# Case study: Vienna Capitals Website Source: https://lean-coders.at/en/case-study-vienna-capitals-webseite > Website relaunch for the Vienna Capitals: Headless CMS, real-time scores, and ~0.5 sec loading time – stable with thousands of visitors on game days. Case Study Headless CMS: Real-time Data & Performance Under Load. 1. Challenges 2. Project Journey 3. Results Sports Club - Ice Hockey 4 months 1 Dev, 1 Designer, 1 SA **~0,5** Seconds Loading Time — fast, faster, Vienna Capitals **100%** SEO — Lighthouse **100%** Accessibility — Lighthouse **>5k** Visitors — on game days, without performance drops LEAN-CODERS realized the complete **website relaunch** of the Vienna Capitals ice hockey club – from an outdated **Contao installation from 2011** to a **modern headless architecture** with Astro and Strapi 5. The new platform delivers ~0.5 seconds loading time, perfect Lighthouse scores, and handles thousands of visitors on game days – without performance drops. The editorial team now creates content independently, without developer tickets. ## Challenges A website that had grown over a decade, unable to keep up with performance, usability, and editorial flexibility. Outdated Design & Accessibility Rigid, outdated design with insufficient accessibility and poor mobile representation. Concrete impact: Worse user experience on mobile devices, poor usability for visitors with disabilities. Sales Channels Poorly Visible Online shop, ticket shop, and hospitality areas were inadequately presented. Concrete impact: Poor discoverability of sales channels and thus lost revenue. Static Content Structure Player profiles and other content were rigidly structured. Concrete impact: Updates were cumbersome, many inquiries from the editorial team to developers. Lack of Emotional Player Presentation The roster was presented in a simple table without personal information. Concrete impact: No emotional connection of fans to the players. Legacy System Contao CMS in use since 2011, design from 2015 – outdated for modern requirements. ## Project Journey Concept UX/UI design and information architecture as a basis. Technical decision for Astro as the frontend framework and Strapi 5 as the headless CMS. Definition of the architecture for external integrations (schedule data, merchandise, email). Design From mood boards to low-fidelity wireframes to final high-fidelity designs – several variants were developed for presentation. Result: complete design library and clean handover to the dev team. Core Development & CMS Setup 1. Block-based page builder in Strapi 5 2. Astro frontend – no JavaScript bloat, maximum Lighthouse scores, ideal for image-heavy pages 3. Redis caching – fast loading times even under load through cached API data and HTML responses 4. imgproxy – WebP conversion, dynamic cropping, high-quality images without performance loss 5. Live score & real-time updates – reliable score data even on game days under high load 6. Third-party integration – CapsCore (schedules/statistics), Shopify (merchandise), Mailgun (email) 7. Containerized deployment – all services isolated and scalable Content Integration & Launch Content filling by the editorial team, UI and integration testing, load testing under real game day conditions, go-live and monitoring. Seamless rollout without downtime. ## Results Vienna Capitals: Fast on the ice, now online too. We deliver. They stay. Repeat. Performance - Loading time ~0.5 seconds on average - Lighthouse SEO ~100 / 100 - Lighthouse Accessibility ~100 / 100 - Game Day Stability >5,000 visitors without performance drops Maintainability & Editorial - Modular blocks – create pages without developers - ~30 player and coach profiles integrated - ~30 articles/month independently by the editorial team - Fewer developer inquiries thanks to CMS-first approach Technical Quality - Modern headless architecture instead of legacy CMS from 2011 - Image and video material can be integrated without performance loss - Flexibly expandable for upcoming features - Fully containerized deployment Long-term Partnership - Sponsorship partnership with the Vienna Capitals - Ongoing maintenance and operation of the platform - Continuous development of new features Book a discovery call with your expert now This guy codes plugins for Strapi as a hobby and got featured in the official Strapi Store. Next Platform modernization: Vienna Tourism Board