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Writing on content platforms.

Engineering notes, migration patterns, and how the practice of running content platforms actually runs — from the team building them.

Practice

Drupal 10 ends 9 December, and for most teams the last date to ship a change is in November

Drupal 10 reaches end of life on 9 December 2026. For most organisations the usable window closes weeks earlier, when the Q4 change freeze starts. What fits inside it, the checkpoints that say whether you are still on schedule, and why Drupal 7's three extensions do not set a precedent.

All articles

Writing from our team. Field notes on what we're learning while shipping content platforms.

Practice

Drupal 10 ends 9 December, and for most teams the last date to ship a change is in November

Drupal 10 reaches end of life on 9 December 2026. For most organisations the usable window closes weeks earlier, when the Q4 change freeze starts. What fits inside it, the checkpoints that say whether you are still on schedule, and why Drupal 7's three extensions do not set a precedent.

Practice

Sitecore Extended Support no longer includes security updates: what changed on 1 June 2026

Sitecore's updated support model has been in operation since 1 June 2026. Two line items moved out of the included column for the Extended Support phase: assistance with production incidents, and security updates and fixes. What the source says, what it leaves open, and what that means for XP 9.x through 10.5.

Practice

Contentful and Salesforce: what to do while the deal is open

The acquisition was signed on 1 June 2026 and has not closed; the expected window runs to 31 October. This is the action plan for the weeks in between: what to pull from your own contract now, the dated public signals to watch, and the conditions under which assessing an exit is warranted.

Practice

Your CMS is a GEO decision

You asked why ChatGPT never mentions you, and now you are being asked to fund GEO. AI assistants cite what they can retrieve, parse, and attribute, and your content platform decides all three. This is the architecture underneath AI visibility, and what to get right before you buy a tracking tool.

Practice

Salesforce has not yet acquired Contentful: what to audit before the deal closes

Salesforce signed a definitive agreement for Contentful on 1 June 2026. The deal has not closed, and the expected window runs to 31 October 2026. What can change, what your contract already says, what an exit would cost in months and money, and why most Contentful owners should stay and watch.

Migrations

Drupal 10 ends on 9 December 2026: upgrade to Drupal 11, wait for Drupal 12, or replatform

Drupal 10 reaches end of life on 9 December 2026, and security support for 10.5 and below has already ended. An honest framework for choosing between an in-place upgrade and a replatform, including the cases where staying on Drupal is the right call.

Migrations

Sanity vs Payload: a managed content platform or a backend you own?

Sanity and Payload both ship MIT code, but the products are structurally different: Sanity pairs an open-source Studio with a managed Content Lake you cannot self-host; Payload is a backend you run on your own database. Compared for 2026: architecture, pricing, roles, AI, and exit paths.

Practice

The European Accessibility Act is enforceable now: the audit to run before a legal notice does

On 12 November 2025, two French disability rights organisations filed the first EAA lawsuits in Europe, against four major retailers. The Act became enforceable on 28 June 2025. What it requires, who it applies to, and the audit to run on your own site before someone else runs it for you.

Migrations

Migrating from Joomla to Payload: a 2026 guide for Joomla 4 end of life

Joomla 4 reached end of life on 14 October 2025, with no further security updates. The vendor path is Joomla 5, and that is a real upgrade rather than a rebuild, which makes staying a strong option. A practical guide to the choice, and when a move to Payload is the better one.

Migrations

Migrating from TYPO3 to Payload: a 2026 guide for TYPO3 v12 end of free support

Free community support for TYPO3 v12 LTS ended on 30 April 2026. The real fork is three ways: upgrade to v13 or v14 LTS, buy paid ELTS as a bridge, or replatform. A practical guide to the options, what makes TYPO3 estates sticky, a TYPO3 to Payload migration, and when to stay.

Migrations

What to ask before choosing a new CMS or a migration partner

Two decisions sit inside every migration: which platform to move to, and who moves you. Each comes down to a handful of questions that surface the answer early. Here are the ones worth asking before you commit to either.

Migrations

A pre-migration checklist for non-technical teams

Most of what decides whether a CMS migration goes well happens on your side, before the technical work starts. This is the checklist for the non-technical team: what to prepare, decide, and write down so the project starts from solid ground.

Migrations

The hidden costs of staying on a legacy CMS

The licence fee is the part of a legacy CMS you can see. The larger costs sit off the invoice: the waiting, the workarounds, the risk, and the things you never ship. A buyer's guide to the spending nobody lines up in the budget.

