| Pantheon | Acquia | |
|---|---|---|
| Developer productivity | Up to 4x team productivity with WebOps tooling: Dev, Test, Live, Multidev, Autopilot, GitHub Integration. | Script-heavy workflows require manual maintenance and troubleshooting. Slow deployments that often introduce instability push releases to off-hours. |
| Platform flexibility | Supports all versions of Drupal. | Platform for “Acquia CMS” can only support Modern Drupal. No solution for those with legacy (Drupal 7) sites in their portfolio. |
| Technology ecosystem | Includes the best of open WebCMS and modern front-end frameworks, with no limit on integrations. | Aging suite of add-on acquisitions being sunset in favor of white-labeled exclusive partnership offers. |
| Content velocity | Real-time collaboration and staging for content and campaigns. | Updates are slow, high-friction and often require dev or IT to unblock. |
Why enterprise teams are moving from Acquia to Pantheon
Acquia wants you to believe their platform is the future of Drupal. The reality? Acquia isn’t what it used to be. Customers like you are frustrated with slow performance on Cloud Next, declining support quality, constant product churn, and contract renewals that leave you boxed in.
Today’s leading digital teams want speed, flexibility, and autonomy, not off-hours deployment windows, endless ticket escalations, and proprietary system lock-ins.
Customers who’ve made the switch to Pantheon get more than a free migration. They’re getting more return from their Drupal investment and the freedom and flexibility to own their digital future.
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Tens of thousands of web teams run on Pantheon
Pantheon knows your pain
If you’re on Acquia, you’ve probably felt the limits: clunky Kubernetes infrastructure, constant upsell and overage notices, and a once top-tier support experience that’s been drained of expertise.
Acquia used to be a shining city on a hill. If you feel let down lately, you’re not alone.
Hundreds of teams have already moved to Pantheon’s WebOps platform for zero-downtime deployments, faster workflows, on-demand expert support, plus multi-CMS flexibility and the freedom to build with the tools they choose.
Migrating from Acquia to Pantheon can be fast. Building the internal consensus to make the change takes time. If you’re considering a switch or just want a plan B, now is the time to start.
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More than a discount alternative: A better way forward
Pantheon isn’t “anti-Acquia.” It’s post-Acquia. Acquia wants you to think we’re just a cheaper version of their platform. The reality is they’ve spent years copying the WebOps workflows and developer-friendly tools Pantheon pioneered. But they haven't matched Pantheon’s speed, dev experience, and user control, which directly impact your team's ability to move fast and do their best work.
Pantheon
- Serverless architecture that is truly elastic and fits sites of all sizes.
- Native AI-first platform with comprehensive DrupalCMS AI integration and deep integration with the Google ecosystem.
- Support for sites of all shapes and sizes across an enterprise portfolio.
- Elite support for Drupal and other leading web technology from tenured subject matter experts.
- Full Platform support for Drupal, WordPress and NextJS, as well as integration with Google Docs.
Acquia
- Fixed Kubernetes (EKS) infrastructure is slow and costly to scale.
- AI capabilities primarily through third-party integrations and partner solutions. Limited to specific modules with no integrated LLM framework.
- Site Factory forces monolithic one-size-fits-all approach to portfolio governance.
- Service and support teams replaced with low-cost call center, significant expertise drained from the organization.
- Acquia Source CMS is a SaaS version of Drupal.
Teams that outgrew Acquia but excel on Pantheon
Perforce
"Our issues were solved overnight."
– Jeremy Pieper, Web Development Manager, Perforce
Before Pantheon:
Frequent outages, inefficient workflows and inflexible multisite management with Acquia’s Site Factory.
After switching:
Perforce's dev team found a silver bullet with Pantheon’s Upstreams for multisite management. Bot traffic, cache issues and deployment delays are gone, and marketing and IT teams are now free to focus on growth.
"Pantheon’s support team has been incredible… Compare that to Acquia, where tickets of even medium to high importance would take seven days for a response if we get a response at all.” – Tom Trench, Drupal Developer, Perforce
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Martin County, FL
"We haven’t had any problems with cyberattacks and I think that’s due to Pantheon’s tight security and fast security patches and updates."
– Jennifer Hagedorn, Web Content Analyst, Martin County
Before Pantheon:
The team struggled with slow updates, outages and unreliable support on Acquia during hurricane season and COVID-19 traffic surges.
After switching:
With Pantheon’s Multidev workflows and real-time performance alerts, Martin County now delivers reliable, secure updates during emergencies without downtime or delays.
“We didn’t have [Multidev] on Acquia and sometimes we had problems with content getting erased. Now, on Pantheon, we have a more agile process for the Promet Source team to set up environments without impacting our weekly sprints and releases. It’s super helpful!” – Jennifer Hagedorn, Web Content Analyst, Martin County
FAQs
Worried about migration complexity?
Pantheon’s automated tooling completes 85% of migrations in under 14 days, significantly reducing manual effort and minimizing disruption to your team. Our proven migration playbooks and expert support ensure a smooth transition, so you can get up and running without stress.
Will we lose Acquia-specific features?
Not at all! Our engineers pre-map 100% of Acquia workflows during onboarding, ensuring that none of your essential features are lost during migration. Whether you’re moving from Site Factory or any other Acquia tool, we ensure a smooth transition with minimal impact to your workflows.
What about Acquia's Drupal expertise?
While Acquia focuses on Drupal development, Pantheon optimizes the infrastructure that powers all modern CMS platforms, including WordPress and headless architectures. Our platform offers specialized workflows and performance tuning for both Drupal and WordPress, ensuring you get the best of both worlds.