TSD & Perplex Digital win top honours at Umbraco Awards 2025

Seven digital agencies have been recognised at this year's Umbraco Awards for their work on websites built with the open-source Umbraco content management system (CMS).

This year's Jury's Choice award went to Herefordshire-based TSD for its eCommerce site created for Bond Jewellery, a company based in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter. The site was praised for its custom live feed into the Diamond Exchange, dynamic pricing, and the seamless integration of Stripe payments via a tailored implementation of Umbraco Commerce. The online store carries over 6,500 products with various precious metal options for each diamond setting and features an interface designed to make updates straightforward for site editors.

Umbraco judges highlighted TSD's approach, noting, "The complexity of the use-case and the way TSD implemented this with Umbraco Commerce to deliver an elegant front-end with deep functionality, including a live Diamond Exchange feed, is truly impressive."

TSD's CEO, Tim Gaunt, said, "We always strive to provide our customers with tailored eCommerce solutions that provide a great user experience and maximise clients' return on investment. We're delighted to gain this level of international recognition from Umbraco and our peers in the industry."

Pernille Stausbøll, Vice President Marketing at Umbraco, commented on the variety and standard of submissions, stating, "Our mission is to provide a CMS platform that is sufficiently flexible, extensible, and scalable to support enterprises' digital ambitions, now and into the future. The award finalists demonstrate how our digital agency partners are using Umbraco to build outstanding websites that meet the most demanding business requirements, while remaining user-friendly for customers, editors, and marketing teams."

Most innovative solution

The Most Innovative Solution category was awarded to Perplex Digital for its eCommerce platform for Dutch car lease company Centraal Beheer. The site harnesses Umbraco Commerce, Azure AI, HubSpot CRM, and Umbraco Engage, incorporating a conversational AI assistant named Elize to optimise customer service. The chatbot has contributed to measurable engagement: 11% of site visitors interact with Elize, 19% request a quote, and 33% return for further personalised conversations. Judges noted, "This site is innovative in every aspect. The Central Beheer site makes good use of Azure AI for business automation and showcases how a seamless blend of Umbraco, AI, HubSpot, and Engage work together to personalise and optimise each customer journey and improve engagement. This is a beautiful example of what can be achieved with Umbraco."

Cloud solution

PicoPublish, based in Denmark, took the Best Cloud Solution award for a project with The Danish Agro Group, a co-operative with over 8,000 farmers. Their approach consolidated content from 70 individual websites into a single Umbraco Cloud deployment. The move has helped reduce content management time by 47% and total CMS costs by almost 60%. According to judges, "Danish Agro showcases how a large enterprise with multiple brands can be successfully migrated into Umbraco Cloud. Editors can launch a website from within the CMS using the no-code launchpad. As a result of the migration to the cloud, Danish Agro has reduced time spent on managing content by approximately 47 percent, and lowered total CMS costs by almost 60 percent."

Commerce category

Dutch digital agency Speak B.V. received the Best Umbraco Commerce Solution award for its site for Isolatiehandel.nl, which supplies insulation products. Features include live Ajax search, product comparison and reordering tools, integration with King ERP software, a calculation module to guide purchase quantities, automated review requests, and an abandoned cart function that follows up with discount offers. Judges remarked, "This is a real showcase that covers every eCommerce aspect from B2B to B2C, with real-time search, product comparison, cross-selling and re-ordering. The fully-featured eCommerce site makes good use of Umbraco Commerce functionalities, with extensions on top. The calculation module is impressive, orders are synchronised with the ERP, with automated reviews. The extensive integration of features and functionalities is outstanding, and the UX is on point."

Site design

DEPT was awarded Best Designed Site for its work with ARTIS, which encompasses a zoo, museum, and micro-organism exhibition in Amsterdam. Judges commented, "This is a great looking design which provides online visitors with an experience that's as close as possible to going to the zoo. You immediately get the vibe. It's well-balanced and knows when to use visuals and effects and when not. The design succeeds in making three very different areas of content, that are distinct from each other, feel like a natural part of the same website. The navigation via the menu and use of simple and clean design lines makes a rather complex structure appear very simple and accessible, which is what good design can do."

Editing experience

Danish agency Ecreo won Best Editing Experience for a multi-lingual eCommerce site developed for bathroom brand Dansani. Judges noted the site's live preview functionality, commenting, "Impressive preview function and overall ease of editing. Seamlessly integrating Umbraco Cloud with multiple technology solutions while enabling editors to work in one steamlined workflow enhances the overall editing experience. The block preview is nicely done and the product picker for images is very cool. This is a visually compelling site that is easy to edit and preview in a multi-lingual setup."

Partner solution

The Best Umbraco Partner Solution was awarded to Bonsai Media Group from Seattle for its highly-interactive eCommerce site for Regulator Marine. Judges summarised, "The site combines impressive cloud-based functionality and beautiful design with great imagery throughout. Users are able to customise their boat design using the online configurator. The site has an outstanding overall UX, while delivering a wealth of information to users. Bonsai Media Group has created a high-impact, Cloud-powered site that exemplifies strategic digital transformation."