Kentico is sunsetting support for older versions of their platform. Why have they chosen to go this route, and what does this mean for you?
While a shift such as this if you're running on older versions of Kentico's products can feel disruptive, the shift reflects important industry trends and has long-term benefits that you can take advantage of if you choose to upgrade to Xperience by Kentico.
To understand this shift, let's first look at the "why" behind Kentico's choice to stop support for their older, legacy products:
1. Technology has changed - dramatically.
Even between Kentico 12 (released in 2018) and today, the underlying technology ecosystem has transformed:
- .NET Framework is now legacy. Modern platforms run on .NET Core/ .NET 6-8.
- Cloud-native architectures and microservices are now standard.
- Front-end development continues to evolve into platforms such as React, Vue, modern JS bundlers and headless architectures.
- Security protocols, encryption standards and API practices all have tightened
Maintaining backward compatibility across such a wide technology gap becomes increasingly impractical. Kentico's new Xperience platform is built for a modern tech stack; something that earlier versions can't support without major re-engineering.
2. Security requirements are higher than ever.
Older CMS versions inevitably become harder to secure for a number of reasons, including:
- Third-party dependancies and libraries reach end-of-life.
- Older .NET framework versions no longer receive updates.
- Attackers increasingly target outdated CMS platforms.
- Patch development becomes slower and riskier on legacy codebases.
To ensure your website remains protected, Kentico must focus it's security efforts on their current platform. Continuing to patch outdated architecture would create vulnerabilities for both Kentico and you, it's customer.
3. Legacy versions limit future innovation.
Every hour spent fixing bugs or maintaining depreciated featured for outdated versions of Kentico's platform is an hour not spent improving their current products. Ending support allows Kentico to:
- Invest more heavily in it's newest CMS and DXP capabilities, including AI features and functionality.
- Improve performance, scalability and editing workflows
- Enhance integrations and personalization features
- Roll out modern APIs and headless or hybrid options.
Dropping older versions of it's platform helps accelerate product innovation and ensures that you have a forward-looking platform.
4. A Cleaner Product Roadmap Benefits Everyone
Software vendors like Kentico need a clear architecture and product vision to provide the best tools for you, the end user. Maintaining multiple generations of CMS code creates fragmentation, complexity, and slower release cycles. By moving forward with a unified, modern platform, Kentico can:
Standardize on a single supported framework
Provide more reliable long-term support windows
Offer clearer upgrade paths for customers
Deliver consistent documentation and best practices
This clarity ultimately leads to a better user experience—especially for teams planning multi-year DXP investments.
5. Customer Demand Has Shifted Toward Modern DXPs
It's no secret that at with pace that technology and innovation are moving, that organizations today want faster performance and more frequent updates and improvements to their tools. Kentico's move to Xperience will do this, and more - including:
Integration-ready architecture
Cloud hosting options
Modern editing tools
Improved deployment workflows
And personalization and marketing automation that feels current
Older Kentico versions can’t deliver these at a competitive level. Most customers prefer to invest in a platform that will remain supported, secure, and feature-rich for years to come.
Kentico is responding to this market shift by focusing on Xperience by Kentico as its flagship DXP.
6. Support Costs Increase Exponentially Over Time
As versions age, supporting them becomes more expensive as the need for specialized developer knowledge is required, the support is more time-consuming as older codebases have more complex dependencies, and it honestly becoomes less impactful for Kentico to continue support where fewer customers remain on old versions to benefit from these fixes.
At some point, the cost of maintaining legacy versions outweighs the benefit. Ending support ensures Kentico can maintain sustainable operations and continue providing a strong value proposition for active customers.
What does this mean for you if you're using an older Kentico product, and want a clear path forward?
If your site is still running on Kentico 11, 12 or earlier, you should plan for no new security patches, no technical support from Kentico, increasing compatibility issues with browsers, hosting environments, and integrations, and expect there to be a rise in maintenance and security risks to your site... but there's a way forward!
Creating a migration strategy to Xperience by Kentico is not as daunting as it may seem - and we're pretty well versed in the process (we've done more than any other agency in the world-combined.) If you have questions about these changes with Kentico, or what your options are moving forward, we have migration experts that are ready to talk through things with you.