Busting Myths About Umbraco for Membership Organizations

When it comes to choosing the right CMS for membership organizations, there are plenty of opinions (and unfortunately, quite a few misconceptions) floating around. The best way to tackle myths is to let those working on the front lines do the talking.

Our Platinum Partner, Cantarus, has delivered countless digital platforms for membership organizations of all shapes and sizes. So, we’re passing the mic to the experts. In this guest piece, the team at Cantarus dives into some of the most common misunderstandings about Umbraco and sets the record straight, based on their real experiences with clients.

Here’s what they had to say

Myth 1: “Upgrades to Umbraco Are Complex and Costly”

The Myth: Upgrading Umbraco is a nightmare – it’s expensive, time-consuming, and likely to break everything.

The Reality: No one loves upgrading software, but the idea that Umbraco upgrades are a massive headache is outdated. Since Umbraco 9 moved to .NET Core, upgrades have been way more predictable and manageable. If you're on Umbraco Cloud, minor updates are even handled for you automatically, while major upgrades still require some effort but follow a structured path. We recently helped the British Medical Association upgrade from Umbraco 7 to 10, and it went smoothly – the result? A faster, more efficient site that’s way easier to maintain.

Umbraco follows a clear and predictable release cycle. There are two major releases per year, and every two years, one of those becomes a Long-Term Support (LTS) version, keeping in sync with Microsoft’s .NET LTS releases. This means you can plan upgrades strategically, knowing that an LTS version is stable and supported for the long haul. If you’re running a mission-critical membership platform, this structured release cadence gives you confidence that unexpected changes won’t blindside you.

And honestly, staying on an old CMS just because you're worried about upgrading is a bigger risk. Legacy systems get expensive, security holes creep in, and suddenly you’re paying more to keep something running than it would’ve cost to upgrade in the first place.

Myth 2: “Open Source Means Unsecured and Unsupported”

The Myth: Umbraco is open source, so it must be risky, unreliable, and lacking proper support.

The Reality: This is one of the most common (and frustrating) misconceptions I hear. Just because something is open source doesn’t mean it’s insecure. Umbraco being open source is a huge advantage – a massive developer community is constantly improving it, and security patches roll out quickly. But it's not just the community managing updates—Umbraco HQ itself plays a central role in maintaining, upgrading, and patching the CMS, ensuring it remains secure and reliable for enterprise use.

Plus, if you're looking for enterprise-level support, you've got options. Umbraco HQ offers official support plans, and as a Platinum Partner, we provide managed services to keep sites running smoothly. The British Army, NHS, and The Law Society all trust Umbraco, so if security was really an issue, do you think they’d be using it?

Myth 3: “Umbraco Requires Special or Costly Hosting”

The Myth: You need an expensive, specialist hosting setup to run Umbraco properly.

The Reality: Nope. .NET Core is platform agnostic, which means Umbraco can run on any hosting provider that supports .NET Core and MS SQL. This includes cloud hosting providers like Azure and AWS, virtual machines (VMs), on-premise servers, and even containerized environments like Docker and Kubernetes.

We’ve had membership organizations move their sites to Umbraco Cloud and cut their total hosting and maintenance costs significantly while improving performance. But if you prefer a self-hosted solution, you can deploy Umbraco just about anywhere that meets standard .NET hosting requirements. So yeah, hosting isn’t a blocker – if anything, it’s a reason to choose Umbraco.

Myth 4: “Umbraco Limits Our Front-End Design and UX”

The Myth: Using Umbraco means compromising on design or getting stuck with rigid templates.

The Reality: Umbraco is called “the flexible CMS” for a reason. There are no predefined themes or layout restrictions. Want a fully custom, pixel-perfect, on-brand experience? You can build it. Want a headless setup using React, Vue, or whatever front-end framework you like? Go for it. Need static site generation with frameworks like Next.js or Astro? That's supported too.

A great example is the work we did for the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS). They needed a visually stunning, engaging site that also worked for multiple user groups. We built exactly that in Umbraco, and it went on to win B2C Website of the Year at the Global Digital Excellence Awards. If Umbraco was restrictive, that wouldn't have been possible.

Myth 5: “Umbraco Isn’t Secure or ‘Enterprise-Ready’”

The Myth: It’s open source, so it can’t be as secure or scalable as proprietary enterprise CMSs.

The Reality: Umbraco is built on Microsoft .NET, which is rock-solid when it comes to security. It integrates seamlessly with enterprise authentication systems like Azure AD and SAML SSO, so if security is a priority, Umbraco already ticks the right boxes.

Plus, plenty of enterprise-level organizations trust Umbraco, including the British Army, major financial institutions, and public sector bodies. These guys have strict security requirements, and Umbraco meets them just fine. If you need an enterprise CMS, Umbraco is more than capable.

Additionally, Umbraco ensures that the end-of-year major version update always adopts the latest version of .NET Core. This means the underlying framework and foundations that Umbraco is built on stay up to date with all the latest performance improvements, security enhancements, and new features that Microsoft introduces. This proactive approach ensures that membership organizations using Umbraco benefit from the best and most secure technology available.

Myth 6: “Umbraco Isn’t an Enterprise CMS Compared to Sitecore or Kentico”

The Myth: Umbraco is fine for small and mid-size businesses, but if you need real enterprise features, you should go with Sitecore or Kentico.

The Reality: This one comes up a lot, especially from decision-makers who assume that bigger price tags mean better enterprise features.

Let’s be real - Sitecore and Kentico are good platforms, but they come with huge licensing costs and complex setups. Umbraco, on the other hand, gives you a fully customizable CMS with no software licensing fees, meaning you can invest that budget into features that actually matter to your business.

Umbraco is API-first and plays well in the composable DXP space, meaning it can integrate seamlessly with CRMs like Dynamics 365, marketing automation tools, or whatever else you need. Plus, Umbraco has a growing suite of official enterprise extensions, including Engage for personalization, Commerce for e-commerce, Workflows for content publication review processes, and deploy to allow content editors to push and pull content between hosting environments. And with more on the way - including a reworking of search and new systems for orchestration- Umbraco is continuously evolving to meet enterprise needs.

Final Thoughts

If you've ruled Umbraco out in the past because of old misconceptions, it's worth another look. It's flexible, scalable, secure, and doesn't cost the earth. We've used it time and again to build solid, future-proof platforms for membership organizations of all shapes and sizes.

If you're planning your next digital platform or thinking about your long-term CMS strategy, don’t write Umbraco off. It’s already doing the job for some of the biggest membership organizations out there – and it could do the same for you.