Planning Sitecore Migration: Things to consider

Migrating a website or upgrading to a new Sitecore platform is more than a technical lift — it’s a business transformation and an opportunity to align your site and platform with your business goals and take full advantage of Sitecore’s capabilities. A good migration protects functionality, reduces risk, and creates an opportunity to improve user experience, operational efficiency, and measurable business outcomes.

Before jumping to the newest version or the most hyped architecture, pause and assess. Start with a thorough discovery: review current architecture, understand what kind of migration is required, and decide what can realistically be reused versus what should be refactored or rebuilt, along with suitable topology and Sitecore products.

This blog expands the key considerations before committing to a Sitecore-specific migration, translating them into detailed, actionable architecture decisions and migration patterns that guide impactful implementation.

1) Clarifying client requirements

Before starting any Sitecore migration or implementation, it’s crucial to clarify client’s requirements thoroughly. This ensures the solution aligns with actual business needs, not just technical requests and helps avoid rework or misaligned outcomes.

Scope goes beyond just features: Don’t settle for “migrate this” as the requirement. Ask deeper questions to shape the right migration strategy:

• Business goals: Is the aim a redesign, conversion uplift, version upgrade, multi-region rollout, or compliance?
• Functional scope: Are we redesigning the entire site or specific flows like checkout/login, or making back office changes?
• Non-functional needs: What are the performance SLAs, uptime expectations, compliance (e.g.: PCI/GDPR), and accessibility standards?
• Timeline: Is a phased rollout preferred, or a big-bang launch?

Requirements can vary widely, from full redesigns using Sitecore MVC or headless (JSS/Next.js), to performance tuning (caching, CDN, media optimization), security enhancements (role-based access, secure publishing), or integrating new business flows into Sitecore workflows.
Sometimes, the client may not fully know what’s needed, it’s up to us to assess the current setup and recommend improvements. Don’t assume the ask equals the need, A full rewrite isn’t always the best path. A focused pilot or proof of value can deliver better outcomes and helps validate the direction before scaling.

2) Architecture of the client’s system

Migration complexity varies significantly based on what the client is currently using. You need to evaluate current system and its uses and reusability.

Key Considerations

• If the client is already on Sitecore, the version matters. Older versions may require reworking the content model, templates, and custom code to align with modern Sitecore architecture (e.g.: SXA, JSS).
• If the client is not on Sitecore, evaluate their current system, infrastructure, and architecture. Identify what can be reused—such as existing servers(in case of on-prem), services, or integrations—to reduce effort.
• Legacy systems often include deprecated APIs, outdated connectors, or unsupported modules, which increase technical risk and require reengineering.
• Historical content, such as outdated media, excessive versioning, or unused templates, can bloat the migration. It’s important to assess what should be migrated, cleaned, or archived.
• Map out all customizations, third-party integrations, and deprecated modules to estimate the true scope, effort, and risk involved.
• Understanding the current system’s age, architecture, and dependencies is essential for planning a realistic and efficient migration path.

3) Media Strategy

When planning a Sitecore migration or upgrade, media handling can lead to major performance issues post-launch. These areas are critical for user experience, scalability, and operational efficiency, so they need attention early in the planning phase. Digital Asset Management (DAM) determines how assets are stored, delivered, and governed.

Key Considerations

• Inventory: Assess media size, formats, CDN references, metadata, and duplicates. Identify unused assets, and plat to adopt modern formats (e.g., WebP).
• Storage Decisions: Analyze and decide whether assets stay in Sitecore Media Library, move to Content Hub, or use other cloud storage (Azure Blob, S3)?
• Reference Updates: Plan for content reference updates to avoid broken links.

4) Analytics, personalization, A/B testing, and forms

These features often carry stateful data and behavioral dependencies that can easily break during migration if not planned for. Ignoring them can lead to data loss and degraded user experience.

