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Adobe Experience Manager vs. Optimizely Content Marketing Platform

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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

    Optimizely Content Marketing Platform

    Score6.8 out of 10
    N/AOptimizely Content Marketing Platform brings teams together in a single, AI-powered workspace to share plans, collaborate on assets and execute campaigns.N/A
    Pricing
    Adobe Experience ManagerOptimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Adobe Experience ManagerOptimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Adobe Experience ManagerOptimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Considered Both Products
    Adobe
    No answer on this topic
    Optimizely
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    95%
    Would buy again
    180 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    45 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    145 Answers
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    184 Answers
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    47 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
    24 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    87%
    Implementation went as expected
    125 Answers
    81%
    Implementation went as expected
    29 Answers
    Features
    Adobe Experience ManagerOptimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Adobe Experience Manager and Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    8.4
    38 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    -
    Ratings
    Role-based user permissions8.438 Ratings00 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Adobe Experience Manager and Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    8.0
    33 Ratings
    0% above category average
    Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    -
    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 Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    7.5
    38 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    -
    Ratings
    WYSIWYG editor7.433 Ratings00 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness6.734 Ratings00 Ratings
    Admin section7.034 Ratings00 Ratings
    Page templates7.637 Ratings00 Ratings
    Library of website themes7.326 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design7.835 Ratings00 Ratings
    Publishing workflow8.135 Ratings00 Ratings
    Form generator7.629 Ratings00 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Adobe Experience Manager and Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    7.3
    37 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    -
    Ratings
    Content taxonomy7.731 Ratings00 Ratings
    SEO support7.133 Ratings00 Ratings
    Bulk management7.236 Ratings00 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions7.534 Ratings00 Ratings
    Community / comment management7.130 Ratings00 Ratings
    Content Creation
    Comparison of Content Creation features of Adobe Experience Manager and Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    -
    Ratings
    Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    3.6
    48 Ratings
    74% below category average
    Ideation00 Ratings3.635 Ratings
    Approval workflows00 Ratings4.145 Ratings
    Content collaboration00 Ratings4.944 Ratings
    Content calendar00 Ratings3.040 Ratings
    Network for content licensing/production00 Ratings2.525 Ratings
    Content Publishing
    Comparison of Content Publishing features of Adobe Experience Manager and Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    -
    Ratings
    Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    3.7
    43 Ratings
    71% below category average
    Content hub00 Ratings3.336 Ratings
    Forms / Gated content00 Ratings3.01 Ratings
    Embedded CTAs00 Ratings3.628 Ratings
    Content distribution00 Ratings4.337 Ratings
    Content promotion00 Ratings4.231 Ratings
    Content automation00 Ratings3.532 Ratings
    Content Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Content Reporting & Analytics features of Adobe Experience Manager and Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    -
    Ratings
    Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    3.0
    37 Ratings
    84% below category average
    Audience profiling and targeting00 Ratings8.23 Ratings
    Closed-loop tracking and reporting00 Ratings1.830 Ratings
    Content performance analytics00 Ratings1.834 Ratings
    Campaign optimization dashboard00 Ratings1.729 Ratings
    Competitive analytics00 Ratings1.619 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Adobe Experience ManagerOptimizely Content Marketing Platform
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    Yext
    Score6.8 out of 10
    Contently
    Score9.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Score8.9 out of 10
    CoSchedule Marketing Suite
    Score10 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Progress Sitefinity
    Score7.9 out of 10
    PathFactory
    Score8.3 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Adobe Experience ManagerOptimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.6
    (220 ratings)
    3.6
    (52 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    8.1
    (181 ratings)
    3.2
    (47 ratings)
    Availability
    8.6
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.2
    (11 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 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 ManagerOptimizely Content Marketing Platform
    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.
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    Optimizely
    A 7 only because I think there's question marks around customization. However, I've seen very similar tools in the past where stakeholders have been skeptical, but as you get to know it and use it, you'll find actually you realize those benefits. I just think Optimizely could help its stakeholders and clients see those benefits early on versus later on. However, that's not to say it's not possible, so a 7 at this stage, but I think it's got potential in future. If you are a marketing firm who wants a centralized system for managing workflows and campaigns, it's great. It does that. However, there are better competitors fill in some of the gaps better than optimized leaders does. It could do better. I think for me, visually when I see, when I create a workflow or a campaign, I can see all the tasks associated with it and I've seen the way that our parent company uses it. It's just a list of all the tasks you see in one view. I think visually it needs improving. However, the purpose that it serves fundamentally, it's got potential, if that makes sense. It's going in the right direction, but I think competitors are doing some of it better than Optimizely is. I think they, like I was saying earlier, if they really want to realize the benefits of the product visually there needs to be some improvement. And then the controls element that I mentioned earlier as well, hopefully that answers both of your questions.
