Adobe Experience Manager vs. Square 9 Softworks

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
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
For document-intensive companies looking to improve business efficiency, Square 9 Softworks develops solutions for process automation that aim to drive increased productivity across all business applications.
$250
per month 5 users
Pricing
Adobe Experience ManagerSquare 9 Softworks
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Square 9 Process Automation Essentials
$50
per month per user (5 User Minimum)
Square 9 Digital Transformation Essentials
$68
per month per user (5 User Minimum)
Square 9 Enterprise Essentials
$75
per month per user (10 User Minimum)
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe Experience ManagerSquare 9 Softworks
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsOffered via a three-tier pricing model that allows customers to scale their solution up or down based on the changing needs of their organization. Pricing excludes professional services and implementation fees
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe Experience ManagerSquare 9 Softworks
Features
Adobe Experience ManagerSquare 9 Softworks
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Experience Manager
8.4
38 Ratings
2% above category average
Square 9 Softworks
-
Ratings
Role-based user permissions8.438 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Experience Manager
8.0
33 Ratings
3% below category average
Square 9 Softworks
-
Ratings
API7.829 Ratings00 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language8.129 Ratings00 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Experience Manager
7.5
38 Ratings
2% above category average
Square 9 Softworks
-
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 Product A and Product B
Adobe Experience Manager
7.3
37 Ratings
6% above category average
Square 9 Softworks
-
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
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Adobe Experience ManagerSquare 9 Softworks
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Medium-sized Companies
RWS Tridion Sites
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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Score 9.4 out of 10
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User Ratings
Adobe Experience ManagerSquare 9 Softworks
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(173 ratings)
9.8
(66 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.2
(6 ratings)
5.3
(7 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(134 ratings)
7.5
(6 ratings)
Availability
8.6
(5 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(5 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
7.2
(11 ratings)
7.9
(26 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.7
(2 ratings)
6.4
(3 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
9.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
Professional Services
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe Experience ManagerSquare 9 Softworks
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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Square 9 Softworks
Great for automating invoice processing where you want to set it and forget it. Also works well for document storage where you need things organized and easy to find. If you have complex requirements and need flexibility, this platform can handle it.
Not ideal if you expect a lot of exceptions or manual intervention since troubleshooting misrouted documents can be tricky. Also not the best fit if you want something that works out of the box with zero setup. You get the most out of it when you invest time upfront to build workflows.
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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.
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Square 9 Softworks
  • The software is very flexible, and the technicians were great at implementing our customizations for the PO project.
  • While indexing fields in Global Search, the Key Free tool works great.
  • Global Search is well-organized. It's easy to navigate and find your documents.
  • The process for completing your project was well done. Communicating with individuals at Square 9 who were responsible for different aspects of the project was easy.
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Cons
Adobe
  • Can sometimes be difficult to troubleshoot bugs/issues as they arise
  • Sometimes difficult to set up restrictions on how components can be designed to make sure they fit in with existing content
  • While the integration with Adobe target works fairly well, the process can be a bit opaque and hard to understand, making it difficult to troubleshoot when issues arise
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Square 9 Softworks
  • GlobalSearch could use some enhancements in layout - THIS IS FIXED WITH THE NEWEST VERSION OF GLOBALSEARCH 6.3 and their Sleek GUI GlobalSearch GO! - WELL DONE!
  • GlobalSearch could use external sharing of documents THIS IS FIXED WITH THE NEWEST VERSION OF GLOBALSEARCH 6.3 and their Sleek GUI GlobalSearch GO! - WELL DONE!
  • GlobalForms could have better formatting tools to enhance the fields and text formatting
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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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Square 9 Softworks
We absolutely can't imagine not continuing software maintenance as there are always new additions that improve the system not to mention the excellent tech support when issues are encountered. Response times for troubleshooting are very quick and usually, my issue is resolved in less than an hour after connecting with support.
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Usability
Adobe
It depends if it is from an administrator point of view or from a business content author point of view. I think from business author point of view the solution is good and with the GEN AI capabilities coming it is doing better and better, however from an administration point of view there are still a lot of improvements to ease the maintenance of user access management and as well as the integration configuration aspect.
