How to migrate from Liferay to WordPress : A Step-by-Step Guide
Is Liferay slowing down your business with complexity and high costs? This guide explains why enterprises are moving to WordPress, with a full migration checklist, step-by-step process, and FAQs to help you transition smoothly.
Updated: Aug 29, 2025
Getting started
Introdution
Liferay has been a popular choice for enterprises looking to build portals, intranets, and digital experience platforms. Known for its open-source Java foundation, Liferay provided robust capabilities for organizations that needed user management, document libraries, and workflow-heavy sites.
But while Liferay once filled an important niche, many businesses today find it increasingly difficult to justify. The challenges include:
Complexity: Liferay’s enterprise-level setup requires Java developers and specialized expertise.
High maintenance costs: Even basic updates demand technical involvement, inflating long-term costs.
Limited agility: Marketing and content teams often feel locked out, relying on IT for routine updates.
Underused features: Many companies pay for capabilities (portals, intranet tools, workflows) that they don’t actually need in practice.
As organizations shift to more agile digital ecosystems, many are choosing to migrate from Liferay to WordPress — the world’s most widely used CMS, powering over 43% of all websites.
WordPress offers:
A user-friendly dashboard that puts content management back in the hands of marketers and editors.
A vast plugin ecosystem for everything from e-commerce to membership systems.
Lower costs, faster deployments, and easier integrations with CRMs, analytics, and marketing tools.
A future-proof platform with the largest global community of developers and contributors.
Migrating from Liferay to WordPress is not just a technical move — it’s a strategic decision to simplify operations, reduce costs, and give your teams the freedom to manage content and digital experiences independently.
In this guide, we’ll cover:
A detailed comparison of Liferay vs WordPress
Why organizations are moving away from Liferay
A pre-migration checklist to prepare your site
The practical migration process step by step
A post-migration checklist to ensure success
FAQs answering the most common concerns from Liferay users
If you’re currently running on Liferay but struggling with complexity and cost, this guide will show you why WordPress is the smarter alternative — and how to make the transition smoothly without losing functionality or SEO visibility.
Liferay vs WordPress: Which CMS Is Better for Your Organization?
Both Liferay and WordPress are open-source platforms, but they were built with very different goals in mind. Liferay is designed as a portal and digital experience platform (DXP) for enterprises, while WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that has grown into a flexible, full-scale web platform.
For many organizations, the question isn’t whether Liferay is powerful — it is — but whether that power comes at the cost of complexity, agility, and budget efficiency.
1. Ease of Use
Liferay: Complex interface designed with IT administrators in mind. Content authors often find it unintuitive, requiring training and technical support to complete basic tasks.
WordPress: Built for usability, with a simple dashboard and a block-based editor that lets non-technical staff publish content with ease.
WordPress solution: Empowers your marketing and content teams to work independently, reducing reliance on IT.
2. Cost of Ownership
Liferay: Even with the Community Edition, most serious deployments use the paid DXP version, which comes with licensing and implementation costs. Ongoing support requires Java developers, which further increases costs.
WordPress: Completely free at its core. Costs are limited to hosting, plugins, and optional premium themes. A massive global talent pool keeps developer rates competitive.
WordPress solution: Cuts ongoing CMS costs by 50–80% compared to enterprise DXPs.
3. Flexibility & Features
Liferay: Strong in portals, user management, and workflow-heavy environments, but weaker in modern marketing features without expensive add-ons.
WordPress: Flexible enough to power corporate websites, e-commerce stores, membership sites, or intranets through plugins like WooCommerce, MemberPress, and BuddyBoss.
WordPress solution: Delivers the features you need without the overhead of unused extras.
4. Integrations
Liferay: Integrates with enterprise systems (LDAP, SSO, ERPs), but connections with modern SaaS tools (HubSpot, Mailchimp, GA4, etc.) often require heavy customization.
WordPress: Out-of-the-box compatibility with nearly every SaaS, CRM, and analytics platform.
WordPress solution: Easy integrations with today’s marketing and business tools.
5. Time to Market
Liferay: Launching new features or microsites can take weeks or months due to developer-heavy workflows.
WordPress: New sites, pages, or campaigns can be launched in hours using page builders and plugins.
WordPress solution: Accelerates marketing agility by giving teams the ability to publish instantly.
6. Community & Ecosystem
Liferay: Smaller community with fewer tutorials, developers, and third-party vendors. Most support comes through official partners.
WordPress: The largest CMS community in the world, with 60,000+ plugins, thousands of themes, and constant innovation.
