From PHP to static: Firebrand's journey to CloudCannon
Alex Murray
Digital Design Director
Firebrand
3x faster
Deploying new sites
Client-friendly
Content management
Centralized
Site monitoring and management
After years of PHP development and managing hundreds of websites on traditional platforms, Firebrand — a leading digital agency in Dunedin, New Zealand — reached a critical decision point in their technology stack. The agency needed a solution that would address mounting challenges with performance, efficiency, and client experience: they needed a new CMS.
About Firebrand
For fifteen years, Firebrand has been a cornerstone of New Zealand's digital services landscape, offering website design and development, graphic design, branding, marketing strategy, and Google Ads implementation. Their diverse client base spans from small startups to major corporations across New Zealand.
We get a wide range of clients coming to Firebrand for their website needs — we work with anyone from smaller startups to fully fledged large corporates, both local and across wider New Zealand.
Alex Murray
Digital Design Director
Firebrand
Alex Murray, Firebrand's Digital Design Director, spoke about their journey to CloudCannon and modern static sites:
The challenges with traditional development
While Firebrand built a strong reputation with PHP-based solutions, they eventually reached a point where evolving needs and client expectations called for more flexible and higher-performing technologies, due to challenges such as:
Website speed had become increasingly problematic with their existing stack. As Alex notes, "Website speeds are a huge factor today," and their PHP-based sites weren't consistently meeting modern performance expectations without significant effort and optimization.
The agency found their development process becoming increasingly cumbersome, with lengthy timeframes from project start to deployment. Each site required considerable back-end configuration, slowing down their ability to iterate quickly and respond to changing client needs.
Many clients struggled with the technical complexity of their previous CMS. The editing interfaces weren't intuitive for non-technical users, creating a barrier between clients and their website content.
With websites hosted across multiple AWS instances, Firebrand lacked a unified view of their client portfolio. This fragmented approach made it difficult to proactively monitor performance issues, requiring reactive troubleshooting when problems arose rather than preventative maintenance.
The evaluation process
Firebrand had been aware of CloudCannon for several years before making the switch. "It had been on our radar for a while," Alex explains, "and we wanted to be sure CloudCannon would work for a majority of our clients." Their evaluation focused on several key points:
- The performance capabilities of static sites versus PHP solutions
- Developer experience and learning curve for their technical team
- Visual editing experience from a client perspective
- Centralized client management capabilities
- The potential benefits of working with a local technology partner
On each point, CloudCannon fit the bill, and after careful consideration, Firebrand determined that the CMS addressed all of their major pain points:
Speed and performance gains
The static site architecture offered dramatic performance improvements. “Development from our point of view, from starting to deploying, is so fast,” Alex emphasizes. This applies not just to development time but to the end-user experience as well, with significantly faster page load times compared to their previous dynamic sites.
Mitchell Scott, one of Firebrand’s developers, adds: “With our previous PHP setups, every new site deployment meant recreating databases, configuring server environments, and troubleshooting connection issues. Now with CloudCannon and static sites, that entire headache is gone. We can deploy a new site in about a third of the time it used to take us. There's no database to migrate or recreate, and no server-side processing to configure — we just push the files and we’re live.”
Streamlined development workflow
By pairing CloudCannon with Astro as their static site generator, Firebrand's technical team found they could build and deploy sites much more efficiently. Despite their background in PHP, the team embraced this modern stack with enthusiasm.
Alex notes, “It’s been a lot of fun from my point of view. Design, speed, and performance — I get a lot out of building these stacks.”
Client-friendly content management
CloudCannon's Visual Editor was a game-changer for client relationships. "Visual editing for our clients is super important. I think a lot of them will appreciate being able to focus entirely on their content," says Alex.
“When we show clients the Visual Editor during our meetings, their eyes light up,” Alex continues. “It’s incredibly easy to demonstrate how they can make changes right on the page without dealing with confusing backend interfaces. We just say, ‘Click here, edit this text, and you’re done.’ The simplicity sells itself, and clients immediately understand how it will save them time and frustration. That’s been a huge win for our client relationships.”
Centralized monitoring and management
CloudCannon's Parter Dashboard for agencies provides a single view of all client sites, allowing Firebrand to monitor performance, bandwidth, and activity across their entire portfolio.
"Having all those stats and data in one place makes them a lot easier to see and consume," Alex explains,"and lets us be proactive in managing sites rather than reactive troubleshooting."
Business outcomes
The switch to CloudCannon has already yielded significant benefits for Firebrand:
- Enhanced client deliverables: "We can confidently offer our clients a fast, high-performing website with a great design, within budget and timeline," Alex explains.
- Resource reallocation: The efficiency gains allow Firebrand to dedicate more time to design excellence and additional features that "might have taken a back seat in the past with the previous platform."
- Future scalability: Firebrand has ambitious growth plans, hoping to have hundreds more websites on CloudCannon within three to four years.
- Simplified client experience: "From a client's point of view, as long as they have a simple editing experience going forward, that's all they'll need to worry about."
Looking forward
Firebrand's transition from PHP-based development to CloudCannon will help solve multiple technical pain points that were limiting their ability to deliver exceptional value to clients. By embracing a modern static approach with an intuitive CMS, they've positioned themselves for faster development, better performance, happier clients, and stronger growth in the coming years.
The partnership between Firebrand and CloudCannon links local collaboration with technical and design innovation, setting a foundation for growth for both Firebrand and their clients.
Want to find out more?
Book a friendly demo call with us, and find out how CloudCannon can help your agency deploy and manage client sites more efficiently.
Tom Richardson
Solutions Architect