Migrations

Five signs you've outgrown your CMS

Most teams stay on a CMS a year or two longer than they should, because the signs of outgrowing it are easy to explain away one at a time. Here are the five that tend to appear together, and what each one is really telling you.

Migrations

The dos and don'ts of a CMS migration

A CMS migration goes wrong in predictable ways and goes well in predictable ways. This is the buyer's list of what to insist on and what to refuse, drawn from the migrations we run, in language that does not assume you write code.

Practice

Content governance in a headless CMS: how institutions keep control without a monolith

Institutional buyers ask the same thing when they weigh leaving a monolithic CMS: how do you keep brand and compliance controls without the all-in-one platform that enforced them? Governance does not disappear, it moves into code, where it is explicit, versioned, and auditable. Drawn from real institutional builds.

Migrations

Migrating from AEM to Payload CMS: costs, steps, and trade-offs

Adobe Experience Manager's licensing and operational costs lead many mid-market teams to look at alternatives. This guide covers how to migrate from AEM to Payload CMS: what it costs, how long it takes, the step-by-step technical path, and the trade-offs the vendor pages skip.

Migrations

Migrating from Sitefinity to Payload: a 2026 guide for multi-brand teams

Progress Sitefinity licenses per production domain, so every brand site you run is another paid licence, and you still write most of the custom code yourself. This guide covers why teams move the content layer to Payload, how the migration works, what it costs, and when Sitefinity is worth keeping.

Migrations

Migrating from Wagtail: when Django teams should move to a JavaScript-native platform

The case for leaving Wagtail is rarely about Wagtail. It is about stack alignment: when the front end is React, when TypeScript engineers are easier to hire, and when the design-to-CMS gap slows delivery. This covers the triggers, the destinations, and when to stay.

Migrations

Webflow to Payload: when to move off the visual builder

Webflow is hard to beat for a marketing site, until the content grows structured, the editor seats add up, and you want the CMS in your own stack. This compares Webflow and Payload, shows how a migration works, and says when to stay put.

Migrations

Migrating from WordPress to Payload CMS: a high-level playbook

WordPress is the path of least resistance to get a content site online, and the path of most resistance once you outgrow it. This playbook maps the migration in five stages — extract, model, transform, load, redirect — and the rules at each step that keep content and SEO intact.

Practice

Payload CMS after the Figma acquisition: a stronger enterprise bet

Figma's acquisition of Payload strengthened the enterprise case. The MIT license, self-hosting, and full code ownership are unchanged, the original team still builds the product, and it now has a large company behind it. For an enterprise weighing Payload, the acquisition changes the calculus in Payload's favor.

Migrations

Strapi vs Payload: which open-source CMS wins for your team?

Strapi and Payload are both open-source, JavaScript-native headless CMSes, but not interchangeable. Strapi is GUI-driven, SQL-based, with the larger ecosystem; Payload is TypeScript-native, code-first, and runs inside Next.js.

Migrations

Migrating from Kentico to Payload: a 2026 guide for Kentico 13 end of life

Kentico Xperience 13 reaches end of life on December 31, 2026. Because moving to Xperience by Kentico is itself a rebuild, the real choice is rebuild on a licensed .NET platform or rebuild on a stack you own. A practical guide to migrating from Kentico to Payload: options, steps, cost, and when to stay.

Migrations

Migrating from Optimizely to Payload: a 2026 guide to unbundling the DXP

Optimizely is a full digital experience platform priced like one, often six figures a year before implementation. With CMS 11 now out of support, this guide helps you separate two questions before you renew: how much of the suite you actually use, and what moving the content layer to Payload would take.

Migrations

Migrating from Umbraco to Payload: a 2026 guide for teams off the upgrade treadmill

Every Umbraco major upgrade drags a .NET upgrade behind it, twice a year, and Umbraco 13 LTS loses support in December 2026. This guide walks through moving an Umbraco site to Payload: how document types become code, how content and SEO carry over, what it costs, and where staying on Umbraco makes sense.

Migrations

Leaving Sitecore for Payload CMS: the XM Cloud rebuild question

Many Sitecore teams are already facing a rebuild, because the move off Experience Platform onto XM Cloud is itself a headless rebuild. This guide treats that as a real choice of destination: what a move to Payload CMS costs, how the Sitecore extraction works, and where Sitecore is still the safer bet.

Migrations

Migrating from Drupal to Payload: a practical guide for higher-ed and government teams

Drupal 7 ended January 2025. Drupal 10 ends December 2026. For institutions now facing another migration decision, here's what moving to Payload actually involves, and how to decide whether it's the right call.

