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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Adobe Experience Manager

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/AAdobe 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

    Drupal

    Score7.1 out of 10
    N/ADrupal is a free, open-source content management system written in PHP that competes primarily with Joomla and Plone. The standard release of Drupal, known as Drupal core, contains basic features such as account and menu management, RSS feeds, page layout customization, and system administration.N/A
    Pricing
    Adobe Experience ManagerDrupal
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Adobe Experience ManagerDrupal
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Adobe Experience ManagerDrupal
    Considered Both Products
    Adobe
    Chose Adobe Experience Manager
    AEM is infinitely better. Drupal does not compare.
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Experience Manager
    Flawless management of digital assets and content supporting personalized content delivery. Seamless navigation and user experience on AEM platform WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor makes AEM stands out from the crowd which is not available in the Drupal Headless …
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Experience Manager
    We chose Adobe Experience Manager over these platforms for security and Time to market. It was difficult to manage multi-site in other CMS.
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Experience Manager
    End to end capabilities as well as integrations with upstream and downstream systems to make work flows, easier and faster time to market
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Experience Manager
    They all do the same thing pretty much, but we are on the Adobe architecture so it made sense to go with AEM
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Experience Manager
    Ease to use, Component development is easier if you have Java knowledge
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Experience Manager
    I think AEM is more robust for an enterprise-sized company. It has more security around it, and then definitely you have to have enough knowledge to be able to use it and then interact. It enables a lot of the integration with other third-party tools. So we use Salesforce and …
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Experience Manager
    AEM is the leader in this segment due to easy of use and flexibility of the platform with lots of OOTB features
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Experience Manager
    Adobe Experience Manager is an enterprise digital marketing platform that has an edge over other CMS platforms in multiple ways 1. Easy content authoring 2. Pre-defined authoring and publishing workflows 3. In-built multi-site authoring 4. Support for multi-lingual websites.
    Incentivized
    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 …
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Experience Manager
    The main reason why we acquired Adobe Experience Manager with a lot of peace of mind is that it has very good recommendations from other people, we took the exhaustive task of investigating very well its operation, advantages and disadvantages and from all the descriptions we …
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Experience Manager
    Ease of setup and use makes Adobe Experience Manager one of the best content management systems that is available in the market. The fact that the underlying frameworks are largely open source, helps in facilitating third party integrations more seamlessly. The default options …
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Experience Manager
    Much simpler than SharePoint and by far much easier to develop as well. Getting a unique look and feel into a SharePoint is like pulling teeth compared to Adobe Experience Manager. I also felt that the authoring experience was simpler and easier in Adobe Experience Manager as …
    Open Source
    Chose Drupal
    Drupal is the king of enterprise opensource content management systems. It is the most robust and comes from the most forward thinking community. Drupal 8 is designed for the next evolution in web design and development. WordPress and Joomla! are stuck in the web 2.0 revolution …
    Incentivized
    Chose Drupal
    It came down to budget which is why we normally target Drupal for small to mid-sized engagements.
    Incentivized
    Chose Drupal
    I have used AEM, Sitecore and would rate Drupal the best!
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    95%
    Would buy again
    180 Answers
    76%
    Would buy again
    13 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    145 Answers
    88%
    Delivers good value for the price
    14 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    184 Answers
    76%
    Happy with the feature set
    13 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    90%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    113 Answers
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    12 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    87%
    Implementation went as expected
    125 Answers
    87%
    Implementation went as expected
    13 Answers
    Features
    Adobe Experience ManagerDrupal
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Adobe Experience Manager and Drupal
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    8.4
    38 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Drupal
    8.2
    74 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Role-based user permissions8.438 Ratings8.274 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Adobe Experience Manager and Drupal
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    8.0
    33 Ratings
    0% above category average
    Drupal
    7.8
    69 Ratings
    0% below category average
    API7.829 Ratings7.364 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language8.129 Ratings8.260 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Adobe Experience Manager and Drupal
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    7.5
    38 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Drupal
    6.5
    78 Ratings
    19% below category average
    WYSIWYG editor7.433 Ratings6.371 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness6.734 Ratings8.275 Ratings
    Admin section7.034 Ratings6.978 Ratings
    Page templates7.637 Ratings5.677 Ratings
    Library of website themes7.326 Ratings5.568 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design7.835 Ratings6.572 Ratings
    Publishing workflow8.135 Ratings6.776 Ratings
    Form generator7.629 Ratings6.672 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Adobe Experience Manager and Drupal
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    7.3
    37 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Drupal
    6.6
    77 Ratings
    13% below category average
    Content taxonomy7.731 Ratings6.971 Ratings
    SEO support7.133 Ratings6.472 Ratings
    Bulk management7.236 Ratings6.467 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions7.534 Ratings6.670 Ratings
