Canto vs. Magnolia

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Canto
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Canto delivers digital asset management capabilities while offering an intuitive experience for teams. Canto's AI Visual Search enables users to search their brand libraries using natural language.N/A
Magnolia
Score 9.8 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Founded in Switzerland in 1997, Magnolia is a CMS used to build composable digital experiences. Magnolia helps create fully integrated customer experiences and speeds up digital delivery of content. Magnolia boasts 480 enterprise customers, thousands of Community Edition deployments, and more than 200 certified Magnolia Partners around the world. They further state that their enterprise customers include Sanofi, Generali, the Atlassian, The New York Times, Harley Davidson, and Union…
$3,500
per month
Pricing
CantoMagnolia
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
DX Core
$3500
per month
DX Cloud
$6000
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CantoMagnolia
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsCanto's platform, supported by a flexible and transparent pricing structure, caters to a diverse array of industries. It empowers companies ranging from teams of 50 employees to global enterprises to fuel their content delivery, maximizing their ROI.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
CantoMagnolia
Considered Both Products
Canto
Chose Canto
Canto was the most user friendly and had the most features compared to the other DAMs we evaluated. We liked the customizations and features and the fact that new features are released regularly. The other DAMs also didn't have as many sharing features or detailed permissions …
Magnolia

No answer on this topic

Features
CantoMagnolia
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Canto
6.7
10 Ratings
6% below category average
Magnolia
-
Ratings
Dashboards6.810 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports6.69 Ratings00 Ratings
Content analytics6.59 Ratings00 Ratings
DAM Features
Comparison of DAM Features features of Product A and Product B
Canto
7.2
24 Ratings
13% below category average
Magnolia
-
Ratings
Uploading assets7.623 Ratings00 Ratings
Downloading assets8.424 Ratings00 Ratings
Categories7.423 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset storage8.223 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset sharing8.024 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset search7.724 Ratings00 Ratings
Tagging system7.323 Ratings00 Ratings
Content editing6.416 Ratings00 Ratings
Embed codes7.210 Ratings00 Ratings
Metadata6.820 Ratings00 Ratings
Collections7.621 Ratings00 Ratings
User access6.823 Ratings00 Ratings
DAM Integrations6.813 Ratings00 Ratings
DAM API7.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow automations5.99 Ratings00 Ratings
Related asset discovery6.713 Ratings00 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Canto
-
Ratings
Magnolia
8.0
69 Ratings
3% below category average
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.069 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Canto
-
Ratings
Magnolia
8.1
68 Ratings
4% above category average
API00 Ratings8.561 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language00 Ratings7.661 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Canto
-
Ratings
Magnolia
8.0
74 Ratings
3% above category average
WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings8.565 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness00 Ratings8.465 Ratings
Admin section00 Ratings8.070 Ratings
Page templates00 Ratings8.972 Ratings
Library of website themes00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design00 Ratings8.563 Ratings
Publishing workflow00 Ratings7.573 Ratings
Form generator00 Ratings6.958 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Canto
-
Ratings
Magnolia
7.5
69 Ratings
1% above category average
Content taxonomy00 Ratings7.663 Ratings
SEO support00 Ratings7.263 Ratings
Bulk management00 Ratings7.757 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions00 Ratings7.962 Ratings
Community / comment management00 Ratings6.951 Ratings
Best Alternatives
CantoMagnolia
Small Businesses
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
ManageWP
ManageWP
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
MediaValet
MediaValet
Score 9.0 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CantoMagnolia
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(253 ratings)
8.1
(78 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(18 ratings)
8.1
(9 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(95 ratings)
8.0
(68 ratings)
Availability
6.4
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.4
(1 ratings)
8.5
(67 ratings)
Support Rating
7.6
(157 ratings)
9.1
(3 ratings)
Online Training
9.1
(2 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(12 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
3.6
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.4
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
6.4
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
CantoMagnolia
Likelihood to Recommend
Canto
Canto is an excellent tool for organizing assets and searching for them in one location. I also really enjoy using the mobile version of Canto on my smartphone when I am on the go. Canto is robust and fast and it has been a major advancement in the way that my organization stores and shares assets.
Read full review
Magnolia
Magnolia is a very capable DXP, that provides client with lots of flexibility in composing its own stack. While the core of the platform is a content management system, the open architecture of Magnolia DXP allows it to connect to any platform, allowing client to extend the capabilities. One scenario would be a centralized content hub - where through a single platform, content authors can choose which channel to distribute what content. For example, long form content for consumers viewing on a laptop, short form content for those using a mobile browser. This allow the client to personalized the experience based on channels. Another scenarios would be leveraging on GenAI - using Magnolia's built-in connector to ChatGPT. If that is not the service that one desire, you can always connect to another AI service such as Google Gemini. With GenAI, connected, content author can use AI as co-pilot to help them scale up their content production.
Read full review
Pros
Canto
  • Ability to manage several portals and allow different users access to each.
  • Ability to customize each Canto platform or portal to suit all needs.
  • The platform is very easy to use, and while there are more complex components to the platform, users are able to use only the basics and remain very successful.
Read full review
Magnolia
  • Speed of development - time to delivery from zero to MVP was excellent
  • Ease of use - the authoring experience is very easy to build and train
  • PAAS/SAAS - the managed service platform removed the traditional overhead of running in-house technologies, meaning we could focus on value add, with less time spent keeping the lights on.
Read full review
Cons
Canto
  • The brand templates add-on is very difficult to use. It sounds great on paper, but when you actually try to use it you find out it's very clunky and limited.
  • Adding fonts to style guides is difficult. Would love to see some sort of integration with Adobe and Google fonts.
