Umbraco portals connected to Dataverse. The alternative to Power Pages.
Authenticated, data-driven portals with full design control, no per-user licensing, and none of the limitations that make Power Pages frustrating to work with.
Power Pages looks simple until you actually try to build something real
Power Pages promises low-code portals connected to Dataverse. In practice, you hit the limitations fast: rigid templates, limited design control, per-user licensing costs that scale unpredictably, and a development experience that fights you at every turn.
When you need authenticated portals that look and feel like your brand — not like a Microsoft template — and you need them to scale without licensing surprises, Power Pages becomes the wrong tool for the job.
Common Power Pages frustrations
- Rigid templates with limited design flexibility
- Per-authenticated-user licensing costs
- Complex Liquid templating language
- Limited control over URL structure and SEO
- Difficult to version control and deploy
- Performance limitations at scale
Umbraco as the portal, Dataverse as the data layer
We build authenticated portals on Umbraco that connect directly to Dataverse via the Web API — giving you the editorial control of a CMS with the data power of the Microsoft platform.
Full design control
Your portal looks and feels like your brand. No template constraints, no Microsoft chrome. Pixel-perfect design with Umbraco's flexible rendering.
No per-user licensing
Umbraco is open source. Your licensing costs don't scale with the number of authenticated users — a fundamental cost advantage over Power Pages.
Dataverse integration
Read, write, and query Dataverse tables directly. Contacts, cases, custom entities — all accessible through secure, authenticated API calls.
Editorial content + live data
Marketing pages, help articles, and news managed by editors in Umbraco. Account dashboards, case tracking, and forms powered by Dataverse. One platform.
Proper CI/CD and source control
Umbraco projects live in Git. They deploy through Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions. No clicking through a portal designer to make changes.
Performance at scale
Azure App Service with CDN, caching, and auto-scaling. Handle thousands of concurrent authenticated users without the performance ceiling of Power Pages.
Power Pages vs Umbraco + Dataverse
Power Pages
- Per-authenticated-user licensing
- Template-driven design
- Liquid templating
- Limited SEO control
- Portal designer deployment
- Microsoft-managed infrastructure
Umbraco + Dataverse
- Open-source CMS, no per-user cost
- Complete design freedom
- C# / Razor — standard .NET development
- Full control over URLs, metadata, structured data
- Git + CI/CD pipelines
- Azure-hosted with auto-scaling
Built on trusted foundations
Any organisation that needs an authenticated portal connected to Dataverse
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Learn moreStuck with Power Pages? There's a better way.
Tell us what your portal needs to do. We'll show you what Umbraco and Dataverse can deliver together.
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