From Magnolia to Kontent.ai

We are the Magnolia to Kontent.ai 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 Kontent.ai

Key advantages

Calling your CMS “Kontent dot ai” is a brilliant way to convince people you’ve built an AI-powered future. And to be fair, the platform does have a clean editor, strong workflow tools, and a respectable multi-channel setup.

It's perfect for the kind of company that has more infosec members than it does have devs. But calling yourself an AI platform doesn’t mean you’re built like one.

Real AI-driven CMS platforms start at the foundation with structured content, flexible modeling, real-time indexing, and an architecture that doesn’t panic the moment you try something complex. Sanity doesn’t even market itself as “AI-first,” but it’s been ahead of the curve for years. They shipped an embedding index before “AI CMS” was a pitch deck buzzword. We even built one of the first AI search tools on top of it.

So yes, Kontent.ai is great. If you want a polished interface and enterprise workflows, go for it. And if you’re dead-set on building your website there, talk to us first. We’ll walk you through it and maybe even find a better way before you spend six months discovering the limits yourself.

Intuitive content management

You shouldn’t need a week of onboarding to publish a paragraph. Kontent.ai nails this with a clean interface that doesn’t punish you for being a marketer instead of a developer.

Flexible content modeling

Build content the way your brain works. Modular, structured, reusable. No dev intervention every time marketing decides “we need one more field.”

Strong API-first architecture

The APIs are predictable, well-documented, and don’t require wild workarounds. Everything connects the way it should and developers stay happy too.

Tech stack integration

React, Vue, Angular, or whatever framework you’re obsessed with this week, Kontent.ai plays nice with all of them and keeps deployments smooth.

Advanced image transformations

You can resize, crop, and optimize visuals without leaving the CMS. Think of it as an in-house designer that doesn’t complain about aspect ratios.

Real-time collaboration

Writers, editors, and developers can work together without stepping on each other’s commits. Instant updates, fewer Slack messages, and zero “who overwrote my draft?” moments.