Key Considerations

• Analytics: Check if xDB, Google Analytics, or other trackers are in use? Decide how historical analytics data will be preserved, validated, and integrated into the new environment?
• Personalization: Confirm use of Sitecore rules, xConnect collections, or an external personalization engine. Plan to migrate segments, conditions, and audience definitions accurately.
• A/B Testing & Experiments: Draft a plan to export experiment definitions and results is present.
• Forms: Analyze which forms collects data, and how do they integrate with CRM or marketing automation?

Above considerations play important role in choosing Sitecore topology, if there is vast use of analytics XP makes a suitable option, forms submission consent flows have different approach in different topologies.

5) Search Strategy

Search is critical for user experience, and a migration is the right time to reassess whether your current search approach still makes sense.

Key Considerations

• Understand how users interact with the site, Is search a primary navigation tool or a secondary feature? Does it significantly impact conversion or engagement?
• Identify current search engine if any. Access its features, if advanced capabilities like AI recommendations, synonyms, or personalization being used effectively.
• If the current engine is underutilized, note that maintaining it may add unnecessary cost and complexity. If search is business-critical, ensure feature parity or enhancement in the new architecture.
• Future Alignment:  Based on requirements, determine whether the roadmap supports:

• • Sitecore Search (SaaS) for composable and cloud-first strategies.
  • Solr for on-prem or PaaS environments.
  • Third-party engines for enterprise-wide search needs.

6) Integrations, APIs & Data Flows

Integrations are often the hidden complexity in Sitecore migrations. They connect critical business systems, and any disruption can lead to post-go-live incidents. For small, simple content-based sites with no integrations, migrations tend to be quick and straightforward. However, for more complex environments, it’s essential to analyze all layers of the architecture to understand where and how data flows. This includes:

Key Considerations

• Integration Inventory: List all synchronous and asynchronous integrations, including APIs, webhooks, and data pipelines. Some integrations may rely on deprecated endpoints or legacy SDKs that need refactoring.
• Criticality & Dependencies: Identify mission-critical integrations (e.g.: CRM, ERP, payment gateways).
• Batch & Scheduled Jobs: Audit long-running processes, scheduled exports, and batch jobs. Migration may require re-scheduling or re-platforming these jobs.
• Security & Compliance: Validate API authentication, token lifecycles, and data encryption. Moving to SaaS or composable may require new security patterns.

7) Identify Which Sitecore offerings are in use — and to what extent?

Before migration, it’s essential to document the current Sitecore ecosystem and evaluate what the future state should look like. This determines whether the path is a straight upgrade or a transition to a composable stack.

Key Considerations

• Current Topology: Is the solution running on XP or XM? Assume that XP features (xDB, personalization) may not be needed if moving to composable.
• Content Hub: Check if DAM or CMP is in use. If not, consider whether DAM is required for centralized asset management, brand consistency, and omnichannel delivery.
• Sitecore Personalize & CDP: Assess if personalization is currently rule-based or if advanced testing and segmentation are required.
• OrderCloud: If commerce capabilities exist today or are planned in the near future.

Target Topologies

This is one of the most critical decisions is choosing the target architecture. This choice impacts infrastructure, licensing, compliance, authoring experience, and long-term scalability. It’s not just a technical decision—it’s a business decision that shapes your future operating model.

Key Considerations

• Business Needs & Compliance: Does your organization require on-prem hosting for regulatory reasons, or can you move to SaaS for agility?
• Authoring Experience: Will content authors need Experience Editor, or is a headless-first approach acceptable?
• Operational Overhead: How much infrastructure management can team handle post-migration?
• Integration Landscape: Are there tight integrations with legacy systems that require full control over infrastructure?

