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Two ways to start.

One is running the minute you sign up. The other is the full source, on your own machine. Either way, every feature is switched on — and the developer quick-start guide has the detail.

Nothing to install

Try the hosted sandbox

A full instance with the out-of-the-box feature set, provisioned as soon as you sign up. No machine to prepare, no database to create, and someone on hand while you evaluate.

Coming Soon

For evaluation — not sized for production traffic. Production environments are provisioned when you choose a package on the pricing page.

Run it yourself

Clone the full source

The whole platform from our Azure DevOps repo, running on your own machine or your own servers. Your database, your network, your keys — and nothing held back behind a licence tier.

Access the repo

Needs the environment below — about fifteen minutes of setup if you already have Visual Studio and SQL Server.

What self-hosting needs

Only relevant if you're taking the source. The hosted sandbox needs none of this.

To build

Visual Studio 2022 or later — any edition
.NET Framework 4.8 developer pack
Node.js LTSRuns the local worker behind the admin AI-Assist features

To run

Windows Server 2019, 2022 or 2025, or Windows 11 Pro/Enterprise
IIS 10 or later, Integrated pipeline
SQL Server 2019 or laterAzure SQL supported
A SQL login that can create databases

Questions we hear most

Questions about the platform, architecture, or deployment? Start here.

How is BWA different from a traditional CMS?

BWA goes far beyond a CMS. It is a full enterprise web infrastructure platform that ships CMS, PIM, LMS, member portals, and headless APIs as first-party modules in a single runtime with 88+ production-ready plugins on top. A CMS manages content. BWA manages the entire web application stack, from content to commerce to learning to authenticated portals, all from one admin, one codebase, and one vendor contract.

What frontend frameworks does BWA support?

BWA supports three rendering modes simultaneously: SSR via ASCX modules for fast, SEO-optimised delivery, React with Tailwind via BWA Web Studio for modern component-driven builds and full headless delivery via WebAPI 5.3 REST endpoints consumable by any external frontend, Next.js, Vue, mobile apps, or AI agents. All three modes operate against the same content repository and can be mixed on a single page.

Does BWA require a build pipeline or frontend bundler?

It depends on the project model and no frontend bundler is needed either way. Web Site projects need no build: IIS compiles App_Code and CodeFile modules on first request via Roslyn, so plugins deploy by copying a folder into BWA.Plugins and can be hot-swapped in production without a rebuild or restart. Web Application projects do use a build: their .csproj compiles plugin C# into a single application assembly with MSBuild, so changes to that code ship with a normal build step. Neither model needs webpack or Vite, BWA Web Studio handles the React and Tailwind conversion pipeline separately, producing output that deploys the same way.

Can BWA run multiple sites from one installation?

Yes. Multi-tenancy is enforced at the data architecture level. Every business object is scoped to a domain ID. A single BWA installation serves multiple independent client websites simultaneously with complete content, user, configuration, and module isolation. New domains are provisioned through configuration, not code changes. Cost is amortised across tenants on a shared AKS cluster.

Is BWA hosted, and where does it run?

What is included in every plan?

Is BWA secure and compliant enough for enterprise use?

What is Azure used for beyond hosting?

Can editors build and change pages without a developer?

Do we have to choose between a visual editor and a decoupled front end?

No, and this is the trade-off BWA is built to avoid. Going fully decoupled on most platforms costs editors the visual tools they rely on daily. BWA serves the same content core to a server-rendered site, an API-first front end, or a near-zero-hydration page, editors keep the visual builder either way.

How does BWA avoid us buying separate platforms for portals, learning and product data?

How is content kept separate between sites on one installation?

Do we need to buy a separate PIM license?

How long does implementation typically take?

Does this replace our existing commerce platform?

Is product data isolated between business units or clients?

Is the LMS a separate product or part of the platform?

What question types do quizzes support?

Can the LMS issue certificates and track progress?

Can we give instructors, learners and administrators different access?

Does the LMS connect to our HR and CRM systems?

Can we put video and audio inside a lesson?

Does the LMS use AI as well?

Is portal access separate from my CMS login?

What kinds of portals can BWA support?

Can BWA replace an existing legacy portal?

How are users and permissions managed?

What authentication methods are supported?

Can we use our existing corporate identity provider?

Which front-end frameworks can we use?

What happens when we add a new channel, like a mobile app?

Is the API REST, and is it documented?

Do we have to commit to headless up front?

Can AI systems and partners consume our content directly?

Does BWA support MCP?

What is NLWeb, and why would we turn it on?

NLWeb is Microsoft's open protocol for making a site readable by AI agents. BWA implements its /ask endpoint: an agent sends a plain-English question and gets back Schema.org-typed JSON rather than a page of HTML it has to scrape. Every NLWeb instance is also an MCP server, so the two share the same underlying data.

Is the NLWeb endpoint safe to leave open?

It is anonymous by design, that is what makes a site agent-readable and the safety comes from what it is allowed to see rather than from who is asking. It answers only from content the domain has explicitly published: entities registered as public-read in that domain's API profile, plus published pages. Nothing outside that set is reachable through it.

Will BWA work with the systems we already run?

What does BWA connect to natively?