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    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
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    Optimizely
    • The CMP really is useful for us not only to manage the processes behind how we create content that we serve in different platforms like websites, landing pages, emails, social media, but it also help us as a team that is scattered around the globe to be able to be connected all the time to be able to see what we're working on, to be able to share assets as well. We are not reinventing the wheel to be able to show to other people within the organization what is happening at any given point. We use it not only for assets now, but we use it also for things like planning our webinars, planning our face-to-face events, so it truly is the heart of our marketing organization within the business.
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    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.
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    Optimizely
    • One thing that could be improved is some of the promotions that happen in platform. For example, there's a Opal AI little bubble at the bottom right of the corner, which you can't move across the screen. So if you're trying to change the status of a step or you're trying to update a description within a step, that can be a bit challenging and as it seems to be quite an easy fix.
    • I would love to see a capability in terms of having visual representation that we can share out with stakeholders that don't necessarily need access to CMP. But for that level of detail, we don't want it to go too granular, but we do want to be able to share in a quick and visual manner some of the activities that are happening so we can keep everybody in the loop without having to create different variations via different tools.
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    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.
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    Optimizely
    The tool is over-engineered and overly complicated. It makes my job much harder and not easier. There's much simpler tools for a lot less money
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Optimizely
    The editorial calendar is the one I check multiple times every day. It gives me a clear picture of what's in progress, what's due, and where things can be moving faster. And, there's no need to open a separate doc or ask anyone for a status update.
    Also, the workflows are another super useful thing. Being able to assign specific reviewers to specific steps and know that nothing moves forward until they've acted has eliminated many repetitive processes.
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    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
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    Optimizely
    I have not experienced any prolonged outages. From time to time there will be errors but nothing that significantly slows down production
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    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.
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    Optimizely
    Optimizely Content Marketing Platform's performance is generally good. Nothing that has impacted production. Page load speed doesn't typically lag longer than a few seconds. Reports take some time but not any longer than we're used to with other platforms. We have not experienced lag when integrating with other platforms
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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.
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    Optimizely
    The NewsCred team is very responsive and helpful with any technical issues.
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    Online Training
    Adobe
    No answers on this topic
    Optimizely
    Training was clear and concise. It was intuitive and helped me understand how to navigate the platform. Options to dive in on each action or skip to learn about areas of regular use. Resource links available to when I had additional questions or needed more training in a specific area. Overall, the training allowed me to use the platform without interruption
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Optimizely
    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
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    Optimizely
    We haven't yet explored the CMS or other products within the suite but we see the potential to move all of our tools to Optimizely One. I see this really helping us gain clarity in the end to end content lifecycle, and help us use our resources and bandwidth more strategically
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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
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    Optimizely
    No answers on this topic
    Scalability
    Adobe
    No answers on this topic
    Optimizely
    Optimizely is generally a reliable platform for A/B testing and digital experience management. It's helpful for it's stability, flexibility, and comprehensive features, which is helpful when managing an enterprise website
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Optimizely
    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.
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    Optimizely
    • The program has allowed us to meet our content goals more easily (e.g.: we publish X articles per month and track where each article is at).
    • It's helped us improve the accuracy of our information. We have SEO, content strategists, and legal teams involved in the workflow now because it's easy to manage.
    Incentivized
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    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.

    Optimizely Content Marketing Platform Screenshots

    Screenshot of Optimizely Opal: Opal, Optimizely's AI, is an extension of the marketing workforce. From building comprehensive campaign and content briefs and suggesting how to best execute a campaign, to creating on-brand content for any channel and providing suggestions for ongoing optimization, Opal's capabilities and AI agents make "doing more with less" a reality.Screenshot of Marketing Work Requests: Dynamic intake forms, automatic routing, and integrated workflows ensure that requested work gets completed, fast.Screenshot of Library (Digital Asset Management): With Optimizely Content Marketing Platform's DAM, users can automate the management of brand-approved assets, all within the same platform where content creation, collaboration and publishing take place.Screenshot of The Editor, with Embedded AI: Content is created for multiple channels with the help of Opal, Optimizely's native AI.Screenshot of Calendar: This provides visibility into planned and scheduled content and campaigns with the ability to save and share views.