Xperience by Kentico Alternatives 2026: Features, Migration & TCO

Xperience by Kentico Alternatives 2026: Features, Migration & TCO

If you're comparing Xperience by Kentico (XbyK) alternatives in 2026, you're likely in one of two situations: you're on Kentico Xperience 13 and deciding whether the upgrade to XbyK justifies the cost and architectural rewrite, or you're evaluating XbyK and finding that its licensing, feature set, or .NET-only architecture doesn't fit your team. Either way, the decision comes down to feature parity with what you actually use, the real cost of migration, and three-year total cost of ownership.

This guide compares six platforms that compete with Xperience by Kentico: Optimizely (CMS.NET 13), Sitecore XM Cloud, Progress Sitefinity 15, Umbraco 14/15, Kontent.ai, and Contentful. Pricing figures are sourced from vendor documentation, Vendr's anonymized contract dataset, and implementation partner benchmarks. Version numbers are specified throughout because these platforms have meaningfully different support timelines and feature sets across releases.

For teams on KX13 deciding whether to stay in the Kentico ecosystem, see our companion guides: What Kentico's Migration Tool Doesn't Move and Kentico Xperience 13 End of Support 2026.

Why teams look beyond Xperience by Kentico

Xperience by Kentico is a hybrid headless DXP built on ASP.NET Core. "Hybrid headless" means XbyK supports two simultaneous rendering pipelines: a Page Builder-based coupled rendering pipeline (where .NET handles presentation) and a Content Delivery API (GraphQL + REST) for decoupled frontend consumption. Both pipelines read from the same content repository. This distinguishes XbyK from pure headless platforms, which expose only APIs, and from traditional coupled CMSes, which lack decoupled delivery. The platform bundles content management, digital marketing, e-commerce, and AI (AIRA) in a single licensed product. It earns its place by giving .NET teams an integrated stack without stitching together five separate products. But three friction points drive teams to evaluate alternatives:

• Licensing cost at scale. XbyK self-managed licensing starts around $990/month (~$11,880/year) per Kentico's published pricing tiers. SaaS plans run $1,990–$2,900/month depending on traffic tier. Enterprise configurations exceed $100,000/year. Organizations that don't use the built-in commerce or marketing automation modules pay a significant premium over CMS-only platforms.
• The KX13-to-XbyK migration is a replatform, not an upgrade. Moving from Xperience 13 to XbyK means adopting .NET Core, a new React-based admin UI, and a reworked content model. Kentico's migration tool handles users, roles, and some media, but does not move custom page types, page templates, or the presentation layer. No Page Builder migration from Kentico 12 Portal Engine, no page type inheritance, no macros in field defaults. If you're rebuilding your frontend and content model regardless, the question becomes whether to rebuild on XbyK or off it.
• The .NET requirement. XbyK runs exclusively on ASP.NET Core and Microsoft SQL Server. Teams whose engineering org has moved to Node.js, Python, or JAMstack architectures face a staffing and maintenance mismatch.

Feature parity matrix

Before evaluating cost and migration, establish whether each platform covers the capabilities you actually use. This matrix compares native (built-in) vs. add-on vs. absent across six capabilities that differ most between XbyK and its alternatives.

Platform	A/B Testing	Personalization	Commerce	Email Marketing	Multilingual	Headless API
Xperience by Kentico	Native (AIRA-assisted)	Native	Native	Native	Native	GraphQL + REST
Optimizely CMS.NET 13	Native (Web Experimentation)	Native (via ODP)	Separate product (Customized Commerce)	Via ODP add-on	Native	REST (Content Delivery API)
Sitecore XM Cloud	Separate product (Personalize)	Separate product (Personalize/CDP)	Separate product (OrderCloud)	Separate product (Send)	Native	GraphQL (Experience Edge)
Progress Sitefinity 15	Add-on (Insight)	Add-on (Insight)	Add-on (Ecommerce)	Third-party required	Native	REST + OData
Umbraco 14/15	Third-party required	Third-party required	Third-party required	Third-party required	Native	REST + optional Heartcore
Kontent.ai	Third-party required	Third-party required	Third-party required	Third-party required	Native	REST + GraphQL
Contentful	Third-party required	Third-party required	Third-party required	Third-party required	Native (locale limits by tier)	REST + GraphQL

Reading this table: "Native" means the capability ships in the base product license. "Add-on" means it's available from the same vendor at additional cost. "Separate product" means it requires a separate contract and integration. "Third-party required" means the platform has no offering in this space — you build it yourself or buy it elsewhere. If you use XbyK's marketing automation and commerce today, only Optimizely and Sitecore have comparable native-or-add-on coverage at any price point.

