Case Study
View Case StudyTray.ai
Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform
We are the Wordpress to Magnolia migration experts
Challenges with Wordpress
Talking trash about WordPress is therapy at this point. We've had to build it for years, and it's consistently awful. I guarantee that if you have used it for long enough, you've experienced a site-breaking PHP error or been locked out of your admin panel due to a faulty plugin. We know the world of horrors, and we regret adding to that 40% of the web. Yes, it really makes up 40% of the web.
Key pain points
Potential security vulnerabilities
When you power half the internet, the hackers notice. WordPress stays safe, but only if someone is constantly updating, patching, and watching it like a hawk, which, trust us, you don't want to.
Heavy reliance on plugins
If you want any new feature, install a new plugin. Before you know it, your site is held together by 27 plugins and a prayer that none of those plugins are removed from the market.
Compatibility issues
Themes, plugins, and core updates sometimes play nicely together, leading to surprise breakages and debugging sessions you didn’t plan for.
Maintenance takes time
WordPress doesn’t run itself. You have to run backups, security patches, plugin conflicts, and random errors. Someone has to tuck it in at night.
Performance needs tuning
WordPress sites need caching, CDN, and database optimization to stay fast, especially if you plan to scale.
Customization has limits
You think you can do a lot with themes and plugins, but when it comes to custom experiences, it means custom dev work (or going headless entirely).
Benefits of Magnolia
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.
Key advantages
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.
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