Migrations

Why we always track redirects from day one of a migration

Traffic drops after site migrations almost always trace back to the same thing: URLs that changed without proper redirects in place. The work to prevent it starts before a single URL moves.

Practice

Vendor renewal season: a pre-negotiation checklist for non-technical leaders

85% of vendor quotes are above fair market value. A pre-negotiation checklist to run 90 days before any significant contract renewal, including what most organizations skip.

Product

3 mistakes founders make in product discovery

Most founders run discovery, feel confident, and still build the wrong thing. Three mistakes explain how it happens.

Practice

The end of junior devs? Why AI makes mentorship more important, not less

Junior hiring has been falling since AI coding tools went mainstream. That logic optimises for current output while quietly eliminating the senior pipeline.

Design

The ROI of UX: what design quality does to your conversion rate

Every paid campaign has a hidden leak: the gap between visitors who land and visitors who convert. The difference usually comes down to friction.

Product

Why most startups overbuild their MVP

Founders build in private for months, convinced the product needs one more thing. What drives it is psychological, not strategic.

Migrations

Change without revolution: how to move 40 product teams off a legacy stack without a freeze

How to migrate 40 product teams off a legacy stack without a freeze, a reorg, or a leap of faith. The technical patterns and coordination model that make it work.

Migrations

When to migrate from Framer: five structural limits worth understanding

Five structural limits define when Framer stops scaling with the business: CMS collection caps, per-seat editor costs, no approval workflows, no content delivery API, and non-portable design tooling. A decision framework for growing teams.

Migrations

Per-seat, per-API-call, per-locale: the three pricing models bleeding mid-market budgets

Three pricing mechanics push mid-market CMS budgets two to three times above the original quote. How per-seat, per-API-call, and per-locale pricing actually compound, and what the organisations that figured this out do differently.

Migrations

The real 5-year TCO of staying on your current stack

The cost of staying on a legacy content platform compounds every year. A working model for the true 5-year TCO, including the four cost categories that never appear on the vendor invoice.

Engineering

The AI tax on legacy stacks: what every monolithic CMS will cost you in the agentic era

Gartner found a 1,445% surge in multi-agent AI inquiries. Legacy CMS architectures cannot support agentic systems, here is what that incompatibility costs you.

Practice

Fractional vs. full-time vs. agency-led: choosing the right outside leadership model

Most mid-market companies choose their tech leadership model before they've framed the actual decision. Here's a clearer way to think about it.

Practice

How to write a transformation brief that an outside partner can actually price

Vague briefs produce vague quotes. A five-section transformation brief gives outside partners what they need to price the work accurately and catch scope problems before the project starts.

Practice

Structured content as competitive moat: the audit you should run before any AI investment

Before you invest in AI, run this audit. Structured content is what AI retrieves, cites, and acts on. Seven questions to find out whether your content infrastructure is ready.

Practice

Why "AI-ready CMS" is mostly marketing and what actually matters

Every CMS vendor claims to be AI-ready. Most are marketing a Generate button. Here is what AI readiness actually requires and how to test for it.

Practice

The Illusion of Control: How Mid-Market Tech Estates Lose the Plot

Most mid-market technology organizations are not in control of their own systems. They have dashboards that suggest control. A diagnostic for executives who sense something is wrong but can't name it yet.

Practice

Are you running a tech company or a tech museum?

Twelve questions that reveal whether your technology estate is building forward or preserving the past. The maturity assessment every CEO should run.

Practice

The content layer problem nobody talks about before the AI pilot

Most enterprise AI pilots never reach production. The model is not the problem; the content layer is. A diagnostic for technology leaders whose pilots keep producing demos that never ship.

Practice

The bus factor audit: what if your top engineers quit?

If your three most senior engineers resigned tomorrow, what breaks? The bus factor audit every CEO should run, and what a low score means for company value.

Practice

Shadow stack: the SaaS subscriptions your CFO doesn't know you're paying for

Large enterprises run hundreds of SaaS subscriptions, and a meaningful share never passes through IT or procurement. The audit that surfaces what you're paying for, what you're not using, and what to do next.

Engineering

How to Hire React Native Developers: In-House vs Agency vs Freelance

You've decided to build with React Native. Now you need developers. After building apps since 2020, here's what actually determines which hiring model fits your situation.

Engineering

React Native vs Flutter in 2026: An Honest Comparison After 100+ Projects

In 2020, this was a real debate. Flutter's Skia rendering engine produced smoother animations. React Native's JavaScript bridge created occasional jank. In 2026? The New Architecture eliminated the bridge entirely.