Migration complexity matrix

Migration effort is not uniform across platform pairs. The table below rates effort and risk across four dimensions for each XbyK-to-target migration.

Target Platform	Content Model Transformation	Rich Text Migration	Frontend Rebuild Required	Overall Effort
Optimizely CMS.NET 13	High — monolithic pages → blocks	Medium — HTML to block content	Partial (both .NET)	High
Sitecore XM Cloud	High — pages → items + templates	Medium — HTML to JSS-compatible	Full (must use Next.js/JSS)	Highest
Progress Sitefinity 15	Medium — similar .NET/SQL structure	Low — HTML-compatible	Partial (both .NET)	Medium
Umbraco 14/15	Low — tree → tree, types → document types	Low — HTML-compatible	Partial (both .NET)	Low–Medium
Kontent.ai	High — tree hierarchy → flat linked items	Medium — structured fields migrate cleanly; inline references need remapping	Full (no coupled rendering)	High
Contentful	Highest — page hierarchy → flat entries, Page Builder → frontend code	Highest — HTML → proprietary JSON AST	Full (no coupled rendering)	Highest

The two highest-risk migration phases across all targets are: (1) decomposing XbyK's Page Builder widget configurations into either target-platform equivalents or frontend application code, and (2) converting Kentico WYSIWYG HTML output into the target's rich text format. Platforms with their own HTML-compatible rich text editors (Sitefinity, Umbraco) absorb this with minimal loss. Contentful's rich text editor uses a proprietary JSON Abstract Syntax Tree that requires programmatic conversion of every HTML document — the single most failure-prone step in an XbyK-to-Contentful migration.

Optimizely Content Cloud (CMS.NET 13)

Optimizely Content Cloud, built on CMS.NET 13 (formerly Episerver CMS), is a .NET-based DXP that competes with XbyK at the enterprise tier. Its primary differentiator is production-grade experimentation — A/B testing, multivariate testing, and feature flagging — through Web Experimentation, which is a separate but natively integrated product.

Architecture: ASP.NET Core. Content stored in tblContent (published) and tblWorkContent (draft/versioned) using a block-based content model. Blocks are reusable content components that can be placed on pages — architecturally flatter than XbyK's page-type-with-inheritance model. Headless delivery via a REST-based Content Delivery API. SaaS-hosted on Azure. CMS, Commerce (Customized Commerce), and Experimentation (Web Experimentation) are separately licensed products.

Where it wins over XbyK: Built-in experimentation is purpose-built rather than bolt-on. Optimizely's block architecture is more granular for multi-brand, multi-region deployments where reusable content components across different page templates are a daily editorial operation. The Web Experimentation product supports server-side and client-side experiments with a dedicated statistics engine.

Where XbyK wins: Optimizely's pricing is significantly higher, and the composable product model means three vendor contracts (CMS + Commerce + Experimentation) for capabilities XbyK bundles in one. Kentico's integrated marketing automation is more accessible for mid-market teams without dedicated martech operations staff.

Pricing: Optimizely does not publish list pricing. Based on Vendr's anonymized dataset of approximately 126 signed contracts, the median annual contract value is ~$81,447, with a range of $26,460 to $261,075. CMS-only deployments typically run $40,000–$300,000+ annually depending on traffic tier and feature modules. Implementation adds $50,000–$200,000+ in year one. Adding Commerce and Experimentation to a CMS license can double or triple the annual platform cost.

Migration path from XbyK: Both platforms are .NET-based, which allows .NET service classes, business logic, and data access layers to be reused. However, the content model transformation is substantial. XbyK's page types — which inherit from a base page type and carry presentation settings — must be decomposed into Optimizely's block model, where content components exist independently of page structure. A monolithic Kentico "Product Detail Page" type becomes a page container plus several reusable blocks. Content extraction via XbyK's Content Delivery API or direct SQL Server export; import via Optimizely's Content Management API. Budget for content model redesign separately from data migration.

