Case Study
View Case StudyTray.ai
Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform
From Strapi to KeystoneJS
We are the Strapi to KeystoneJS migration experts
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Challenges with Strapi
Key pain points
Strapi has a fan club because it’s self-hosted, which sounds great until you realise that means you are now responsible for every update, every backup, every scaling issue, and every “why is the server down again?” moment.
Wouldn’t it be easier to use a cloud infrastructure that just… scales, instead of babysitting infra at midnight? And having to maintain a Node.js environment for your content editors is completely unnecessary pain, in our opinion.
It also isn’t exactly friendly for non-technical teams. If you don’t have solid developer talent, the learning curve hits hard, and even simple customisations can turn into “let’s build this from scratch” moments. Plugins help, but not always, and you’ll quickly run into gaps that require custom development. Add the lack of traditional CMS features out of the box, and setup time (and costs) spiral fast.
If you're set on Strapi, fine! Just let us look at it first so we can tell you whether it's actually doable or whether you're about to become a full-time system admin by accident.
Steep learning curve
Strapi looks simple at first, then politely reminds you it’s a developer-first tool. Non-technical teams usually hit a wall long before they hit publish.
Node.js knowledge required
If your team, especially your content team, doesn’t speak Node.js, prepare for a few “so… what does this error mean?” moments. Strapi assumes you’re comfortable under the hood.
Limited traditional CMS features
Things that come out-of-the-box in classic CMSs often need custom setup here. If you’re expecting plug-and-play page building, Strapi is not for you.
Custom development needs
If you need anything slightly beyond the basics, it quickly drifts into “can we ask a developer to build this?” territory. Great for flexibility, not so great for speed.
Plugin limitations
The plugin ecosystem is growing, but not everything works flawlessly, and some gaps still require hand-rolled solutions, which means more dev time than you planned.
Cost-efficiency concerns
Sure, Strapi is free… until you factor in hosting, DevOps, scaling, and ongoing maintenance. “Open-source” doesn’t always mean “cheap.”
Benefits of KeystoneJS
Key advantages
KeystoneJS is one of those tools that really clicks if your team thinks in code. It's a schema-driven, open-source headless CMS built on Node.js, and the developer experience is genuinely good. You define your content models in TypeScript, Keystone generates a GraphQL API and an admin UI for you, and you're off. There's very little magic or abstraction hiding what's happening under the hood, which we appreciate when building complex projects for clients.
The Prisma ORM integration is a real highlight. Automatic migration generation, type-safe database access, and support for PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite mean you're not fighting your data layer. If you've ever had to wrangle a CMS into supporting a non-trivial relational content model, you'll understand why this matters. Keystone lets you express those relationships cleanly and query them with a proper GraphQL API.
The document field editor is also worth mentioning. It's one of the more thoughtful rich text implementations we've seen in a headless CMS. You can embed custom React components directly into the editor, which means content teams can work with your actual design system components rather than generic blocks. For teams that care about structured content, Keystone gives you real tools to enforce it.
Where Keystone really shines is in projects where the development team wants full ownership of the stack. There's no vendor lock-in, no proprietary query language, and no surprise pricing tiers. If you want a CMS that feels like a well-designed library rather than a platform, Keystone delivers on that promise.
Schema-as-code with full TypeScript support
Define your entire content model in TypeScript with strong type inference throughout. The schema drives everything from the database to the admin UI to the GraphQL API.
Automatic GraphQL API generation
Every content type you define automatically gets a full CRUD GraphQL API with filtering, pagination, and relationship resolution. No manual endpoint wiring needed.
Prisma-powered database layer
Built on Prisma ORM with automatic migration generation and type-safe queries. Supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite out of the box.
Flexible document field editor
The rich text editor supports custom embedded components that map to your design system, giving content editors structured authoring without sacrificing flexibility.
Granular access control
Fine-grained, field-level access control defined in code. You can write custom logic for create, read, update, and delete operations per field or per list.
Fully open source with no vendor lock-in
MIT licensed with no paid tiers or proprietary features gated behind a subscription. You own the entire stack and can host it wherever you want.
Common questions
Strapi to KeystoneJS migration FAQs
Answers to the most common questions about Strapi to KeystoneJS migration
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.
What makes migrating from KeystoneJS difficult?
KeystoneJS stores data through Prisma, so the database layer is well-structured and easy to export. The harder part is replacing everything Keystone doesn't give you. Most Keystone projects have custom-built preview systems, publishing workflows, and access control logic that are tightly coupled to the Node.js backend. Rebuilding those features in a new CMS takes planning. We typically budget 4 to 8 weeks for a Keystone migration depending on how much custom infrastructure the team has built around it.
Why do teams move away from KeystoneJS?
Deployment complexity is the number one reason. Teams love Keystone during local development, then hit a wall getting it reliably into production. The Docker images can balloon past a gigabyte, the docs don't cover production hosting well, and there's no managed hosting option. The small community compounds this problem. When you hit an edge case, there are fewer people who've solved it before. Content editors also struggle with the admin UI, which lacks visual editing, live preview, and built-in publishing workflows that competing platforms ship by default.
How do we extract our content from KeystoneJS?
Since Keystone uses Prisma ORM, your content lives in standard PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQLite tables with clean schemas. You can export directly from the database using SQL dumps or Prisma's query API. The content model is defined in your TypeScript codebase, so mapping fields to a new CMS is straightforward. We write automated scripts that handle the data transformation, including resolving relationships between lists and migrating file references. For a project with 20 to 50 Keystone lists, extraction and transformation usually takes 1 to 2 weeks.
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