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Adobe Experience Manager vs. Sitecore Digital Experience 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

    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/AThe Sitecore Experience Platform (Sitecore XP) is a digital experience platform used to build websites and create customer experiences online. The solution boasts fast content authoring, built-in personalization features, testing and other optimizations, as well as analytics and marketing features.N/A
    Pricing
    Adobe Experience ManagerSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Adobe Experience ManagerSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    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 ManagerSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Considered Both Products
    Adobe
    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 have selected Adobe Experience Manager for its unified compliance-ready tool kit (e.g AI-driven personalization, RBI- compliant multilingual templates) and enterprise scalability.
    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
    Adobe Experience Manager is above the rest. Best in business
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Experience Manager
    Adobe Experience Manager has more features than any other CMS.
    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
    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
    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
    It really comes down to how much money you are willing to spend (Adobe is more) and the skill set of your developers (Sitecore is .NET vs. Adobe is Java).
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Experience Manager
    Of all the different CMS tools I have used and implemented, Adobe Experience Manager (CQ) is the most robust and feature-full. The reliance on Apache Technologies was a real smart decision for CQ's architecture which ensured future scalability, testability and extensibility.
    Incentivized
    Sitecore
    Chose Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Really the only comparable product to Sitecore DXP is Adobe Experience Manager. Both are very well established and robust content management platforms. Products like Contentful and Contentstack are very lightweight and do not have as many built-in features like DXP, so it is …
    Incentivized
    Chose Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    We went ahead with Sitecore Digital Experience Platform as we had been using Sitecore cloud before as well. We checked all products capabilities and as Sitecore Digital Experience Platform provides all the tools in one place after careful evaluation we went ahead with Sitecore …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    95%
    Would buy again
    180 Answers
    91%
    Would buy again
    20 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    145 Answers
    95%
    Delivers good value for the price
    18 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    184 Answers
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    21 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    90%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    113 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    19 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    87%
    Implementation went as expected
    125 Answers
    95%
    Implementation went as expected
    20 Answers
    Features
    Adobe Experience ManagerSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Adobe Experience Manager and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    8.4
    38 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    9.9
    38 Ratings
    21% above category average
    Role-based user permissions8.438 Ratings9.939 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Adobe Experience Manager and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    8.0
    33 Ratings
    0% above category average
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    9.8
    35 Ratings
    20% above category average
    API7.829 Ratings9.935 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language8.129 Ratings9.833 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Adobe Experience Manager and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    7.5
    38 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    9.2
    38 Ratings
    26% above category average
    WYSIWYG editor7.433 Ratings8.138 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness6.734 Ratings9.537 Ratings
    Admin section7.034 Ratings9.638 Ratings
    Page templates7.637 Ratings9.836 Ratings
    Library of website themes7.326 Ratings8.223 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design7.835 Ratings9.035 Ratings
    Publishing workflow8.135 Ratings9.837 Ratings
    Form generator7.629 Ratings9.836 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Adobe Experience Manager and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    7.3
    37 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    9.4
    37 Ratings
    34% above category average
    Content taxonomy7.731 Ratings9.736 Ratings
    SEO support7.133 Ratings9.734 Ratings
    Bulk management7.236 Ratings9.632 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions7.534 Ratings8.535 Ratings
    Community / comment management7.130 Ratings9.533 Ratings
    Results and Analysis
    Comparison of Results and Analysis features of Adobe Experience Manager and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    -
    Ratings
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    7.6
    17 Ratings
    7% below category average
    Conversion tracking00 Ratings7.817 Ratings
    Test reporting00 Ratings7.518 Ratings
    Funnel Analysis00 Ratings7.318 Ratings
    User Segmentation00 Ratings7.818 Ratings
    Digital Experience Platform
    Comparison of Digital Experience Platform features of Adobe Experience Manager and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    -
    Ratings
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    8.2
    20 Ratings
    4% below category average
    Campaign management00 Ratings8.721 Ratings
    Cloud enablement00 Ratings8.120 Ratings
    Content aggregation00 Ratings8.320 Ratings
    Content classification00 Ratings8.720 Ratings
    Multi-channel content personalization00 Ratings7.920 Ratings
    Customer data analytics00 Ratings7.319 Ratings
    DXP Third-Party Integrations00 Ratings7.520 Ratings
    Multi-website management00 Ratings8.919 Ratings
    Digital asset management00 Ratings8.519 Ratings
    Editorial workflows and task management00 Ratings8.119 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Adobe Experience ManagerSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Small Businesses
    Yext
    Score6.3 out of 10
    Yext
    Score6.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Progress Sitefinity
    Score8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Progress Sitefinity
    Score8 out of 10
    Progress Sitefinity
    Score8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Adobe Experience ManagerSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.7
    (222 ratings)
    8.7
    (50 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    8.7
    (11 ratings)
    Usability
    8.2
    (183 ratings)
    9.0
    (25 ratings)
    Availability
    8.6
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.2
    (11 ratings)
    9.1
    (4 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.0
    (5 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Professional Services
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Adobe Experience ManagerSitecore Digital Experience 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sitecore
    Sitecore offers Content Hub with Product Content Management and Content Management Platform. The Digital Experience Platform and Content Hub can both host structured content and publish the finalized version to Experience Edge. Both platforms offer different ways to manage content. During a technical and business evaluation, the evaluation panel must understand the difference between a Content Modelling focused approach, or a layout management focused approach. Sitecore Digital Experience Platform is also best not to be used to host many files and images in the Media Library. That responsibility should be offloaded to a digital asset management company like Sitecore Content Hub DAM. The technology evaluation panel must also understand how to work with a Headless CMS, where the HEAD needs to be hosted, and the costs associated with the HEAD. Composable DXP is fantastic, but everyone must understand the various cost components. Marketers and the data team will need to go into the CDP and Personalize the platform with an excellent understanding of how a composable "installation" works. All the Martech vendors have similar challenges that data and development teams need to work through with a full experience. Any CDP/analytics platform will, at some stage, require further data enrichment from other sources. Understanding the Sitecore Search features and limitations is also essential.