Sitecore XM Cloud

Sitecore XM Cloud is Sitecore's headless-first SaaS CMS, replacing the on-premises Sitecore XP/XM stack. XM Cloud is a distinct product from Sitecore XP — it does not support custom server-side rendering pipelines or the traditional Sitecore MVC rendering approach.

Architecture: Headless-first. Content managed in Sitecore's item-based repository (templates, items, presentation details — the same underlying model as Sitecore XP, hosted as SaaS). Delivered via Experience Edge, a globally distributed GraphQL CDN. Frontend built with Sitecore's JavaScript Services (JSS) SDK, which has official support for Next.js (the primary target), React, Angular, and Vue. No self-hosted deployment option. Backend runs on .NET, but frontend development is exclusively JavaScript/TypeScript.

Where it wins over XbyK: Sitecore's composable DXP ecosystem — XM Cloud (CMS), CDP (Customer Data Platform), Personalize (real-time personalization), Search (AI-assisted search), Content Hub (DAM + content operations), OrderCloud (headless commerce) — is broader than any single platform on this list. For enterprises managing five or more brands across 20+ markets, the combination of CDP data and XM Cloud content personalization is a capability class XbyK doesn't reach. Experience Edge's CDN-delivered GraphQL responses also provide better global performance than XbyK's self-managed or SaaS-hosted delivery for high-traffic, multi-region sites.

Where XbyK wins: Sitecore's TCO at full stack is dramatically higher. The composable model requires separate contracts, separate integration work, and separate implementation expertise for each product. XbyK's all-in-one approach is materially simpler for teams that don't need enterprise-scale CDP or multi-brand content operations. Sitecore also requires Next.js as the practical frontend choice — other JSS SDK targets are supported but community resources, examples, and partner expertise are concentrated on Next.js.

Pricing: Sitecore uses custom quotes. Vendr reports a median contract value of approximately $60,944/year, though this figure spans single-product deals (XM Cloud only) and multi-product stacks. Mid-market XM Cloud deployments with implementation typically run $75,000–$250,000 annually for the platform contract. Enterprise multi-product stacks (XM Cloud + CDP + Personalize + Content Hub) range from $250,000–$750,000+ per year. Frontend hosting on Vercel or Netlify adds $34,000–$36,000/year at enterprise tiers. Sitecore does not publish the number of contracts in Vendr's dataset for this product.

Migration path from XbyK: This is the highest-effort migration on this list. XbyK content can be extracted via its Content Delivery API (GraphQL) or direct SQL Server export, but Sitecore XM Cloud uses a fundamentally different content repository model: templates define field structures, items are instances of templates, and presentation details (layout + component assignments) are stored separately from content fields. All frontend code must be rewritten using Sitecore's JSS SDK targeting Next.js. There is no code reuse path for .NET rendering components from XbyK's Page Builder. The item-based architecture also requires that XbyK's URL-based page hierarchy be reconstructed as a Sitecore content tree.

Progress Sitefinity 15

Progress Sitefinity 15 (current release as of 2026) is a .NET-based CMS/DXP occupying the mid-market space between Umbraco and enterprise DXPs. Sitefinity 15 runs on ASP.NET Core and supports .NET 8.

Architecture: ASP.NET Core on .NET 8. Microsoft SQL Server. Supports traditional MVC rendering and headless delivery via REST and OData APIs. Sitefinity Insight (analytics and personalization) and Sitefinity Ecommerce are available as add-on modules from Progress. Available as self-hosted (on your infrastructure) or Sitefinity Cloud (managed SaaS on Azure with infrastructure, monitoring, and upgrade management included).

Where it wins over XbyK: Pricing and editorial simplicity. A single-domain Sitefinity DX license with up to 10 backend users runs approximately $10,000–$12,000/year — roughly matching XbyK's self-managed entry point, but Sitefinity's page-based editing approach and widget library are consistently cited as requiring less developer involvement for day-to-day content operations. Sitefinity Cloud at ~$35,000/year includes infrastructure management that XbyK self-managed does not.