What if there is no native connector for a system we use?

How are connectors secured and audited?

Can we get data out into our warehouse or analytics stack?

How long does a new integration usually take?

Can BWA push events to our systems as they happen?

Yes, through outbound webhooks. Out of the box that includes content being published, form submissions, user registrations, orders and newsletter sign-ups, and any registered entity additionally raises its own created and updated events, so you can subscribe to the records that matter to you rather than polling for changes.

How do we verify a webhook genuinely came from BWA?

What happens if our webhook endpoint is down?

Can we target visitors by physical location?

Yes. You can draw circular geofences around places worth targeting: a campus, a service station, an event lot, a competitor's forecourt, and tie a campaign to them. The campaign carries the offer; the fence only decides where a visitor has to be for it to apply. Fence types are an editable list, so you can group them however your team thinks.

Does geofencing expose where we are targeting?

How quickly can we deploy an AI assistant on BWA?

Is the AI a separate product or built into the platform?

What does the AI actually do for a content team day to day?

What is Stan?

What can Stan help with, and what is out of scope?

Stan covers BWA platform questions. Account, billing and unrelated topics are out of scope, it will point you to your support contact rather than attempt an answer. Where a question is ambiguous it asks one clarifying question instead of guessing, and where it has no grounded answer it says so rather than inventing one.

What kinds of things do people ask Stan?

Which AI capabilities come with the platform, and which do we build?

Built in and ready to use: AI Block Expressions for generating layouts and interactive sections, AI Assist for refining content in place, agentic workflows across the modules, and Stan for platform questions. Built by you: a customer-facing assistant of your own, using the BWA Bot Accelerator Framework on Microsoft Azure AI services.

If an AI agent can change our content, how is that controlled?

Through a per-domain Agent Action policy, and the defaults are deliberately cautious: agent actions are off until enabled, and dry-run until you turn that off. Beyond that you allowlist which verbs are permitted, create, update, publish, configure, revert and which entity types they apply to, cap how many actions can run per hour, and read a full audit log of everything attempted, with a configurable retention period.

If AI generates a block on a page, are we stuck with it?

What can AI Assist actually change on an existing design?

Can we control which AI crawlers read our site?

What is llms.txt and does BWA generate one?

BWA builds /llms.txt for you, a Markdown index telling an AI agent what your site is and which pages answer what, so it does not have to parse your HTML chrome to work it out. Worth being straight about it: llms.txt is a proposed convention, not a ratified standard, and no engine is obliged to read it. It costs little and helps where it is honoured.

How extensible is the platform?

Functionality ships as self-contained plugins from a curated library covering workflow automation, data and analytics, third-party integrations, security and access control, and content management. Each one is documented, compatibility-checked, and installs by copying a folder and registering the module.

What is involved in adding a module to our site?

Are the modules supported, or are they community add-ons?

They are a curated, verified catalogue rather than a community marketplace. There are 88 modules organised by business need: workflow automation, data and analytics, third-party integrations, security and access control, and content management - each with compatibility checks, full documentation and expert support.

Can we bring designs from Figma into BWA?

Does a new design have to be rebuilt by hand in the platform?

What is a Design Sector Pack?

A whole multi-page design project imported in one go rather than a page at a time. A dealer site might be twenty-five pages; a pack brings all of them in together, gives you a page menu, and lets you set the brand and the business's own details once for the entire pack. Each page then goes through the same conversion pipeline as a single-page import.

Are Design Sector Packs only for automotive?

How does one identity stay consistent across every page in a pack?

Settings are split deliberately. Pack-wide covers brand, archetype, design system, chrome, corner language and the business's own details: name, tagline, phone, address and an uploaded logo. Change any of those on one page and every other page follows. Per-page covers only each band's treatment, whether it is shown, and the band order.

Does a design's mobile layout survive the conversion?

Yes, when the design has one. Each page is rendered twice, once at desktop width and once at phone width, so the design is driven into its own mobile state rather than just being narrowed. A design authored only at desktop width still converts, but what you get is a squeezed desktop composition, so author the mobile state if mobile matters.

What stops a design asking for something the platform cannot build?

The design brief is generated from the installed module catalogue rather than written by hand, so a design cannot name a module that does not exist. An upload gate then validates the pack before any conversion is spent on it. One limit worth knowing: WebStudio can confirm a module exists and is installable, but not that it is registered on a particular customer domain that lives in the tenant database and should be checked on the target domain.

What can Web Studio take a design from?

Does a converted design become real modules, or just static markup?

Real modules wherever it can. Web Studio reads the names in the design, section names, and above all the field names inside repeating items to bind each band to an existing module by reference. Where no module matches, the band falls back to an AI Block: it installs and works, but it does not yield a reusable module, so naming things in line with the platform's conventions is what keeps a design importing as modules rather than as blocks to rework later.

How does BWA keep AI-generated design on-brand?

Through a Brand Corpus, a versioned snapshot of your brand's palette, typography, design tokens and approved layout patterns for the tenant. Generated content is produced against those tokens rather than against whatever the model felt like, so output inherits your brand instead of approximating it.

Can we roll back a brand change?

Where do shortcodes work?