What users are saying about
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
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Top Rated
79 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 8.3 out of 100
Based on 79 reviews and ratings
55 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 7.4 out of 100
Based on 55 reviews and ratings
Feature Set Ratings
Security
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
Feature Set Not Supported
N/A

8.0
Cascade Server
80%
Cascade Server ranks higher in 1/1 features
Cascade Server ranks higher in 1/1 features
Role-based user permissions
N/A
0 Ratings

8.0
80%
19 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
Feature Set Not Supported
N/A

7.1
Cascade Server
71%
Cascade Server ranks higher in 2/2 features
Cascade Server ranks higher in 2/2 features
API
N/A
0 Ratings

7.0
70%
12 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language
N/A
0 Ratings

7.3
73%
7 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
Feature Set Not Supported
N/A

7.1
Cascade Server
71%
Cascade Server ranks higher in 8/8 features
Cascade Server ranks higher in 8/8 features
WYSIWYG editor
N/A
0 Ratings

6.1
61%
19 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness
N/A
0 Ratings

6.0
60%
18 Ratings
Admin section
N/A
0 Ratings

8.0
80%
19 Ratings
Page templates
N/A
0 Ratings

9.0
90%
17 Ratings
Library of website themes
N/A
0 Ratings

5.5
55%
2 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design
N/A
0 Ratings

7.0
70%
15 Ratings
Publishing workflow
N/A
0 Ratings

9.0
90%
19 Ratings
Form generator
N/A
0 Ratings

6.4
64%
7 Ratings
Web Content Management
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
Feature Set Not Supported
N/A

6.9
Cascade Server
69%
Cascade Server ranks higher in 5/5 features
Cascade Server ranks higher in 5/5 features
Content taxonomy
N/A
0 Ratings

8.0
80%
13 Ratings
SEO support
N/A
0 Ratings

7.0
70%
14 Ratings
Bulk management
N/A
0 Ratings

9.0
90%
14 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions
N/A
0 Ratings

6.0
60%
11 Ratings
Community / comment management
N/A
0 Ratings

4.8
48%
5 Ratings
Attribute Ratings
- Acquia Digital Experience Platform is rated higher in 1 area: Product Scalability
- Cascade Server is rated higher in 2 areas: Likelihood to Recommend, Likelihood to Renew
- Acquia Digital Experience Platform and Cascade Server are tied in 1 area: Support Rating
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
84%
37 Ratings

9.9
Cascade Server
99%
44 Ratings
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
90%
9 Ratings

9.1
Cascade Server
91%
26 Ratings
Usability
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
N/A
0 Ratings

9.1
Cascade Server
91%
4 Ratings
Availability
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
N/A
0 Ratings

6.7
Cascade Server
67%
8 Ratings
Performance
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
N/A
0 Ratings

8.0
Cascade Server
80%
2 Ratings
Support Rating
9.1
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
91%
1 Rating

9.1
Cascade Server
91%
10 Ratings
In-Person Training
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
N/A
0 Ratings

7.0
Cascade Server
70%
1 Rating
Online Training
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
N/A
0 Ratings

5.0
Cascade Server
50%
1 Rating
Implementation Rating
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
N/A
0 Ratings

9.1
Cascade Server
91%
8 Ratings
Product Scalability
7.6
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
76%
20 Ratings

5.0
Cascade Server
50%
1 Rating
Likelihood to Recommend
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
Well suited for rapid development of applications and sites, ease of maintenance, security enhancements, and ease of patching. Drupal for global enterprise content strategy i.e. industrial robustness. DevOps is there but needs to be easier to integrate with other vendors. In my experience, Acquia Digital Experience Platform doesn't support well data-driven process definition, setup, and management from an application standpoint. In production, we expected the production environment to be separated from the non-production environnement, which was only possible at the logical level and not at the network level.
IT Manager in charge of Digitalization
La Mutuelle GénéraleInsurance, 1001-5000 employees
Cascade Server
Cascade Server is well suited with it's WYSIWYG editor being better than most editors that I have used in other systems. In context, editing makes adding content easy compared to the last CMS I used where you had to wing it and view the page outside of the CMS to see if it was correct. The ability mix HTML, CSS, and the Script of your choice anywhere and with ease.
The scenarios were Cascade Server is less appropriate would be in the use of compilers or programs like Visual studio. You need to go out of Cascade Server and go to other environments to perform tasks and then copy the result to Cascade Server. You can write directly in Cascade Server, but it's easier to do in and editor that is specific to a function.