Where XbyK wins: XbyK's integrated marketing automation, commerce, and AI (AIRA) are more comprehensive out of the box. Sitefinity requires separate contracts with Progress for Insight and Ecommerce add-ons, and third-party tools for email marketing. Kentico's content modeling with reusable content type schemas and structured field definitions is architecturally more modern than Sitefinity's widget-centric page model.

Pricing: Self-hosted licenses range from $10,000–$35,000+/year depending on domain count, user tiers, and add-on modules. Sitefinity Cloud runs approximately $35,000/year including managed Azure infrastructure. Adding Sitefinity Insight (analytics/personalization) and Ecommerce modules can push total annual platform cost to $50,000–$80,000. Total first-year project cost including implementation typically falls in the $20,000–$60,000 range for mid-market organizations.

Migration path from XbyK: Both platforms use ASP.NET Core and Microsoft SQL Server, which makes database-level content extraction straightforward — the schema structures are more similar than in any other platform pair on this list. There is no official migration tool for moving out of XbyK into Sitefinity. Migration requires API extraction (XbyK Content Delivery API) or direct SQL Server export, manual content type mapping to Sitefinity's page type system, and frontend rebuild using Sitefinity's MVC or headless patterns. .NET business logic and service classes can be reused with modifications.

Umbraco 14 and 15

Umbraco (current LTS: Umbraco 15, released November 2024; Umbraco 13 reaches end of life December 14, 2026) is an open-source .NET CMS — the strongest alternative for teams that use XbyK primarily as a CMS and pay for marketing automation and commerce they don't deploy.

Important version note: Umbraco 13 ends support on December 14, 2026 — the same quarter as KX13's December 31, 2026 end-of-support. Teams migrating to Umbraco must target Umbraco 14 or Umbraco 15 LTS. Umbraco 14 introduced breaking changes to the backoffice (rebuilt in Lit/Web Components) that affect custom backoffice plugins from Umbraco 10/11/12. Umbraco 15 LTS is the recommended target for new projects in 2026.

Architecture: ASP.NET Core on .NET 9 (Umbraco 15). Supports Microsoft SQL Server and SQLite. Umbraco CMS manages content in a hierarchical node tree (analogous to Kentico's CMS_Tree), with Document Types defining field structures (analogous to Kentico's page types). Umbraco Heartcore is a separate SaaS product — a hosted headless CMS built on Umbraco's content model, billed separately from the open-source CMS. Teams evaluating Umbraco for headless delivery should assess whether they need the self-hosted CMS with a headless API layer, or Heartcore as a managed headless product. These are distinct commercial offerings with different pricing and operational models. Available self-hosted (free, you manage infrastructure) or Umbraco Cloud (managed hosting on Azure).

Where it wins over XbyK: Cost, for organizations that only need CMS capabilities. The Umbraco CMS core is free under the MIT license. Umbraco Cloud starts at approximately $47/month (Starter, 1 site, 1 environment) up to approximately $860/month (Professional, multi-environment). The open-source model also means hosting provider flexibility — you're not locked into a single vendor's SaaS tier for infrastructure.

Where XbyK wins: Umbraco CMS has no built-in marketing automation, personalization engine, commerce module, or AI assistant. Achieving comparable DXP functionality requires assembling third-party integrations (e.g., uCommerce or Vendr for commerce, uMarketingSuite for marketing automation, Umbraco Forms for lead capture) — each adding integration cost, maintenance overhead, and vendor relationships. For teams actively using XbyK's bundled capabilities, the apparent cost saving disappears when third-party tools are factored in.

Pricing: Umbraco CMS is free (MIT license). Umbraco Cloud: Starter ~$47/month, Standard ~$286/month, Professional ~$860/month, Enterprise on custom pricing. Heartcore is separately priced on a usage-based SaaS model. First-year total cost including implementation ranges from approximately $5,000 for basic self-hosted deployments to $50,000+ for complex multi-environment enterprise builds.

