From Uniform to Payload

We are the Uniform to Payload migration experts

Challenges with Uniform

Key pain points

Uniform’s biggest problem is the price of admission. And once you're in, good luck breezing through the learning curve. Teams consistently need workshops, onboarding sessions, and a few existential crises to get comfortable with its orchestration layer.

Because it’s still a relatively young DXP, the ecosystem is thin. You won’t find the deep plugin libraries or community support you get with more established headless tools. Content teams also struggle with their mental model. Especially since the abstraction adds a layer of debugging that feels like fighting a boss battle before publishing a single page, and unless you’re on their higher tiers, expect features and limits that remind you this thing is very much built for enterprises… not anyone trying to stay under budget this decade.

High enterprise pricing barrier

Uniform sits behind an aggressively enterprise paywall, making even basic usage expensive unless you're already swimming in Fortune-500 budgets.

Complex learning curve

Its whole “experience orchestration” model takes time to wrap your head around. Your team won’t be productive on day one, or even week one.

Extensive training requirements

Marketers and developers both need onboarding and workflow retraining, which slows adoption and inflates your implementation cost.

Enterprise-tier feature limitations

A surprising number of essential features only unlock once you upgrade, which is frustrating when the base plan is already pricey.

Preview functionality gaps

Content creators won’t love the limited, indirect preview setup. It’s nowhere near as smooth as modern CMSes with first-class real-time preview.

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Integration complexity overhead

Uniform’s abstraction layer adds mental overhead and troubleshooting work when things break, especially if you're stitching together several backend systems.

Benefits of Payload

Key advantages

Payload is genuinely strong tech. It’s fast, open-source, developer-first, and perfect if you want full control over your content model. The Next.js integration is smooth, the admin UI is clean, and it’s one of the more flexible modern CMS options if your team prefers to build things exactly the way you want them.

Just know that if you want actual features like visual editing, Vercel Blob storage, image handling, etc, you’ll be paying extra for the privilege. If you’re considering Payload or thinking about migrating into (or out of) it, reach out to us. We can help you figure out whether it’s the right stack or guide you toward a cleaner, saner (Sanity) setup.

Integration with Next.js applications

Payload works natively with Next.js, giving you clean data fetching and a smooth development flow. It removes the usual CMS friction so you can build fast, modern frontends without hacks.

Fully customizable

Everything is configured in code, which means you can tailor the CMS to your exact use case. You define the logic, workflows, and behaviour.

Supports custom data models

You can design any content structure your project needs, from simple documents to complex relational models. This gives you full control over how content is organised and delivered.

Intuitive admin UI

Payload’s admin panel is simple, clean, and fast. Editors can create, update, and manage content without training or digging through confusing menus.

Custom plugins and APIs

You can extend Payload however you like. Build custom fields, integrate external services, or add your own API routes. Perfect for teams that need deeper project-specific functionality.

Built-in authentication

Payload comes with user auth, roles, and access control baked in. No external auth service needed, and you can customise permissions to match your editorial workflow.