WordPress solution: A future-proof ecosystem backed by the world’s biggest CMS user base.
|
Feature
|
Liferay
|
WordPress
|
|---|---|---|
|
Ease of use
|
Complex, IT-driven
|
Intuitive, non-technical friendly
|
|
Cost of Ownership
|
High (licensing + Java devs)
|
Low (hosting + plugins + affordable devs)
|
|
Flexibility
|
Strong in intranets/portals
|
Versatile for sites, e-commerce, intranets
|
|
Integrations
|
Strong with enterprise, weak with SaaS
|
Plug-and-play with most modern tools
|
|
Time to Market
|
Slow, developer-heavy
|
Fast, marketing-driven
|
|
Community
|
Small, partner-driven
|
Largest global CMS ecosystem
|
The Bottom Line
Liferay excels in very specific use cases — like enterprise portals or intranets with complex workflows. But for most organizations, it is overkill. WordPress offers the same publishing power, better marketing capabilities, faster time to market, and significantly lower costs.
For enterprises tired of paying for features they don’t use, WordPress is the smarter long-term choice.
Why WordPress for Your Business
If you’re running on Liferay, you already know it’s powerful. But the reality for most organizations is that Liferay’s strength — enterprise portals, Java-based workflows, advanced user permissions — is more than they actually need. WordPress provides a leaner, more agile alternative that delivers the functionality businesses use every day, without the overhead of unused complexity.
1. Lower Costs, Higher ROI
Liferay’s enterprise edition comes with steep licensing fees, while even the Community Edition requires costly Java development. WordPress eliminates those costs. With open-source software, affordable hosting, and thousands of free or low-cost plugins, organizations regularly cut their CMS spend in half or more after migrating.
2. Empowering Non-Technical Teams
On Liferay, marketing and content editors often depend on IT teams for even small updates. WordPress changes that. With its block-based editor and intuitive dashboard, non-technical staff can create, publish, and update content independently — speeding up campaigns and reducing bottlenecks.
3. Flexibility Without Bloat
Liferay is strong in areas like intranet management and portals, but weaker when it comes to modern marketing. WordPress, by contrast, can do both. Whether you need a corporate website, an intranet, an online store, or a membership platform, WordPress plugins cover the use cases without forcing you into features you’ll never use.
4. Seamless Integrations with Modern Tools
Liferay integrates well with enterprise systems (SSO, LDAP, ERPs), but struggles with marketing SaaS. WordPress integrates out of the box with HubSpot, Salesforce, GA4, Marketo, and thousands of other services — enabling modern digital strategies without heavy customization.
5. Faster Time to Market
Deploying new Liferay features often requires long dev cycles. WordPress speeds things up dramatically. Landing pages, microsites, and campaigns can be launched in hours using page builders and pre-built templates. This agility is especially valuable for marketing-driven organizations.
6. A Future-Proof Platform
WordPress powers over 43% of the internet, including enterprises, governments, and universities. Its massive ecosystem ensures continuous innovation, security updates, and developer availability. Liferay, while stable, has a much smaller community — making it riskier for long-term investment.
Migrating from Liferay to WordPress is more than a technical switch. It’s a business strategy that reduces costs, improves agility, and puts digital control back in the hands of your team — while still providing the scalability enterprises need.
Migration Checklist: Preparing to Move from Liferay to WordPress
Migrating from Liferay to WordPress requires careful planning. Liferay sites often include intranet features, complex user roles, and integrations that don’t always translate directly to WordPress. Preparing in advance will ensure nothing important is lost in the transition.
1. Audit Your Current Liferay Setup
Content inventory: Catalog pages, blogs, media libraries, and documents.
Templates & layouts: Document your Liferay templates, themes, and page structures.
User roles & permissions: Note how permissions are set up in Liferay (Admins, Power Users, Site Members).
Workflows: Identify custom approval processes or publishing workflows.
Integrations: List all connections to CRMs, ERPs, or third-party systems.
WordPress solution: Content can be mapped to posts, pages, and custom post types; roles and workflows can be recreated with plugins like User Role Editor or PublishPress.
2. Map Your SEO Data
Export current URLs, meta titles, descriptions, and schema.
Review existing sitemaps and canonical tags.
Benchmark keyword rankings and traffic sources.
WordPress solution: Plugins like Yoast or RankMath simplify metadata and redirects, ensuring SEO continuity.
3. Define Migration Goals
Do you want a like-for-like migration (replicating your intranet or portal exactly)?
Or is this the right moment to simplify and modernize with a redesigned structure and improved navigation?
