Replatforming Your Website? Avoid These Common Mistakes
Aug 11, 2025 • 10 Minute Read • Richard Cabral, Principal Platform Architect, Sitecore
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How SitecoreAI Can Fix Sitecore Technical Debt
Nov 07, 2025 • 4 Minute Read • Richard Cabral, Principal Platform Architect, Sitecore
What is Technical Debt?
Technical debt (as originally described by Ward Cunningham) is incurred when a software development project makes decisions in the moment to simplify the software (or ignore a shortcoming) to save money or time. If ignored, the business incurs a debt to the future, where they'll have to revisit the code and fix or improve the software.
Today, technical debt can also refer to software that was developed prior to a sea-change in the industry, whether that's system environment strategy, performance/resiliency, or simply changes in developer community preferences.
In the case of Sitecore, technical debt can be incurred through decisions made by Sitecore, the company, as well as by the implementers and maintainers of your digital experience platform (DXP). Technical debt also accumulates in core infrastructure software, such as Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft .NET Framework.
Over time, technical debt surfaces through performance slowdowns and friction day-to-day workflows. These issues rarely appear all at once and gradually build as older decisions and dependencies start to weigh on the platform.
Symptoms of Technical Debt in your Sitecore Solution
Recognizing how technical debt manifests is the first step toward regaining control and performance. If your Sitecore platform shows any of these symptoms, it's a signal that your system is ready for an upgrade and strategic renewal.
- Overall page delivery performance degrades. (The site "feels slow.")
- As website traffic increases, site performance drops off rapidly or "freezes" entirely.
- The performance of the content management interface is becoming visibly slower or non-responsive.
- Content updates become a painful process that requires "expert" authors.
- Adding new pages or page components requires a lot of time and technical resources.
- Internal release processes are getting increasingly long and generate a lot of bugs that only manifest in production.
- Marketing objectives are driven by what the system "can" do rather than what it "needs" to do.
With older Sitecore installations, your technical team tends to spend a lot of time "fixing" the solution instead of adding value to it (i.e., "debt").
Causes of Technical Debt in Sitecore
For over 20 years, Sitecore's consistent architecture has been one of its greatest strengths in content management. That stability has allowed many organizations to upgrade incrementally rather than rebuilding from scratch, which is a practical and cost-effective approach. However, this same dependability has a tradeoff, leading teams to hold onto older solutions longer than they should. Over time, those "working" systems become barriers to agility, impacting productivity and making it harder for marketing teams to pivot rapidly.
Quick Checks: Sources of Technical Debt in your Sitecore Ecosystem
Content authors and platform owners can use these questions to understand where technical debt may be building up and how deeply it's affecting day-to-day operations.
- Is the installation more than 5 years old?
- Has it ever had a major version upgrade (ex. 8 to 9)?
- Is content primarily maintained using the Sitecore Content Editor?
- Does your Sitecore install use Web Forms for Marketers?
- Are you using one of Sitecore's Commerce solutions?
- Are you using Active Commerce?
Quick Checks: Sources of Technical Debt in your Sitecore Codebase
For in-house developers or technology and implementation partners, these questions highlight where custom code and integration choices may be adding complexity that slows progress and productivity:
- Are you using ASP.NET WebForms?
- Are you using GlassMapper?
- Are you using SXA or Score?
- Are you using JSS?
- Are you using any Sitecore-specific Blog plugins?
- Are you using Sitecore to accumulate data from other 3rd party systems?
- Are you writing a lot of code in C# to connect multiple systems to your Sitecore-delivered website?
Think of each "yes" not as a red flag, but an opportunity to prioritize improvements that deliver faster site performance and greater flexibility for your internal teams.
How Does SitecoreAI Solve the Technical Debt Problem?
Since SitecoreAI is a SaaS platform, it stays current without requiring major upgrade projects or version gaps. As new capabilities roll out, they're available immediately, reducing customization and the cycle of deferred maintenance that creates technical debt in the first place.
SitecoreAI is part of a digital experience platform (DXP), which separates your content management from content delivery and integration with other customer-facing systems. Instead, the CMS focuses on creating and organizing content, while most integrations are done primarily on the "front end" of your website using JavaScript. This approach means your SitecoreAI solution has less custom code, and therefore fewer opportunities for technical debt to grow.
When integrations live at the front end, updates and replacements are simpler. So if you need to change form providers, add a new analytics tool, or personalization platform, it's mostly a matter of referencing new JavaScript libraries and making necessary HTML adjustments. With less code to manage, your team can change direction faster, keep your platform running smoothly over time, and remove technical debt from the picture.
Does SitecoreAI have the power I need?
Yes, SitecoreAI offers an industry-leading page orchestration experience and incredible flexibility in content architecture design. All the fundamental Sitecore concepts are still there in SitecoreAI. Paired with Sitecore's complementary offerings of Search, Personalization, CDP, and Content Hub (DAM), SitecoreAI is a superior platform for your digital experience needs, all in a series of SaaS-based offerings that continue to grow and improve over time.
Making the Switch to SitecoreAI
If you're ready to explore whether SitecoreAI is the right move for your organization, our SitecoreAI and XM Cloud ROI Assessment gives you a data-backed view of the costs, savings, and benefits over a three-year horizon. We’ll examine your current architecture, integration patterns, infrastructure, and deployment, then deliver a roadmap and ROI model tailored to your setup.
If you're still in an earlier stage, wanting to diagnose or optimize your existing Sitecore platform, you may prefer to start with a Sitecore Platform Health Assessment that surfaces areas for immediate improvement.
Start with the step that fits your current priorities. When you're ready to move ahead, our team can help you translate those findings into an actionable roadmap.