  • Duplicate finder only finds exact duplicates, so if a file has been run through processing of any sort it doesn't find it (ie Photoshop, Lightroom). Would be great if it could have some sort of optical duplicate finder.
Read full review
Magnolia
  • The documentation provides samples that are often out of context, and difficult to know where the provided example code should be implemented. More tutorials providing the full project or step-by-step instructions on how to implement subject material would help greatly. Baeldung is a resource I would consider the gold standard in how this is done in other spaces.
  • The use of JCR and Nodes makes object serialization/deserialization painful. Jackson compatibility or similar would be a welcome enhancement to the developer experience. Maybe leveraging code-gen from light modules to build model classes when possible could help accomplish this.
  • Modifying the home layout from light modules is frustrating. It seems that any configuration overrides made merge with the default rather than overwriting, which makes for a difficult combination of guess-and-check while referencing the documentation to see what should be in each row/column when making changes.
  • Including "mark all as read" or "delete all" in the notifications app would be a great quality of life improvement. It seems that by default, users have to individually select messages and operate them.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Canto
It's a fantastic product and we get a lot of mileage out of Canto. I would 100% say that we plan to renew our subscription and have not explored any other digital asset management tools. It has all the tools we need, seamlessly connects with Adobe products (out primary design tool) and continues to innovate.
Read full review
Magnolia
We have invested a lot of time and energy into tailoring a solution that works for the company.
We think the new features in v6.2 will help us get to the next level
We also don't have the resources to rebuild a website platform from scratch even if we wanted to
Read full review
Usability
Canto
Canto is about as easy to use as it gets. I have personally trained a handful of employees who are unfamiliar with DAM/marketing SaaS technology on how to use the platform for their needs. These trainings only take about half an hour (given they are using a very limited set of Canto's features), and afterward, they are pretty well-equipped to use the platform.
Read full review
Magnolia
We've shown it to a number of users both clients and our own team and despite initial apprehensions, they "get it" very quickly. It's intuitive and friendly and quick to perform daily tasks. We once had a client tell us "Using Magnolia makes me smile" which says it all for us.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Canto
Canto is usually available, though sometimes goes down for 30 min - 1 hr. Usually resolved quickly
Read full review
Magnolia
No answers on this topic
Performance
Canto
I've satisfied with the performance
Read full review
Magnolia
I gave [it] 7/10 only because of the loading time of pages. Otherwise, I think it deserves an 8. Normally this is not an issue per [se] but considering the rating matrix and as I have been asked to honestly write about it. Yes, the page loading times could be improved.
Read full review
Support Rating
Canto
I think Canto's onboarding process was really helpful. Our employees were able to utilize the system without excess training sessions which isn't always the case with some software. I also think that their customer support has proven to be super helpful when minor issues arise
Read full review
Magnolia
You always get an answer based on your SLA. But you always get a solution. That's the successfactor in this case. To often i was frustrated about people in a company without even a clue what there product is about or how to solve a problem. Magnolia's Support Team does a very good job and try to help you in most of the cases
Read full review
Online Training
Canto
Very knowledgable and accommodating trainers who listen to what you're asking and provide detailed yet simple instructions.
Read full review
Magnolia
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Canto
We didn't have a thorough enough plan for ownership of uploading and tagging and some of our tags were inconsistent which led to some regression in our usage. We tightened up that plan on our end and spoke with support team on Canto's end to establish some best practices and have a much better workflow now.
Read full review
Magnolia
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Canto
Dropbox is not as organized as Canto is. This is very impactful to help us stay consistent and to stay proper when managing our digital assets. Moreover, the ease of navigation is a lot better than Dropbox ever was, this is a big reason why our company has been using Canto for SEVERAL years.We do not want to leave Canto!
Read full review
Magnolia
I've used several CMSs like AEM and EpiServer, and comparatively, they all excel at different things. Magnolia is the best to develop for/against. Episerver has the best/most fluid UI in terms of content editing, and the overall admin experience AEM is just all around sucks.
Read full review
Scalability
Canto
Canto is based on the West coast, so occasionally patches and planned outages happen during East coast working hours
Read full review
Magnolia
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Canto
  • Covid: We all worked from home. It was a major impact for us to stop using a sketchy VPN that is slow and painful. We all became so much more efficient in our work.
  • Sharing assets: Our company has grown substantially in the past 3 years. Having Canto means that we can easily share assets with our worldwide divisions. We are leading the way on this as the companies we acquired are using archaic servers. We will bring everyone in the Canto world to better manage our assets.
  • Control: Prior to Canto, people were misusing images - not using the right ones, not using watermarks. Now it's all preventable and we are seeing better quality images used appropriately.
Read full review
Magnolia
  • Magnolia has brought about positive impacts. For instance, we need not outsource web design and marketing services because thanks to this software, we can handle most work inhouse
  • The software is affordable with no compromises on capabilities and therefore it is gives us value for money.
  • The templates makes the whole process easy
Read full review
ScreenShots

Canto Screenshots

Screenshot of the Canto AI Visual Search to discover digital assets faster.Screenshot of asset discovery with AI Visual Search, using natural language to instantly find the most relevant images and videos in Canto.Screenshot of Canto's integrations, including Adobe Creative Suite, Hootsuite, Canva, and monday.com.Screenshot of sharing tools to push on-brand digital content to teams, channels, and platforms while maintaining control with access controls and digital rights management.Screenshot of the organized, searchable content hub, where everyone can always find what they need, when they need it.

Magnolia Screenshots

Screenshot of the Magnolia App Launcher, used to switch between workspaces and manage pagesScreenshot of the customer experience. This brings together content and audiovisual digital assets to form more compelling digital experiences.Screenshot of global search that brings relevant content, no matter where it resides.Screenshot of customizing the ecommerce experience.Screenshot of Magnolia Orchestratem where users can manage and track campaignsScreenshot of the WYSIWYG page editor