A desk with an orange flower and a computer monitor displaying a timeline focused on December 2026

It's time to move to Xperience by Kentico

Time is ticking on Kentico Xperience 13. With its 2026 end-of-life date approaching, the countdown to move is on. Find out what this means for you and why the all-new Xperience by Kentico is the upgrade you need.

Andy Thompson

25 June 2025

5 minute read

Kentico 13's retirement is on the horizon. For many, this means a mandatory platform project. But it's also the single best opportunity you'll have to modernise your digital presence onto Xperience by Kentico, a platform built for the future. Here’s what you need to know.

What does Kentico Xperience 13 'end of life' mean?

As of December 2026, Kentico Xperience 13 (K13) will officially reach its 'end of life'. This doesn't mean your website will suddenly stop working on New Year's Day 2027. However, it does mean that Kentico will no longer provide official support for the platform.

So, what does that really entail? The end of support goes far beyond simply not getting new features. It means no more bug fixes, no guarantee of security patches, and no support from Kentico's expert team if you run into trouble. For most customers, the security implication is by far the most critical factor. Running a platform without the assurance of security patches exposes your website, your data, and your customers to unnecessary risk. In today's landscape, that’s frankly a non-negotiable issue.

But this isn't a story about doom and gloom. While K13’s chapter is closing, Kentico's platform offering is stronger and more exciting than ever.

Why Xperience by Kentico is the upgrade you need

Kentico's latest platform has a new name and has left version numbers behind. It's simply called Xperience by Kentico - or XbyK for short. This is not an incremental update; it's a complete rebuild of the platform on the latest Microsoft technology. It’s truly cloud-native, and has been engineered from the ground up to be free of the technical debt that can accumulate over a company's 20-year history, which is a unique advantage Kentico now enjoys in the competitive DXP landscape.

It feels like yesterday, but it was three years ago that I first blogged about its release for early adopters. Back then, XbyK was brand new and Kentico was still building out the rich feature set that the incredibly mature K13 had developed over many years. During that time, many risk-averse customers understandably chose to bide their time, remaining on the fully supported K13 while watching the new platform grow.

Those times are now firmly in the past. Now, in 2025, XbyK is unequivocally Kentico's flagship DXP. It should be the default choice for all new projects. It delivers Kentico's signature, powerful blend of content management, digital marketing, email, and e-commerce in a single unified platform. But now, it’s built for the future, with native cloud (SaaS) support, seamless platform updates, and Artificial Intelligence woven throughout.

When you place the two platforms side-by-side, the evolution is clear. A comparison isn't just about technical specifications; it’s about business value. Where K13 offered on-premise flexibility, XbyK provides cloud-native agility and scalability. Where K13 had a mature feature set, XbyK offers those same capabilities and more, on a faster, more secure, and future-proof foundation.


Kentico 13

Xperience by Kentico

Technology

☹️ Older .NET Framework/Webforms

⭐ Latest ASP.NET Core MVC

Hosting

✅ Self-hosted in Azure

⭐ Full SaaS platform, or self-hosted option

APIs and headless support

☹️ Legacy REST XML API

⭐ Modern GraphQL headless API and full support for headless channels

Artificial Intelligence

☹️ Limited features

⭐ AIRA assistant built-in

Roadmap

☹️ End of life looming

⭐ Very active, monthly refreshes

Technical Support Timeline

☹️ 31 December 2026

⭐ Continuously supported (no end date)

Making the move: Your path from K13 to XbyK

Because Xperience by Kentico is a new platform, upgrading is not as simple as clicking a button. However, the good news is that this process is far from the complexity and cost of replatforming to an entirely different DXP vendor. The path is well-defined and supported.

To begin with, Kentico can smoothly transition your K13 licence to an XbyK subscription. This avoids the headache of being stuck with two concurrent licence fees or facing a hard cut-off date.

To handle the content migration aspects, Kentico provides a powerful Migration Toolkit designed to accelerate the process. This tool helps with much of the heavy lifting, assisting with the migration of your page types, content, and other data structures from previous versions of Kentico (and even some other popular DXPs). Furthermore, since the new platform is still built on a foundation of Microsoft .NET, many of your existing integrations can be carried over with minimal redevelopment.

This is where partnership matters. As a Kentico Gold Partner and certified Quality Expert, Luminary has built hundreds of websites on the Kentico platform, on every version from 2008 right through to today. We have navigated every type of build, upgrade, and migration. In short, there’s nothing your existing K13 website can present that will surprise us!

What if I'm on Kentico 12 or older? Help!

It's ok! While this post focuses on the Kentico 13 deadline, the advice for those on even older versions is the same, only more urgent. If you're running on Kentico 12, 11, or earlier, your platform is already past its end-of-life date. This means the critical security risks we've discussed aren't a future problem—they are a current reality for your digital presence. There is still a supported pathway for you to get onto Xperience by Kentico.

The time to plan is now

With the December 2026 end-of-life date on the horizon, we have about 18 months from now before the lights go out for K13. In digital project terms, that is the ideal window for proper planning.

This makes the coming financial year 25/26 the most sensible and strategic time to plan and execute your migration from K13 to XbyK. Acting within this timeframe ensures the project can be properly scoped, budgeted, and delivered without undue pressure, allowing for a seamless transition well before the deadline.

If your organisation is running on Kentico 13 (or earlier!), now is the time to start the conversation. Get in touch with us to discuss what a move to the new Xperience by Kentico would look like for you.

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