Axi’s Migration from Umbraco to Strapi

Project at a Glance

Axi is a global online broker serving traders in more than 100 countries. Its website ran on Umbraco v8 and had to serve several regions, each with its own languages, content, and legal rules. We rebuilt axi.com on Strapi v5 and Next.js as one platform for multiple domains and 20+ locales, and kept it flexible enough to take on a new design, new technologies, and improvements during development. Launching a landing page now takes about an hour instead of almost a day.

The websites are operated by entities forming part of the Axi Group of Companies. Certain products, services and features may not be available or offered to all users and may be restricted or unavailable in certain jurisdictions, subject to applicable laws and regulatory requirements.

Background & Goals

For most of Axi’s clients, axi.com is their first contact with the brand. It’s where they learn through Axi Academy, follow live market data, and open an account.

The website ran on Umbraco v8. Axi wanted a new design on a headless stack, with Strapi v5 for content and Next.js for the frontend.

Short-term goals:

• Redesign and rebuild axi.com on Strapi v5 and Next.js
• Run all regions on one platform, each with its own URLs and languages
• Load pages in under three seconds for 90% of visitors worldwide
• Move content from Umbraco without losing content or SEO rankings

Long-term goals:

• Let content and marketing teams build pages and campaigns from existing components on their own
• Add new regions, languages, and domains on the same platform, with less redevelopment for each new market
• Give SEO specialists direct control of meta tags, headings, and structured data in the content management system (CMS)

Challenges

Axi operates across multiple regions, each covering a group of locales: language and regional versions of the website. These versions can have different content and legal requirements, even when they share the same language.

The new platform had to handle:

• Multiple domains and 20+ locales, including right-to-left Arabic
• Content and legal notices that differ by region
• An Umbraco database with 95 tables and over 4,400 images, while the redesign changed most page layouts
• More than 10 integrated third-party services, including an economic calendar and cryptocurrency market data

Together, these called for a headless platform built for many regions from day one.

As the project evolved, we worked with Axi to incorporate its new design system. The focus was on bringing the updated experience to users while building on the pages and content already prepared.

Solution

We started with a technical analysis and a review of the Umbraco database, then worked in sprints with regular demos for Axi.

We collaborated closely with Axi’s developers, designers, SEO specialists, QA team, and content editors to integrate the new website into the platform and prepare localized content for each regional market.

Content management

• Strapi v5 as a page builder, with a page hierarchy, generated URLs, and redirect management
• A rich text editor that shares the website’s typography and brand colors, with formatting presets for different content types, so editors can see how their text will look on the page as they edit
• An SEO plugin with its own role, so SEO specialists edit meta tags and structured data without touching content
• Redirects that editors manage in the CMS, with CSV import, a preview of changes, validation including loop detection, and controlled sync to the edge network
• Global placeholders for important business figures, shared text, and regional URLs, so editors update a value once per locale instead of changing it on every page that uses it
• From Umbraco, we moved selected blog posts, articles, and media. Axi’s content team rebuilt the rest in the new page components, and we supported them with Strapi training.

Regions and localization

• A regional model that groups locales, with content and legal notices managed for each regional version
• Routing for every region and locale, plus domain mappings that keep pages working after a domain change
• A translation workflow with Lokalise, so editors send content from Strapi and apply returned translations to several locales at once, with the option to keep them as drafts for review

Gradual design rollout

• We integrated Axi’s new design system before launch. Both design systems run side by side, giving Axi the flexibility to move individual pages and regional versions to the new design when ready.

Connected services and campaign pages

• One Next.js codebase that runs both axi.com and a separate app for landing pages
• Automatic synchronization of trading instrument data and creation of missing instrument pages, alongside live price widgets
• Integration with Axi’s client portal, so the website recognizes signed-in visitors and shows a personalized account menu with links to their portal
• Integrations with Lokalise and with services for an economic calendar, cryptocurrency market data, and transactional email

Results

Axi.com now runs on Strapi v5 and Next.js across multiple domains. Every region and language lives on one platform, and the services Axi depends on, from economic calendar to live market data, work on the new site.

Axi’s content and marketing teams now build pages, campaigns, and partner landing pages in Strapi from existing page components and templates, without waiting for developers. SEO specialists manage meta tags, headings, and structured data on their own, and editors handle redirects directly in the CMS. Editors can move individual pages and regional versions to the new design while keeping the original content available.

New regions, languages, and domains build on the same platform, which cuts down on redevelopment for each new market. Every launch still involves technical, legal, and localization work.

Results in Numbers

After launch:

• Multiple domains and 20+ locales running from one codebase
• Almost a day → 1 hour to launch a new landing page
• Core Web Vitals passed on desktop and zero layout shift (CLS 0) on mobile and desktop for the EU website
• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) under 2.5 s for real desktop users of the EU website, within Google’s “good” range
• Lighthouse performance score of 90+ on desktop for the EU homepage

From the Axi Team

Working with the agency on our new website was a positive experience. The team was collaborative, responsive and committed throughout the project. We appreciated their support, flexibility and ability to work closely with our internal teams to bring the project to completion.

Anton Burov, Head of Performance Marketing, Axi

From the Notum Team

A website this size keeps changing while you build it. When the new design arrived, Lucie and Libor reworked the app to run both design systems side by side, page by page. That let the team adopt the new look without rebuilding what was already live, and it took them three months.

Dominik Juriga, Tech Lead, Notum

Why Notum

What we brought to the project:

• A Strapi Enterprise Partner based in the EU, and the Strapi agency behind Strapi’s own website
• Transparent, competitive pricing
• One stable team from kickoff to launch, with the same people writing the code and answering the calls
• Know-how that stays in-house, with Strapi training for the editors
• A proven base in the Notum Strapi + Next.js starter, already used on more than 50 projects
• Seven years as a headless CMS agency, focused on Strapi and Next.js development

Why Strapi

What Strapi brings to a multi-region website:

• More control for marketing teams, who build pages, campaigns, and partner landing pages from existing components and manage SEO and redirects on their own
• More efficient work for developers, since headless content stays the same when the frontend changes, which made the new design possible during development
• Easier management of global websites, with one setup for every region, language, and domain
• Open-source software, which gives Axi more control over its content and data and less dependence on a single vendor
• Ready-made and custom Strapi plugins for SEO, redirects, and translations

Planning a similar move? See how our website migration services work.

Running a website across several regions? See how we brought Scenic Group’s twelve Sitecore sites onto one platform, unified five Direct Insurance websites on Strapi, and moved Lokalise from WordPress to Strapi.

Planning a website for several regions? Talk to the team that built Axi’s.

Book a free call https://calendly.com/notum