A fast, low risk CMS migration to CoreMedia – under 90 days
Migrating from an existing CMS should not disrupt business operations or slow down ongoing digital initiatives. For enterprises moving away from Acquia or Drupal-based environments, the priority is ensuring continuity while transitioning to a more scalable and manageable digital experience platform.
CoreMedia follows a structured migration approach designed to minimize risk and maintain momentum. Rather than requiring a full rebuild, organizations can transition incrementally — moving critical content, workflows, and integrations in phases while keeping existing systems running where needed.
This makes migration from Acquia a controlled process rather than a disruptive event. Teams can continue managing day-to-day operations while gradually shifting away from complex, module-driven architectures toward a more unified and structured content foundation—without interrupting existing digital experiences.
By approaching migration with clear governance and phased execution, organizations avoid unnecessary duplication and reduce the risk of delays. Instead of recreating content from scratch, they can restructure and optimize what already exists as part of the transition.
With the right planning, enterprises can move quickly without compromising stability. Organizations such as Enterprise Ireland have completed their transition in as little as 90 days - demonstrating that large-scale CMS migration can deliver rapid value when approached strategically.
FAQ’s - everything you need to know
What is the main difference between Acquia and CoreMedia?
Acquia is built around the Drupal ecosystem and is often used for web-centric digital experiences and multisite management. CoreMedia, by contrast, is a composable enterprise DXP built on a hybrid headless architecture, designed to orchestrate content, workflows, and digital experiences across channels from a centralized platform.
Why do enterprises move beyond Acquia and Drupal-based platforms?
Organizations typically consider an Acquia-to-CoreMedia migration when their digital landscape grows more complex — across brands, regions, and channels — and requires stronger content governance, native personalization, infrastructure flexibility, and more integrated experience management. Common triggers include growing dependency on Drupal modules, rising costs from customization and ongoing maintenance, AWS-only hosting constraints, the discontinuation of Acquia's native personalization product, and the need to connect content and commerce more seamlessly. CoreMedia addresses these challenges through a unified platform, flexible deployment, and a more predictable long-term cost model.
Which platform is better for global, multi-brand digital experience management?
CoreMedia is designed for large enterprises managing multiple brands, regions, and languages. It supports centralized governance, content reuse, and coordinated publishing across global teams.
Acquia supports multisite and multilingual setups, but enterprise-scale coordination often requires additional configuration and management.
How does CoreMedia support omnichannel experiences compared to Acquia?
Both platforms support digital content delivery across channels. CoreMedia, however, is built to orchestrate experiences across web, mobile, commerce, and service touchpoints from a single platform - helping organizations deliver more consistent and connected customer journeys.
Does CoreMedia offer native personalization out of the box?
Yes. CoreMedia delivers personalization natively within the platform, enabling teams to define audience segments, tailor content based on behavior and context, and run A/B experiments — all from a single environment, without requiring additional tools or vendor relationships.
Can CoreMedia be deployed on-premises?
Yes. CoreMedia supports deployment across cloud, private cloud, and on-premises environments, giving enterprises full control over where and how their platform runs. This is a meaningful distinction from Acquia, whose platform is exclusively hosted on AWS with no on-premises option available. For organizations in regulated industries or with specific data residency and compliance requirements, this flexibility is often a decisive factor in choosing CoreMedia as an Acquia alternative.
What drives up the total cost of ownership on Acquia?
Enterprise implementations on Acquia can involve several layers of additional cost beyond the base subscription. Common drivers include custom Drupal module development and maintenance, commerce and third-party integrations, the ongoing need for experienced Drupal developers for configuration and upgrades, and — following the discontinuation of Acquia Personalization — the added cost of adopting Acquia Convert. As digital requirements grow across regions, brands, and channels, these costs tend to compound. CoreMedia's unified platform and concurrent user pricing model are designed to provide a more predictable and efficient alternative.
How long does it take to migrate from Acquia to CoreMedia?
With the right planning and a phased approach, enterprises can complete a migration from Acquia to CoreMedia in as little as 90 days. CoreMedia follows a structured migration methodology designed to minimize risk and maintain business continuity — transitioning content, workflows, and integrations incrementally rather than requiring a full rebuild. Enterprise Ireland is one example of an organization that completed its transition within that timeframe.
When should companies choose CoreMedia vs. Acquia?
Organizations may choose Acquia if their business is deeply rooted in the Drupal ecosystem, supported by a large internal development team, and their requirements are primarily focused on web content management and multisite governance on AWS infrastructure. CoreMedia is better suited for global enterprises — such as those in luxury, retail, B2B, financial services, and telecommunications — that need a composable DXP to connect content, commerce, and customer engagement across channels, require deployment flexibility, and want native personalization capabilities without third-party tool dependency.
