
It’s time to move beyond Liferay CE: Unlocking the power of Liferay DXP Cloud
20 Jun 2025
15 min


Ankit Kulshrestha
Technical Architect
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, organizations relying on Liferay Community Edition (CE) often find themselves constrained by limited support, complex upgrades and missed opportunities for innovation. While CE offers a solid foundation, it lacks the enterprise-grade capabilities needed to ensure business continuity, security and agility. This blog explores the critical limitations of Liferay CE and highlights how migrating to Liferay DXP Cloud can empower your organization with enhanced operational efficiency, future-ready technology and strategic alignment.
The hidden costs of Liferay CE
Liferay CE may appear cost-effective due to its open-source nature, but the long-term implications often outweigh the initial savings. Here’s why:
-
No commercial support
Without dedicated commercial support, organizations are required to manage troubleshooting independently. This often leads to extended system downtimes, increased strain on internal resources and delays in resolving critical issues.
-
Upgrade complexity
Managing upgrades in Liferay CE is challenging, often necessitating:
-
Custom patch implementation
-
Extensive regression testing
-
Careful downtime scheduling
These complexities discourage frequent updates, resulting in systems that are outdated and susceptible to risks.
-
Security vulnerabilities
Community Edition (CE) introduces significant risks by lacking robust security measures and timely compliance support, leaving organizations vulnerable to data breaches, regulatory violations and reputational harm.
-
Missed innovation cycles
Community Edition users often face challenges due to the lack of access to cutting-edge features such as headless CMS and low-code tools, alongside performance and integration improvements. These limitations hinder digital transformation initiatives and slow the pace of innovation within organizations.
The strategic advantage of Liferay DXP Cloud
Liferay DXP Cloud is a fully managed, enterprise-grade platform that addresses the limitations of Community Edition (CE) and unlocks new possibilities:
-
Enterprise support
DXP’s enterprise support offers 24/7 expert assistance, ensuring that stakeholders have access to knowledgeable professionals at any hour of the day. With structured Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in place, DXP guarantees high uptime and swift resolution for any issues encountered. This proactive approach includes continuous monitoring and issue prevention strategies that help maintain service integrity and enhance user satisfaction.
-
Enhanced features
DXP provides enhanced features such as a headless Content Management System (CMS) designed for seamless omnichannel delivery, allowing content to reach audiences on various platforms. DXP’s modular architecture enables flexible development, meaning functionalities can be tailored to meet specific needs without compromising on performance. Additionally, DXP’s built-in automation streamlines workflows and publishing processes, giving back valuable time and resources.
-
Cloud-native scalability
DXP supports cloud-native scalability with auto-scaling capabilities that adjust resources based on demand, ensuring optimal performance during peak usage times. DXP prioritizes zero-downtime deployments so that updates can be introduced without hindering service accessibility. Moreover, DXP’s integration with Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) and DevOps practices enhances collaboration and accelerates the development lifecycle.
-
Reduced operational load
By choosing DXP’s platform, stakeholders benefit from reduced operational load as DXP manages hosting, system updates and backups, freeing teams to focus on innovation rather than routine maintenance tasks. This comprehensive support allows resources to be leveraged effectively, channeling them towards enhancing business initiatives and developing new solutions.
-
Future-proofing
Future-proofing an enterprise is critical, and DXP ensures this through continuous updates and security patches that protect systems against the latest vulnerabilities. DXP’s commitment to providing access to the latest features and technologies keeps platforms competitive and relevant. Furthermore, DXP prioritizes long-term stability and compliance, enabling adaptations to change in regulations and market demands without disruption.
What DXP Cloud means to your stakeholders
For IT Managers and Directors, DXP Cloud simplifies the upgrade process, ensuring minimal disruption while addressing critical security risks. With enterprise-grade security measures and compliance capabilities, it reduces the need for constant firefighting, allowing IT teams to focus on strategic planning and long-term goals.
Architects and Developers benefit from DXP Cloud’s robust support for headless APIs and microservices, enabling greater extensibility and modularity. The platform provides developer-friendly tools and environments that accelerate development cycles and ensure seamless integration, fostering innovation and efficiency.
Digital Leads and Product Owners gain the ability to innovate and modernize rapidly with DXP Cloud. The solution supports agile experimentation and iteration, enabling the deployment of new features swiftly. It offers the tools necessary to deliver engaging and contemporary digital experiences that resonate with users.
Business Executives, including CIOs, COOs, and CEOs, find value in DXP Cloud’s alignment with strategic digital objectives. By lowering the total cost of ownership over time, it ensures long-term scalability and resilience, instilling confidence in the platform’s ability to adapt and support the organization’s growth and continuity.
Practical use cases for DXP Cloud migration
While every organization has unique goals, the following use cases reflect common challenges faced by Liferay CE users and how DXP Cloud provides targeted solutions.
Use case |
How can DXP help? |
Modernizing legacy portalAn organization is running a legacy Liferay CE portal which is slow, difficult to maintain and lacks modern UX capabilities. The platform is no longer aligned with user expectations or business needs. |
DXP Cloud enables seamless migration to a modern, cloud-native platform. It offers advanced tools for content migration, responsive design and modular architecture - resulting in a faster, more engaging and scalable digital experience. |
Accelerating time-to-marketA digital team needs to launch new services quickly but is slowed down by manual deployments, testing bottlenecks and infrastructure limitations in their |
With built-in CI/CD pipelines, automated testing and cloud-native deployment, DXP Cloud dramatically shortens development cycles. Teams can release features faster, iterate more often and respond to market demands in real time. |
Delivering personalized
|
DXP Cloud supports headless CMS and microservices, enabling content delivery across multiple channels. Personalization tools and analytics help tailor experiences to user behavior, improving engagement and satisfaction. |
Meeting regulatory complianceAn organization in a regulated industry (e.g., healthcare, finance) must comply with strict data protection laws like GDPR or HIPAA, but CE lacks the necessary controls and audit capabilities. |
DXP Cloud provides enterprise-grade security, role-based access control and audit logging. |
Reducing infrastructure and maintenance burdenA mid-sized enterprise is overwhelmed by the cost and complexity of managing its on-prem Liferay CE environment, including backups, patches and uptime monitoring. |
By shifting to DXP Cloud, the organization offloads infrastructure management to Liferay. Hosting, updates, backups and monitoring are handled by the platform - freeing internal teams to focus on innovation and strategic growth. |

Subscribe to our newsletter