Verified User
Professional in Other
Higher Education Company, 201-500 employeesPros
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
- Easy to manage multiple environments and a team of Site Developers and Site Administrators
- Easy and intuitive to conduct deployments, back-ups, rollbacks of code, databases, and files
- Useful add-ons such as Solr Search, Security, Site Monitoring, Migration tools, etc.
- Excellent and responsive support

Verified User
Manager in Marketing
Professional Training & Coaching Company, 51-200 employeesCascade Server
- Cascade CMS makes no assumptions about your content. Templates control how the content gets displayed.
- Workflows are intuitive and allow for one or more people to review content before it is published.
- The published site is static (no database connection) which allows for faster page loads and reduced risk of attack.
Web & New Media Specialist
Cleveland State Community CollegeHigher Education, 201-500 employees
Cons
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
- Using the platform is not for the faint of heart. It takes some understanding of how a back-end system technology works to be able to get anything done or even know where to go.
- Being able to verify DNS services is not easy to do. A digital market is required to do this with Facebook or Google from time to time but it is hidden from the non-tech user. I need to find a tech expert to do a simple task that is holding up the quality of our digital advertising. This is the way the digital world works and these capabilities need to be exposed and easy to verify by non-tech users quickly without the possibility of disrupting the system.

Verified User
Executive in Marketing
Computer Software Company, 51-200 employeesCascade Server
- Cascade CMS is not an out-of-the-box pre-built system that you can install, turn on and expect to be serving sites and pages on day one. It's not a blogging system like WordPress, or a drag-and-drop system like SquareSpace (both of which I've used for their own purposes). You need to have someone tasked with management and system administration – and if you implement the on-premise self-hosted version, you ought to have several people. We have the university's IT shop handling infrastructure (server hardware, containers, clustering, operating systems, load-balancing, DNS, database servers, NAS/SAN drives), our Web & Design team managing Cascade CMS (system settings, sites, templates, permissions) and managers coordinating each respective academic unit (A&S, business, education, law, marine science).
Senior Web Architect
William & MaryHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees
Pricing Details
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
General
Free Trial
—Free/Freemium Version
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
—Cascade Server
General
Free Trial
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Entry-level set up fee?
Optional
Starting Price
—Likelihood to Renew
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
Acquia Digital Experience Platform 9.0
Based on 9 answers
As a Drupal Web Developer, I have not encountered or been exposed to any other hosting solution that could surpass the benefits of having a site hosted on Acquia Cloud. Although, for any side-project or low-cost freelance gigs, I cannot expect that I'll always have the option of recommending Acquia Cloud, and that's okay. While I am at work and trying to help our team gain more exposure to my companies' extensive list of clients, when we have the fortune of adding another Drupal-based client to our roster, getting those clients on Acquia Cloud makes every other aspect of building or modifying their school website that much easier
Senior Drupal Developer/Consultant
EllucianHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees
Cascade Server
Cascade Server 9.1
Based on 26 answers
Changing systems would require too much effort. Our institution is using Cascade Server, WordPress and Drupal but we only serve 2200 students so we have 1 too many content management systems. Reflecting on current technical resources we would like to drop down to 2. This effort hasn't moved forward because of the extensive work required to migrate content and train users in a new system.
Associate Director of Web Communications
Union CollegeHigher Education, 501-1000 employees
Usability
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Cascade Server
Cascade Server 9.1
Based on 4 answers
Cascade CMS is completely usable on mobile devices, we can train our content editors in a single 2-hour session, and we support 1,000 users with a very small team.
There is a level of complexity for the system administrators, site managers and web programmers who implement templates and content types. But the complexity is neither arbitrary nor inconsistent – and once learned provides a powerful environment within which we can develop robust sites that are beautiful and powerful, yet easy for our content editors to manage.
Senior Web Architect
William & MaryHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees
Reliability and Availability
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Cascade Server
Cascade Server 6.7
Based on 8 answers
Amazing customer service and VERY customizable.
Webmaster
Jacksonville State UniversityHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees
Performance
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Cascade Server
Cascade Server 8.0
Based on 2 answers
Does a great job.
Web Administrator
True Value CompanyInformation Technology and Services, 51-200 employees
Support Rating
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
Acquia Digital Experience Platform 9.1
Based on 1 answer
The team is always there to support any issue. We had an issue around adding more code into the system and they supported us all the way through.