    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
    Sitecore
    • Comprehensive Solution: Sitecore offers a fully integrated suite of products that cover the full spectrum of DXP capabilities, including search, personalization experimentation and more, delivering a complete composable DXP solution for customers.
    • Beyond Headless: XM Cloud provides more than just headless capabilities, featuring in-built tools like authoring host, page editor, etc., enabling faster and more powerful implementations.
    • Focus on AI: Sitecore has now got an excellent AI offering called Stream; it looks promising; however, it would be too early to give feedback on the same.
    • Customization: Sitecore's backend is highly customizable, allowing for deep modifications through pipelines and patch configurations.
    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
    Sitecore
    • Experience Editor is a little old fashioned and sometimes slow to use.
    • Bulk operations in the Content Editor
    • Sitecore serialization is should be part of the Content Editor to provide visual reference for items which are serialized and will be overwritten by future deployments similar to what Unicorn does so well
    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
    Sitecore
    Sitecore has proven that it can deliver on its promise of a robust, reliable enterprise CMS solution with plenty of features. Also, they keep updating it with more and better features. Now that we are highly trained on it we have started on getting the most out of it and we plan to keep doing more of that in the future.
    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
    Sitecore
    We use Sitecore extensively because it provides a single platform for managing content, personalization, and digital experiences across multiple web properties and customer journeys. At our scale, the biggest value is consistency, governance, and the ability for marketing teams to manage experiences without needing engineering support for every change. It also integrates well with the broader CRM/marketing stack, so it becomes quite embedded once deployed.
    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
    Sitecore
    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
    Sitecore
    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
    Sitecore
    1. Customized software development & maintenance. 2. Technology Consulting - Consulting-based services for technology solutions data engineering or cloud solutions. 3. Used for tapping into multiple data sources such as CRM and marketing automation systems and, creating automated data extracts with a high-end visual representation of data. 4. Implemented for scheduling an existing report to automatically refresh and be delivered to specific users at a specific regular interval.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Adobe
    No answers on this topic
    Sitecore
    Sitecore captures and remembers every single interaction your customers and prospects have in any part of the system, allowing you to build comprehensive, ever-learning profiles of each individual. From email marketing, to social media, to online shopping, Sitecore remembers where each interaction left off so you can automatically continue the conversation. Sitecore helps you manage your content for each and every experience your customers enjoy. Customize what content you want and the system will take care of how it's displayed.
    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
    Sitecore
    Make sure you work with a partner that can help you take advantage of the entire platform. Specifically we see a lot of customers not taking advantage of Sitecore DMS and thus missing a huge opportunity. Sitecore is a platform that is meant to be constantly optimized and improved upon.
    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
    Sitecore
    Really the only comparable product to Sitecore DXP is Adobe Experience Manager. Both are very well established and robust content management platforms. Products like Contentful and Contentstack are very lightweight and do not have as many built-in features like DXP, so it is not a fair comparison. For highly complex enterprise type engagements, Sitecore DXP and AEM are always brought to the table together for consideration.
    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
    Sitecore
    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
    Sitecore
    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
    Sitecore
    • Since moving the site to Sitecore we have had an increase in conversion - that's the ultimate goal of all these things. It's likely to be partly tied in to the re-design that happened at the same time, but the way in which you can personalise and change things really helps give the best customer journey.
    • The negative impact we've seen is mainly due to expectations around how easily things can be shared between separate instances of Sitecore - if you haven't built stuff sharable it won't be sharable, but the business have been sold Sitecore (partly) on the basis that things would be easily sharable.
    • My developers don't all like working in Sitecore - it takes time to learn, takes a long time to build and run as well as requiring a few processes around it, like Unicorn Sync, etc. One of my devs has actually asked to not work on it again! So, a potential recruitment issue.
    Incentivized
    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.