Kentico Xperience 13 ends in 2027. Switch to Umbraco 17: no licence costs, built-in AI and an affordable migration. Request a free scan at ZAAKS!
July 20, 2026
In short: Kentico Xperience 13 is being phased out. From 2026 you only get security fixes, and on 1 January 2027 it is completely finished. So you have to migrate anyway.
In short: Kentico Xperience 13 is being phased out. From 2026 you only get security fixes, and on 1 January 2027 it is completely finished. So you have to migrate anyway. And if you have to build again anyway, why not go straight to a CMS without annual licence costs, with cheaper help and with AI that is really built in? That is Umbraco 17.
Let us put the facts on the table. Kentico Xperience 13 is in the last phase of its life. In 2026 there will only be security fixes, no new features, no real updates. From 1 January 2027 Kentico stops everything: support, maintenance, patches, including the security fixes. If you are still running on 13 after that, you are running on software that nobody maintains anymore. For compliance that is a problem, and for your peace of mind too.
The answer you hear from Kentico is: switch to Xperience by Kentico, their new platform. Sounds logical. But what they do not tell you: that switch is not a simple upgrade. It is a rebuild. New architecture, content set up again, templates made again, integrations connected again. For an average project you are looking at three to six months, and for larger custom sites more like six to twelve.
And that is exactly the point. If you have to do everything again anyway, you are not stuck with Kentico. Then you may choose. This is the moment to ask: is this still the platform that fits us, and our budget?
Kentico works with licences. You pay per year for the right to use it, and those costs rise as you want more. With Xperience by Kentico you are in that model again, with a price that comes back every year whether you use the platform intensively or not.
Umbraco is open source. The core costs you nothing in licence fees. Zero. You pay for the build, for hosting and for the maintenance you choose yourself, but not for an annual sticker on your CMS. For many organisations that makes a substantial difference over a few years, money you would rather put into your website or into your people than into a licence.
If you still want the commercial extras such as Umbraco Cloud or Umbraco Engage, that is possible, but it is a choice and not an obligation. You decide yourself what you pay for.
Let us make it concrete. A Kentico licence currently costs you roughly 11,000 euros per year for the self-managed variant, and towards 22,000 euros per year if you take the SaaS version. Every year again. Purely for the right to use the platform, before anyone has changed even a single letter of code for you.
Take a period of five years. Then at Kentico you spend about 55,000 to 110,000 euros on the licence alone. At Umbraco that line item is zero.
And now the nice part. Say that with Umbraco you put that same money into real maintenance and further development, for example 30,000 euros over those five years. At a rate of 50 euros per hour, well below the usual Dutch hourly rate, that is about 600 hours of building work. Six hundred hours in which we improve, extend and make your site smarter. At Kentico you pay more in that same period for the bare licence, and then you have not had anything built yet.
To be sharp about it: at Kentico you pay in order to be allowed. At Umbraco you pay in order to get something. The amounts are indicative and depend on your situation, but the direction is crystal clear.
We like clarity. No quotes with hidden line items, just honest guide prices.
A migration or upgrade to Umbraco 17 does not have to be expensive. For an average website you are between 2000 and 4000 euros, depending on the complexity. A complete new Umbraco website based on an HTML template starts at 2500 euros. If you want your own design, you go towards 5000 euros, and then you really have something. We do a user training for your editors from about 350 euros for an hour and a half.
But many Kentico installations are not an ordinary website. Often there is a portal underneath, a members application, an intranet, a customer environment with login or a platform with connections to other systems. We do not give a price off the cuff for that, because that would be unfair. As a guide: a closed portal or members application usually starts around 10,000 euros, and more complex systems with a lot of custom work, roles and integrations rise as more logic and connections are added. What it becomes exactly depends on your situation.
Compare that with a Kentico project plus an annual licence. We are happy to take on that comparison.
And we are clear about this: we come by for free. Together we look at your current Kentico environment, map the content, connections and functionality and then make a detailed estimate. No costs up front, no obligations. Only when you know where you stand and think it is a good idea do we get started.
This is where it really gets interesting. Umbraco 17 is built on .NET 10 and runs as an LTS version through to 2028. But the big news is in AI.
Umbraco calls itself an AI enabler, and that is not marketing talk. Version 17 includes an official MCP server with which AI can talk directly to your backoffice. That means an agent can look up, create or adjust content, neatly within your own environment. Editors will soon get a co-pilot that thinks along instead of them clicking everything manually.
And that is exactly our thing. At ZAAKS! we build AI packages and custom work ourselves that connect seamlessly to Umbraco. Service agents, chatbots, workflows, digital colleagues that help your visitors. Where with Kentico you have to wait for what the supplier grants you, on Umbraco 17 we can build what you need. Because it is open source and neatly extensible, with headless and hybrid endpoints that AI hooks into easily.
Put bluntly: at Kentico you pay for a closed package. With Umbraco 17 you get an open foundation where AI is already baked in, and an agency that builds with it every day.
One more that is often forgotten. Search traffic is shifting to AI. People ask ChatGPT and other agents for an answer instead of trawling through ten blue links. We build all our websites SEO and GEO proof, so that you are found not only by Google but also by AI agents. That is standard in our approach, not as an expensive extra.
We were the first agency in the Netherlands to specialise in Umbraco, and after 25 years of building we are still convinced of it: this is the best CMS. We work pragmatically, without fuss and without woolly language. Give us your designs and specifications and we will quietly but extremely hard get to work for you.
And you do not have to do it alone. A migration often affects more parties: your hosting party, your current supplier, a design agency, the people who manage your connections. We take that direction. We liaise directly with everyone involved, keep the lines short and make sure everything fits together. You do not have to play the intermediary who sends messages back and forth. We take that fuss off your hands, so that you can get on with your own work.
You have to leave Kentico anyway. Do not let it become a compulsory exercise, but an upgrade that makes your website better, cheaper and smarter.
Do I really have to leave Kentico Xperience 13? In 2026 you only get security fixes, and on 1 January 2027 all support stops. Your site does not fall over immediately, but you are no longer compliant and you run a security risk. Switching is therefore a question of when, not whether.
Is Umbraco 17 cheaper than Kentico? You save the most on licences, because the Umbraco core is open source and costs no annual licence. A migration to Umbraco 17 usually costs between 2000 and 4000 euros with us, without recurring licence costs afterwards.
Can my Kentico content come along to Umbraco? Yes. We look at your current site, map the content and structure and migrate that to Umbraco 17. Request a free migration scan and you know exactly where you stand.
What can Umbraco 17 do with AI? Umbraco 17 has an official MCP server with which AI works with your backoffice, plus room for co-pilots, agents and workflows. We build custom work and packages on top of that ourselves, from chatbots to digital colleagues.
How long does a migration to Umbraco 17 take? That depends on the complexity and the number of connections. For an ordinary site you are talking about weeks, not months. For large custom platforms we plan it together in phases.
Ready to get away from that Kentico obligation story? Call 030-2769146 or email melvin@zaaks.nl for a free Umbraco 17 scan.