Architecture Options & Assumptions

Along with topology its important to consider hosting and frontend delivery platform. Lets look at available hosting options with their pros and cons:

• On-Prem(XM/XP): You can build the type of machine that you want.
  • Pros: Maximum control, full compliance for regulated industries, and ability to integrate with legacy systems.
  • Cons: High infrastructure cost, slower innovation, and manual upgrades, difficult to scale.
  • Best For: Organizations with strict data residency, air-gapped environments, or regulatory mandates.
  • Future roadmap may require migration to cloud, so plan for portability.
• PaaS (Azure App Services, Managed Cloud – XM/XP)
  • Pros: Minimal up-front costs and you do not need to be concerned about the maintenance of the underlying machine.
  • Cons: Limited choice of computing options and functionality.
  • Best For: Organizations expecting to scale vertically and horizontally, often and quickly
• IaaS (Infrastructure as a service – XM/XP)
  • This is same as on-premise, but with VMs you can tailor servers to meet your exact requirements.
• SaaS (XM Cloud)
  • Pros: Zero infrastructure overhead, automatic upgrades, global scalability.
  • Cons: Limited deep customization at infra level.
  • Best For: Organizations aiming for composable DXP and agility.
  • Fully managed by Sitecore (SaaS).

For development, you have different options for example: .Net MVC, .Net Core, Next JS, React. Depending on topology suggested, selection of frontend delivery can be hybrid or headless:

.NET MVC → For traditional, web-only application.
Headless → For multi-channel, composable, SaaS-first strategy.
.NET Core Rendering → For hybrid modernization with .NET.

8) Security, Compliance & Data Residency

Security is non-negotiable during any Sitecore migration or upgrade. These factors influence architecture, hosting choices and operational processes.

Key Considerations

• Authentication & Access: Validate SSO, SAML/OAuth configurations, API security, and secrets management. Assume that identity providers or token lifecycles may need reconfiguration in the new environment.
• Compliance Requirements: Confirm obligations like PCI, HIPAA, GDPR, Accessibility and regional privacy laws. Assume these will impact data storage, encryption, and as AI is in picture now a days it will even have impact on development workflow.
• Security Testing: Plan for automated vulnerability scans(decide tools you going to use for the scans) and manual penetration testing as part of discovery and pre go-live validation.

9) Performance

A migration is the perfect opportunity to identify and fix structural performance bottlenecks, but only if you know your starting point. Without a baseline, it’s impossible to measure improvement or detect regressions.

Key Considerations

• Baseline Metrics: Capture current performance indicators like TTFB (Time to First Byte), LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift), throughput, and error rates. These metrics will guide post-migration validation and SLA commitments.
• Caching & Delivery: Document existing caching strategies, CDN usage, and image delivery methods. Current caching patterns may need reconfiguration in the new architecture.
• Load & Stress Testing: Define peak traffic scenarios and plan load testing tools with Concurrent Users and Requests per Second.

10) Migration Strategies

Choosing the right migration strategy is critical to balance risk, cost, and business continuity. There’s no one size fits all approach—your suggestion/choice depends on timeline, technical debt and operational constraints.

Common Approaches

• • Lift & Shift
    Move the existing solution as is with minimal changes.
    This is low-risk migrations where speed is the priority. When the current solution is stable and technical debt is manageable.
    However with this approach the existing issues and inefficiencies stays as is which can be harmful.

• • Phased (Module-by-Module)
    Migrate critical areas first (e.g.: product pages, checkout) and roll out iteratively.
    This can be opted for large, complex sites where risk needs to be minimized, when business continuity is critical.
    With this approach, timelines are longer and requires dual maintenance during transition.

• • Rewrite & Cutover
    Rebuild the solution from scratch and switch over at once.
    This is can be chosen when the current system doesn’t align with future architecture. When business wants a clean slate for modernization.

Above options can be suggested based on several factors whether business tolerate downtime or dual maintenance. What are the Timelines, What’s the budget. If the current solution worth preserving, or is a rewrite inevitable? Does the strategy align with future goals?

Final Thoughts

Migrating to Sitecore is a strategic move that can unlock powerful capabilities for content management, personalization, and scalability. However, success lies in the preparation. By carefully evaluating your current architecture, integration needs and team readiness, you can avoid common pitfalls and ensure a smoother transition. Taking the time to plan thoroughly today will save time, cost, and effort tomorrow setting the stage for a future-proof digital experience platform.

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