Migration path from XbyK: The hierarchical content models are architecturally the most similar of any platform pair on this list. Kentico's CMS_Tree node structure maps directly to Umbraco's node tree. Kentico page types map to Umbraco Document Types with equivalent field structures. Parent-child relationships do not need to be flattened. Content extraction via XbyK's Content Delivery API or direct SQL Server export; import via Umbraco's Content Management API or Umbraco Deploy. No official migration tool exists. Rich text fields migrate as HTML with minimal transformation. The primary complication is Page Builder widget configurations, which have no Umbraco equivalent and must be reconstructed as Umbraco Grid or Block List editor configurations.

Kontent.ai

Kontent.ai originated as Kentico Cloud (spun off from Kentico Software in 2019 and rebranded in 2022). It is a pure API-first headless CMS designed for enterprise content operations across multiple channels and frontends.

Architecture: Flat content model — content items exist as independent entities linked via structured relationships, with no hierarchical tree. Content is organized by content type (analogous to Kentico's page types, but without tree position). Delivery via REST API and GraphQL API. The platform hosts only the content layer; you host all frontends. No coupled rendering. Multi-environment support (Production, Preview, Staging) is included in paid tiers.

Where it wins over XbyK: Teams building fully decoupled Next.js, Nuxt, Vue, React Native, or native mobile applications prefer Kontent.ai's pure API model over XbyK's hybrid approach. Multi-channel content delivery — publishing the same structured content to web, mobile app, digital signage, and voice interfaces simultaneously — is architecturally native. The Kentico lineage produces a familiar editorial philosophy: content types, structured fields, workflow states, and publishing concepts translate directly. Kontent.ai also provides a Delivery SDK for .NET, JavaScript, and other languages, easing adoption for teams already familiar with Kentico's SDK patterns.

Where XbyK wins: XbyK provides an integrated presentation layer, marketing automation, and commerce. Kontent.ai requires you to host and deploy your own frontend application and assemble marketing and commerce capabilities from third parties. For teams relying on XbyK's all-in-one DXP model — particularly editorial teams who use Page Builder for layout control — migrating to Kontent.ai shifts significant build responsibility to the implementation team and removes page-layout control from editors.

Pricing: Kontent.ai uses tiered SaaS pricing. Published tiers (as of early 2026): Developer plan is free (5 users, limited environments, 1M API calls/month). Business plan starts at $1,790/month (25 users, production + preview environments, 10M API calls/month). Enterprise plan uses custom pricing with dedicated environments, SSO, SLA guarantees, and expanded API limits. Total cost of ownership must include frontend hosting (Vercel, Netlify, AWS, or equivalent) — typically $50–$500/month for mid-market sites, scaling to $3,000–$5,000/month for high-traffic enterprise deployments.

Migration path from XbyK: The primary technical challenge is flattening XbyK's hierarchical content tree into Kontent.ai's flat model. In XbyK, a page's URL is derived from its position in CMS_Tree — a content item at /products/category/item inherits that path from its parent nodes. In Kontent.ai, there is no tree. URL routing must be stored explicitly as a field on the content item or computed by the frontend application from relationship fields. Inline links between content items (XbyK's internal page links in WYSIWYG fields) must be remapped to Kontent.ai's structured link format. Structured content fields (text, number, date, asset reference) migrate cleanly. The conceptual familiarity between the two platforms — both originating from Kentico — makes content type mapping faster than migrating to Contentful or Sitecore, but the architectural shift from tree to flat is the primary technical challenge and requires deliberate content model redesign before migration begins.

Contentful

Contentful (current: Contentful v2 API, April 2023) is the most widely adopted API-first headless CMS, with over 30% market share in the pure headless CMS segment according to G2 and Datanyze category data. It is architecturally the furthest from XbyK on this list.

Architecture: Flat, structured content model. Content entries are typed instances of Content Types. No hierarchical tree, no page concept, no presentation layer. Delivery via REST Content Delivery API and GraphQL Content API. Rich text uses a proprietary Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) format called document (based on the Portable Text specification with Contentful-specific extensions) — not HTML, not Markdown. Environments (aliases, branches) are a core feature available on Team and above.

Where it wins over XbyK: Contentful's ecosystem — 300+ marketplace integrations, SDKs in 11 languages, and widespread familiarity among frontend developers — makes it the default choice when developer ecosystem breadth is the primary criterion. For organizations where multiple frontend teams in different technology stacks need to consume the same content, Contentful's API-first design and SDK coverage are genuinely superior. The flat content model also enforces structured content discipline that pays dividends in multi-channel reuse.

