Acquia Digital Experience Platform vs. Magnolia

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
The Acquia Digital Experience Platform is an "Open DXP" with its two core pillars being content and data. Built on top of one of the largest open-source content management systems, Drupal, it aims to provide the flexibility and interoperability a modern organization needs. With its customer data platform, it allows organizations to understand who their customers are and deliver personalized experiences. Acquia's DXP offers variety of other tools including digital asset management,…N/A
Magnolia
Score 8.3 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Founded in 1997 with a vision to create the first truly open content management system, Magnolia is presented as a fast way to launch digital experiences. With a mission to help clients move fast and stay flexible and boasting users among brands like Atlassian and The New York Times, Magnolia DXP supports industries ranging from automotive to telecommunications, offering enterprise features and headless agility to help them stay ahead. From humble beginnings in Basel, Magnolia's…N/A
Pricing
Acquia Digital Experience PlatformMagnolia
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Acquia Digital Experience PlatformMagnolia
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Acquia Digital Experience PlatformMagnolia
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Acquia Digital Experience PlatformMagnolia
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
8.3
49 Ratings
3% above category average
Magnolia
8.1
66 Ratings
1% above category average
Role-based user permissions8.349 Ratings8.166 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
7.7
41 Ratings
5% below category average
Magnolia
8.0
64 Ratings
4% above category average
API7.639 Ratings8.457 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language7.732 Ratings7.557 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
7.7
43 Ratings
1% above category average
Magnolia
8.0
70 Ratings
5% above category average
WYSIWYG editor7.631 Ratings8.561 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness7.534 Ratings8.461 Ratings
Admin section7.942 Ratings7.966 Ratings
Page templates7.830 Ratings8.968 Ratings
Library of website themes7.426 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design7.828 Ratings8.559 Ratings
Publishing workflow8.134 Ratings7.569 Ratings
Form generator7.724 Ratings7.056 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Acquia Digital Experience Platform
7.6
35 Ratings
7% above category average
Magnolia
7.5
65 Ratings
2% above category average
Content taxonomy8.028 Ratings7.560 Ratings
SEO support7.329 Ratings7.159 Ratings
Bulk management7.431 Ratings7.954 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions7.832 Ratings8.058 Ratings
Community / comment management7.826 Ratings7.148 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Acquia Digital Experience PlatformMagnolia
Small Businesses
Progress Sitefinity
Progress Sitefinity
Score 7.7 out of 10
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Acquia Digital Experience PlatformMagnolia
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(93 ratings)
8.0
(74 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.6
(11 ratings)
8.1
(9 ratings)
Usability
7.9
(2 ratings)
8.0
(69 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.5
(68 ratings)
Support Rating
8.7
(5 ratings)
9.1
(3 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.6
(73 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Acquia Digital Experience PlatformMagnolia
Likelihood to Recommend
Acquia
It made it super easy to upgrade 300+ Drupal sites to the latest major version in 12 weeks, end to end. It is easy to deploy legal changes and updates to components at scale. Turnkey service to deploy new environments and to clone sites. There are no ecosystem lock-in principles for Customer service/success services and professional services for new approaches.
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Magnolia
Magnolia is very well suited to scenarios where there are multiple end points for content eg. apps, remote devices, websites etc. and with multiple users. Magnolia is very good at working with different "shapes" of content so it's not necessarily all about HTML content for the web which tends to be the default for a number of other products of this nature. This means that it's more logical for people to work with structured data and easier for the applications to sort and manage that content when they receive it.
This works really well when you have multiple team members (often in multiple locations). We've had clients who've had people in twelve European locations with sixteen languages and they can share skills and resources between them but still manage their own content.
Magnolia is less appropriate for SMEs who have fewer digital assets and content. It's not to say that it can't be done but it's more that the budget would not necessarily fit.
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Pros
Acquia
  • It's fast, no lag time
  • Exceptionally good support. When there's a problem, you reach out to your account manager who either fixes the issue or gets you to the right person. We've had no downtime.
  • Platform is very accessible to those who know how to manage the back end software.
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Magnolia
  • Use of YAML to define content models with code.
  • Versatility of defining actions for custom handlers.
  • Reloading classes when code is modified in a local dev environment is nice. While it doesn't seem to work when changes extend beyond the method body (i.e., adding methods), it remediates the pain of long startup times.
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Cons
Acquia
  • Support responds pretty quickly to critical tickets, but they can be slow to respond on non-urgent items. Some of what we experienced may have been related to a newer ticketing system recently implemented.
  • Standard support covers business days/hours but only critical support is available outside those times. We typically schedule our website updates for the weekend or "off" hours when only critical support is available.
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Magnolia
