Silverstripe Developers in New Zealand
What Do Silverstripe Developers Do?
Silverstripe developers design, build, integrate, upgrade and support websites, portals, intranets and web applications powered by Silverstripe CMS. They can also assess whether an existing Silverstripe platform should be improved, rebuilt or replaced.
Silverstripe is a powerful and flexible platform, but choosing the CMS is only the beginning. How it is designed, developed and maintained determines how well it supports your organisation over time.
Flight Digital is an Auckland based digital agency working with organisations across New Zealand. Our Silverstripe experts support new builds, custom functionality, integrations, upgrades and ongoing development. We also help teams decide when Silverstripe remains the right choice and when another platform would offer better long term value.
The conversation doesn’t begin with a predetermined solution. It begins with what your organisation, your users and the people managing the platform need it to do.
Silverstripe in New Zealand
Built in Pōneke Wellington, Silverstripe remains a significant part of New Zealand’s digital landscape. BuiltWith currently detects 3,584 live Silverstripe websites in New Zealand, representing nearly 23% of all live Silverstripe sites in its dataset.
The platform has also proven it can perform under significant demand, with the 2023 Census website homepage recording 3.7 million page views, including almost one million on Census Day. These figures demonstrate Silverstripe’s local reach and technical capability, although the right CMS choice should still depend on your content, integrations, internal capability and future plans.
Silverstripe experience built through real work.
Flight brings 5 years of Silverstripe experience across new website builds, custom development, integrations, platform upgrades, migrations and ongoing support.
Our team has worked across a range of Silverstripe websites and digital platforms, supporting organisations in entertainment, construction, travel and tourism. This experience helps us understand the technical decisions that affect security, performance, content management and the long-term value of the platform.
Flight’s Silverstripe capability is supported by giving clients access to a team that understands both the technology and the wider digital experience it needs to support.
Selected Silverstripe work includes Active Adventures Group, NZ Comedy Festival, and Winstone Wallboards (GIB), where Flight delivered platform maintenance & stabilisation, and digital transformation with modern web replatforms.
Custom Silverstripe Development Built Around Your Business
An excellent Silverstripe development starts with understanding how the platform fits the organisation using it.
Flight develops Silverstripe websites around real content, workflow and integration requirements. That may be a public website, secure portal, multisite platform, intranet or custom application. The platform should work for the people managing it and the people using it.
Our Silverstripe development services can include:
- New Silverstripe websites and digital platforms
- Custom CMS development and configuration
- Bespoke features, tools and web applications
- API and third party system integrations
- Secure portals, permissions and user workflows
- Multisite and multi-brand platform development
- Front end and back end development
- Improvements to existing Silverstripe websites
We also plan for what happens after launch. Clear architecture, maintainable code and useful documentation make the platform easier to support and improve as requirements change.
Silverstripe Support and Maintenance
Digital platforms don't stand still. Security requirements change, dependencies age and organisations need new functionality. Without clear ownership, small technical issues can become larger constraints.
Flight provides ongoing Silverstripe support and maintenance for organisations that need reliable development expertise without building a complete internal team.
This can include:
- Technical Troubleshooting and fixing bugs
- Dependency maintenance and security updates
- Silverstripe version updates
- Custom functionality and new features
- Third party integration support and API
- Website performance improvements
- Platform recommendations and technical reviews
- Inherited Silverstripe websites and support for legacy
Support for Existing Silverstripe Websites
Your Silverstripe website doesn't have to be built by Flight for us to support it.
We are experienced in working on platforms that are developed by another agency, freelancers, or internal team. We begin by reviewing your codebase, hosting, integrations, documentations, and deployment process. We also help the team understand current issues, manage priorities, and platform needs to support next.
From there, we will identify risks and agree on a practical support plan. Flight then can manage the platform directly or work alongside your internal developers, IT teams, and other technology partners.
Silverstripe Technical Audits and Code Reviews
Sometimes the first requirement isn't development. It's clarity. A technical audit can show you the condition of an inherited or ageing platform before you commit to a larger programme of work.
We can review architecture, custom code, modules, dependencies, hosting, integrations, security risks and technical debt.
The outcome is a prioritised view of what needs attention now, what can be planned and what may no longer be worth maintaining.
Silverstripe Upgrades and Modernisation
An older Silverstripe website doesn’t always mean it has to be automatically replaced. If the foundations are placed, a well-planned upgrade can improve security, performance, and usability while extending the life of the existing platform.
A major version upgrade can involve more than updating the CMS. Integrations may need retesting, custom modules may need rewriting, and older themes or dependencies may no longer be compatible. What Flight does is that we first assess your platform completely before recommending a path forward.
That review includes:
- PHP versions and current Silverstripe and PHP versions
- Supported and custom modules
- Content model requirement and database
- Deployment environments and hosting
- APIs and third party integrations
- Accessibility and front end compatibility
- Launch risk and testing requirements
This review gives your team a clearer view of what should stay and where investment will have the most impact.