Where XbyK wins: Contentful has no presentation layer, no marketing automation, no commerce, no personalization, and no A/B testing. It is strictly a content repository and delivery API. For organizations that need any of those capabilities, Contentful becomes the hub of a composable stack — each capability added as a separate vendor contract, integration, and operational dependency. Contentful also imposes hard limits on lower tiers: the Free tier caps at 25 content types and 2 locales. The Team tier ($300/month) allows 48 content types. Exceeding these limits without upgrading to Enterprise ($2,100+/month) blocks content model expansion mid-project.

Pricing: Free tier (limited to 25 content types, 2 locales, no versioning). Team tier $300/month ($3,600/year). Based on Vendr's anonymized contract data, SMB contracts average approximately $33,000/year; enterprise contracts average approximately $148,000/year. Contentful is notable for steep per-locale and per-environment pricing on Enterprise tiers — multi-locale, multi-environment enterprise deployments regularly exceed published estimates, leading some teams to evaluate Contentful alternatives. Total cost including implementation typically runs $36,000–$108,000+ for mid-market over three years on platform cost alone.

Migration path from XbyK: This is the largest architectural transformation on this list, for two compounding reasons. First, XbyK's page-oriented hierarchy must be decomposed into Contentful's flat entry model — a 500-page website becomes 500 or more discrete content entries with no inherited URL structure, requiring explicit slug fields and frontend routing logic. Second, every rich text field containing HTML from Kentico's WYSIWYG editor must be converted into Contentful's proprietary JSON AST. This is a programmatic transformation (not a copy-paste), and embedded images, internal links, and custom HTML elements each require custom handling in the transformation script. Page Builder layouts and widget configurations have no Contentful equivalent — they become frontend application code. Only structured fields (text, number, date, asset references) migrate without transformation risk.

Three-year TCO comparison

Three-year TCO comprises licensing (or subscription), hosting, implementation, and ongoing maintenance. The table below isolates platform cost only — license/subscription plus hosting where applicable — to give a comparable baseline. Implementation and migration services are additional and vary significantly by project scope.

Platform	3-Year Platform Cost (Mid-Market)	Includes Hosting?	Marketing Automation Built In?	Commerce Built In?
Xperience by Kentico (SaaS)	~$72K–$108K	Yes	Yes	Yes
Xperience by Kentico (Self-Managed)	~$36K–$48K + hosting	No	Yes	Yes
Optimizely CMS.NET 13	~$120K–$450K+	Yes (SaaS)	Via ODP add-on	Separate product
Sitecore XM Cloud	~$225K–$750K+	Partial (frontend hosting extra)	Separate product (Personalize/CDP)	Separate product (OrderCloud)
Progress Sitefinity 15 (Cloud)	~$105K	Yes	Add-on (Insight)	Add-on (Ecommerce)
Progress Sitefinity 15 (Self-Hosted)	~$30K–$105K + hosting	No	Add-on (Insight)	Add-on (Ecommerce)
Umbraco 15 (Cloud Professional)	~$31K	Yes	Third-party required	Third-party required
Umbraco 15 (Self-Hosted)	$0 (license) + hosting	No	Third-party required	Third-party required
Kontent.ai (Business)	~$64K	Yes (SaaS) + frontend hosting	Third-party required	Third-party required
Contentful (Team+)	~$36K–$108K+	Yes (SaaS)	Third-party required	Third-party required

TCO interpretation note: For Sitecore and Optimizely, implementation cost in year one typically exceeds platform cost. A $150,000/year Sitecore XM Cloud contract commonly pairs with a $200,000–$400,000 year-one implementation. For Umbraco self-hosted, the $0 license cost shifts expense entirely to infrastructure and developer time — which for complex builds can exceed XbyK's SaaS subscription cost over three years.

How to choose: a decision framework

The right alternative depends less on feature checklists and more on what your organization actually operates today.

You use XbyK's marketing automation and commerce → Optimizely CMS.NET 13 (with ODP and Customized Commerce) or Sitecore XM Cloud (with CDP, Personalize, and OrderCloud) are the only alternatives with comparable built-in or native-add-on capabilities. Both cost significantly more than XbyK. Before switching, calculate whether specific third-party point solutions (e.g., HubSpot for marketing automation, Shopify for commerce) would cost less than the DXP premium — and whether your team has the integration capacity to maintain them.

