Website Replatforming
Replatforming: What it is and when to do it
Systems that once supported your growth can eventually start to hold you back. Website Content Management Systems (CMS) can become unsupported, ecommerce experiences can feel outdated, and older applications can become expensive to maintain and integrate with other systems.
When that happens, you might want to consider replatforming your existing web application.
In this guide, we cover everything from what replatforming means to how and when to consider it. You’ll learn how it differs from rehosting and refactoring, what typically drives the need for change, and how I-Finity supports web apps, websites, and cloud replatforming projects from initial planning through to delivery and ongoing support.
What is replatforming?
Replatforming is the migration of an existing system to a different platform or infrastructure with targeted improvements along the way.
You may be using a bespoke proprietary or an open-source CMS that no longer supports your needs. If so, it’s time to consider a commercially backed open-source CMS provider.
Alternatively, you’re looking to move an app to Microsoft Azure to reap benefits of a cloud managed infrastructure.
Replatforming, rehosting, and refactoring: What’s the difference?
Before deciding how to modernise your platform, it’s important to understand the main approaches available. While these terms are often used interchangeably, they represent very different levels of change and investment.
- Rehosting: Often called a lift and shift, rehosting involves moving your website/application to a new environment or infrastructure with minimal changes to the underlying code. It’s a relatively smooth process to move from one provider to another. You can use it as an opportunity to assess your system’s resilience, performance, backup and restore processes.
- Replatforming: Replatforming is the move from one platform to another, in a website example this can involve taking your existing website from a bespoke CMS platform for example to a open-source CMS platform. The focus here is on the technical elements such as performance improvements, feature enhancements, improved user experience to meeting business needs such as integrating your website with other systems.
- Refactoring: Refactoring goes a step further by redesigning or rewriting parts of your codebase to meet performance, accessibility or architectural goals. This approach can be done iteratively to improve core areas initially that will deliver greatest benefits. Choosing between these options needs to be weighed against your business goals, the needs of your customers and market demands. While some businesses prioritise short-term stability, others may take the opportunity to rebuild for future innovation to stay competitive.
A clear understanding of your goals and the available options will help define the best approach in achieving short term wins and preparing for future growth.
Types of replatforming
Website replatforming
When your CMS reaches the end of its lifecycle or becomes difficult to maintain or no longer allows you to achieve the changes you need, it’s time to move to a platform that better supports your content strategy and workflows. Common website replatforming includes moves away from WordPress or proprietary platforms to a secure CMS platform such as Umbraco, or a headless CMS such as Agility CMS, depending on flexibility and control requirements.
Ecommerce replatforming
Ecommerce businesses can outgrow platforms like Shopify, Magento, or WooCommerce for many reasons. Some need faster checkout experiences or more robust integrations with ERP and CRM systems. Replatforming allows you to retain your existing product catalogue and customer data while improving site speed, reliability, and the ability to experiment with analytics, personalisation, and new features.
Application or cloud replatforming
Legacy applications are often replatformed to create a more robust environment that controls costs and meets compliance requirements. Moving to the cloud, particularly through Azure, introduces managed databases, built-in identity services, and advanced monitoring tools. This reduces the operational burden on internal teams and creates the flexibility to evolve the product over time.
Across all types of replatforming, the goal remains the same: retain core workflows, move to a platform that can scale, and reduce unnecessary burdens.
Why businesses replatform
There are many reasons why a business might replatform. Most organisations reach a tipping point where ongoing fixes no longer solve underlying issues. Common triggers include:
- Outgrown capabilities: The current platform can no longer support growth, causing capacity and stability issues.
- Security and compliance risks: Unsupported software or outdated identity management creates governance challenges.
- Integration barriers: Limited connectivity prevents seamless connections with CRMs, ERPs, or data platforms.
- Rising maintenance costs: Technical debt and custom fixes drain resources over time.
- Operational inefficiency: Teams struggle with inflexible CMS or ecommerce tools that slow delivery.
- User experience gaps: Accessibility, performance, and usability need a meaningful upgrade, not another patch.
