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If you’re a digital marketer or content creator, you’ve likely heard of Xperience by Kentico and may be wondering what sets it apart from other platforms. Whether you’re evaluating a new CMS or just getting started, this guide will walk you through what Xperience by Kentico is, where it excels, who it’s built for, and how marketers can make the most of its tools.
At BizStream, we’ve been working with Kentico for over two decades and have implemented Kentico-supported projects for clients across manufacturing, healthcare, and professional services. This guide reflects that hands-on experience.
Xperience by Kentico is a digital experience platform (DXP) that integrates content management and digital marketing in a single environment.
As a hybrid headless CMS, it offers the flexibility of a decoupled front-end and back-end while also providing a front-end editing layer so content managers can see exactly what they’re building. Having worked in both traditional CMSs and purely headless platforms, we think this hybrid approach hits a practical sweet spot: flexibility for organizations delivering content across multiple channels, paired with an intuitive editing experience for day-to-day content work.
Xperience supports flexible deployment, including a fully managed SaaS option where Kentico handles hosting, updates, and infrastructure, as well as private cloud deployment via Azure, AWS, or on-premise for organizations that need more control. Either way, the platform promises a monthly refresh model, promising bug fixes, feature improvements, and new capabilities following their roadmap.
One of the biggest differences between Xperience and earlier Kentico products is how it handles content delivery. Instead of building content specifically for a website, you create content once and deliver it to multiple channels: website, email, mobile app, or other destinations.
When you first log in, you’ll notice that the dashboard is completely modernized, easy to navigate, and feels like a breath of fresh air compared to the older versions of Kentico. Content is organized into categories, including Content Management, Digital Marketing, Development, Configuration, and Channels.
The addition of Channels is the key structural shift. In previous Kentico versions, web page content lived under Content Management. In Xperience, Kentico has deliberately separated the concepts of Content and Channels. This is especially valuable for organizations managing multiple delivery surfaces.
As a marketer, the mental model shifts: instead of asking “how do I adapt this website content for email or mobile?” you start from a content-first perspective.
The Email Channel, now fully available in Xperience, is a strong example of this in action. Marketers can build and send email campaigns directly within the platform using the same content they’ve created for other channels, with no need for a separate email service just to author templates.
If you’re evaluating whether Xperience is the right fit for your organization, consider:
If either answer is yes, Xperience by Kentico is worth a serious look.
The page builder in Xperience is fast. Noticeably, practically fast. Compared to other platforms we work with, the responsiveness is a meaningful advantage, especially when building out content at scale. Pages, sections, widgets, saves: it all happens without delay.
The widget-based builder and tree structure will feel familiar to most content creators and marketers. You can easily add sections and widgets to a page, configure them individually, apply personalization, and preview your work before publishing.
The Content Hub is where reusable content lives. Think of it as your content library. If you have a content type, say a team member profile or product specification, that needs to appear as a web page, in a sidebar feature, and in a mobile app, you update it once in the Content Hub, and it reflects everywhere it’s linked.
Not everything needs to go through the Content Hub. For one-off content that won’t be reused across channels, you can add it directly to web pages to keep things clean and organized.
One of the early critiques of Xperience was the absence of a native eCommerce solution, which was a standard feature in earlier Kentico versions. Kentico has since addressed this with a digital commerce capability built on the platform’s Content Hub architecture. Organizations that need eCommerce alongside digital marketing and content management now have a path forward without requiring a separate platform.
BizStream has experience supporting eCommerce clients across a range of platforms. See some of our eCommerce work.
Kentico has built AI directly into Xperience through AIRA, its native AI agent designed specifically for marketers and content teams.
AIRA handles a range of tasks that typically eat into marketing bandwidth: generating and refining on-brand content, automating image tagging and format optimization, translating content across channels, and surfacing performance insights. There’s also a built-in chat interface where marketers can ask questions, pull data, and execute platform tasks without digging through documentation or filing IT requests.
Kentico has taken this further with the AIRA Agentic Marketing Suite, which introduces four specialized AI agents that work alongside your team:
For organizations looking to scale content production without scaling headcount, this is one of the more practically useful AI integrations we’ve seen built natively into a CMS.
This is not the future, the technology exists now.
Kentico operates on a continuous release model, and the roadmap reflects that. Features are added on a regular cadence, and you can review what’s been shipped and what’s coming at roadmap.kentico.com. For teams considering Xperience, the roadmap is worth bookmarking as a reference for evaluating long-term platform fit.
AI-infused CMS tools are no longer a future consideration. They are available, they are practical, and they work best when the platform foundation is in place to support them.
If you are on an older version of Kentico, we would love to help you understand what modernizing to Xperience by Kentico could make possible for your team. Drop us a note, and we will take it from there.
Xperience by Kentico is the latest “forever” version of the DXP with a completely rebuilt architecture. It offers continuous updates without major migrations, a Content Hub for reusable content, and a multi-channel delivery model. Kentico legacy products, such as Kentico 13, were on-premise or hosted solutions with a traditional upgrade cycle that required more significant effort to move between versions.
Xperience by Kentico is a hybrid headless CMS. It supports headless content delivery via API for channels like mobile apps, while also providing a front-end editing layer for web page management. You get the flexibility of headless with the usability of a traditional page builder.
Yes. The Email Channel is a native feature in Xperience, allowing marketers to build and send emails directly within the platform using the same content infrastructure as other channels.
Yes. Kentico has added digital commerce capabilities built on the platform’s Content Hub architecture, so product content is reusable across channels.
No. Xperience supports both fully managed SaaS, where Kentico handles hosting, updates, and infrastructure, and private cloud deployment via Azure, AWS, or on-premise. The product features are the same either way, giving organizations the flexibility to choose what fits their infrastructure and compliance requirements.
Organizations that need to manage content across multiple channels (website, email, mobile) want a platform that eliminates expensive upgrade cycles and is looking for a CMS that scales with their digital marketing needs.
Kentico releases updates on a continuous cadence. You can follow the release history and upcoming features at roadmap.kentico.com.
Yes. BizStream is a certified Kentico Gold Partner specializing in Xperience by Kentico implementations for mid-to-large organizations. Contact us to discuss your project.
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