4. Choose WordPress Infrastructure
Hosting: Select a managed WordPress host with enterprise performance (Kinsta, WP Engine, Cloudways).
Theme/page builder: Decide whether to use a pre-built theme, a framework like GeneratePress, or a page builder like Elementor.
Plugins: Identify the plugins needed to replace Liferay features (SEO, forms, workflows, memberships).
5. Plan Content Mapping & Redirects
Match Liferay page templates to WordPress post types or custom layouts.
Prepare a redirect map for URLs that will change.
Review menus and navigation structures for opportunities to simplify.
6. Backup Everything
Create a complete backup of your Liferay content database, media, and templates.
Store copies securely in case data recovery is needed during the migration.
Set up a WordPress staging environment for testing.
7. Prepare Stakeholders
Involve IT, marketing, and content teams from the start.
Assign reviewers for migrated content, workflows, and integrations.
Schedule training sessions for editors and admins on WordPress.
Completing this checklist ensures your Liferay to WordPress migration will be smoother, with content, SEO, and workflows preserved — and your teams ready to adopt the new system quickly.
Migration Process: How to Move from Liferay to WordPress
Migrating from Liferay to WordPress is about more than just copying content — it’s about translating a Java-based enterprise platform into a lightweight, flexible CMS that your team can manage without IT bottlenecks. Here’s how the process works:
1. Export Content from Liferay
Pages & blogs: Export all pages, blog posts, and structured content from Liferay’s content repository.
Documents & media: Move files from the Liferay Document Library (images, PDFs, videos).
Metadata: Collect SEO data like titles, descriptions, and Open Graph tags.
WordPress solution: Pages and posts are recreated in WordPress, and media is uploaded into the Media Library. Metadata can be imported into SEO plugins like Yoast or RankMath.
2. Set Up a WordPress Environment
Hosting: Move from enterprise Java hosting to a managed WordPress host optimized for PHP/MySQL.
WordPress install: Build a staging site to test the migration without touching your live Liferay site.
Core setup: Install a base theme or page builder and add essential plugins (SEO, security, backups, caching).
WordPress solution: Migration happens in staging, so your Liferay site remains online until launch.
3. Rebuild Templates & Layouts
Templates → Themes: Liferay page templates and themes are rebuilt in WordPress using themes or page builders.
Portlets & widgets: Liferay’s portlets are mapped to WordPress plugins, widgets, or shortcodes.
Responsive design: Modernize layouts for mobile-first performance.
WordPress solution: You can keep the same look or take the opportunity to refresh your design.
4. Migrate Content & Users
Pages & posts: Liferay pages map to WordPress pages, blogs to posts.
Custom structures: Liferay’s structured content can be recreated as WordPress Custom Post Types.
User roles & permissions: Map Liferay roles (Admin, Power User, Site Member) to WordPress roles. Use plugins for advanced permissions if needed.
WordPress solution: Your teams retain their roles and access, but in a simpler, easier-to-manage system.
5. Replace Liferay Features with WordPress Plugins
Forms: Swap Liferay forms with Gravity Forms or WPForms.
Workflows: Use PublishPress for content approval workflows.
Memberships & intranets: Replace Liferay intranet features with plugins like MemberPress, BuddyBoss, or WP ERP.
Search & navigation: Replace custom Liferay search with WordPress’ built-in or enhanced plugins like Relevanssi.
WordPress solution: Advanced features are rebuilt with plugins that are easier and cheaper to maintain.
6. Preserve SEO & Redirects
URL mapping: Match Liferay-friendly URLs to WordPress slugs.
301 redirects: Redirect old URLs to new equivalents.
Metadata migration: Import titles, descriptions, and schema into WordPress SEO plugins.
Sitemaps: Generate and submit new XML sitemaps to Google Search Console.
WordPress solution: Proper SEO migration ensures you don’t lose rankings or organic traffic.
7. Testing & QA
Content checks: Verify migrated pages, posts, and media.
Functionality: Test forms, workflows, memberships, and user logins.
Performance: Run speed tests and optimize images.
Cross-device testing: Ensure layouts work on desktop, tablet, and mobile.
WordPress solution: Testing in staging ensures your live site launches smoothly.
8. Launch the WordPress Site
Point your domain from the Liferay server to the new WordPress host.
Monitor analytics, rankings, and traffic closely post-launch.
Train your editors and admins to use the new WordPress system.
WordPress solution: Launch with minimal downtime and give your teams the independence they never had with Liferay.
