Migrate from Kentico 13 before support ends
Kentico Xperience 13 support ends on 31 December 2026, with no security fixes after that. Kentico’s own path is a new product and a migration. If you are migrating anyway, move to Astro or Next.js, with your content in Sanity or Payload and every URL kept.
Yegparian PLLC (opens in a new tab)Signs it is time to leave Kentico
Kentico has run many organisations’ .NET sites for years. These are the moments IT and marketing teams tell us it stopped fitting.
Your site runs on Xperience 13
Support ends on 31 December 2026. From 1 January 2027 there are no security fixes, and running it is at your own risk.
The upgrade is a migration anyway
Xperience by Kentico is a new product. You start a fresh project, move data with the Migration Tool and rework your code and customisations by hand.
You pay for features you do not use
Licences priced for marketing automation, e-commerce and personalisation, while the site mostly publishes pages, news and forms.
Marketing waits on the .NET team
Page types, widgets and deployments all live with developers. A new landing page or section queues up behind sprint work.
Hosting and upkeep cost more than the site
Servers or app services, SQL Server, hotfixes and version upgrades. The infrastructure needs attention even when the content does not change.
What happens to your Kentico features
Pick what your site relies on today. Each feature becomes part of the site itself, or turns out not to be needed.
- Page typesSanity schemas or Payload collectionsEvery page type and its fields move into a schema in code, with pages read from Kentico and moved by script.
- Page Builder widgets and sectionsPage-builder blocksEach widget and section becomes a block editors compose pages from, built once in code so every page stays on brand.
- Media libraries and attachmentsAssets in the CMSImages and files are re-uploaded with their folders and alt text, served resized from a CDN.
- Form BuilderA form built into the siteValidated on the server, filtered for spam and sent to your inbox, CRM or Slack. Complex workflows are scoped per project.
- Contacts and online marketingYour CRM or marketing platformContacts, activities and automation move to the tool your team already uses, such as HubSpot or Salesforce, connected by API.
- Personalisation and A/B testsA tool you controlVariants run through an experimentation tool or edge middleware, with analytics behind consent.
- Cultures and multilingualBuilt-in localisationTranslations live per field or per document in Sanity or Payload, with their own URLs and hreflang.
- Smart searchHosted searchSite search runs on a hosted index such as Algolia, or on your own database with Payload. No search indexes on the web server.
- URL aliases and redirectsRedirects in the configEvery page URL, alias and existing redirect is mapped to its new home in the hosting config, versioned with the code.
- E-commerce moduleCommerce, scoped separatelyShops move to Shopify or another commerce platform behind the same front end. The audit says what moves where.
What changes when you leave Kentico
Astro and Next.js decide how pages are built. Sanity and Payload are where your team edits. We recommend a pair after the audit.
| Feature | Astro + Sanity | Next.js + Payload | Kentico |
|---|---|---|---|
| Security and licensing | |||
| No .NET server or IIS to patch | Node.js app for /admin | ||
| Security updates for your version | Ends 31 Dec 2026 on v13 | ||
| No CMS licence fee | Plan-based | ||
| Content and marketing | |||
| Structured, reusable content | |||
| Visual page building | |||
| Multilingual content | |||
| Built-in contacts and marketing automation | Via your CRM | Via your CRM | |
| Built-in e-commerce | Via Shopify or similar | Via Shopify or similar | |
| Performance and upkeep | |||
| Pages served pre-built from a CDN | With output caching or a CDN | ||
| Ships only the JavaScript a page needs | Per route | Depends on your views | |
| Major upgrades without a rebuild | New product after 13 | ||
| Self-hosted, open-source CMS | Hosted by Sanity | ||
Sites we've already moved
Different stacks for different jobs: a law firm on Next.js and Payload, a residential launch and our own studio on Astro and Sanity.
Yegparian PLLC
WordPressNext.js + Payload
An Austin trial litigation firm. Practice areas, matters and insights are Payload collections, and every page is pre-rendered and served from the edge.
yegparianpllc.com (opens in a new tab)25 Cuba
WordPressAstro + Sanity
A new residential address in Canary Wharf. Apartments, amenities and galleries are edited in Sanity, and the site ships as static Astro pages.
25cuba.com (opens in a new tab)Celerart
WebflowAstro + Sanity
Our own studio site. Every one of the 164 old URLs was carried over or redirected, and all content is now edited in Sanity.
celerart.com (opens in a new tab)
How we move a Kentico site
Your Kentico site stays live until the new one is ready. The switch is a DNS change, not a weekend of downtime.
Audit
Audit
We crawl every URL, list every page type, widget, form, module and integration, and export your rankings, so nothing is lost by accident.
Content model
Content model
Page types, widgets and sections become a clean schema in Sanity or Payload, shaped around how your editors actually work.
Content import
Content import
Pages, media, forms and their relations move by script from the Kentico database. Rich text is converted, images re-uploaded and internal links rewritten.
Front end
Front end
We rebuild the design in Astro or Next.js: the same look, or a refresh if one is due. Every template is checked against the old one.
Redirects and launch
Redirects and launch
Every page URL and alias gets a permanent redirect to its new address. Metadata, sitemaps and structured data are compared before the DNS switch.
Handover
Handover
Your IT and marketing teams get a walkthrough of the new editor and hosting. Then the Kentico servers are switched off for good.
Questions about leaving Kentico
It is a fair option, and the audit will compare both. Kentico’s path is a new project: data moves with the Migration Tool, then code, widgets and customisations are reworked for the new architecture. Moving to Astro or Next.js costs a similar effort, and ends the licence and the major-version cycle.
Both swap one server you patch for another, plus a plugin or module stack to keep updated. A headless setup keeps the structured content your page types already have, serves pages pre-built from a CDN and gives editors live preview, without a public admin login on your domain.
Not if the move is planned. Every URL keeps its address or gets a permanent 301 redirect, built from your page URLs, aliases and existing redirects. Titles, descriptions, structured data and sitemaps are carried over and checked before launch, and we watch Search Console for the weeks after the switch.
By script, straight from the Kentico database: pages and their fields, Page Builder content, media libraries, attachments and cultures. Everything becomes structured content in Sanity or Payload, and internal links are rewritten to the new URLs.
We scope them one by one. Contacts and automation usually move to the CRM or marketing platform your team already uses, and a shop moves to Shopify or a similar platform behind the new front end. The audit tells you what moves where.
It depends on the number of page types, widgets, integrations and languages. After the audit you get a fixed scope and timeline, and the Kentico site stays live until launch day.
Apply every security hotfix Kentico releases until 31 December 2026. If launch falls after that, put a web application firewall in front of the site, restrict access to the administration and keep the server and .NET patched by your host. The migration removes the risk; it does not cover the months before launch.
