Case study
View case studySlingshot Bio
Roboto converged Slingshot Bio's WordPress and Shopify sites into one headless Shopify build on Next.js and Sanity, instrumented end to end and AI-ready.
From Sanity to Hygraph
We are the Sanity to Hygraph migration experts
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Challenges with Sanity
Key pain points
We obviously prefer Sanity, so much so that our own website is on Sanity. But if you don't have the right implementation team, you might find yourself in a bad situation. Its highly customizable nature can lead to complexity and time-consuming setup processes for less experienced developers. We've inherited our fair share of stinkers, but we advise that before you jump ship, you let us look over it to see if it's salvageable.
That said, if you are considering moving, we can help you migrate away with automated migration scripts, web scraping, and content mapping. It'll be a 1:1 with whatever platform you choose.
Not always plug-and-play
Sanity gives you a ton of flexibility, but it’s not a “drag-and-drop” CMS. If your team prefers instant themes and presets, you’ll need a little extra setup to get started.
Potentially high resource demand
As your content model grows, Sanity gives you incredible power and real-time performance. Just keep in mind that very large projects may require a bit more horsepower behind the scenes.
Less ideal for beginners
Editors love Sanity once everything is set up, but teams switching from traditional CMSs may need a short onboarding period to learn the workflow.
Infrastructure management needed
Unlike hosted CMS platforms, you own your content pipeline. That gives you full control and scalability, but also means setup and environments need to be managed properly.
Technical skill required
Since Sanity is schema-driven, developers can model content precisely the way your business needs it. Non-technical teams benefit from that structure, but setup usually requires engineering support.
Complexity in setup
Sanity doesn’t force rigid templates or assumptions. You have to define everything like content, structure, and workflows. The tradeoff: a bit more initial setup for much more flexibility long-term.
Benefits of Hygraph
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.
Common questions
Sanity to Hygraph migration FAQs
Answers to the most common questions about Sanity to Hygraph migration
Why should we migrate to Sanity instead of another headless CMS?
Sanity's Live Content API means content goes live the instant you press publish, with zero caching issues. We've migrated teams from WordPress, Contentful, Drupal, and legacy platforms, and the consistent feedback is that the editorial experience is faster and more flexible. The schema-as-code approach means your content model is version-controlled alongside your codebase. Pricing starts free for small teams and scales predictably, unlike platforms that hit you with surprise API overage bills.
What does a migration to Sanity actually involve?
A typical migration has three phases. First, we map your existing content model to a Sanity schema, which usually takes 1 to 2 weeks depending on complexity. Second, we build automated migration scripts that transfer your content, media assets, and relationships. Third, we set up the frontend integration and editorial workflows. For a mid-sized site with 500 to 2,000 pages, the full process usually runs 4 to 8 weeks. We use our Turbo Start Sanity foundation to accelerate the setup so you're not starting from zero.
How long does it take before our content team is productive in Sanity?
Most editors are comfortable within the first week. Sanity's Presentation tool gives them a side-by-side live preview that feels intuitive, especially for teams used to visual page builders. The real-time collaboration means multiple editors can work on the same document without conflicts. We typically run a 2-hour onboarding session and provide a custom guide tailored to your specific content model. After that, editors rarely need developer support for day-to-day publishing.
How much does Sanity cost?
Sanity's Free plan includes 20 user seats, 10,000 documents, 1M CDN API requests, 250K regular API requests, 100GB of assets, and unlimited locales. The Growth plan is $15 per seat/month for up to 50 seats, with 25,000 documents and the same API allowances, plus pay-as-you-go overages, private datasets, and 5 roles including Editor, Developer, and Contributor. Enterprise pricing is custom for organisations that need custom roles, dedicated SLAs, or single-tenant infrastructure. Most mid-size teams we work with stay well inside Growth's limits.
Is Hygraph easy for non-technical editors to use?
It's decent but not great. Hygraph's editor UI is clean and approachable for basic content updates, but the moment your content model gets complex (nested components, multiple locales, lots of reference fields), editors start feeling overwhelmed. The interface slows down with large datasets, and the GraphQL-native approach means the editorial experience is shaped by developer decisions more than in other headless CMS platforms. We've set up Hygraph for teams where editors managed well after proper onboarding, but it requires more hand-holding than something like Sanity's Studio, which was designed with editorial experience as a first-class priority.
How does Hygraph compare to other headless CMS options?
Hygraph's standout feature is Content Federation, which lets you pull data from external APIs into a unified GraphQL layer. That's genuinely useful if you're aggregating content from multiple sources. Compared to Contentful, Hygraph is cheaper at the lower tiers and more developer-friendly if your team already knows GraphQL. Compared to Sanity, Hygraph offers less flexibility in content modelling and lacks real-time collaboration in the editor. The free tier is generous for small projects. For larger builds, we usually recommend Sanity because the customisation ceiling is much higher and you're not locked into GraphQL as your only query language.
What does Hygraph cost as you scale?
Hygraph's Hobby plan is free with 3 seats, 1,000 content entries, 500K API operations, and 2 locales. The Growth plan is $199/month with 10 seats, 10,000 entries, 1M API operations, and 3 locales. Once you pass those limits, Growth charges automatic overages per block of API operations and per GB of asset traffic, so check the current rate on the pricing page before you sign. Enterprise is custom pricing and goes up to 200 seats, 1M+ entries, 50M+ API operations, and up to 80 locales, with SSO and custom roles on top. The catch is the same as it has always been. High-traffic sites burn through included operations fast, and Content Federation queries count against the limit too. Model your expected API usage before committing.
What are Hygraph's main limitations?
Three things come up on real projects. GraphQL is mandatory. There's no REST endpoint, so a REST-heavy stack means writing adapters or a BFF layer, and a team that hasn't used GraphQL faces a real ramp-up. The editor UI slows down as content grows. Big collections, dozens of fields, and double-digit locale counts make the dashboard sluggish for editors. And the paywall sits in awkward places. SSO, custom roles, and higher locale limits only arrive on Enterprise, so a mid-size team that wants proper access control jumps straight from $199/month to a sales call. None of these are dealbreakers if GraphQL is already your default and your content model stays disciplined, but they catch teams who picked Hygraph for the free tier and grew into the constraints.
Can I migrate from Hygraph to Sanity?
Yes, and we do it regularly. Content extraction is the easy part since everything comes out through GraphQL queries. The bigger jobs are two. First, schema translation. Hygraph's content model maps to GraphQL types, and you rewrite those as Sanity schema definitions, then translate every GraphQL query into GROQ on the frontend. The mapping is mechanical once you've done it a few times, but it touches every page that fetches data. Second, rebuilding any Content Federation layer, because that logic lives inside Hygraph and doesn't export. If you've wired three or four external APIs through federation, you replicate those integrations in your application layer. We typically budget 4 to 8 weeks for a Hygraph to Sanity migration depending on content volume and how much federation you're untangling.
Get in touch
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