From Magnolia to Hygraph

We are the Magnolia to Hygraph migration experts

Challenges with Magnolia

Key pain points

Magnolia is the definition of “enterprise for the sake of enterprise.” The setup is heavy, the learning curve is brutal, and unless you have a Java team lying around, good luck getting anything done without burning through budget. The proprietary modules lock you in fast, integrations feel like a maze, and the admin interface slows to a crawl once you start dealing with real content volume. The pricing is expensive, opaque, and somehow still manages to feel bad value. If you're not a Fortune 500 with a tolerance for pain, it’s a project risk.

And honestly, who even uses Java anymore?

Steep Java learning curve

Magnolia expects your team to be fluent in Java and its ecosystem, which slows onboarding and makes even simple tasks feel heavier than they should.

Resource-intensive setup

It demands serious infrastructure and long setup cycles, which immediately rules it out for teams that expect fast iteration or modern DevOps workflows.

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Vendor lock-in concerns

Once you're in, you're in. Magnolia’s proprietary modules make moving away painful, expensive, and often not worth the engineering time.

Complex third-party integration

Connecting Magnolia with modern tools and APIs isn’t straightforward, usually requiring custom Java work instead of simple plug-and-play integrations.

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Native subscription support

Licensing is firmly enterprise-tier, with opaque pricing and steep annual fees that can balloon quickly, a bad fit unless you're Fortune 500.

Proprietary module reliance

Key features live behind Magnolia’s own tightly controlled modules, limiting flexibility and forcing teams to work the “Magnolia way” instead of choosing best-in-class tools.

Benefits of Hygraph

Key advantages

Hygraph is a GraphQL-first setup isn’t a gimmick, queries are fast, precise, and an instant upgrade from platforms still pretending REST is the future. Content teams get a clean, intuitive UI, and developers get proper modeling tools. The real flex is Content Federation. Instead of juggling five backends and duct-taped integrations, Hygraph pulls external APIs into one place and lets you manage everything from a single dashboard.

All the enterprise essentials are built-in like workflows, localization, roles, and staging. If you’re thinking of adopting it (or untangling your current setup), connect with us, and we’ll help you integrate it properly and get the most out of it.

GraphQL-first API architecture

Hygraph gives developers precise and predictable queries without over-fetching or duct-taping endpoints. If you're comfortable with GraphQL, go ahead with it.

Multi-region content delivery

Your content gets served from the closest region, so pages load fast everywhere without you having to think about infrastructure.

Fast geo-distributed responses

Because their CDN actually does its job, API calls resolve quickly across regions which is perfect for apps that can’t afford to wait on slow round-trips.

External API integration support

Hygraph’s content federation lets you pull in data from other APIs and treat everything like one unified system without any custom backend glue or microservice jungle.

Generous free tier offering

You can build real projects without paying a penny. It’s surprisingly capable for prototyping, small sites, or testing before you commit budget.

Automated webhook capabilities

All the updates trigger instantly with clean webhooks, which is great for syncing builds, triggering workflows, or piping data into other systems without manual overhead.