Sitefinity to WordPress Migration Guide

Why Migrate Your Website from Sitefinity to WordPress?

If you’re using Sitefinity and finding it restrictive, you’re not alone. 

Many organisations, especially those managing large-scale content, are switching to WordPress for better flexibility, lower costs, and easier content workflows.

Here are some of the main reasons to switch from Sitefinity to WordPress.

WordPress Offers More Control and Flexibility

Sitefinity is a proprietary CMS. That means your development options, hosting setup, and integrations are all shaped by Progress’s roadmap. 

WordPress, on the other hand, is open-source. You have full control over your infrastructure, front end, backend, and workflows. You can build exactly what you need, without being boxed into a licensing model or specific tech stack.

This is especially useful for enterprises running complex sites or multi-region setups. You can use WordPress as a headless CMS, integrate it with external systems, and customise content workflows without relying on a vendor to release new features.

Quite simply, WordPress should never hold back your site with limitations.

It’s More Cost-Effective Over Time

Sitefinity’s licensing fees increase quickly as your needs grow. You’ll pay extra for multisite features, user seats, marketing tools, and add-ons. 

WordPress doesn’t have these hidden costs. There are no annual CMS licence fees, and you choose the level of support, hosting, and security that fits your needs. Multisite is also a standard feature.

When you build on WordPress, your budget goes further. You can invest more in UX, performance, SEO, or content operations instead of paying for access to the platform itself.

Plus, being the world’s most widely used CMS, WordPress has an enormous base of skilled developers available. This makes accessing custom developer work more affordable over the long run.

Easier for Content Teams to Manage

Content workflows in Sitefinity often rely on developers to manage. Publishing a simple update can feel slow or clunky, especially for marketing teams.

With WordPress, the editorial experience is far cleaner and faster. 

Tools like the Gutenberg editor, reusable blocks, and custom publishing workflows make it easier to scale content across pages, products, or regions. Training new team members is quick, and updates don’t need developer time.

In fact, chances are your teams already have experience working in WordPress dashboards. 

Built for SEO and Performance

Search performance on Sitefinity sites can lag if your technical setup isn’t perfect. 

WordPress makes it easier to follow SEO best practices. You can control metadata, structure content around user needs, and improve load times through plugins, CDN integrations, or static site options.

This level of optimisation is key for enterprise sites with thousands of pages or international audiences. You’re no longer limited by how the CMS handles routing, indexing, or caching. With WordPress, you have more control over optimisations.

Supported by a Huge Global Ecosystem

WordPress powers over 40% of the web. That means you benefit from an enormous, active community of developers, security experts, plugin authors, and agencies. 

There’s also less risk of vendor lock-in. If your needs change or you want to switch support partners, you have options.

For enterprise teams, this ecosystem adds long-term security. You’re not dependent on one company’s roadmap. You’re building on a platform with proven scalability, a wide talent pool, and constant innovation.

This provides more room to regain control, scale content more efficiently, and build a platform that doesn’t hold your team back.

Sitefinity to WordPress Migration: Step by Step

Migrating your CMS can be a major undertaking. However, it’s also an opportunity to completely enhance your digital presence and website performance.

If Sitefinity is holding your website back, here are the general steps to follow for a smooth migration to WordPress.

Audit Your Existing Sitefinity Website

Before migrating your CMS, start with a full content and technical audit.

List all pages, templates, modules, media files, redirects, and third-party integrations. Essentially, you need to take stock of the content that you will be migrating.

Identify what to keep, improve, or remove. Check content types, custom fields, and how data is structured in Sitefinity. This gives you a clear view of the scope and helps shape the WordPress build.

This is also a good time to plan which content can be audited and improved. After all, migrating your CMS provides the ideal moment to enhance and redesign an outdated website.

Plan Your WordPress Architecture

When you know what you will be moving, the next step is to establish how the new site will be structured in WordPress.

Use the audit to define your new WordPress structure. Map Sitefinity content types to WordPress equivalents, such as posts, pages, or custom post types. 

