Migrating our Website CMS from Ghost to Payload
When I joined Onvo AI as a full stack engineer, one of the first major tasks I took ownership of was migrating our entire company website from Ghost to Payload CMS. At the beginning, it felt like a matter of exporting posts, configuring a new tool, and updating the frontend. However, as I dug deeper, I realized that a CMS migration is much more than moving content. It touches workflow, speed, collaboration, brand consistency, and how quickly a company can communicate with the world.
Ghost was doing its job well when our website acted primarily as a blog. It allowed us to tell our story and publish updates. But Onvo AI was growing, and our needs evolved faster than the platform could support. Our website was becoming a core storytelling and product communication channel. We were launching new features frequently, running campaigns, updating pricing, publishing customer stories, and reshaping our homepage language as our product matured.
The real problem was not the CMS itself. It was the dependency chain it created. Every minor copy change required code edits. Every new page required developer involvement. Something that should take minutes was taking days.
Why We Needed to Move Beyond Ghost
Ghost is fantastic for publishing. It provides a clean experience and is ideal if you only need a blog. But our needs expanded far beyond that.
We needed the ability to:
- Update content instantly without code deployments
- Create flexible and reusable page blocks
- Let non technical teams contribute confidently
- Scale the site without vendor limitations
It became clear that our CMS had to enable our growth, not slow it down. We started to see our website as a product that supported sales, marketing, and support in real time. A modern CMS needed to reflect that.
How We Chose Payload CMS
We evaluated several platforms. Some offered polished Visual builders, others were headless only, and some were feature rich but came with restrictive pricing models. Payload CMS stood out because it struck the right balance between structure and freedom.
Payload offered complete customization. It did not force a specific pattern. It was fully open source, TypeScript first, and integrated well with modern stacks. The fact that it returns clean JSON data gave us the flexibility to shape our website in ways that aligned with our development philosophy.
<img src="data:image/png;base64,iVBOR..." alt="Payload CMS dashboard UI illustration" /> *(Generated representation of a CMS dashboard UI concept)*
One thing that impressed our non technical team immediately was the editor experience. The interface felt intuitive. They could format text, reorder sections, preview pages, and manage content without documentation. That told us we were on the right path.
The Migration Journey
The hardest part was not the code. It was the planning phase. We spent time defining our collections, our reusable blocks, and the rules for editing them. For example, deciding where flexibility mattered and where structure prevented inconsistencies.
Once the foundation was clear, the development phase moved quickly. The first two components were slow because we were refining our approach. After that, building felt natural. I like to call it vibe coding because once patterns become familiar, the progress feels almost effortless.
Integrating Payload with the frontend through GraphQL gave us the efficiency we wanted for data fetching. It also made our pages easier to manage since we could ask for only the content each page required.
Before launch, we tested the system not just as engineers but as editors. We watched how non developers interacted with the CMS, where confusion happened, and what fields needed revisions. This step made a massive difference.
Life After Switching to Payload
The benefits were felt almost immediately.
Content updates no longer depend on engineering cycles. Marketing and product teams quickly took ownership of their sections. Publishing became faster, and our website finally reflected the pace at which we build our products.
<img src="data:image/png;base64,iVBOR..." alt="Team editing website content collaboratively" /> *(Illustration showing collaborative content editing)*
The CMS also sets the stage for our future. Payload gives us freedom to experiment with possibilities like AI assisted content creation, personalized page experiences, and automated copy suggestions with LLMs. It aligns perfectly with the direction Onvo AI is heading.
What This Migration Taught Me
This project shifted how I think about engineering. It is easy to measure progress in terms of commits and deployments. But real engineering impact is measured by how much it enables others to work faster and more creatively.
A CMS migration can look like a technical decision from the outside, but on the inside, it changes culture. It influences collaboration, communication, and how teams take ownership of the brand.
Looking back, migrating from Ghost to Payload was not about moving content. It was about removing friction and replacing it with momentum.