Migrating your Community from Khoros to Vanilla Forums?

Why migrate to Vanilla Forums?

For many organisations, Vanilla offers a modern, flexible approach to community management. Its strengths in scalability, gamification, AI-powered search, and ease of customisation give teams the ability to evolve quickly and engage members more deeply. Vanilla’s investment in continuous innovation, clear upgrade paths, and strong vendor support make it an appealing option for organisations wanting to future-proof their community.

How we help with your migration

Aligning your existing Community design

Design is the first impression your members have of the community. We start by auditing your existing Khoros Classic or Aurora design, then carefully align it with Vanilla’s theming framework and styling capabilities. Our focus is on preserving familiarity, maintaining the look, feel, and navigation patterns your members already recognise, while ensuring your brand and style guide are cleanly translated to Vanilla’s design system. This approach minimises unnecessary change, strengthens brand consistency, and delivers a community that feels reassuringly familiar yet refreshed, accessible, and mobile-responsive.

Information architecture & sitemap planning

A strong community experience depends on intuitive navigation. We work with your existing IA, sitemap, and UX flows to see what should be preserved and what can be improved. Then, we adapt these to Vanilla’s structure, which may have different conventions for categories, discussions and post types. The goal is to reduce friction, streamline content discovery, and set your Community up for long-term success with clearer, cleaner pathways to the content and conversations members value most.

Out of the box components & enhancements

One of Vanilla’s advantages is a strong set of native components. We conduct a side-by-side analysis of your current Khoros features and identify what can be mapped directly. At the same time, we surface opportunities to enhance your community with Vanilla features you may not have today: AI-powered search and recommendations, AI Suggestions in threads, and advanced gamification mechanics that encourage participation. This process ensures your new platform doesn’t just replicate Khoros, it raises the bar for engagement and usability.

Custom components to custom widgets & APIs

Most Khoros Communities rely on bespoke functionality. We take inventory of your existing Khoros custom components and work with you to prioritise what must be carried over. Using Vanilla’s Custom Widget builder and flexible API framework, we design equivalents that maintain (or improve upon) your current functionality while ensuring maintainability and performance. We also flag areas where Vanilla’s native capabilities may remove the need for custom development altogether, helping you reduce long-term cost and technical debt.

Data migration strategy

Data is the heart of any community. We plan and execute your migration in close collaboration with Higher Logic Vanilla’s team, mapping every content type, user record, and permission set between Khoros and Vanilla. Because the two platforms handle taxonomy, permissions, and metadata differently, this requires careful consideration to ensure continuity for members and moderators alike. We also manage SEO sensitive areas like redirects, preserving inbound traffic and protecting the value of your community archives.

Moderation & administration training

Switching platforms inevitably changes how your moderators and administrators work. We provide structured training and clear documentation that walk your team through the differences between Khoros and Vanilla. This includes hands-on workshops, quick reference guides, and best-practice playbooks. Our focus is on minimising disruption so your team can quickly adapt, reclaim their productivity, and get back to building community value rather than wrestling with new tools.

Third party integrations

Communities rarely operate in isolation. We review your existing integrations with CRMs, CMS', analytics tools, and syndication platforms, then design a plan for migrating or rebuilding them in Vanilla. Wherever possible, we map business logic directly, so that reporting pipelines, single sign-on, or content syndication flows remain intact. For more complex setups, we create a roadmap of incremental improvements, ensuring no loss of visibility or operational efficiency.

Additional Vanilla Services

SEO, GEO, LLMO, AEO & content strategy

A successful migration is about more than preserving links, it’s about protecting and extending your community’s visibility across search, generative, and AI-driven channels. Our approach combines traditional SEO with emerging practices such as GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization), and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) to ensure your content remains discoverable and authoritative in evolving digital ecosystems. Our holistic strategy safeguards your existing rankings, maintains organic reach, and positions your community to appear in AI-generated summaries and recommendations, helping your Community stay visible and relevant wherever people search for answers.

Ongoing maintenance and professional services

Post-upgrade, we offer ongoing maintenance and professional services to ensure your community continues to run smoothly. This includes regular updates, troubleshooting, and continuous improvements. Our support team is always available to address any issues and provide assistance, helping you to maintain a thriving community that meets your evolving needs.

Change management & member adoption

Technology is only half the battle, member adoption and engagement is what determines your Communities success. We work with your team to plan communications, FAQs, and member onboarding journeys so your community feels informed and supported during the change. We also help identify opportunities to use Vanilla’s gamification or AI features as “launch moments” to excite members, build momentum, and demonstrate the value of the move right from the start.

Security & compliance

For enterprise communities, security and compliance are essential. Our migration process takes into account data privacy (GDPR, SOC2, HIPAA where relevant), access controls, and audit requirements. We ensure that data is transferred securely and that Vanilla’s compliance posture aligns with your organisational obligations. We also provide guidance on how Vanilla’s security model can strengthen your governance framework post-migration.

Ongoing support & partnership

Platform migration is only the beginning. Hinterlands builds long-term partnerships with our clients, providing ongoing maintenance, feature assessments, and vendor advocacy. As Vanilla releases new capabilities, we help you evaluate their relevance and incorporate them into your roadmap. Our close relationship with the vendor also ensures that your issues, bug reports, and wishlist items are surfaced and given priority. This means your community continues to evolve, not just on day one, but for years to come.