    Community / comment management7.130 Ratings6.869 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Adobe Experience ManagerDrupal
    Small Businesses
    Yext
    Score6.9 out of 10
    Umbraco CMS
    Score6.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Square Online
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Progress Sitefinity
    Score7.8 out of 10
    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Adobe Experience ManagerDrupal
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.6
    (220 ratings)
    6.8
    (87 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    1.0
    (19 ratings)
    Usability
    8.1
    (181 ratings)
    6.9
    (20 ratings)
    Availability
    8.6
    (5 ratings)
    9.7
    (3 ratings)
    Performance
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    8.9
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.2
    (11 ratings)
    1.0
    (5 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.0
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    5.0
    (3 ratings)
    5.1
    (4 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Professional Services
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Adobe Experience ManagerDrupal
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    If you want to set up a basic Not For Profit (NFP) Membership system and content base, Word Press is easier than Drupal. However, if you have specific needs that require a fair bit of customisation then Drupal is the best CRM available. If the webmaster is confident with PHP and SQL, Drupal allows a lot of creativity.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    • Drag and drop functionality is easy to use
    • Easy to switch between straight text and HTML content
    • Ability to easily have multiple environments so that pages can be built in b/c-stage before they are approved and published
    • Solid user experience where it's clear how to navigate the platform
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    • This is not an easy CMS to work with if you don't have a good understanding of website development. It isn't "plug-and-play" like Wordpress or Shopify.
    • Over time, doing major updates to the system can be taxing, especially if you aren't well-versed enough in doing system updates in line with your "child" theme and code.
    • The CMS can become somewhat cumbersome with server resources if not carefully optimized while you build and customize it to your liking.
    Incentivized
    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
    Open Source
    The time and money invested into this platform were too great to discontinue it at this point. I'm sure it will be in use for a while. We have also spent time training many employees how to use it. All of these things add up to quite an investment in the product. Lastly, it basically fulfills what we need our intranet site to do.
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    As a team, we found Drupal to be highly customizable and flexible, allowing our development team to go to great lengths to develop desired functionalities. It can be used as a solution for all types of web projects. It comes with a robust admin interface that provides greater flexibility once the user gets acquainted with the system.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    Drupal itself does not tend to have bugs that cause sporadic outages. When deployed on a well-configured LAMP stack, deployment and maintenance problems are minimal, and in general no exotic tuning or configuration is required. For highest uptime, putting a caching proxy like Varnish in front of Drupal (or a CDN that supports dynamic applications).
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    Drupal page loads can be slow, as a great many database calls may be required to generate a page. It is highly recommended to use caching systems, both built-in and external to lessen such database loads and improve performance. I haven't had any problems with behind-the-scenes integrations with external systems.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    As noted earlier, the support of the community can be rather variable, with some modules attracting more attraction and action in their issue queues, but overall, the development community for Drupal is second to none. It probably the single greatest aspect of being involved in this open-source project.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Adobe
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    I was part of the team that conducted the training. Our training was fine, but we could have been better informed on Drupal before we started providing it. If we did not have answers to tough questions, we had more technical staff we could consult with. We did provide hands-on practice time for the learners, which I would always recommend. That is where the best learning occurred.
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Adobe
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    The on-line training was not as ideal as the face-to-face training. It was done remotely and only allowed for the trainers to present information to the learners and demonstrate the platform online. There was not a good way to allow for the learners to practice, ask questions and have them answered all in the same session.
    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
    Open Source
    Plan ahead as much you can. You really need to know how to build what you want with the modules available to you, or that you might need to code yourself, in order to make the best use of Drupal. I recommend you analyze the most technically difficult workflows and other aspects of your implementation, and try building some test versions of those first. Get feedback from stakeholders early and often, because you can easily find yourself in a situation where your implementation does 90% of what you want, but, due to something you didn't plan for, foresee, or know about, there's no feasible way to get past the last 10%
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    Drupal can be more complex to learn, but it offers a much wider range of applications. Drupal’s front and backend can be customized from design to functionality to allow for a wide range of uses. If someone wants to create something more complex than a simple site or blog, Drupal can be an amazing asset to have at hand.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Scalability
    Adobe
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    Drupal is well known to be scalable, although it requires solid knowledge of MySQL best practices, caching mechanisms, and other server-level best practices. I have never personally dealt with an especially large site, so I can speak well to the issues associated with Drupal scaling.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    • Given the endless possibilities that Drupal can have, we tend to have great support going on when we get a website launched
    • It has become much much faster and easier for us to launch a new project due to reusability
    • Configuration management in Drupal helps greatly with CI/CD, saves us costs
    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.