7 Takeaways From the Umbraco Codegarden Conference

Codegarden, the annual conference for the global Umbraco development community, concluded in Denmark recently. And, as usual, there was a mix of keynotes, updates, partner sessions, best practice tips and case studies. As with any tech conference relating to a particular platform there were reveals about the various different products and a reaffirmation of Umbraco’s strategic direction. Umbraco is an open-source, .NET-based content management system.

Handily these have been collected in a post about the product highlights from the conference keynote. 

In this article we’re going to cover some of the most significant and interesting updates, and what they mean for Umbraco.

1. Umbraco Continues to Expand and Evolve

Understandably a Umbraco conference is going to focus on positive news about Umbraco, but it is true that the platform has continued to expand and evolve over the past couple of years, particularly since Swedish investor Monterro took a majority stake in the platform in 2021, which has helped to fund its expansion.

Since then, there has been a stable and steady set of releases in a regular cadence with new features being added. There has been a revamped marketplace, the launch of Umbraco Workflow, investment both in the Umbraco Cloud and Umbraco Heartcore offerings, two acquisitions involving Umbraco partners and more. There has also been a considerable expansion of the engineering team. We can expect Umbraco to continue on this successful trajectory over the next 12 months.

Related Article: 5 Improvements to Umbraco Content Management System

2. Composable Is Key

Increasingly Umbraco has been positioning itself as a viable alternative to other Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs) while also supporting the “composable DXP,” particularly as a user-friendly CMS within a wider best-of-breed ecosystem.

In the keynote session Umbraco’s potential to act as a platform DXP and a composable DXP were emphasized, as well as its ability to support a “hybrid” approach which tends to be where one platform forms most of the basis of a DXP but with additional solutions from other providers integrated through APIs.

While it’s true that this positioning means Umbraco is trying to please everyone and tick every box, it is also a reflection of the flexibility of the platform which is a key strength.

3. Umbraco Commerce Is Announced

Perhaps the closest to a big “reveal” at Codegarden was the announcement of Umbraco Commerce, which brings native ecommerce features to Umbraco with all the features that you would expect and its own API. It is available on a subscription basis and is officially launched in July.

However, Umbraco Commerce is not new and is actually a rebranding of the Vendr solution which was produced by Outfield Digital, a small agency that was acquired by Umbraco HQ earlier in the year. The rebranding makes sense and follows the pattern of previous acquisitions with rebranded offerings like Umbraco Workflow coming into the fold. Ecommerce is an obvious gap to plug and allows Umbraco to compete in the wider DXP and composable DXP space.

4. Headless Capabilities Come to the Core CMS

Up to now, Umbraco’s support for headless publishing has been mainly delivered through its Heartcore product which it has also continued to invest in. However, headless support is now coming to the main platform when Umbraco 12 is released with a new Content Delivery API.

Although this has been part of the roadmap for a while, it still feels like a significant step. Headless is also coming to other parts of the Umbraco suite. For example, Umbraco Forms already supports a headless approach, and this will be extended to the new Umbraco Commerce offering soon.