Choose Kentico if
Marketing suite in one licence
Marketers want page building, personalization and email in one place, and you prefer one vendor for the whole platform.
Kentico vs Umbraco:commercial DXP or open-source CMS?
Both run on .NET and both are popular with .NET teams. The difference is the business model. Xperience by Kentico is a commercial DXP that bundles content, page building, email and marketing features in one licence. Umbraco is a free, open-source CMS, with paid hosting on Umbraco Cloud and paid add-ons for forms, workflow and personalization.
Written by an official Kentico partner that also delivers Umbraco consulting. We are not an Umbraco partner, so read the Kentico wins with that in mind. Every claim below links to vendor documentation.
vs
TL;DR
The honest short answer
Kentico fits when marketing needs a complete toolset in one product: page building, contact management, personalization and email, with one vendor to call. You pay a commercial licence for that.
Umbraco fits when you want a flexible, open-source .NET CMS with a low entry cost, published hosting prices and full ownership of the code. Marketing features such as personalization come as paid add-ons, and email lives in another tool.
Choose Umbraco if
Open, flexible, lower entry cost
Your needs are mostly content and publishing, your .NET team wants full control, and budget favours open source.
12-dimension matrix
| Dimension | Kentico | Umbraco |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Commercial, channel-based (website, email, headless) in Standard or Advanced tiers. Quote-based | WinnerUmbraco CMS is free and open source under the MIT licence |
| Managed hosting pricing | Kentico SaaS on Azure, priced by quote | WinnerUmbraco Cloud published at €45, €280 and €730 per month, Enterprise on quote |
| Canadian hosting | SaaS lists Canada Central and Canada East Azure regions | Umbraco Cloud offers a Central Canada region since April 2025 |
| Architecture | One ASP.NET Core application with built-in admin and Page Builder | ASP.NET Core CMS built to be extended in code, self-hosted or on Umbraco Cloud |
| Page building for marketers | WinnerPage Builder with widgets and sections on the page layout | Block Grid and Block List editors in the back office, with preview |
| Marketing features | WinnerContact management, forms, personalization and campaigns built in | Forms, Workflow and Engage sold as paid add-ons |
| Personalization and testing | Rule-based personalization with contact groups, included | Engage add-on adds analytics, profiling, personalization and A/B testing, from €5,100 per year |
| Email marketing | WinnerEmail channel built into the platform | Handled by a third-party tool |
| AI features | AIRA agentic marketing suite, including AI translation | AI in Umbraco add-ons with your choice of model provider, an editor copilot, agents and semantic search |
| Headless options | Hybrid headless delivery through GraphQL | WinnerContent Delivery API in the CMS, plus Heartcore (headless SaaS) and Compose (composable SaaS) |
| Upgrades and support lifecycle | WinnerMonthly refreshes on Xperience by Kentico, without major version upgrades | LTS releases with three years of support (Umbraco 17 until November 2028) and STS releases between them |
| Exit and vendor dependence | A licence is required to keep running the platform | WinnerOpen-source code you can host anywhere and keep |
When to choose each
Choose Kentico
If marketing runs on the platform
- Marketers need page building, personalization and email in one tool
- You want contact data and campaign activity in the same system as content
- You prefer one vendor for licence, hosting and support
- You want monthly updates instead of planning major version upgrades
- You plan to use packaged AI for content and translation
- You are on Kentico Xperience 13 and want the most direct upgrade path
Choose Umbraco
If content and control come first
- Your site is mostly content and publishing, with light marketing needs
- Your .NET team wants full control of the code and the hosting
- Budget favours a free CMS licence and published hosting prices
- You already use a separate tool for email and marketing automation
- You want to choose your own AI model provider
- You want an exit path that does not depend on a vendor licence
If you need to switch
From Umbraco to Kentico
Adding built-in marketing features
- Map Umbraco document types and blocks to Kentico content types and widgets
- Script content and media migration, since there is no packaged tool for this path
- Rebuild templates as Page Builder sections and widgets
- Move forms and set up contact management and personalization
- Connect or replace your email tool with Kentico's email channel
- Plan redirects and SEO checks before cutover
Main effort driver: the number of content types, languages and custom packages to move
From Kentico to Umbraco
Moving to an open-source CMS
- List the Kentico marketing features you use and choose replacements (Engage, a marketing automation tool)
- Model document types and blocks in Umbraco
- Script content and media migration
- Rebuild templates and forms
- Choose hosting: Umbraco Cloud plan or your own Azure
- Plan redirects and SEO checks before cutover
Main effort driver: the number of content types, languages and custom packages to move
Common questions
Is Umbraco really free?
The CMS is, under the MIT licence. You still pay for hosting (Umbraco Cloud starts at €45 per month, see Umbraco Cloud pricing), for any paid add-ons you need, and for implementation and maintenance. Compare three-year totals with Kentico, not licence lines alone.
Can Umbraco do personalization and A/B testing?
Yes, with the Umbraco Engage add-on, which adds analytics, profiling, personalization and A/B testing. Full packages start at €5,100 per year (Umbraco Engage). Kentico includes rule-based personalization in the platform.
We are on Umbraco 13. What now?
Umbraco 13 reaches end of life on December 14, 2026. Umbraco 17 is the current long-term support release, on .NET 10, supported until November 27, 2028 (Umbraco LTS). An upgrade is a good time to confirm Umbraco still fits.
We are on Kentico Xperience 13. What now?
Kentico Xperience 13 reaches end of support on December 31, 2026 (Kentico upgrade). The direct path is Xperience by Kentico with the Kentico Migration Tool. If you mainly publish content and use few marketing features, Umbraco is worth pricing too. A Kentico audit shows what you actually use.
Which one has better AI features?
They take different routes. Kentico's AIRA packages AI into marketing tasks such as content and translation (Kentico AIRA). AI in Umbraco is a set of add-ons that let you pick your model provider and add a copilot, agents and semantic search (AI in Umbraco). Kentico is more ready to use, Umbraco more open.
Can both host our data in Canada?
Yes. Kentico SaaS lists the Canada Central and Canada East Azure regions, and Umbraco Cloud added a Central Canada region in April 2025. Both can also be self-hosted on your own Azure tenant.
Still weighing Kentico and Umbraco?
Tell us how your marketing team works and what your .NET team maintains today. We will tell you which platform fits and what the move would take.