Should You Replace Silverstripe, Rebuild, or Upgrade?
There is no one answer for every website. The right path depends on the condition of the current platform and what organisations needs it to do next.
Upgrading Your Existing Platform
Upgrading often makes sense especially when the core platform remains reliable and the required improvements can be delivered without rebuilding the entire experience. This then can preserve important custom functionality while improving performance, compatibility, and security.
Rebuilding on Silverstripe
Remaining with Silverstripe doesn’t mean keeping the existing website. A rebuild provides a better value when the codebase is difficult to maintain or when performance, accessibility, and user experience problems are embedded in the old implementation. This creates a stronger foundation while allowing content teams to continue working with a familiar CMS.
Moving to Another CMS
Sometimes, Silverstripe is no longer the right fit. Integrations may be difficult to maintain, content requirements may have changed, or the wider digital strategy may need a different architecture. What Flight can do is help you compare options without treating a new platform as the answer to every problem.
Should You Stay on Silverstripe?
This makes sense when:
- The platform still supports business and user requirements
- Existing custom functionality continues to provide value
- Your content team is comfortable using the CMS
- Moving platforms wouldn't create enough value to justify the cost and disruption
Replatforming may be worth considering when:
- Technical debt is slowing down development
- Publishing and content requirements have changed
- Integrations are fragile or difficult to extend
- The website no longer supports the customer experience you want to create
- Maintaining the existing platform costs more than replacing it
Flight can assess Silverstripe alongside options such as Sanity CMS development, other headless CMS platforms, and modern web architectures. We make the trade-offs clear, so your team can choose a direction with confidence.
Silverstripe for Complex Websites and Digital Services
Silverstripe is more than a page editing tool. Its CMS and framework can support websites, intranets, portals and applications with complex content and business logic.
It can be a useful fit for:
- Not-for-profit and community organisations
- Education and research organisations
- Membership and association platforms
- Multisite and multi brand businesses
- Secure portals and authenticated experiences
- Platforms with complex workflows, integrations or data structures
For public-facing and regulated services, accessibility should be considered throughout design, development and testing, not left until the final quality check.
Silverstripe CMS Migration and Replatforming
A CMS migration changes more than the platform. Content, functionality, integrations, URLs and reporting all need to move together.
Flight can help you move from an older Silverstripe implementation to a modern Silverstripe build. We can also plan a move from Silverstripe to a headless CMS, or migrate another website into Silverstripe when it remains the right choice.
Migration work can include:
- Content inventory and clean up
- Content and data migration
- URL mapping and redirect planning
- SEO requirements and organic visibility protection
- Integration and functionality reviews
- User roles, permissions and publishing workflows
- Analytics, tracking and structured data
- Testing, launch monitoring and post launch support
SEO needs to be part of the migration from the beginning. Leaving it until launch can lead to broken links, lost rankings and unreliable measurement. Flight's SEO and migration strategy capability helps protect important URLs, content relationships and reporting throughout the move.
Our work with Active Adventures shows what this decision can look like in practice. Its legacy Silverstripe ecosystem carried technical debt that limited performance, integrations and regional growth. Flight moved the group to a headless Sanity architecture because the wider business requirements called for a different foundation.
The point isn't that every Silverstripe platform should be replaced. It's that the platform decision should follow the evidence.
Why Organisations Choose Silverstripe
Silverstripe is an open source CMS and development framework created in New Zealand. It gives developers control over the underlying application while providing content teams with a structured environment for creating, reviewing and publishing content.
Organisations often choose Silverstripe when they need:
- Flexible page structures and content models
- Custom business logic and functionality
- Detailed roles, permissions and publishing workflows
- Connections with internal systems and APIs
- Support for websites, web applications and intranets
- An open source CMS without proprietary licence fees
That flexibility makes the quality of the implementation especially important. Architecture, code quality and ongoing support all affect how securely and efficiently the platform can evolve.
Is Silverstripe Still the Right CMS for You?
Silverstripe can still be a strong choice for organisations that need a custom digital platform and have access to experienced development support.
It may be less suitable when the priority is rapid publishing through a large plugin marketplace or when a headless content model would better support multiple websites, applications and channels.
The right comparison may include Silverstripe, Sanity, Craft, WordPress or another CMS. We consider the content model, integrations, internal capability, security, total cost of ownership and future roadmap. This helps teams choose a platform they can operate, support and improve over time.
Why Work With Flight?
The most useful platform decisions are rarely made by development teams alone.
A CMS affects how people experience a website, how clearly search engines and AI systems can interpret its content and how easily internal teams can manage it.
Flight brings strategy, UX, design, development, search and measurement into the same conversation. This helps teams make stronger technical decisions before they become expensive to change.
