👻

📦

Migrate from Kentico to Hugo

Complete guide to migrating your Kentico website to Hugo. Leave Kentico's expensive licensing limits it to enterprise budgets behind and get blazing fast builds. Free migration tool included.

1-3 hours

Advanced

100% Free

Start Free Migration

TL;DR

You can migrate from Kentico to Hugo for free using LeaveWP. Enter your site URL, choose Hugo as the destination, and download your content — posts, pages, and media — in minutes. No API keys, passwords, or CLI tools required. Difficulty: Advanced. Estimated time: 1-3 hours.

Official docs: Hugo Documentation

Not sure yet? Read our Kentico vs Hugo comparison first.

Why Teams Leave Kentico

.NET enterprise DXP with built-in marketing tools. .NET enterprises needing an all-in-one DXP with marketing automation, but these limitations push teams toward modern alternatives.

Expensive licensing limits it to enterprise budgets

This is the most common reason teams migrate away from Kentico. Hugo eliminates this issue entirely.

Vendor lock-in with proprietary technology stack

With Hugo, blazing fast builds — renders 10,000 pages in seconds.

Requires .NET developers who are less common in CMS space

Modern architectures like Hugo are designed to avoid this from the ground up.

Heavy platform — overpowered for simple content sites

After migrating, you'll no longer need to worry about this — Hugo takes a fundamentally different approach.

What Hugo Brings to the Table

Fastest static site generator, written in Go. Built with Go (Go templates), it's documentation sites and blogs where build speed and simplicity matter most.

Blazing fast builds — renders 10,000 pages in seconds

Single binary with zero dependencies

Built-in image processing, taxonomies, and i18n

Huge theme library for quick starts

Hugo is open-source and free to use. You own your code and data with no vendor lock-in. Deploy to any host that supports Go, or use managed platforms like Vercel and Netlify for zero-config deployments.

Kentico vs Hugo at a Glance

Side-by-side comparison based on real platform characteristics

Metric	Kentico	Hugo
Ease of Use	⭐⭐⭐ 3/5	⭐⭐⭐ 3/5
Performance	⭐⭐⭐ 3/5	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5
Flexibility	⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5	⭐⭐⭐ 3/5
Cost	⭐ 1/5	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5
Scalability	⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5
Ecosystem	⭐⭐ 2/5	⭐⭐⭐ 3/5
Language	.NET / C#	Go (Go templates)
Pricing	Paid ($10K+/year)	Free (open-source)
Open Source	No	Yes

Ratings are based on publicly available data, documentation, and community consensus as of 2026. Individual experience may vary.

What Gets Migrated

A detailed breakdown of how your Kentico content maps to Hugo

Content Types from Kentico

pages
custom page types
media
forms
emails

Technical Details

Export Method: REST API or direct database access
Source Language: .NET / C#
Destination Format: Markdown/MDX files with frontmatter, organized by content type
URL Handling: 301 redirect map generated automatically to preserve SEO equity

What may need manual attention

Custom server-side logic, third-party integrations, and platform-specific plugins will need equivalent solutions in Hugo. The core content (text, images, metadata) transfers cleanly.

How It Works

Migrate your content in three simple steps

Connect

Enter your Kentico site URL — LeaveWP connects automatically.

Configure

Select Hugo as destination and choose content options.

Export

Download your migrated content or preview it in your browser.

Is Kentico to Hugo the Right Move for You?

Migrating from Kentico to Hugo makes the most sense if you're experiencing expensive licensing limits it to enterprise budgets or outgrowing Kentico's architecture. Hugo is best for documentation sites and blogs where build speed and simplicity matter most.

You should migrate if: your Kentico site is slow, your hosting costs are climbing, you need developer flexibility, or you want to adopt a modern JAMstack architecture.

You might want to stay if: your Kentico site benefits from integrated marketing automation, email, and a/b testing and you don't have Go developers on your team.

The migration itself is straightforward with LeaveWP — enter your Kentico URL, select Hugo, and download your content. The more important question is whether Hugo's architecture fits your team's skills and your project's long-term needs.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to migrate from Kentico to Hugo?

Kentico migrations are more complex due to its enterprise architecture. Expect 1-3 hours for a typical site. Simpler sites finish faster, while large sites with custom functionality may need additional configuration.

Will I lose my SEO rankings when migrating from Kentico?

No. We help you set up proper 301 redirects from your old Kentico URLs to preserve search rankings. Hugo actually tends to improve Core Web Vitals scores, which can boost rankings over time.

What Kentico content can be migrated to Hugo?

Kentico content types like pages, custom page types, media, forms are all migrated to Hugo. Content is converted to Markdown/MDX files or structured for your chosen headless CMS.

Do I need Go experience to migrate?

No coding experience is required for the migration itself — LeaveWP handles the export and conversion automatically. However, customizing your Hugo site afterward will benefit from Go (Go templates) knowledge. For teams without that expertise, the generated code is well-structured and documented, making it approachable for developers of any level.

How much does it cost to host a Hugo site after migrating from Kentico?

Hugo sites can be deployed to Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, or any Node.js host — often on generous free tiers. Compared to Kentico's Paid ($10K+/year) pricing, static Hugo sites can be hosted for free on Vercel or Netlify (up to generous bandwidth limits), which is significantly cheaper than running a Kentico instance.

Can I migrate Kentico custom fields and metadata to Hugo?

Yes. Custom fields, metadata, and taxonomies from Kentico are preserved during migration. In Hugo, these become frontmatter fields in your Markdown/MDX files, which you can extend or restructure to fit your content model.