Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe Experience Manager
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Adobe Experience Manager is a combined web content management system and digital asset management system. The combined applications of Adobe Experience Manager Sites and Adobe Experience Manager Assets is offered by the vendor as an end-to-end solution for managing and delivering marketing content.N/A
Contentful
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
Contentful is a cloud based CMS solution that provides the ability to manage content across multiple platforms.The editing interface allows for managing content interactively and provides developers the ability to deliver the content with the programming language and template framework of their choice.
$0
Joomla
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Joomla! is a free and open source content management system used to publish web content. Included features are page caching, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, polls, a search function, and support for language internationalization.N/A
Pricing
Adobe Experience ManagerContentfulJoomla!
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Lite
$300
per month
Community
Free
Enterprise
Custom
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe Experience ManagerContentfulJoomla
Free Trial
NoYesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe Experience ManagerContentfulJoomla!
Considered Multiple Products
Adobe Experience Manager
Chose Adobe Experience Manager
Adobe Experience Manager, built on Java, means that the pool of developers available to work on the platform is large. Adobe Experience Manager's front-ends and client library management tooling mean that front-end developers can feel at home despite a lack of Java knowledge.
Chose Adobe Experience Manager
We wanted a CMS which is known in market, which have a good ecosystem. With Adobe Experience Manager, we get integration with Target, Tag management, and other Adobe products.
Chose Adobe Experience Manager
AEM feels more enterprise ready
Chose Adobe Experience Manager
First of all, I would say the technological advancement it has. AEM consists of a comprehensive web content management system, including more marketing-friendly site templates, easy-to-use developer tools, and AI-powered content generation tools for [a] better customer …
Contentful
Chose Contentful
Contentful was affordable and much simpler than the Java based systems and preferred over a PHP solution
Joomla
Chose Joomla!
Joomla and Concrete5 have about the same capability and similar issues. Purchasing a SAAS like Squarespace, Weebly or Wix would be worth the price to remove the hassle of Joomla. A more robust free CMS like WordPress or Drupal would be a better solution if you wanted to remain …
Features
Adobe Experience ManagerContentfulJoomla!
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Experience Manager
8.4
38 Ratings
3% above category average
Contentful
8.5
10 Ratings
4% above category average
Joomla!
8.4
51 Ratings
2% above category average
Role-based user permissions8.438 Ratings8.510 Ratings8.451 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Experience Manager
8.0
33 Ratings
1% below category average
Contentful
9.5
12 Ratings
20% above category average
Joomla!
6.8
48 Ratings
13% below category average
API7.829 Ratings9.311 Ratings7.346 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language8.129 Ratings9.79 Ratings6.347 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Experience Manager
7.5
38 Ratings
4% above category average
Contentful
7.8
13 Ratings
0% above category average
Joomla!
7.7
54 Ratings
1% below category average
WYSIWYG editor7.433 Ratings7.34 Ratings8.253 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness6.734 Ratings9.58 Ratings8.551 Ratings
Admin section7.034 Ratings9.311 Ratings8.349 Ratings
Page templates7.637 Ratings7.64 Ratings7.052 Ratings
Library of website themes7.326 Ratings7.52 Ratings6.450 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design7.835 Ratings4.57 Ratings7.650 Ratings
Publishing workflow8.135 Ratings9.312 Ratings8.450 Ratings
Form generator7.629 Ratings7.01 Ratings7.646 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Experience Manager
7.3
37 Ratings
8% above category average
Contentful
9.4
12 Ratings
23% above category average
Joomla!
7.6
52 Ratings
2% above category average
Content taxonomy7.731 Ratings10.011 Ratings7.951 Ratings
SEO support7.133 Ratings10.09 Ratings7.750 Ratings
Bulk management7.236 Ratings9.08 Ratings8.049 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions7.534 Ratings9.08 Ratings7.052 Ratings
Community / comment management7.130 Ratings9.01 Ratings7.250 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Adobe Experience ManagerContentfulJoomla!
Small Businesses
Bloomreach - The Agentic Platform for Personalization
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Score 9.0 out of 10
ManageWP
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Score 10.0 out of 10
ManageWP
ManageWP
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
Adobe Experience ManagerContentfulJoomla!
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(140 ratings)
8.3
(13 ratings)
8.2
(75 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.2
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(28 ratings)
Usability
7.8
(94 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
8.1
(14 ratings)
Availability
8.6
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
9.9
(2 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
7.8
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
7.2
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.7
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(3 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
9.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
9.9
(3 ratings)
Professional Services
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe Experience ManagerContentfulJoomla!
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe
I'll answer the second one because I mean, the first one I don't have an issue with. The second scenario is we oftentimes have the need to spin off very small campaign style sites or sites that generate leads but are unbranded and that sort of thing. So that's hard to do in AEM because you have to then create another organization within AEM to do that. And we're talking about sites that are maybe five to 10 pages in size. So we've been investigating Edge, but then that's a different workflow, so we'd have to train people on that. So it would be nice if there was something within the AEM structure that could allow you to do something very similar to Edge, where you make some small micro sites that are not necessarily branded, that you could still host within the platform and not have to retrain everybody on a completely different platform.