Plan taxonomies, navigation, URL structure, and user roles. This step prevents confusion later and ensures your CMS is built around your users and workflows.

Set Up a WordPress Development Environment

At this stage the bulk of the planning is behind you, so it’s time to establish a WordPress foundation.

First, this involves choosing and setting up your WordPress hosting provider. If you’re going enterprise, consider WordPress VIP or a headless architecture.

Once hosting is established, it’s time to build a staging site. 

Install a clean WordPress instance and configure base settings, security controls, and development tools. This gives you a safe space to build and test the new site before going live.

Rebuild Templates and Design System

Even if you want a duplicated site on a new CMS, do not try to replicate Sitefinity templates exactly. Rather, use the migration as a chance to improve design, accessibility, performance, and UX. 

Rebuild templates using WordPress’s block editor or a theme framework that suits your needs. Ensure all layouts are mobile-friendly, SEO-optimised, and easy to update.

While WordPress does make web design convenient through an enormous library of themes and plugins, you can also customise your site to your exact needs with custom development. This combination of accessible tools combined with absolute flexibility is a major advantage of using WordPress.

Migrate Your Content

At this stage, your new WordPress foundation should be set up. Now it’s time to move all of your website content over to its new home.

Export content from Sitefinity using its API or database tools. Map each content type and field to the correct WordPress format. 

Use scripts or migration plugins to automate where possible, but be ready for manual QA. Not everything will migrate seamlessly, which is why the content audit created at the beginning of this process is so important. 

Migrate all of your pages, posts, images, documents, and media libraries. Maintain internal links and metadata when doing this.

Then, double check your list of planned content to migrate and your list of migrated content. Ensure it all aligns and that everything you need in your new WordPress home is there.

Of course, just because content has been moved from one CMS to the other, doesn’t mean it will look or perform seamlessly in its new home. You will need to manually go through all of the content to check design and UX elements. Ensure that everything is there and working. 

This is a major process that requires rigorous testing. Working with an enterprise web design agency should be a priority for any website migration. 

Rebuild Integrations

Once everything is housed in WordPress, you can recreate third-party integrations in the CMS. This may include CRMs, marketing platforms, single sign-on, forms, or analytics. 

The good news is that WordPress supports an enormous number of integrations, so chances are any third-party software you use will work seamlessly with the platform.

Use WordPress plugins where available, or create custom integrations where needed. Test everything to make sure it works with the new CMS logic.

Redirect URLs and Preserve SEO

One of the most important parts of an effective migration is maintaining your link integrity and structure. This means you’ll need to ensure each and every link works on your new platform. 

Match any old Sitefinity URLs to their new WordPress locations. Create 301 redirects to maintain search engine rankings and avoid broken links. 

Carry over meta titles, descriptions, schema markup, and tracking scripts. Check crawlability and indexability once the site is migrated.

These factors are essential to SEO. Get them right, and you should see an uptick in SEO performance with your new website. However, any issues in these areas could result in an SEO drop.

Test, Optimise, and Launch

Test every feature, form, and content type. Fix bugs, optimise performance, and check mobile behaviour. Validate accessibility and run SEO audits. 

Once this is all approved, you can schedule the live launch. Sync any last-minute content changes and switch DNS when ready. 

While your new website may be active, there’s every chance that issues exist hidden out of sight. Even the most well-planned migrations often reveal issues later down the line. This is why you need to monitor closely after launch and resolve any issues quickly.

Perform regular site checks on Search Console, and monitor search and engagement performance.

Considering a WordPress Migration?

Migrating from Sitefinity to WordPress isn’t just a technical upgrade, but a chance to modernise your digital platform for greater flexibility, performance, and scalability. With the right planning, your organisation can unlock faster content workflows, improved SEO, and lower operational costs. 

From rebuilding templates to integrating key systems and preserving SEO equity, every step matters. Done right, the result is a scalable platform that empowers both your marketing and development teams. 

If Sitefinity is limiting what your organisation can achieve online, now’s the time to make the move. 

Ready to migrate? Get in touch. Our experts can guide you every step of the way.