Monolith-Migration

What is monolith migration?

At Magnolia DXP, we define monolith migration as the planned move from an all-in-one suite, such as Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) or Sitecore, to a composable Digital Experience Platform (DXP). Content, templates, and integrations move in stages, and your teams keep publishing during the move. Magnolia DXP combines a modular platform you govern with a migration path that is automated where the work repeats and expert-led where it doesn't.

Navigating a move off your monolith

Welcome to the Magnolia DXP monolith migration hub. If your suite is costly to run, slow to change, or tied to a vendor's release cycle, you face a trade-off: stay and carry the cost, or move and carry the risk. We built this hub to show how you can remove that trade-off.

Start with our explanation of why migrating to Magnolia DXP doesn't have to be a multi-year risk, then see how Infosys automates AEM to Magnolia DXP migrations. Our consulting team breaks down the real total cost of ownership of composable and monolithic DXPs, lays out an expert guide to legacy CMS migration, which also points to our partner Noice's AI Migration Accelerator, and explains why developers are seeking monolith alternatives. For the architecture view, a recap of a Magnolia NEXT session shows how Salling Group moved from monolith to services by consolidating seven separate platforms. Ready to plan your own move? Our Migrate from your monolith page is the place to begin. Looking for the full journey, from planning to go-live? Visit our migration hub.

Automate the repeatable work with Magnolia Navigator

Magnolia Navigator is our migration program for moving sites to Magnolia DXP. It pairs software with expert support. Automation and AI assistance, built on third-party models, handle repeatable work such as code translation and content mapping. Magnolia experts handle custom logic, integrations, and fine-tuning, so people stay in the loop where judgment matters. In a proof of concept, Navigator delivered 59% faster and needed 66% less human effort. It reached 1:1 visual parity in two iterations on average, as we explain in our Navigator post. Navigator works alongside your implementation partner, who stays focused on architecture and experience design.

Partners bring their own tools too. Noice offers its AI Migration Accelerator. The Infosys CMS Automigrator, a separate Infosys tool, moves AEM content in four phases: assets, content, code, and page authoring. Infosys reports a 50% cut in person-days in its article on automating AEM to Magnolia DXP migrations.

The results show at scale. Sanofi moved from Sitecore to Magnolia DXP and migrated about 300 websites in under two years, including 70 sites with more than 7,000 pages in under two months. In our webinar with Jabil, the manufacturer explains why it replaced AEM and why the move to Magnolia DXP went more smoothly than expected.

Lower the cost of ownership with a modular platform

A suite's license fee is only part of what it costs you. Magnolia DXP lets you pay for the modules you use and reduces implementation, staffing, and forced-upgrade costs. Our analysis of the real total cost of ownership draws on partner experience. Partners report that clients use only 20 to 30% of what clients pay for in a monolith. In a cost comparison, our partner TBSCG found that building on a monolith cost two to three times more than implementing Magnolia DXP. Compare the two platforms side by side on our Magnolia vs. Adobe Experience Manager page.

Customers see the difference. Helloworld Travel moved from a monolithic DXP to Magnolia DXP, migrating about 400 microsites and 280,000 pages in three months, as shown in our Sitecore migration white paper. Magnolia DXP cost less than its existing implementation, and Helloworld retired its former platform sooner than expected. Texas State University replaced a proprietary CMS and moved more than 300 websites onto Magnolia DXP. The university needs fewer servers and reports lower annual CMS costs. Jabil also consolidated its intranet, which ran on SharePoint, and its careers site onto Magnolia DXP, so it no longer manages three separate platform contracts.

Give developers control of the code

Developers move faster when the toolchain is open and the code is yours. Magnolia DXP offers a command-line interface (CLI), low-code YAML configuration, and both headless and hybrid delivery. As we explain in why developers are seeking monolith alternatives, this shortens onboarding. Our partner Noice reports that its developers became productive on Magnolia DXP in less than a week.

Control also means ownership. At Jabil, the code lives in the company's own Git account, and a team of three developers and a project manager runs the main website plus a dozen others. Nolte Küchen moved from a rigid Sitecore monolith to a headless, composable architecture on Magnolia DXP. Its two domains now run from one dashboard. Air Canada Vacations replaced a legacy Hybris CMS that had become unstable after years of customization. With partner Solutions CTC, it gained steadier server performance and faster campaign delivery.

Speed up authoring with governed templates

Marketing speed and brand governance don't have to compete. Magnolia DXP locks fonts, layouts, and components into templates, so authors can update pages without breaking the brand. Jabil gives 40 or so authors access across its sites, and a first training session takes about 30 minutes. MOO saw editors create pages seven times faster and cut developer time spent on new pages by 90%. Translation into four languages takes less than half the time.

Helan, a Belgian health insurer, replaced its Sitecore platform with a new Magnolia DXP website after a merger of three insurers. Its Product Owner estimates integrators gained at least 30% of their time. Stadtwerke München moved from a proprietary CMS that needed two full-time administrators and at least a week of author training. The utility reports that training and administration costs dropped sharply.

Migrate in phases, not in one big bang

You can move one site, one region, or one brand at a time. Our migration guide for Adobe Experience Manager sets out two routes: a standard migration with 14 steps that rebuilds components natively, and a hybrid architecture with 9 steps that reuses AEM content and components through an integration adapter.

Customers have taken both phased and parallel paths. R+V Versicherung ran its old and new systems in mixed operation, so visitors noticed no changeover, while more than 400 local agency websites moved into separate backend areas. R+V24 replaced its unmaintained Teamsite CMS and migrated 650 text pages and more than 2,000 files. Migros piloted the move with its main corporate website within six months. Meliá Hotels International replaced a monolithic Java application with a proprietary CMS. Within about a month of go-live, roughly 350 hotels and 500 users were trained, and teams created 40 landing pages in the first week.

Featured resources

Plan your move with our guides, comparisons, and migration offer:

The migration guide: Choose between a standard migration and a hybrid architecture, each with a phased checklist, in [Migrate from Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) to Magnolia DXP.

The platform comparison: See how the two platforms compare on licensing, architecture, and migration support on Migrate from AEM to Magnolia DXP.

The migration offer: Learn how Magnolia Navigator combines automation, AI assistance, and expert support on our AI-powered migration page.

The migration hub: Start your planning on Migrate from your monolith, where the business case, the technical guide, and a discovery call come together.