Read full review
Contentful
It's a great all rounder for content projects. It's easy in the basics and powerful in the complex, data heavy scenarios. Extending the platform is straightforward and the SDK gives you everything you need. If you have many many varying content types , it gets expensive and perhaps not the best choice .
Read full review
The Joomla Project
If your developers want to have some fun, Joomla offers the stability and friendliness to do custom coding. Certain marketing initiatives require us to get "cute" with the interface, and Joomla allows for that a bit easier than WordPress (and definitely easier than sites like Squarespace). The security of Joomla is also always a plus.
Read full review
Pros
Adobe
  • It allows us to scale so that we can make a change on a global footer. And it applies to all of the different property websites. It allows us to set up components and compartmentalize things in a way. The big thing is that it's scalable. And then it also ties into Adobe Analytics and other Adobe products. So we are a complete Adobe shop. Every Adobe product that we can use, we use. I don't think we do it for marketing so much, but for doing target testing and analytics, data scientists are using the same product and so it all speaks.
Read full review
Contentful
  • Flexible. This CMS can be easily extended and provide access to dynamic content
  • Simple. The WYSWG is very easy to work with and identifying pages and content in the system is fairly easy
  • Clean Interface. The interface is clean and uncluttered keeping focus on the content and not other factors.
Read full review
The Joomla Project
  • Security. Its got many new features in the new Joomla! 4 which make the already good security even better. I like the ability to use my Yubi keys to log in with the new webauth standard, I don't think any other CMS has that built in
  • W3C Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 (with AA compliance)
  • Really good SEO that gets our sites to the top of the search engines again without the need for any extra things
  • Speed, it gets a really good score (100%) in the google lighthouse on our server, can't beat that
Read full review
Cons
Adobe
  • There are some glitches in permissions inheritance that require us to toggle a save on permissions in groups that inherit from a group that was recently updated.
  • Large packages require stopping the workflow launcher OSGi components or many workflows will slow down the server.
  • Locked pages are hard to find unless I use /siteadmin... I often hear that the CQ tools will go away, but if we lose that, some small things might be harder to do, like finding locked pages.
Read full review
Contentful
  • Contentful uses "references" to allow you to build very modular content. If I have a "slider" content type, I can create a "slide" content type which references a "button" content type, and so forth. This works well, but I occasionally wish there was a better solution for one-off content, like a settings page. Currently, this is done for creating an entire content type called "settings" with a single entry. Not a big deal, but not ideal, either.
  • There are a few quirks with GatsbyJS integration, etc, but these issues are being fixed and improved upon very quickly.
  • A minor gripe, but Contentful does not have a way to organize fields within an entry. Entries with many fields are somewhat tiresome to scroll through.
Read full review
The Joomla Project
  • Because Joomla's user community is smaller than WP, it lacks as many choices from 3rd party developers, meaning it can be a little more difficult to find the right extension for what you need to accomplish
  • Along the same vein, most of the best 3rd-party software for Joomla! is paid
  • Simple features such as Add to Menu and Cache cleaners should be adopted as part of the Joomla! core, though they are available as extensions
  • Joomla! could use a simpler and easier URL rewriting process
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Adobe
We had and still have a fantastic experience using Adobe CQ. Lots of flexibility, great integration with other Adobe products we already use and a powerful technology make it a great fit for our corporate environment. Also as the community grows, it makes it easier to network with other developers and users to get new ideas on how to continue to get the best out of the software.
Read full review
Contentful
No answers on this topic
The Joomla Project
I gave it a rating of 10 because I just love how Joomla! works, how it is set up and how it handles many users. Also it is very fast, and there is no overload on the MySQL database or servers ever.
Read full review
Usability
Adobe
Adobe Experience Manager overall is fairly easy to use and caters to a wide range of users when it comes to their technical abilities. It has the flexibility to enable UI/UX designers to pop in and easily design new content with drop in components. It also has sufficient capabilities for those who are more technically inclined and want to dig more into custom code or solutions
Read full review
Contentful
It is a very easy to use and configure application. I find that it is on the user to manage the content after the models have been created, yet I still do not encounter issues finding or creating new components for our site. It is easy to set up and easy to navigate.
Read full review
The Joomla Project
Joomla! 3.x is easily installed either manually or via a script provided by your host. It contains most of the tools needed to begin creating websites right from the start. Those features that it doesn't have are easily installed via links and buttons from the thousands of extensions available in the community
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Adobe
Being part of Adobe Suite means you are already notified when the tool has any outages. However, I have never faced unplanned outages. Whenever you face any issue with the site, it is clearly stated if there were any planned outages and how quickly you will be back to normal. So, I will say that even the outages are planned and managed in a great way like their other services.