Website replatforming: a closer look
Website migrations can feel risky, especially for ecommerce sites, content-heavy sites, sites with established search presence, or those that need to remain operational throughout.
With upfront planning, a robust change management process the path to replatforming can be managed safely with minimal disruption to a business.
A replatforming project can significantly improve conversion rates, increase performance with faster load times and improve user experience. It can also be an opportunity to achieve operational benefits and connect individual systems to work together seamlessly.
Website replatforming checklist
You can use the following checklist as a practical framework for planning and achieving your goals for a website replatforming project. It helps ensure every stage, from discovery to launch, is approached methodically, with minimal risk:
- Define project scope and objectives: establish clear goals, success metrics, and any technical or operational constraints.
- Select the right platform: evaluate open-source options (Umbraco CMS), consider hosting models, support and costs of ongoing maintenance.
- Plan content and data migration: include all essential elements such as forms, media assets, secure areas of content etc.
- Map key integrations: plan for existing or new connections with CRMs, payment providers, and marketing tools.
- Review data security standards: address GDPR, PCI obligations, user identity, and access control requirements.
- Optimise user experience: define the user journey, reduce your click throughs, focus on making content easily discoverable and searchable.
- Create a thorough testing and transition plan: test for performance and accessibility, ensure analytics are in place, and follow a robust testing and approval process.
Common pitfalls to avoid
Replatforming projects can quickly become costly and disruptive if early planning for key dependencies, checking assumptions are not accounted for.
Avoiding common mistakes will help ensure your replatforming delivers tangible benefits:
- Underestimating data complexity: Migrating data needs to be planned for, consider both automated and manual transition of data, content and multimedia assets.
- Choosing a short-term platform: A platform that fits now may struggle as traffic, integrations, or business needs grow. Plan for scalability, performance, and API flexibility from the start.
- Neglecting SEO foundations: Missed redirects or lost analytics data can undo years of search performance. Audit and map URLs, optimising content and metadata, along with ensuring tracking is in place.
- Overlooking users and stakeholders: Leaving key users and teams out of discovery often leads to frustration and low adoption. Seek end user feedback and involve marketing, operations, and customer service early to align workflows.
- Treating it as purely technical: A replatform affects more than code. Training, support processes, and change management must evolve too for a smooth transition.
How I-Finity supports replatforming projects
I-Finity acts as a consultative partner throughout every stage of your replatforming journey. We begin by clarifying objectives, exploring dependencies, risks, and the current technical landscape, then we define a delivery plan that balances achieving business goals, quality, time and cost.
We provide:
Strategic discovery: We align business goals with measurable outcomes, establish a realistic scope, and identify dependencies early.
Platform consultation: Whether you’re looking to move away from WordPress, Drupal, Joomla or a proprietary CMS platform we have validated processes in place to plan and deliver a smooth replatform.
Secure data and content migration: review a combination of automated and manual transfer of data, content, multimedia assets. The approach is all dependent on how much existing data and content needs to move over and how many just need to be archived.
Security and cloud hosting: provide a fully managed service where we will look after all your infrastructure needs from hosting the site, maintaining the hosting environments and utilising the capabilities within Azure for proactive monitoring, security and overall compliance.
Proven experience with complex replatforming: We provide specialist support in how businesses can safely move away from legacy or limited platforms to a more robust, scalable, secure and performant technology stack that will evolve as their business does. You can tap into our expertise with how we have supported those in financial services, healthcare, hospitality, public sector and more.
Partner with an experienced team that will lead every engagement, ensuring robust delivery, maintainable systems, and a smooth technology transition.
Is replatforming right for you?
If your current platform is limiting performance, integration, or team efficiency, replatforming is a strategic step worth considering. It’s a structured, evidence-led change designed to improve capability without unnecessary risk.
Speak to I-Finity about your replatforming plans. We can evaluate the options for website, ecommerce, or cloud application replatforming needs, then define a clear, risk-managed route that delivers measurable value on a defined timeline.