Product

The Non-Technical Founder's Guide to Working With a Dev Agency

This guide covers everything you need to know to work effectively with a dev agency, even if you can't read a line of code.

Design

13 Best Framer Templates for Business Success in 2026 | Expert Picks

The top 13 Framer templates for businesses in 2026, picked for design quality and fit across industries, with prices and the creators behind each one.

Engineering

Atomic Design: Real-World Examples for Scalable UI/UX

Implement Atomic Design effectively. WAYF explores real-world examples and key takeaways for building scalable, consistent UI/UX systems.

Engineering

Codux Review: A Developer's Take on This Visual IDE

Is Codux the game-changing visual IDE for React development? WAYF explores its features, potential, and whether it lives up to the hype for developers.

Practice

Offshore Software Development Myths vs. Reality

Considering an offshore software partner? WAYF debunks common misconceptions to help you build effective global development teams and achieve project goals.

Design

Designing for All: Best Practices for Ensuring Web Accessibility and Enhanced User Experience

Create inclusive websites with WAYF's guide to web accessibility (a11y). Learn best practices for enhanced user experience and reaching a wider audience.

Design

Elevate Your Product Design Skills: 3 Actionable Steps for Designers

In today's digital landscape, the importance of UI/UX design for a product's success can't be overstated. Yet, its critical role can sometimes be overlooked or misunderstood.

Practice

How to Write Great Functional Specifications, According to Joel Spolsky

Master functional specifications for clearer software projects. WAYF shares Joel Spolsky's timeless advice for effective documentation and development.

Practice

Mastering Communication in Software Development: 9 Key Challenges and Effective Solutions

Bridge communication gaps in your software projects. WAYF identifies 9 key challenges in development teams and offers expert solutions for smoother collaboration.

Engineering

Next.js vs Remix: Choosing the Right React Framework

Next.js or Remix for your next project? WAYF compares these leading React frameworks to help you make an informed decision for your web application.

Practice

Choosing a Software Partner? Avoid These Common Costly Errors

Selecting an external software development partner is crucial. WAYF highlights common pitfalls to avoid ensuring you choose the right agency for your project's success.

Practice

Effective Communication for Software Teams: WAYF's Top Tips & Strategies

Boost productivity and collaboration in your software development team with WAYF's expert communication tips and proven strategies for success.

Practice

Beyond Task Completion: WAYF's Approach to Valuable Software Partnerships

Effective software development is more than just getting things done. WAYF explores how clear communication, strategic insight and true partnership deliver exceptional client value.

Product

7 Red Flags to Spot When Hiring a Software Development Agency

Choosing a software development partner is one of the most critical decisions a founder will make. After years in this industry, here are seven red flags to look for when choosing an agency.

Engineering

Tailwind CSS Edge Case: Implementing Toggles Effectively

Solving a common Tailwind CSS challenge: WAYF developers provide a practical guide to implementing UI toggles as an edge case for cleaner, efficient code.

Product

The 90-Day MVP Blueprint: A Founder's Guide to Launching Faster

Ready to build your MVP? Discover our 90-day blueprint, a strategic framework for launching with speed and focus. Learn how to avoid pitfalls and turn your idea into a successful product.

Engineering

Exploring Stable Diffusion: A WAYF Developer's Guide to AI Image Generation

Dive into AI image generation with Stable Diffusion. A WAYF developer shares first-hand experiences, creative insights, and potential for your projects.

Engineering

Strapi v3 Review: Powering Modern Headless CMS Solutions

Unlock flexible content management with Strapi v3. WAYF reviews this leading headless CMS and its capabilities for agile, modern web development projects.

Product

How Much Does It Cost to Build an App in 2025? (A Transparent Breakdown)

Wondering how much your app will cost? Get a real, transparent breakdown of app development costs for 2025. We cover the key factors, real-world price ranges, and hidden fees.

Voices

What it's like to work with us. Three pulls from longer reviews.

View all reviews
  • Reactive despite being in different timezones (US/EU). Capable to work from a brief and bring new ideas — and quick to bring them to life.

    Nicolas Garnier Operator in Residence Primary VC
  • They were instrumental in recovering our product from the abyss and preparing it for launch.

    Anonymous Founder Seed-stage UK B2B SaaS
  • They consistently step in to support us, even with last-minute requests. The collaboration feels seamless and genuinely enjoyable.

    Sofia Fominova Co-founder Net0

We're booking content platform
engagements for 2026.

Twenty-five minutes to walk through the work and decide if we're the right team for it. Scoping and a fixed price come after.