Read full review
Contentful
No answers on this topic
The Joomla Project
No answers on this topic
Performance
Adobe
With respect to performance, Adobe experience manager is one of the best in the CMS space. We didn't observe frequent slowness on platform, however the systems which are accessing experience manager should be of good specifications without which slowness would be observed. Adobe experience manager works well in integration with other solutions, unless the destination application is designed to trigger frequent calls to AEM.
Read full review
Contentful
No answers on this topic
The Joomla Project
Today's Modern Joomla performs very well and is robust and durable. The pages load faster than they ever did in the past and Modern Joomla's integration into other software or systems has become seamless. Modern Joomla sites will last long and will stay running forever.
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Support Rating
Adobe
Adobe Experience Manager, in all its capacity, is a great alternative to any other CMS you are using. It helps in rapid development and makes life easier for maintaining the website for multi-language sites. Technical know-how is eliminated at content authoring. Better documentation in terms of live examples with videos would be appreciated.
Read full review
Contentful
No answers on this topic
The Joomla Project
Between the core Joomla developers who are excellent at answering questions and providing support, you have a whole community of developers who work with Joomla and are happy to help fellow developers out answering questions and supporting the Joomla project. Out of the many communities I am involved in for open-source software, Joomla's community is by far the best.
Read full review
Online Training
Adobe
No answers on this topic
Contentful
No answers on this topic
The Joomla Project
It is good if you know Joomla! if not it can get a bit confusing
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Adobe
Depending on your individual needs, It is really quite simple to create an authoring experience for a website that looks really good. I have been part of many implementations and many teams and have seen many projects that were super successful and others that were not implemented well. AEM has room for a lot of flexibility in the implementation process compared to other CMS like SharePoint
Read full review
Contentful
No answers on this topic
The Joomla Project
Joomla has gone through tremendous growing pains. It is now better than ever. But before, when it was going from 1.5-2.5, the templates and plugins would break over and over again. If you don't understand what Joomla was trying to do back then, you might have a bad attitude toward it. Today, those pains are over and things don't break like they used to during that time period.
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Alternatives Considered
Adobe
SSO is one fits all, so we don't have to have a separate SSO for each application of Adobe The integration with Analytics works perfectly and bring directly value really quickly Target remains more complicated to set up, but can also bring a lot of value once integrated with the rest of the Adobe platform The fact that the solution is Cloud services is also a big advantage for maintenance
Read full review
Contentful
Easy to use and much more organized as a single platform versus multi. The layout is clean and easy to read and we don’t have to worry about certain users safe guarding data or content then losing it when they leave the company. It’s a one stop shop for imagery
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The Joomla Project
We tested other platforms like WordPress, Magento and some local CMS. 
But Joomla offered us better resources for generating content.
Joomla is a CMS suitable for many types of projects, especially if you have several people editing content at the same time.
It allows you to maintain visual standardization and offers many options for working with images.
With its ability to control access to different articles, categories or even different components, it is a great tool, even if they are managed by different people.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Adobe
Instead of being directly involved in the tool purchase, I am involved in analysis or what we can use to maximize the tool. Small organizations may find it expensive. However, if the team or organization focuses more on your ROI or the features you will get, then it will definitely be worth it. Pricing is based on a number of factors, including team size or the use of the tool. The user can select the pricing option that best fits their needs based on the number of form submissions they make or the number of pages they wish to publish on their global/multisite sites.
Read full review
Contentful
No answers on this topic
The Joomla Project
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
Adobe
The professional services team within adobe is one of the best in terms of technical and solutioning knowledge. However, considering the billing charges of adobe professional services team, it is always recommended to involve them during platform initial setup or when a complex solution is to be built with platform customizations.
Read full review
Contentful
No answers on this topic
The Joomla Project
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Adobe
  • too soon to tell on increased conversion rates based on external marketing factors in play but having increased visibility into customer engagement trends will most likely lead to improvement of our conversion rates.
  • There have been productivity gains from the perspective of actually migrating all of our externally managed sites to the same in-house Adobe Experience Manager platform and then being able to utilize those universal components.
Read full review
Contentful
  • Contentful has saved us valuable development time that was previously spent doing deploys for minor content updates.
  • Contentful has helped us maintain consistent documentation, reducing time needed to review for consistency.
  • Can't say we've really experienced any negative ROI impacts from using Contentful, but we've run into some limitations in adding too many content models and the next pricing tier is substantially more expensive.
Read full review
The Joomla Project
  • Joomla has reduced our costs of rolling out a new website because it uses less developer time and can be rolled out by individual users as needed.
  • Joomla has a lot of extensions and add-ons that make it easy to create and implement advanced solutions quickly.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Adobe Experience Manager Screenshots

Screenshot of AEM Forms - Creates an adaptive formScreenshot of AEM Forms - themes libraryScreenshot of AEM Forms - where to create a templateScreenshot of AEM Forms - the interactive communications editorScreenshot of Adobe Experience Manager Sites - document-based authoring enables marketers to create and publish content with familiar tools.Screenshot of Adobe Experience Manager Sites - Universal Editor, an advanced visual editor, empowers marketers to edit and publish content.

Contentful Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of