Umbraco CMS Migration Blueprint: From Umbraco v8 to Umbraco Cloud v13

At Techxot, we recently took on an exciting project, migrating a full-scale Umbraco CMS website from version 8 to version 13 (LTS). 

It wasn’t just an upgrade, but migration to Umbraco cloud with incremental enhancements. This was necessary to enable scalability and long-term compatibility. Umbraco version13 offers major performance, security, and flexibility improvements.

This blog is the first step towards your Umbraco 8 to 13 migration journey. 

Why does our client need Umbraco CMS Migration?

Our client’s Umbraco v8 site was feature-rich and stable, but:

• Limitations from the legacy NET Framework.

• Lost support for Umbraco 8.

• Some packages had stopped receiving updates. 

• Performance and scalability needed a modern push. 

Modernization reduces risk and enables growth, performance, and better development & deployment practices. In this project, customization meant higher technical debt with more risk and complexity which resulted in migration as a strategic move for future- proofing, stabilizing and scaling the future readiness of the platform.

Umbraco migration Strategy

Even though Umbraco CMS migration was a strategic move, a thorough assessment of existing implementations was necessary before finalizing migration strategy. Because the goal was not just to migrate to a new version but to make the platform perform, scale, secure and stable for long-term to mold it into a future-ready and cloud-native platform with .NET standards.

Key considerations included:

• Re-architecting vs refactoring the existing solution

• Content, media, and member migration 

• Testing and validation phases 

• Risk mitigation 

• Post-migration optimization 

Migration from a version lower to a version higher there are two main approaches:

• Upgrade in place – Step through intermediate versions. 

• Rebuild approach – Create a fresh Umbraco v13 use case to migrate data and media using tools and scripts.

At Techxot, we recently completed a major digital transformation by migrating a full-scale Umbraco CMS website from version 8 to Umbraco 13 (LTS) on Umbraco Cloud. This wasn’t a simple upgrade—it was a strategic migration designed to improve performance, security, scalability, and long-term compatibility using modern .NET standards. By carefully assessing technical debt, legacy limitations, and future growth needs, we implemented a future-ready, cloud-native solution with enhanced stability and flexibility. Read more