Verified User
Manager in Information Technology
Automotive Company, 10,001+ employeesCascade Server
Cascade Server 9.1
Based on 10 answers
They have always regarded any question or problem we encountered as very important. We have never felt that they ignore or downplay any issue and not once has anything been left unresolved. They also hold an annual conference where users are invited to attend and share their experiences and wisdom with the entire Cascade community. And with the care and support the provide, we all feel a part of that community.
Manager, Campus Web Technology
SUNY Upstate Medical UniversityHospital & Health Care, 5001-10,000 employees
In-Person Training
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Cascade Server
Cascade Server 7.0
Based on 1 answer
Training was helpful.
Web Administrator
True Value CompanyInformation Technology and Services, 51-200 employees
Online Training
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Cascade Server
Cascade Server 5.0
Based on 1 answer
Still needed that physical help
Web Administrator
True Value CompanyInformation Technology and Services, 51-200 employees
Implementation Rating
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Cascade Server
Cascade Server 9.1
Based on 8 answers
The key to any CMS implementation is PLAN, PLAN, PLAN. Proper planning with Cascade can increase your satisfaction exponentially once the site migration/creation is complete. When all is said and done, your implementation can make your site run like a Yugo or Maserati. Be smart and deliberate in your decisions. Drive the Maserati. It is already paid for.
Marketing Manager
HCC Medical Insurance ServicesInsurance, 51-200 employees
Alternatives Considered
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
Acquia [Digital Experience Platform]'s offering is much for extendable, flexible, and scalable. The security is far beyond WP and it is much easier to extend than Magento was. Being able to have access to all these tools at an enterprise level, but still have them remain open source is really a huge advantage in my mind.

Verified User
Director in Engineering
Marketing & Advertising Company, 51-200 employeesCascade Server
We selected Cascade server seven years ago, and the CMS environment at the time was clearly different than it is today. We decided to go with a vendor solution rather than a free solution because the long term cost in hosting a free solution is not, in fact, free; we've found Cascade to have been an excellent choice for us.

Verified User
Manager in Information Technology
Higher Education Company, 1001-5000 employeesScalability
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
Acquia Digital Experience Platform 7.6
Based on 20 answers
We do not use any of the proprietary features from Acquia [Digital Experience Platform], like Site Factory, that enable this. (I am allergic to proprietary.) But Drupal is inherently scaleable via multisite, and things like Single Sign On via contrib modules.
Sr. Manager, Web/Technical Lead
Insulet CorporationMedical Device, 1001-5000 employees
Cascade Server
Cascade Server 5.0
Based on 1 answer
I used it only a few times.
Web Administrator
True Value CompanyInformation Technology and Services, 51-200 employees
Return on Investment
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
- Acquia has a positive impact on our internal ROI for our own website.
- Most of our clients also see a positive impact on ROI when using Acquia for their web platform. This does change based on the cost of the Acquia instance.
- Acquia allows us to save time and money on client projects, allowing us to increase our margins.
Business Development Strategist
Elevated ThirdMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees
Cascade Server
- Initially, ROI was positive - because we completely redesigned the website when we implemented Cascade.
- Over time, the inability to keep up with the latest interactive tools has reduced visitors time on site.
- Also over time, the difficulty of use has led to less buy-in by backend users, leading to outdated pages, little timely information, and lower visitors.

Verified User
Professional in Marketing
Higher Education Company, 51-200 employees