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Square 9 Softworks
The items I am searching for are easily found. They are found in at least 95% of the searches. The failure rate generally is related to another employees user error or a template error set up by our Square 9 team in house.
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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.
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Square 9 Softworks
Square-9 can get this product out to you in almost the same hour your order it. We got ours very fast.
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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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Square 9 Softworks
With the PDF projected viewer, the document retrieval-to-display can drag for a second more than some systems, and the capture workflow if you overload a server array can also drag, but those are the only two issues we've ever seen with this product, and they are not serious issues at all.
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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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Square 9 Softworks
We had one "production down" incident that took about a day to get help on. I think that's a bit too long. The support people seem confident but not that friendly. I feel like I'm bothering them when I get help, but they get the job done.
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In-Person Training
Adobe
No answers on this topic
Square 9 Softworks
It would have been higher, but the training is a bit muted for the lesser qualified office equipment vendors who signed up as partners to sell and support it. The more experienced ECM vendors and customer end-users will find the training very good, but a bit slow.
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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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Square 9 Softworks
I think the implementation could have gone a little smoother than it did. Now that I know how to use the software, I could do it myself. I feel that as an organization, we could have been a little better prepared. If the consultant was more aware of what we were looking for, they could have assisted in setting up some workflows for us as per the contract. But because we were not prepared, the initial implementation process was a little painful. That said, adding a document management system to ANY business kinda means everyone has to re-think the way they do their work which can be difficult for some staff.
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Alternatives Considered
Adobe
Overall, I prefer AEM as an enterprise site management tool. It allows levels of access control and delegation, while leaving the server management and updates to a specialized team. I do miss the flexibility of being able to search and replace that I have in a WordPress site, and I miss the ability to have one file for redirects like I had in percussion
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Square 9 Softworks
Laserfiche could not even complete their installation. Square 9 Softworks was able to come in and rescue the failed project. We have hardly scratched the surface of what we believe we can do in terms of more implementations of the Square 9 Softworks program in other business processes in our company. Square 9 Softworks was demonstrated to our procurement management team while they were struggling with the Laserfiche implementation, and they were ready to abandon Laserfiche immediately upon seeing the Square 9 Softworks program demonstrated. We abandoned Laserfiche even though we had financial investments with them already. This is testimony to how clearly Square 9 Softworks is a better solution than Laserfiche.
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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.
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Square 9 Softworks
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Adobe
No answers on this topic
Square 9 Softworks
The scale-ability is quite good actually, but you need competent sales/support folks providing it to you, so the scale is set right for the demands of your system use. Some resellers are not good at doing this, some are fantastic. If you are scaled correctly at first implementation, you'll be very happy with this system.
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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.
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Square 9 Softworks
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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Square 9 Softworks
  • Having less paper in the office has saved space and supplies. We no longer need to purchase those expensive cardboard folders for archiving.
  • Having someone do their own health screening is safer and saves us from keeping a staff member devoted to that task.
  • I used to have to spend hours physically culling archive records. Now I can sort it and weed it with clicks of a button!
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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.

Square 9 Softworks Screenshots

Screenshot of GlobalSearch Go, which organizes documents based on extracted data.Screenshot of InquireAI, which offers AI-driven data extraction of invoice and receipt fields to eliminate the need for manual data entry.Screenshot of a contract. Contracts are a complex document format that can require contextual understanding to collect accurate data points.Screenshot of where using natural language prompts, InquireAI works as an agent to extract, classify, and analyze information from any type of document.Screenshot of the invoice review process, where users can be notified by email when a pending approval is available.Screenshot of a fully indexed document. These can be released for secure access within GlobalSearch or sent to other repositories, including QuickBooks, Dynamics 35 Business Central, Citrix ShareFile, or Google Drive.