Acquia DAM (Widen) vs. WoodWing Assets

Widen is a great digital asset manager internally. I loved the framework that the platform has. However, we created a main portal to share with our external partners so we could control what was private and what was public. The portal framework was not as user-friendly and we tried too much to make it like a website when it was meant to be a DAM. The main reason we switched providers is that we wanted to have the option to have a consistent framework internally and externally that was more user-friendly with better search capabilities.

Incentivized

WoodWing Assets work exceptionally well in companies where they have a large number of digital files, that they need to manage and search. Media, advertising and marketing companies benefit significantly when using Assets to manage their digital images, video and content as the most approved as well as latest versions are automatically kept of every digital file. Companies that have a small number of digital files, with probably less than 10 staff, probably don't need a system to manage their actual digital files, provided they are in a structured folder base, that everyone can access.

Incentivized

• They offer valuable guidance and educational resources to Administrators
• Their I.T. support is knowledgeable and responsive. And friendly!
• They build community among Acquia DAM (Widen) Admins
• They aren't as salesy and pushy as many of the other DAM Vendors that we considered. I don't feel like they are constantly trying to upsell me or take advantage. I hope this continues to be the case with the acquisition by Acquia.
• They're just plain nice people to work with.

Incentivized

• Faster Load Times
• Improves your SEO efforts by decreasing browser load times
• Saves your server resources by caching assets

Incentivized

• Improvements in the cropping and editing features within Acquia DAM are essential to ease the workload for our graphic designers. The current functionality falls short in providing the necessary tools and precision required for efficient asset manipulation, not helping with that time management at all.
• Enhancing the onboarding experience, we propose creating more video tutorials for Acquia DAM. These visual guides, covering topics from account setup to collaboration features, offer dynamic, step-by-step learning.
• To improve the onboarding experience, we recommend expanding introductory tools and templates in Acquia DAM. Introducing more user-friendly features and providing a variety of templates will empower new users to navigate the platform with ease, fostering quicker proficiency and enhancing overall usability.

Incentivized

• Can be a bit expensive when compared to other CDN alternatives such as AWS or Cloudinary
• Learning curve involved for the user interface/dashboards
• Lacks more advanced manipulation of assets that can be served dynamically

Incentivized

Acquia DAM (Widen) is changing its pricing model and at this point, we are unsure whether it is a good thing for us or not. While we consider this a robust tool, we will take our time to evaluate the competitors.

Incentivized

We used to have to respond to any email questions from our library users about how to find assets. With Acquia DAM (Widen), the system is similar to online shopping, workable with keywords for those who like to search that way, or with filters for those who like to browse.

Incentivized

It is incredibly easy. For an idea on the onboarding or training of a basic user, this is the only system we know of that training takes literally 1 hour, and the basic user is fully up to speed. Very intuitive user experience. Easy ability to share files (simply right click). Easy ability to search for all digital files, and even content within the digital files, if you cant remember what the file name was - just this feature alone saved us hours everyday

Incentivized

Never had an issue where I was unable to access Widen.

Incentivized

There have been a couple of rare instance where after I uploaded an asset, I was unable to rename it, or after uploading it it took a while before it actually appeared and can be viewed in the DAM.

Incentivized

It's very seldom that I have to reach out for support, but when I have, there are quick solutions and follow-ups to make sure the system is working how it should be. My customer support team is also great at reaching out on a regular basis to keep me up to speed on emerging features I may be able to leverage to improve my experience.

Incentivized

WoodWing support has been good, they do feedback quickly when reporting an issue and do keep you up to date with where they are in the process of resolving the support issue. The support team is knowledgeable and take the time to fully understand the issue. I do feel they should have an online support ability to assist with basic user issues, as opposed to having to log a ticket every time, but that would be the only reason I have not given them a 10.

Incentivized

The training was very thorough. The recordings for all our traning sessions were provided to us so that we could go back and review. Our trainer was always available for follow up questions. Our trainer shared a spreadsheet with us as a checklist for all things that needed to be done to ensure proper import and setup of our assets and DAM.

Incentivized

It was a lot of work! But worth the effort to get our assets cleaned up and organized. Enough time and personnel need to be allotted for any implementation, but we had some advantage in having our assets in a previous DAM with attached metadata in XML, and our users were prepared with knowledge of our existing DAM at that time. Though old habits present their own issues, a company that is starting from scratch with no DAM has to think farther ahead about how it will organize and collect assets. Far more pre-planning with stakeholders would be needed for a company starting an implementation from scratch.

Incentivized

We decided to stick with Acquia DAM (Widen) in the short term but will be reviewing the options this or next year to better integrate with Social, Web, and Creative team needs. We use Sitecore for all our web services, so it needs to be compatible with that, Social also needs to integrate but is not fixed on a single system, but Canva would be a good fit. The creative team always prefers local storage to link to rather than the cloud due to speeds.

Incentivized

Overall Elvis DAM is a great product although when you compare the solution to other providers of similiar asset CDNs such as Amazon's AWS, Rackspace CDN or Cloudinary it can get quite expensive. This is especially true if you have a team that is at the larger enterprise level in which case you are charged by the user.

Incentivized

Can not give an accurate rating.

Incentivized

• The Acquia DAM (Widen) helped our company transition more quickly to remote work, giving users access to files much faster than the company servers could.
• The Acquia DAM (Widen) has given non-web devs the ability to quickly build clean web pages that share out marketing resources and information.

Incentivized

• Easy to implement and execute
• Reduced our bandwidth and overall web operating costs
• Improved customer satisfaction with faster speed load times

Incentivized