Kentico Xperience 13 End of Life: Is Umbraco Migration the Answer?

If your website is built on Kentico Xperience 13, the clock is ticking. With the platform’s end of technical support deadline set for 31st December 2026, organisations across the UK are being forced to make a decision about their digital future – and the window to make it thoughtfully is narrowing.

This doesn’t have to be a crisis. For many, it’s actually an opportunity to build something better.

What’s happening with Kentico Xperience 13?

Kentico has published a clear timeline for the end of support for Xperience 13 on their Support Lifecycle page:

• 1st January 2026 – 31st December 2026: Kentico will continue to provide technical support, but will only issue security hotfixes. No other fixes, patches, enhancements, or updates will be delivered.

• From 1st January 2027: All support, maintenance, updates, hotfixes, security patches, and related services will cease entirely.

Kentico is explicit that any use of Xperience 13 after 31st December 2026 is “at your sole risk”. From that point, organisations assume full liability for security incidents and any other issues that arise from running unsupported software.

This isn’t a soft warning – it’s a hard deadline with real legal and security implications. Running an unsupported CMS exposes your organisation to unpatched vulnerabilities, compliance risks, and potential data breaches.

Weighing up your options

When a platform reaches end of life, you broadly have two paths:

Option 1: Upgrade to Xperience by Kentico

Kentico’s current offering is Xperience by Kentico, their modern SaaS platform. However, this isn’t a simple upgrade – it’s effectively a full reimplementation. The architecture is substantially different from Xperience 13, meaning significant redevelopment work, cost, and time, with no guarantee your existing customisations or integrations will carry over cleanly.

Option 2: Migrate to a different CMS

For many organisations, the forced migration is actually the perfect moment to reassess whether Kentico is still the right fit, or whether a more flexible, cost-effective platform might serve them better in the long run.

This is where Umbraco becomes a very compelling option.

Why Umbraco migration is worth considering

If you’re facing a rebuild either way, the question isn’t just how to migrate – it’s where to migrate to. Umbraco has become one of the most widely used alternatives to Kentico, particularly among UK organisations looking for a capable, open-source .NET CMS without the cost and complexity of a proprietary suite. The reasons are fairly practical:

Open source, lower total cost of ownership

Unlike Kentico’s proprietary SaaS model, Umbraco is built on an open-source foundation. You’re not locked into vendor-set pricing features you may not need. You start with a powerful CMS core and add capabilities as your strategy grows – rather than paying for a bundled suite from day one.

Flexibility and integration freedom

Umbraco web development is designed around integration. The platform connects naturally with the tools you already use, whether that’s a CRM, marketing automation platform, commerce solution, or analytics stack. 

Where Kentico’s suite approach bundles many of these capabilities in (and prices accordingly), Umbraco lets you choose the best tools for your organisation’s specific needs. For organisations with existing CRM infrastructure – Microsoft Dynamics 365, for instance – this kind of open approach to integration makes a significant practical difference.

A cleaner editor experience

Content editors consistently rate Umbraco highly for its intuitive, focused interface. It helps teams publish confidently without navigating unnecessary complexity – a real advantage for organisations where non-technical staff manage day-to-day content.

Faster time to value

According to G2 data, Umbraco website development projects typically go live in around four months – ahead of comparable CMS platforms. That’s a meaningful difference when you’re working against a deadline, but the benefits extend beyond simply meeting it: the same G2 data shows that 39% of Umbraco users see a return on investment within six months of launch. A shorter build cycle combined with lower licensing overhead means you start recouping your investment sooner than you would on a more expensive proprietary platform.

Predictable upgrades

One of the most frustrating aspects of the Kentico situation is the sense of being caught off guard by a major, unavoidable cost. Umbraco upgrades follow predictable release cycles, so you always know what’s coming and when – making forward planning and budgeting considerably more straightforward. On Umbraco Cloud, updates are managed for you entirely.

You can explore a detailed breakdown of the differences between the two platforms on Umbraco's comparison page. 

How Mentor Digital can help

Mentor Digital is a Bristol-based Umbraco Gold Partner and web development agency with over a decade of experience delivering Umbraco projects across a wide range of sectors. We’ve helped organisations including the National Governance Association, the National Deaf Children’s Society, and the Royal Town Planning Institute navigate Umbraco migration – and we know what a successful move looks like.

Long-term support – built into the way we work

One of the hard lessons organisations learn from situations like the Kentico end-of-life is that CMS upgrades can’t be an afterthought. That’s why we’ve developed an Extended SLA model specifically designed to take that risk off your plate.

Rather than being hit with a large, unexpected upgrade cost every few years, our clients pay a small additional monthly fee that is ring-fenced for future upgrade work. This means platforms stay current, budgets are predictable, and no organisation is ever left running unsupported software.

Throughout 2025, we ran a major Umbraco upgrade programme, helping clients move from older versions (some as far back as Umbraco 7) onto the latest Long Term Support releases – and we’re already preparing clients for the move to Umbraco 17 in 2026.

End-to-end digital support

Beyond Umbraco development, Mentor is a full-service digital agency offering everything your organisation needs to succeed online: CRM integration services, UX design consultancy, creative and branding, and digital marketing. Whether you’re looking to migrate your existing site or take the opportunity to rethink your digital experience from the ground up, we can support you at every stage.

Don’t leave it too late

With the deadline at the end of 2026, the time to start planning is now – not in Q4. Umbraco migrations take time to do properly, and the organisations that act early will have the luxury of considered decision-making rather than a rushed rebuild under pressure.