Case Study
View Case StudyTray.ai
Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform
From Webflow to Magnolia
We are the Webflow to Magnolia migration experts
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Challenges with Webflow
Key pain points
Now for the part Webflow doesn't put on their homepage. Pricing escalates fast. The $23/month CMS plan sounds reasonable until you pass 2,000 items and get forced onto the $39/month Business plan, and enterprise contracts run $60,000+ a year for high-traffic sites. The CMS editor is the other pain point everyone loves to hate. Tiny text fields, awkward formatting, and the occasional "why did hitting save unpublish my article?" moment. Not the confidence you want from a content platform.
Then there are the technical walls. Only one designer can edit the canvas at a time. Reference fields have shallow depth. CMS reference limits force strange workarounds for anything resembling real relational content. And if you ever want to leave Webflow, the exported code drops CMS content, interactions, and animations, so your "no-code" site suddenly needs code everywhere.
Expensive pricing tiers
Webflow starts cheap, but the moment you need CMS items, traffic, or team features, the bill jumps fast. If you want just 10 pages, go ahead. But if you need an enterprise website, we suggest reconsidering.
Outdated CMS editor interface
For all the design polish, the CMS editor feels stuck in another decade. Tiny text fields, formatting quirks, and the occasional “why did that unpublish my live page?” moment doesn't help content teams move fast.
CMS reference limitations
Complex content models often require hacks, workarounds, or custom code anyway, which defeats the “no-code” dream. It doesn't have repeaters or shallow reference depth, and collection limits add friction to what should be simple tasks.
Single-designer collaboration limit
Only one designer can work in the Webflow canvas at a time. On larger projects, this turns teamwork into a queue.
Third-party integration dependency
If you need advanced features, prepare to stitch in custom code or third-party services. The plugin ecosystem is small, so extending Webflow usually means bolting on tools outside the platform.
Limited export functionality
You can export your site, but you lose CMS features, interactions, and animations the moment you do. It’s more like a one-way door than a portable build.
Benefits of Magnolia
Key advantages
Magnolia shines if you’re the kind of organisation that genuinely needs the full DXP kitchen sink. It packs personalisation, workflows, multi-site orchestration, multilingual publishing, DAM, marketing automation hooks, and every enterprise acronym you can think of. If your teams run complex global content operations with strict governance, Magnolia’s mature permission system, stability, and long-standing enterprise reputation make it a safe, compliant option.
To be transparent, we don’t actually prefer or build with Magnolia (or any of the DXP-flavoured headless CMSs). They try to do everything, and like most jack-of-all-trades platforms, they don’t excel at the things modern teams actually need that is speed, flexibility, clean workflows, and sane pricing. We’d happily point you toward modern alternatives like Sanity that give you 10× the agility without the enterprise bloat.
Java-based enterprise integration
Built on Java, Magnolia plugs neatly into large enterprise stacks that already rely on Java systems and legacy infrastructure. If your organisation lives and breathes JVM, Magnolia won’t fight your architecture.
Secure, scalable architecture
Magnolia’s core is engineered for high-security, high-traffic environments, with strong access control, clustering, and enterprise-grade stability. It’s built to survive heavy editorial activity and large content delivery demands.
Real-time page templating
Editors can adjust components and layouts and immediately preview results, making large enterprise content operations faster and less error-prone.
Editable component previews
Magnolia’s component-level previewing gives editors clarity on how complex pages come together, reducing back-and-forth with developers and keeping multi-team workflows sane.
Multi-site management tools
Designed for global brands, Magnolia supports multiple sites, languages, and regional variations under one roof.
Advanced workflow automation
From multi-step approvals to compliance-driven publishing flows, Magnolia handles heavyweight governance. This is the stuff big enterprises actually need when 20 departments want access but only 2 should publish.
Common questions
Webflow to Magnolia migration FAQs
Answers to the most common questions about Webflow to Magnolia migration
How much does Webflow cost?
Webflow's pricing is layered and confusing. Site plans (billed yearly) start at $14/month for Basic, $23/month for CMS with 2,000 items, and $39/month for Business with up to 20,000 items. Those are per-site. Workspace plans are separate at $19/month (Core) or $49/month (Growth) for teams, plus $16-$35/month for Freelancer or Agency plans. Ecommerce runs $29, $74, or $212/month depending on the tier. Enterprise pricing starts around $60,000/year. The real cost surprise comes from CMS item caps and bandwidth overages, a single CMS site that grows past 2,000 items forces a jump to Business.
How do I migrate from Webflow to a headless CMS?
We export your Webflow content through their API, restructure it for the target CMS (usually Sanity), and rebuild the frontend in Next.js. The content migration itself is straightforward. The tricky part is recreating Webflow's visual design in code, especially custom interactions and animations. Most migrations take 4-6 weeks. The payoff is a faster site, no per-page CMS limits, and a frontend your developers can actually version control.
What are the best Webflow alternatives?
For designers who want visual control, Framer is the closest alternative with better performance. For teams that need a proper CMS backend, Sanity paired with a custom Next.js frontend gives you far more flexibility. If you just need a simple marketing site and don't want to code, Framer or Squarespace will get you there cheaper than Webflow's higher tiers. The right choice depends on whether you're outgrowing Webflow's CMS limits or its pricing.
How do I understand Webflow pricing?
Think of it as two separate bills. First, your Site plan, which covers hosting, CMS items, bandwidth, and form submissions for each individual site. Second, your Workspace plan, which covers team seats, staging sites, and collaboration features. You pay both. A solo freelancer on one site might spend $23/month. A team of five managing three sites easily lands between $300 and $500/month. Always check CMS item limits before launching, because the cap for the CMS plan is 2,000 items and hitting it forces an immediate upgrade to Business.
Can I export my Webflow site and host it elsewhere?
Technically yes, but you lose almost everything that makes Webflow useful. Exported code strips out CMS content, interactions, animations, and form handling. You get static HTML and CSS. For most teams, exporting means rebuilding. That's why we recommend migrating to a headless CMS and custom frontend rather than trying to salvage exported Webflow code. It's cleaner, faster, and you end up with something maintainable.
How long does it take to migrate away from Magnolia CMS?
Magnolia migrations are among the most involved we handle. The Java-based architecture, proprietary modules, and tightly coupled workflows mean there's no quick extract-and-import path. Content needs to be exported from Magnolia's JCR (Java Content Repository), transformed, and loaded into your target platform. For a mid-sized enterprise site with 1,000 to 5,000 pages, expect 8 to 16 weeks. The timeline depends heavily on how many proprietary modules your team has adopted and how complex your multi-site setup is.
Why do companies leave Magnolia?
Cost and agility are the two main drivers. Magnolia's enterprise licensing is opaque and expensive, with annual fees that balloon as you add modules and environments. Teams also get frustrated by the Java dependency. Finding and retaining Java CMS developers is harder and more expensive every year, especially when modern headless platforms let teams build with JavaScript and TypeScript instead. The vendor lock-in from proprietary modules makes the decision feel overdue by the time teams finally commit to migrating.
Can we migrate from Magnolia to a headless CMS without losing our multi-site setup?
Yes, but the approach changes. Magnolia handles multi-site through its own orchestration layer, while headless platforms like Sanity use workspace configurations or project-level separation. We rebuild multi-site architectures using the target CMS's native multi-tenancy features. The content migration itself is the simpler part. The harder work is re-implementing your personalisation rules, approval workflows, and permission structures outside of Magnolia's proprietary ecosystem.
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