  • As a developer the learning curve is long, you can start developing relatively quickly but getting to know the platform in depth takes time.
  • Having a history of modifications not only at the page level but also at the Content Apps level would be very useful.
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Likelihood to Renew
Acquia
We're moving away from Drupal as a platform. Drupal 8 and 9 were simply too overburdened and difficult to maintain compared to other offerings. PHP seems like a dying language so we are currently in the process of migrating all of our Drupal 7 functionality and custom modules to a Python/Django/Wagtail platform. This doesn't mean Acquia isn't a great service, they are professional and top-knotch, but the only way we'd say with them is if I didn't complete the migration.
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Magnolia
We have invested a lot of time and energy into tailoring a solution that works for the company.
We think the new features in v6.2 will help us get to the next level
We also don't have the resources to rebuild a website platform from scratch even if we wanted to
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Usability
Acquia
It's a great user interface. It's always being updated and I've never noticed a bad update that increased the complexity or reduced
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Magnolia
There are a ton of small things that could make this CMS great Off the top of my head... 1) Better navigation between a component and its corresponding node in the jcr ( devs often have to flip between a page and a spot in the jcr even though there could be a button to take you from a page/component in the pages app to its location in the JCR) 2) Why does a content editor need to open the page to edit the page properties? They could just as easily edit the dialog from the tree view if they have many pages to touch, and it would save them time by not having to render the page.
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Performance
Acquia
No answers on this topic
Magnolia
I gave [it] 7/10 only because of the loading time of pages. Otherwise, I think it deserves an 8. Normally this is not an issue per [se] but considering the rating matrix and as I have been asked to honestly write about it. Yes, the page loading times could be improved.
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Support Rating
Acquia
Every time we have had an issue, Acquia support has responded promptly and worked with us as a team to solve the problem. The Acquia support team is global and we have literally had interactions with all of their support offices, yet the experience has been the same - top notch
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Magnolia
You always get an answer based on your SLA. But you always get a solution. That's the successfactor in this case. To often i was frustrated about people in a company without even a clue what there product is about or how to solve a problem. Magnolia's Support Team does a very good job and try to help you in most of the cases
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Implementation Rating
Acquia
It was implemented when I got there. I don't know how it was prior.
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Magnolia
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Acquia
We chose Acquia for a much better UI that gave non-analytical marketers and easy to use tool where they could create their own reports. The campaign side of things also had an easier to use UI as well, that made the targeting of audiences much easier.
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Magnolia
Prior to using Magnolia as an enterprise CMS solution, different teams leveraged different website platforms including WordPress, Weebly, and others. While these other platforms may be slightly more user friendly to the content editor, they don't offer nearly the same amount of customization and digital best practices out of the box that are customizable by web development teams like Magnolia does. The other solutions may work better for a quicker/simpler web implementation without technical resources but don't have the depth and breadth of capability and functionality that Magnolia has and fall flat.
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Scalability
Acquia
The DXP tools can handle millions of requests and can scale automatically to fit your needs. We have clients that use only part of the DXP tools and have a small usage, but even in these cases they see great value in using tools like personalization and CDP.
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Magnolia
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Acquia
  • Acquia has helped us to stabilize and optimize our website performance, lowering page load times and dramatically decreasing the frequency of issues experienced by end-users.
  • Acquia SOLR search provided a much-improved search experience on our website.
  • Acquia's PCI-compliant hosting has helped us to remain compliant and cyber-secure.
  • We are working to implement Acquia Site Studio and Acquia Personalization now and expect those to improve our operation agility and ability to drive more relevant experiences to our various website visitors.
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Magnolia
  • Magnolia has brought about positive impacts. For instance, we need not outsource web design and marketing services because thanks to this software, we can handle most work inhouse
  • The software is affordable with no compromises on capabilities and therefore it is gives us value for money.
  • The templates makes the whole process easy
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ScreenShots

Magnolia Screenshots

Screenshot of the customer experience: Brings together content and audiovisual digital assets to form more compelling digital experiences.Screenshot of the Magnolia App Launcher, used to switch between workspaces and manage pagesScreenshot of Magnolia's native analytics integration framework, used to take advantage of data directly in the authoring UI, coupled to content.Screenshot of global search that brings relevant content, no matter where it resides.Screenshot of customizing the ecommerce experience.