations
Most serious integrations require extra tooling or custom code because Prismic’s built-in ecosystem is pretty thin.
Steep learning curve
Slices, custom types, and the editor workflow take time to understand, especially for teams new to component-driven CMS structures.
Lack of built-in versioning
There’s no full document history or global rollback, meaning mistakes are harder to recover from without workarounds.
Escalating pricing model
Costs jump fast as you add seats, locales, or repositories, making it expensive to scale a growing content team.
Limited out-of-box features
Beyond basic content creation, most advanced needs require custom development, external tools, or plugins.
Benefits of Craft CMS
Key advantages
Craft CMS is one of those platforms we genuinely respect from a developer standpoint. The content modelling is best-in-class for a traditional CMS. You define sections, entry types, and fields with real precision, and the authoring experience maps cleanly to the underlying data structure. If your content team needs a CMS that actually reflects how the site is built, Craft delivers that better than most. The Twig templating layer is clean and predictable, and the admin UI is fast and intuitive once editors get past the initial learning curve.
Where Craft really shines is in the middle ground between simple marketing sites and full-blown enterprise builds. It's flexible enough to handle complex content architectures without the bloat of something like WordPress, and the built-in GraphQL API means you can use it headless if you want to pair it with a modern frontend. The plugin ecosystem is smaller but noticeably higher quality than what you'd find in WordPress, and the Composer-based workflow means your whole project can live in version control properly.
We've seen agencies build genuinely impressive work on Craft, especially for content-heavy sites where editorial workflows matter. If your team includes developers and you want a CMS that rewards careful architecture, Craft is a solid choice. It's not trying to be everything to everyone, and that focus shows.
That said, we'd typically recommend a headless CMS like Sanity for most of the projects we take on. Craft is at its best when you're comfortable with PHP and want a tightly integrated traditional or hybrid setup. If you're building on Next.js or a modern JavaScript stack, you'll find more natural fits elsewhere.
Exceptional content modelling
Craft's field and section system gives you precise control over your content structure. You can model complex relationships between content types without fighting the CMS.
Clean authoring experience
The admin panel is fast, well-organized, and maps directly to how content is structured. Editors can work efficiently once they understand the layout.
Built-in GraphQL API
Craft ships with a native GraphQL API, so you can use it headless without plugins or workarounds. It's deeply integrated and well-documented.
Composer-based modern workflow
Everything is managed through Composer, so your project, plugins, and dependencies all live in version control. Deployments through CI/CD pipelines work smoothly.
Higher quality plugin ecosystem
The plugin store is smaller than WordPress but the quality bar is noticeably higher. Plugins are better maintained and less likely to break your site on update.
Granular user permissions
Built-in role and permission management is detailed and flexible. You can lock down exactly what each editor can see and do without needing third-party plugins.
Common questions
Prismic to Craft CMS migration FAQs
Answers to the most common questions about Prismic to Craft CMS migration
How much does Prismic cost?
Prismic has a free plan for 1 user with limited API calls. The Starter plan is $7/month per user for small teams. The Small plan is $150/month for up to 25 users with more locales and API bandwidth. Medium is $500/month. Large and Enterprise plans go higher. The pricing jumps are significant once you need multiple locales or repositories. We've had clients hit the ceiling on the Small plan faster than expected because of how Prismic counts API calls and custom types.
What are the best Prismic alternatives?
Sanity is the alternative we recommend most. It gives you better content modelling, real-time collaboration, and a query language (GROQ) that's far more flexible than Prismic's API. Contentful is another option with a bigger ecosystem, though pricing is steeper. If you liked Prismic's Slices concept, Sanity's block-based content approach works similarly but with more depth. We've migrated multiple former Prismic agency partners to Sanity, and the developer experience improvement is always the first thing they mention.
Can I migrate from Prismic to another CMS?
Yes. We've migrated quite a few Prismic projects, mostly to Sanity. We export your custom types, documents, and media through Prismic's API, then restructure everything for the target platform. Prismic's Slice-based content maps well to Sanity's portable text and block system. Typical migrations take 3-5 weeks. We keep your existing Prismic site live throughout, so there's no downtime. The biggest challenge is usually handling Prismic's media library, since images need to be moved to a new CDN.
Is Prismic a good CMS for developers?
It's decent for simple projects. The Slice Machine tooling is clever and the TypeScript support has improved. But Prismic's API has limitations that frustrate developers on bigger projects. You can't do complex queries, filtering is basic, and the content modelling is shallow compared to Sanity or Contentful. The bigger issue is Prismic's track record of breaking API changes and infrastructure shifts that have caused production outages. Developers who need reliability and deep customization are better served elsewhere.
Why are teams leaving Prismic?
The main reasons we hear are API instability, limited content modelling depth, and pricing that doesn't match the feature set. Prismic has a history of making breaking changes to their API and infrastructure without adequate migration paths. One major version change left agencies (including us, when we were partners) with broken client sites and expensive rebuild bills. Teams also outgrow the content modelling quickly. Once you need complex relationships between content types, Prismic's flat structure becomes a bottleneck.
How much does Craft CMS cost for an agency managing multiple sites?
The costs add up quicker than most agencies expect. The Solo tier is free for single-user projects, Team is $279 per project, and Pro is $399 per project. Both paid tiers carry a $99 annual renewal fee. If you're running 10 client sites on Pro, that's $3,990 upfront plus $990 per year in renewals before you've paid for a single plugin. Popular plugins like SEOmatic, Blitz (caching), and Navigation run $99-$199 each. Factor in PHP hosting ($20-$100/month per site depending on traffic) and the total per-project cost lands between $500 and $1,500 in year one. It's reasonable for individual projects but the aggregate cost across a portfolio is where agencies feel the squeeze.
What are the hidden costs of running Craft CMS?
Beyond licensing, three costs catch teams off guard. First, PHP hosting. Craft needs PHP 8.2+, MySQL or Postgres, and proper server configuration. You can't deploy to Vercel or Netlify like you would with a headless CMS. Budget $20-$100/month per site for decent managed hosting. Second, major version upgrades. Craft doesn't let you skip versions, so going from Craft 3 to 5 means stepping through 3 to 4, then 4 to 5, each with breaking changes to Twig templates and plugin compatibility. We've seen agencies spend 20-40 hours per upgrade. Third, developer dependency. Craft assumes your team has PHP developers on hand. If your agency is moving toward JavaScript stacks, maintaining Craft expertise becomes an overhead.
Should I migrate from Craft CMS to a headless CMS?
It depends on your stack direction. If your team is comfortable with PHP and Twig, and your sites are traditional server-rendered builds, Craft still works well. But if you're building with Next.js, React, or any modern JavaScript framework, Craft becomes friction. Its GraphQL API exists but it's a bolt-on, not a native experience. The content modelling in Craft is genuinely good, and that translates well to headless platforms. We've migrated Craft sites to Sanity where the content structures mapped over almost one-to-one. The frontend rebuild in Next.js typically takes 6-10 weeks, and the result is faster, cheaper to host, and easier to iterate on.
What's the biggest challenge when migrating off Craft CMS?
Twig templates. Every piece of frontend logic in a Craft project lives in Twig, and none of it carries over to a modern JavaScript framework. You're essentially rebuilding every template from scratch. Content migration itself is manageable since Craft's data structures are well-organised, and you can export through the Element API or direct database queries. The other challenge is plugin replacement. If you rely on Craft plugins for forms, SEO, or search, you need to find equivalents in your new stack. We build a dependency audit before any Craft migration so there are no surprises mid-project.
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