Our Silverstripe capability can include:
- Platform strategy and technical planning
- UX, UI and accessibility
- Full stack Silverstripe development
- Custom functionality and integrations
- Technical SEO and migration planning
- Analytics and measurement requirements
- Structured content for search and AI discovery
- Ongoing development and optimisation
We also provide an objective view of the platform itself. If Silverstripe remains the right choice, we’ll help you improve it. If another architecture would create better long-term value, we’ll explain why.
Explore our broader full stack website development, UX and UI design and digital transformation capabilities.
Platform Decisions Based on Evidence
We don’t begin with a preferred answer. We look at what the organisation, its users and its internal teams need the platform to support.
Active Adventures: Assessing a Legacy Silverstripe Platform
Active Adventures, Austin Adventures and Discovery Bicycle Tours operate across New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. Their legacy Silverstripe platform carried significant technical debt, limiting performance, integration capability and the team’s ability to respond to changing sales requirements.
After assessing the platform and the wider needs of the business, Flight recommended moving to a headless architecture rather than rebuilding in Silverstripe. We rebuilt the ecosystem across its brands and international markets using Sanity, connecting booking platforms, CRM tools and marketing systems while giving internal teams greater control over regional content.
The new platform provides faster performance, clearer journeys from discovery to booking, stronger technical SEO and a more flexible foundation for future growth.
This project demonstrates how Flight assesses the existing platform, identifies technical limitations and recommends the architecture that best supports the organisation’s future needs.
Our Silverstripe Development Process
- Understand. We review the existing platform, users, content, integrations and business requirements.
- Assess. We identify risks, dependencies and opportunities before determining whether improvement, upgrade, rebuild or migration offers the best value.
- Design and develop. We shape the user experience and technical architecture, then build and test the platform, functionality and integrations.
- Launch and improve. We plan the migration and launch carefully, monitor performance and continue improving the platform through ongoing support.
What We Assess Before Recommending a Silverstripe Upgrade or Rebuild
No two Silverstripe platforms age in the same way. Before recommending the next step, we look at how the current platform works across technology, content and everyday operations.
Silverstripe Version and Technical Health
Flight reviews the current Silverstripe version, modules, dependencies, custom codes, hosting environments, and deployment process. This helps identifying the technical debt, support risks, and the complexity involved in upgrading the platform
Content and Publishing Workflows
Flight checks how internal teams create, reuse, manage and publish content. The platform should give people the control they need without making governance or everyday updates harder than necessary.a
Integrations and Data Flows
Flight map connections with CRM platforms, booking systems, search tools, ecommerce, authentications, internal systems, and marketing technology. This will show which integrations are working well, where risk exists and what future architecture needs to support,
User Experience, Accessibility and Performance
Flight assesses important user journey, navigation, page performance, technical SEO, accessibility, and structured content. This helps separate issues that can be improved within existing platform deeper architectural constraints.
A Clearer Next Step for Your Silverstripe Platform
Whether you need a new Silverstripe build, support for an inherited website, an upgrade plan or an objective view on replatforming, Flight can help you understand the options and choose a practical way forward.
Silverstripe FAQs
01
For the right requirements, Yes. Silverstripe remains a strong option for organisations that need customisable CMS and reliable development support. Its suitability still depends on your integrations, content, future plans, and workflows.
02
Yes, Flight review and support Silverstripe website built by another agency, internal team, or freelancer. We begin by assessing hosting, integration, codebase, current priorities, and documentation,
03
Yes. Flight will assess the current implementation, technical risks, and identify outdated dependencies. We’ll then recommend an upgrade, rebuild, or stage modernisation plan based on what we find.
04
An upgrade usually makes sense when the platform remains maintainable and continues to support your requirements. A migration may offer better value when technical debt, content needs or architecture constraints are holding the website back.
05
Yes. Silverstripe can connect with APIs, CRM platforms, data sources and other business systems. The best approach depends on the systems involved, available APIs, data flows and security requirements.
06
Yes. Silverstripe combines a CMS with a development framework, so it can support more than public websites. It can be used for intranets, authenticated portals and web applications with custom workflows or business logic.
07
Yes. Flight can plan a move from Silverstripe to Sanity or another headless CMS when it fits the organisation's content and technical requirements. The migration should account for content, functionality, integrations, URLs, SEO and analytics.
08
Cost depends on the platform and the work involved. Custom functionality, integrations, migration and ongoing support all affect the scope. An initial technical review can define the project before you commit to a larger programme.
09
A focused improvement may take a few weeks, while a full build or migration will take longer. Design, content, integrations and testing all affect the timeline. We'll confirm a realistic plan once we understand the scope.
010
Flight is headquartered in Auckland and works with organisations across New Zealand. We can collaborate with internal teams and technology partners in different locations, with the support arrangement shaped around the platform and the work required.
11
We include SEO in the migration plan from the beginning. This covers URL and content inventories, redirect mapping, metadata, internal links, structured data, analytics, crawl testing and monitoring after launch.
