From Tina CMS to Adobe Experience Manager

We are the Tina CMS to Adobe Experience Manager migration experts

Challenges with Tina CMS

Key pain points

Tina's biggest limitation is that it's fundamentally tied to the React ecosystem. If you want visual editing, you need a React-based framework like Next.js. Basic content editing works with Astro, Hugo, SvelteKit, and others, but the flagship visual experience is React-only. There's been talk of Vue support for years, but nothing has materialised. This is a hard blocker for agencies like us that work across different tech stacks. The platform has also had a notable history: SSW acquired the project in May 2024, and a security breach in late 2024 involved compromised AWS keys via the CI/CD pipeline. These events, combined with the relatively small community, are worth weighing when evaluating Tina for long-term enterprise projects.

On the practical side, developers report frustrating instability in the dev environment. The admin interface can break without any changes to your codebase because it depends on externally loaded assets that update independently. Error handling is weak — forms fail to save silently, and the GraphQL layer doesn't surface errors cleanly. Self-hosting removes the TinaCloud dependency but comes with its own gaps: no search functionality, no Git LFS support, and reference fields can timeout on large collections.

The editing experience, while impressive in demos, can feel fragile in production. Multiple developers have reported losing work in the editor, and features like branch-based editing are locked behind paid tiers. For agencies managing multiple client projects, the React-only constraint and relatively small community (compared to Sanity, Strapi, or Contentful) mean fewer resources, fewer integrations, and more time spent solving problems yourself.

React-only framework support in Tina CMS

Visual editing limited to React

TinaCMS supports many frameworks including Astro, Hugo, Jekyll, SvelteKit, and Nuxt for basic content editing. However, the visual/inline editing experience, which is Tina's main selling point, only works with React-based frameworks like Next.js.

Unstable development environment

The dev server can break unpredictably because it loads external assets that change independently of your codebase. This makes local development feel unreliable and hard to debug.

Poor error handling and silent failures

Forms can fail to save without any visual indicator, and GraphQL errors aren't surfaced clearly. Losing work without warning is a real risk, especially for content editors.

Branch editing requires paid tier

Multi-branch support isn't available out of the box — it's locked behind the paid editorial workflow feature. You can't test content changes in deploy previews without paying up.

Self-hosting gaps

The self-hosted backend lacks search functionality, Git LFS support, and pagination on reference fields. Large collections can cause network timeouts.

Small ecosystem

Compared to established players like Sanity or Contentful, Tina has a smaller community and fewer plugins. Since the SSW acquisition in May 2024, the project has been actively maintained with regular releases, but the ecosystem is still catching up.

Benefits of Adobe Experience Manager

Key advantages

AEM is the kind of platform you only choose if you’re a Fortune 500 company or enjoy voluntarily suffering. I hate anything Adobe builds. It’s bloated, overpriced, and aggressively designed to lock you into their ecosystem. But fine, here are the positives: the Adobe integration is unmatched. If your entire organisation already lives inside Creative Cloud, Analytics, and Target, AEM becomes this giant DXP monolith that handles assets, personalization, segmentation, and multi-channel delivery without breaking a sweat. The DAM is legitimately powerful, and it scales like a tank.

If you’re not operating at scale, you’ll spend absurd money for problems a clean Sanity + modern composable stack solves better and cheaper. If you are considering AEM or escaping it, get in touch. We’ll help you choose something that won’t haunt your ops team for the next decade.

Integration with Adobe tools

AEM connects with Creative Cloud, Analytics, and Target, letting teams move assets, data, and personalisation logic across tools without friction

Robust digital asset management

The DAM is genuinely powerful. It has AI tagging, smart cropping, versioning, and bulk optimisation for massive media libraries.

Consistent multi-channel delivery

AEM can push content to web, mobile apps, email, and more from one central source. Ideal for enterprises that need consistent messaging across every customer touchpoint.

Flexible architecture

Supports both classic and headless approaches, letting teams mix legacy setups with modern frontends. It’s adaptable enough for companies with complicated stacks.