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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

    LightCMS (discontinued)

    Score6.1 out of 10
    N/ALightCMS, from NetSuite, was a cloud-based content management system for building websites and eCommerce storefronts. It is designed to be used by individuals, non-profits, and small to medium-sized businesses. The product has been discontinued.N/A
    Pricing
    Adobe Experience ManagerLightCMS (discontinued)
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Adobe Experience ManagerLightCMS (discontinued)
    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 ManagerLightCMS (discontinued)
    Considered Both Products
    Adobe
    No answer on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    95%
    Would buy again
    180 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    145 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    184 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    90%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    113 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    87%
    Implementation went as expected
    125 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Adobe Experience ManagerLightCMS (discontinued)
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Adobe Experience Manager and LightCMS (discontinued)
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    8.4
    38 Ratings
    4% above category average
    LightCMS (discontinued)
    8.0
    1 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Role-based user permissions8.438 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Adobe Experience Manager and LightCMS (discontinued)
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    8.0
    33 Ratings
    0% above category average
    LightCMS (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    API7.829 Ratings00 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language8.129 Ratings00 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Adobe Experience Manager and LightCMS (discontinued)
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    7.5
    38 Ratings
    6% above category average
    LightCMS (discontinued)
    9.1
    1 Ratings
    15% above category average
    WYSIWYG editor7.433 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness6.734 Ratings9.01 Ratings
    Admin section7.034 Ratings9.01 Ratings
    Page templates7.637 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Library of website themes7.326 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design7.835 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Publishing workflow8.135 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Form generator7.629 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Adobe Experience Manager and LightCMS (discontinued)
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    7.3
    37 Ratings
    10% above category average
    LightCMS (discontinued)
    7.3
    1 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Content taxonomy7.731 Ratings4.01 Ratings
    SEO support7.133 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Bulk management7.236 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions7.534 Ratings00 Ratings
    Community / comment management7.130 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Adobe Experience ManagerLightCMS (discontinued)
    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 ManagerLightCMS (discontinued)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.6
    (220 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    8.1
    (181 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Availability
    8.6
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.2
    (11 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    5.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Professional Services
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Adobe Experience ManagerLightCMS (discontinued)
    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
    Discontinued Products
    LightCMS is perfect for 90% of websites out there. It has all the basic modules like calendars, photo galleries, news/blog, or forms building built in. Small businesses to mid-sized businesses are perfect for LightCMS. We use other solutions when the requierments for the website include a lot of third party integrations or custom modules. As a hosted CMS it has the same limitations as others with server-side development.
    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
    Discontinued Products
    • LightCMS provides all the major functionality 90% of sites need. It keeps out of its own way by making these solutions intuitive and simple and not trying to solve every problem for everyone which would over-complicate the tool-set.
    • This is the easiest to use CMS we have ever seen. I tell my client's that if they can make a Facebook post, they can manage their website, and it's true. Their UI is so easy and keeps getting easier to use. Untrained users get it in minutes and are able to manage their sites without our help.
    • LightCMS's code is simple and light-weight. Sites are fast and the CMS doesnt get in the way of performance.
    • You can do almost anything you want (except server-side programming) with LightCMS. So, we can create any design we want and it works great with Light CMS's tokens and editable regions concept (which is also simple to implement.)
    • Constantly upgraded and fixed, the product is 1000x better after 10 years of working with it, but is still simple and not bloated.
    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
    Discontinued Products
    • While keeping it simple is LightCMS's thing, some of the elements/modules could use deeper options or control for advanced users.
    • Some content, such as calendars, cannot have data exported/imported easily.
    • Support was amazing 10 years ago. We openly talked about how awesome they were... it isn't as good as it once was, but is still way above almost every support of other CMS systems we have used.
    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
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Discontinued Products
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Discontinued Products
    We have looked at hundrends of CMS's and LightCMS is a perfect entry-level system for most of our small to mid sized clients. LightCMS's feature set is less complex than almost every other system and the actual interface is miles ahead of most other CMS systems. It's simply thought out better. It lacks sensibility and an API as well as other advanced features many more expensive or more DIY systems have, but the simplicity makes up for it.
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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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    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
    Discontinued Products
    • While I always think the price could be cheaper, LightCMS is incredibly inexpensive if you consider the costs of hosting, support, and upgrading is all included.
    • As part of their partner program, we are able to control client accounts from our master account, making moving between clients easier and supporting them faster which ultimately makes our labor costs better.
    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.