Umbraco to WordPress migration: The business case

If your business started with Umbraco, it was likely for good reasons: customizability, .NET familiarity, and strong backend control. But as your digital needs grow, the same strengths can start to feel like limitations. What once offered flexibility now adds friction. What started as a streamlined setup now feels harder to scale.

And that’s where WordPress comes in, not as a compromise, but as a strategic upgrade.

Today’s WordPress ecosystem is mature, enterprise-ready, and trusted by some of the world’s most complex digital platforms. For businesses looking to reduce technical debt, empower marketing teams, and simplify operations, WordPress offers a clear path forward.

Let’s take a closer look at why more organizations are considering the switch.

Umbraco offers control, but often at the cost of speed

Umbraco gives developers a high degree of flexibility. But it also means that even small changes like adjusting layouts or introducing new content structures require hands-on development. That slows teams down and increases long-term reliance on engineering bandwidth.

WordPress, by contrast, enables teams to move faster. The block editor gives marketers and content creators direct control over layout, structure, and design, no tickets, no wait. Developers still have the flexibility to build custom functionality when needed, but day-to-day operations are far less dependent on them.

Editorial workflows are rigid in Umbraco, flexible in WordPress

Editors working in Umbraco are often constrained by form-based fields and lack real-time layout visibility. Want to experiment with a new page design? You’ll likely need a developer to reconfigure the content model.

WordPress changes that with Gutenberg, its visual block-based editor. It lets editors see exactly what their audience will see while they’re creating the content. Adding sections, embedding media, and building custom layouts can be done without leaving the editor.

This kind of workflow accelerates go-to-market timelines and removes unnecessary dependencies between content and engineering teams.

Upgrades in Umbraco are high-effort. WordPress keeps it simple

Umbraco’s major version upgrades often require significant rework. From template rewrites to dependency checks, these upgrades can feel more like full-scale replatforming than regular maintenance.

WordPress takes a different approach. Its update model is incremental, stable, and designed to preserve backward compatibility. Most updates are applied with minimal disruption and without the need for re-engineering your stack every few years.

WordPress opens the door to a broader talent ecosystem

Umbraco’s reliance on .NET means finding CMS-savvy developers with the right experience can be challenging and costly. Building or scaling a team around Umbraco requires a niche skill set.

WordPress has one of the largest developer communities globally. Whether you’re hiring in-house, working with freelancers, or engaging a partner agency, access to talent is easier, onboarding is faster, and long-term resourcing is more sustainable.

A quick Google search shows the salary gap. WordPress developers are not only more widely available but also more affordable to hire and scale with.

WordPress’s ecosystem reduces the cost of extensibility

While Umbraco supports extensions, the number of pre-built integrations and third-party tools is limited. As a result, integrating marketing automation, analytics, or personalization tools often requires custom work.

WordPress offers a vast ecosystem of well-maintained plugins and enterprise-grade integrations, meaning faster implementation, fewer custom builds, and better alignment with your existing toolset.

Why make the move now?

If your team is spending more time maintaining infrastructure than driving growth, or if every new initiative feels like a technical project, WordPress can help reset that equation.

It’s a platform that supports business agility, reduces operational complexity, and creates space for teams to focus on what matters most: delivering value to users.

Ready to explore how WordPress stacks up against Umbraco across business and technical considerations?