Post-Migration Checklist: What to Do After Moving from Liferay to WordPress
Once your new WordPress site is live, the migration isn’t finished until you verify that content, SEO, and functionality are intact. A post-launch review ensures your site delivers the benefits you expect while avoiding disruptions.
1. Verify Redirects & URL Mapping
Test high-value pages (homepage, services, landing pages, blog posts).
Use a crawler like Screaming Frog to confirm all 301 redirects are working.
Fix any 404 errors quickly to protect user experience and SEO.
WordPress solution: Redirect plugins make it simple to manage large numbers of migrated URLs.
2. Recheck SEO & Indexing
Confirm that meta titles, descriptions, and schema are in place.
Submit the new XML sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Monitor indexation and keyword rankings for the first 4–6 weeks.
WordPress solution: SEO plugins put optimization directly in the hands of marketers — no IT dependency.
3. Validate Analytics & Tracking
Check that GA4, Google Tag Manager, or other analytics scripts are firing.
Test event tracking, conversion goals, and form submissions.
Reconnect CRMs, marketing automation, or ERP systems that may have been tied to Liferay.
WordPress solution: Most tracking codes can be added directly through plugins, making integration faster.
4. Review Performance
Benchmark site speed with PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix.
Optimize any oversized images migrated from Liferay.
Confirm caching and CDN services are active.
WordPress solution: Managed WordPress hosting typically delivers faster speeds than Java-based setups.
5. Harden Security
Install and configure a security plugin (Wordfence, iThemes Security).
Set up automated daily backups.
Limit admin access and enable two-factor authentication.
WordPress solution: Security management is simpler, with plugins and hosts offering built-in protections.
6. Test Functionality
Verify all forms, workflows, and search features.
Test member logins, restricted content, or intranet areas if migrated.
Review navigation menus and internal links for accuracy.
WordPress solution: Features that replaced Liferay modules should be validated to ensure nothing was overlooked.
7. Train Your Team
Walk content editors through the WordPress dashboard (adding pages, editing posts, uploading media).
Train admins on plugin updates, user management, and backups.
Provide a basic maintenance SOP for ongoing tasks.
WordPress solution: Most non-technical teams adapt to WordPress after a single training session.
8. Monitor SEO & Traffic Trends
Track organic traffic weekly during the first three months.
Watch Google Search Console for crawl errors or warnings.
Address ranking fluctuations early to maintain momentum.
WordPress solution: SEO tools and analytics integrations make monitoring easier than on Liferay.
By following this checklist, you’ll ensure your Liferay to WordPress migration delivers long-term stability, better performance, and a platform your team can actually manage.
Frequently asked questions
Costs depend on your site’s size and complexity:
Small to medium sites: $3,000–$7,500
Enterprise portals or intranets: $10,000+ (custom pricing)
💡 At Dellos, we also provide a CMS Migration Calculator so you can get a tailored estimate instantly.
- Typical websites: 4–6 weeks
- Large intranets or enterprise portals: 8–12 weeks, depending on workflows, user roles, and integrations.
Liferay’s approval and publishing workflows don’t transfer directly. In WordPress, they can be recreated using plugins like PublishPress, which enables editorial workflows, approvals, and scheduling.
No. The migration is built on a staging site, while your Liferay instance stays live. The switch to WordPress typically takes less than an hour.
Liferay’s portal features (user logins, restricted content, groups) can be rebuilt in WordPress using plugins like MemberPress, BuddyBoss, or WP ERP, depending on your needs.
Not if done properly. We migrate metadata, set up 301 redirects, and resubmit sitemaps to Google Search Console. Many businesses actually see improved rankings because WordPress sites are typically faster and more mobile-friendly.
Yes. Roles like Admin, Power User, Site Member can be mapped to WordPress roles. Advanced permission control can be added with plugins like User Role Editor.
Yes. WordPress powers enterprise sites, universities, and governments worldwide. With managed hosting, regular updates, and plugins like Wordfence, it meets enterprise-grade security requirements.
Yes. WordPress powers 43% of the web, including enterprise and government sites. With security plugins, regular updates, and managed hosting, WordPress can be even more secure than an under-maintained MODX site.
No. WordPress runs on lightweight Linux/PHP hosting, which is faster and significantly cheaper than maintaining Liferay’s Java infrastructure.
Minimal. Most content editors adapt to WordPress after a single training session. Unlike Liferay, WordPress allows non-technical staff to publish and update independently.
Yes. Some enterprises start by moving their public-facing site, then later migrate intranets, membership systems, or portals. This phased approach reduces risk and complexity.
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