Welcome back to the XM Cloud Basics series!

In Part 1, we looked at what Sitecore XM Cloud is, how it differs from XP, and why it’s become a go-to for modern web projects.

Now that we’ve got a solid introduction, let’s go a level deeper and explore the architecture of XM Cloud—what pieces are involved, how they connect, and what developers, content authors, and DevOps engineers need to know.

Sitecore XM Cloud is not a single product—it’s a composable bundle of tools and services, all tied together into a seamless SaaS experience. You can think of it as a combination of:

• Content Management (Sitecore XM core)
• Visual Page Editing (Pages)
• Deployment & CI/CD (Deploy App)
• Content Delivery (Edge)
• Development Tooling (Sitecore CLI, serialization, etc.)

Each of these plays a specific role and contributes to making XM Cloud scalable, agile, and cloud-native.

Sitecore XM Cloud (Core CMS Engine)

At the center is a modernized, headless version of the traditional XM platform.

• Content is authored using familiar concepts—templates, items, components
• Experience Editor is replaced by Pages
• Content is exposed to front-end apps via the Layout Service (GraphQL)

You still get core features like workflows, versioning, multilingual support—but delivered in a scalable SaaS wrapper.

Sitecore Pages – Visual Editor

One of the key highlights in XM Cloud is Pages, a browser-based, WYSIWYG page editor for marketers and content authors.

• Drag-and-drop interface for building layouts
• Works with headless rendering (Next.js)
• Integrates with components and data sources
• Replaces Experience Editor from XP

Sitecore XM Cloud Deploy App – DevOps Made Easy

XM Cloud includes a built-in deployment tool—Deploy App—which acts as a CI/CD manager.

• Developers push code and serialized content via Sitecore CLI
• Automatically builds and deploys to preview and production environments
• Supports GitHub Actions integration out of the box

This means:

• No custom pipelines needed
• Environment provisioning and deployments are handled via the cloud

Sitecore Edge – Delivery at Scale

Sitecore Edge is the delivery mechanism for XM Cloud—it’s where your published content is consumed from.

• It caches and serves content via high-performance CDN nodes
• Delivers content to front-end apps via GraphQL
• Enables fast, global, scalable content access

Front-end developers query Edge endpoints to get layout and item data for rendering in apps like Next.js.

Front-End Rendering – Powered by Next.js

XM Cloud is front-end agnostic, but it’s optimized for Next.js, a React-based framework.

• Developers scaffold apps using Sitecore JSS CLI
• Layout Service and GraphQL drive content population
• Static Site Generation (SSG), Server-Side Rendering (SSR), or hybrid options available

Your apps can be deployed to platforms like Vercel, Azure Static Web Apps, or Netlify—as per your strategy.

Sitecore CLI & Serialization

XM Cloud still supports familiar developer workflows:

• Sitecore CLI for pulling/pushing content schema (templates, layouts, renderings)
• Content serialization in YAML format
• Environment configurations using .sitecore folders

You can:

• Sync local changes
• Deploy to cloud environments
• Integrate with Git for source control

This makes it easier for Sitecore developers to transition from XP to XM Cloud without losing productivity.

In the next part of this series, we’ll set up our first XM Cloud environment, including provisioning a project, using the CLI, and understanding the portal.

P.S. The blog content is rephrased by AI!

Hope it helps.. Keep learning.. Keep Sitecoring.. 🙂