Case Study
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Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform
From Storyblok to ButterCMS
We are the Storyblok to ButterCMS migration experts
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Challenges with Storyblok
Key pain points
Storyblok is not our first recommendation for a headless CMS. The product looks polished, but documentation sprawl makes initial setup harder than it should be, and non-technical editors routinely get lost navigating spaces, stories, and nested components.
Pricing is the bigger issue. Extra locales are $20/month each, extra seats are $15/month each, and custom roles, SSO, and the GraphQL API are all gated behind the custom-priced Premium and Elite plans. Teams on Growth ($99/month) often end up on Growth Plus ($349/month) not because they want the extra features, but because they hit an API request or locale limit.
You'll also lean on third-party integrations for a lot of ordinary tasks, which means more code paths to maintain. Webhook behaviour has changed between releases without clear deprecation notices. It's not a broken platform, it's just not a plug-and-play one.
Customisation can take effort
Storyblok can do almost anything, but sometimes the “how” involves developer time, CLI commands, or manual tweaking. Great control, just not always plug-and-play.
Some integrations need extra work
For things like CRMs or complex platforms, you’ll likely build the integration instead of installing it. Expect a bit more engineering.
Slower editing
Real-time previews are great, but large pages or heavy components can load slowly. Occasionally, the editor UI feels less intuitive than the rest of the platform.
Asset management isn’t perfect
Renaming assets, bulk editing, or cleaning libraries can take longer than expected. It is not streamlined like the rest of the system.
Permissions are fixed
Roles are predefined. For smaller teams, that’s perfectly fine. Bigger teams may want more granular access controls than Storyblok currently offers.
Pricing jumps with scale
You get a free tier, but some advanced features sit behind higher plans. It’s worth it for projects if you want to pay more; just something teams should budget for early.
Benefits of ButterCMS
Key advantages
ButterCMS is one of those headless CMS platforms that genuinely nails the onboarding experience. We've seen content teams go from zero to confidently building pages and blog posts within a few hours, which is rare in the headless world. The dashboard is clean, the API explorer is thoughtfully designed, and the starter templates for popular frameworks mean developers aren't starting from scratch every time.
From an agency perspective, the standout quality is how little hand-holding editors need after launch. The interface is intuitive enough that marketers can create pages, manage blog content, and handle SEO metadata without constantly pinging the dev team. The built-in blog engine is a genuine differentiator. Most headless CMS platforms treat blogging as an afterthought, but ButterCMS was originally built around it, and it shows in the quality of the authoring experience.
The API performance is consistently fast, and the SDK support across languages like JavaScript, Python, Ruby, and PHP is solid. Their customer support team is also notably responsive and genuinely receptive to feature requests, which is something we don't often see from CMS vendors. For small-to-mid-sized projects where you need a reliable content API without overcomplicating things, ButterCMS delivers.
We'd particularly recommend it for teams that need a polished blog alongside structured page content, and who value simplicity over infinite extensibility. It's a CMS that knows what it is and does that thing well.
Exceptionally easy onboarding
Content teams can be productive within hours, not days. The dashboard is clean and the learning curve is one of the gentlest we've seen in headless CMS land.
Built-in blog engine
Unlike most headless platforms where you have to model blog content from scratch, ButterCMS ships with a purpose-built blog engine that includes categories, tags, authors, and SEO fields out of the box.
Fast and reliable content API
The read API is consistently quick with global CDN delivery. For content-heavy sites, the performance is solid and predictable.
No seat limits on any plan
Every plan includes unlimited users, which is genuinely unusual in this space. You won't get punished for growing your content team.
Responsive customer support
Their support team is quick to respond and genuinely open to feature requests. We've seen roadmap items added based on customer feedback, which builds real trust.
Strong SDK and framework coverage
Official SDKs for JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP, and more, plus starter projects for React, Next.js, Vue, Angular, and other frameworks that actually work out of the box.
Common questions
Storyblok to ButterCMS migration FAQs
Answers to the most common questions about Storyblok to ButterCMS migration
What are the best Storyblok alternatives?
Sanity is the alternative we recommend most often. It offers deeper content modelling, real-time collaboration, and a pricing model that doesn't spike when you add features. Contentful is another option if you want a mature ecosystem, though it's pricier. For teams that loved Storyblok's visual editor, Sanity's Presentation tool now provides a similar live preview experience. We've migrated several Storyblok projects to Sanity, and the feedback from both editors and developers has been positive.
How much does Storyblok cost?
Storyblok has a Starter plan at $0 with 1 seat, 2 locales, and 100K API requests. The Growth plan is $99/month for 5 seats, 1M API requests, and 2 locales. Growth Plus is $349/month for 15 seats, 4M API requests, and 10 locales. Extra seats are $15/month each, extra locales $20/month, extra traffic $75/250GB. Premium and Elite are custom pricing and unlock SSO, custom roles, and the GraphQL API. Teams often outgrow the Growth plan on locales or API volume rather than features, which forces a $250/month jump.
Does Storyblok have a visual editor?
Yes, and it's one of the best in the headless CMS space. You see real-time changes as you edit, directly on your site preview. It's the main reason many teams pick Storyblok. That said, Sanity now offers a comparable experience through its Presentation tool, which gives you live visual editing with more flexibility in content modelling. If the visual editor is your primary reason for choosing Storyblok, it's worth comparing both before committing.
Can I migrate from Storyblok to another CMS?
Yes. We export your stories, components, and assets through Storyblok's API, then restructure everything for the target platform. Storyblok's component-based content model actually maps well to Sanity's block system. Most migrations take 3-5 weeks. The main challenge is handling Storyblok's nested component structure and translating field-level localization to the new platform's approach. We keep your site running on Storyblok throughout, so there's zero downtime during the switch.
Is Storyblok good for large websites?
It works for mid-size sites but starts showing strain at enterprise scale. The API has performance limitations when fetching deeply nested content, and the pricing jumps between tiers are steep. Teams with 50+ pages and multiple locales often find themselves on the Growth Plus plan ($349/month) or pushed toward Premium sooner than expected, especially because custom roles and SSO only appear on enterprise tiers. For large-scale projects, we typically recommend Sanity instead. Its GROQ query language handles complex content relationships more efficiently, and pricing scales more predictably.
How do we migrate content out of ButterCMS?
ButterCMS has a clean REST API, so pulling your content is straightforward. Blog posts, pages, and collections all export as JSON through their API endpoints. The main complexity is restructuring component-based page content for your target CMS, since ButterCMS components only work on pages and don't map 1:1 to other platforms. Media assets need to be downloaded from their CDN and re-uploaded. For a typical blog-heavy site with 200 to 500 posts, we complete the migration in 2 to 4 weeks.
Why do teams leave ButterCMS?
Content modeling flexibility is the top reason. Once projects grow past simple blogs and marketing pages, the 1,000 content field limit becomes a real ceiling. Components being restricted to pages (not collections or blog posts) forces awkward workarounds. Teams also feel the ecosystem gap, with fewer plugins, integrations, and community resources compared to larger platforms. The 2024 DNS incident that wasn't reflected on their status page raised trust concerns for teams running production sites.
What does ButterCMS cost compared to alternatives?
ButterCMS paid plans start at $71/month after a limited free tier. Every plan includes unlimited users, which is genuinely competitive. But the pricing jumps between tiers aren't proportional to what you get, and the content field limits apply even on expensive plans. By comparison, Sanity's free tier includes 3 users with 500K API requests, and you only pay more as your usage scales. For teams outgrowing ButterCMS, the cost of migration typically pays for itself within 6 months through better tooling and fewer workarounds.
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