You use XbyK primarily as a CMS → Umbraco 15 or Sitefinity 15 deliver equivalent content management at a fraction of the cost. The key question is whether your team uses any Kentico marketing or commerce features even occasionally — because those disappear entirely in a CMS-only migration.

Your frontend team has moved beyond .NET → Contentful, Kontent.ai, or Sitecore XM Cloud (Next.js) decouple frontend development from the CMS platform. Evaluate your rich text volume before selecting Contentful — the HTML-to-JSON-AST transformation cost scales with content volume.

You're managing content across multiple channels simultaneously → Kontent.ai or Contentful are purpose-built for multi-channel structured content delivery. XbyK's Content Delivery API supports headless delivery, but tree-position-derived URL routing adds complexity for non-web channels. For Kontent.ai specifically, factor in the $1,790/month Business tier floor if you need production and preview environments for a team larger than five.

You're on KX13 and haven't decided yet → The upgrade to XbyK is a replatform. If you're rebuilding your frontend and content model regardless, this is the right time to evaluate alternatives — not after you've committed to XbyK's licensing. The December 31, 2026 KX13 end-of-support deadline creates urgency, but moving to the wrong platform under deadline pressure is worse than negotiating an extended support arrangement while taking more time to choose correctly.

Data extraction from Kentico and XbyK

Regardless of target platform, data extraction is the first technical constraint you'll face.

For Xperience by Kentico, the Content Delivery API (GraphQL) is the cleanest extraction path for published structured content. Direct SQL Server access handles draft content, custom module data, and items the API doesn't expose. XbyK's database schema stores content in content type-specific tables generated at type-creation time, which requires schema introspection before extraction scripts can be written.

For Kentico Xperience 13, extraction options split between the REST API and direct database access:

• REST API: Enforces business logic and returns clean, structured data. Slow for large datasets — paginating through 50,000+ records via the Kentico REST API risks timeout errors or excessive server load on the live site. Default page size is 100 records; at 50,000 records, that's 500 sequential requests.
• Direct SQL: Bypasses API rate limits. Allows JOIN operations across CMS_Tree, CMS_Document, and custom tables in milliseconds. Requires deep knowledge of Kentico's schema, including the DocumentPageTemplateConfiguration column (which stores Page Builder widget configurations as JSON) and the AttachmentBinary column (which stores media files as varbinary(max) when file system storage is not configured). Media files stored as binary data in SQL need custom scripts to extract and write to physical files for the new platform.

Our transfer preference is API → JSON → CSV. We prefer standardized APIs for data integrity, but when legacy systems lack adequate endpoints or API performance degrades at scale, we use direct database extraction with multi-stage validation: checksum verification, record-count parity between source and target, and field-level spot-checks on a statistically significant sample.

What the data migration looks like

The data migration itself — separate from the broader replatform — typically follows these timelines based on content record volume:

• Under 10,000 records: Can complete in under 24 hours.
• 10,000–50,000 records: Typically runs over a weekend to avoid disrupting weekday content operations.
• 100,000+ records: Requires a phased approach — initial bulk migration followed by incremental delta syncs capturing content published during the replatforming window.

The bottlenecks are not the data transfer itself. They are: (1) content model mapping — XbyK content types rarely have a 1:1 equivalent in the target platform; (2) rich text and widget decomposition — Page Builder layouts require manual analysis and reconstruction; (3) media asset re-linking — internal references embedded in content fields break when asset URLs change on the new platform.

Platform-specific timing observations: migrations targeting Contentful take longer than migrations targeting Sitefinity or Umbraco at equivalent record volumes, due to the HTML-to-JSON-AST transformation applied to every rich text field. A 20,000-record migration to Sitefinity might complete in a single weekend; the same dataset migrating to Contentful requires additional time for transformation script development and validation.

We recommend starting scoping at least 3–4 months before any internal deadline — especially with the December 31, 2026 KX13 end-of-support date approaching.

We cover extraction methods in full detail in How to Export Data from Xperience by Kentico.