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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cascade CMS

    Score8.2 out of 10
    N/ACascade CMS (formerly Cascade Server) by Hannon Hill is a content management system, with built-in tools to help users eliminate stale content, increase digital outreach, and promote end-user adoption and accountability. Cascade CMS is designed for decentralized web teams in most major industries, including higher education, government, healthcare, and technology. Included is Clive, an engagement and real-time personalization tool for collecting information and using it to craft personalized…N/A

    HCL Digital Experience

    Score9.9 out of 10
    N/AHCL Digital Experience is based on the former IBM Web Content Manager and IBM WebSphere Portal products, acquired by HCL Technologies from IBM in late 2018. The product allows the user to create, manage and deliver engaging omnichannel digital experiences to audiences with responsive content, targeted offers, seamlessly integrated applications and consistent branding across channels (web, mobile, and hybrid mobile/web applications and more).N/A
    Pricing
    Cascade CMSHCL Digital Experience
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cascade CMSHCL Digital Experience
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    Cascade CMSHCL Digital Experience
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Cascade CMS and HCL Digital Experience
    Feature
    Cascade CMS
    8.0
    19 Ratings
    3% below category average
    HCL Digital Experience
    5.0
    5 Ratings
    47% below category average
    Role-based user permissions8.019 Ratings5.05 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Cascade CMS and HCL Digital Experience
    Feature
    Cascade CMS
    7.1
    13 Ratings
    9% below category average
    HCL Digital Experience
    4.1
    5 Ratings
    64% below category average
    API7.012 Ratings4.14 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language7.37 Ratings4.15 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Cascade CMS and HCL Digital Experience
    Feature
    Cascade CMS
    7.1
    19 Ratings
    10% below category average
    HCL Digital Experience
    2.9
    5 Ratings
    84% below category average
    WYSIWYG editor6.119 Ratings7.04 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness6.018 Ratings3.15 Ratings
    Admin section8.019 Ratings3.15 Ratings
    Page templates9.017 Ratings1.15 Ratings
    Library of website themes5.52 Ratings1.15 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design7.015 Ratings4.04 Ratings
    Publishing workflow9.019 Ratings1.14 Ratings
    Form generator6.47 Ratings3.02 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Cascade CMS and HCL Digital Experience
    Feature
    Cascade CMS
    6.9
    18 Ratings
    8% below category average
    HCL Digital Experience
    1.9
    5 Ratings
    111% below category average
    Content taxonomy8.013 Ratings1.15 Ratings
    SEO support7.014 Ratings2.15 Ratings
    Bulk management9.014 Ratings2.13 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions6.011 Ratings2.14 Ratings
    Community / comment management4.85 Ratings2.13 Ratings
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    Cascade CMSHCL Digital Experience
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    Score7.7 out of 10
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    Score8.9 out of 10
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    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
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    User Ratings
    Cascade CMSHCL Digital Experience
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.9
    (44 ratings)
    9.0
    (11 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.1
    (26 ratings)
    5.7
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    9.1
    (4 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    6.7
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.1
    (5 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.1
    (4 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cascade CMSHCL Digital Experience
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Hannon Hill
    Cascade Server is well suited with it's WYSIWYG editor being better than most editors that I have used in other systems. In context, editing makes adding content easy compared to the last CMS I used where you had to wing it and view the page outside of the CMS to see if it was correct. The ability mix HTML, CSS, and the Script of your choice anywhere and with ease.
    The scenarios were Cascade Server is less appropriate would be in the use of compilers or programs like Visual studio. You need to go out of Cascade Server and go to other environments to perform tasks and then copy the result to Cascade Server. You can write directly in Cascade Server, but it's easier to do in and editor that is specific to a function.
    Incentivized
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    HCLSoftware
    HCL DX does really well at managing and maintaining the site. It allows the business to basically maintain the site while IT spent time developing new and enhanced functions. The main issue I currently have with HCL DX is not directly with the product but it does play a role. It is difficult finding skilled resources to support HCL DX in my experience.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Hannon Hill
    • Cascade CMS makes no assumptions about your content. Templates control how the content gets displayed.
    • Workflows are intuitive and allow for one or more people to review content before it is published.
    • The published site is static (no database connection) which allows for faster page loads and reduced risk of attack.
    Incentivized
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    HCLSoftware
    • With Version 8.5, IBM Web Content Manager introduced in place editing capabilities which allow authors to make content edits on sections of the page instead of going to the content itself. This feature allows authors to make changes in context of the page and preview changes within the actual look and feel of a live page.
    • Projects provide a collaborative atmosphere for the author community so that authors can interact and work as a team to manage inter-dependent content changes under one project and publish all changes at once, instead of working separately on individual content changes. This brings awareness across authors in an organization and easy knowledge share.
    • IBM Digital Data Connector is a cool feature that allows [users] to integrate external content sources onto the portal using IBM Web Content Manager presentation components. This allows UI/UX designers to present integrated external data in any manner they want, manage UI changes with an underlying approval process and leverage syndication to push changes live immediately.
    • IBM Web Content Manager offers a targeted content feature that allows business users to deliver personalized content to customers based on customer demographic information, browsing history and other transaction related information. Any rules created follow the publishing process thereby making it just a configurable item resulting in less turn around to turn on the feature on a website.
    • IBM Web Content Manager offers 'multi lingual solution' out of the box which allows content creation for almost all popular languages.
    • Syndication feature has improved a lot and it now provides a detailed views comprising of 'failed items', 'items that have syndicated successfully, 'items in queue'. Failed items view provides detailed and clear cut information of what resulted in failure helping IT to troubleshoot problems easily.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Hannon Hill
    • Cascade CMS is not an out-of-the-box pre-built system that you can install, turn on and expect to be serving sites and pages on day one. It's not a blogging system like WordPress, or a drag-and-drop system like SquareSpace (both of which I've used for their own purposes). You need to have someone tasked with management and system administration – and if you implement the on-premise self-hosted version, you ought to have several people. We have the university's IT shop handling infrastructure (server hardware, containers, clustering, operating systems, load-balancing, DNS, database servers, NAS/SAN drives), our Web & Design team managing Cascade CMS (system settings, sites, templates, permissions) and managers coordinating each respective academic unit (A&S, business, education, law, marine science).
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    • IBM Web Content Manager should provide some easily usable connectors through a GUI to connect to bring content from custom data sources including connecting to Salesforce and custom databases.
    • Should further optimize and enhance creation of rich and responsive content driven UIs on various digital channels.
    • Should further optimize and enhance content personalization features.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Hannon Hill
    Changing systems would require too much effort. Our institution is using Cascade Server, WordPress and Drupal but we only serve 2200 students so we have 1 too many content management systems. Reflecting on current technical resources we would like to drop down to 2. This effort hasn't moved forward because of the extensive work required to migrate content and train users in a new system.
    Incentivized
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    HCLSoftware
    IBM products always moves forward to adapt to new requirements and technologies. I have used versions 6, 6.1, 7 and 8 of IBM WCM, and I know IBM is ready to revamp the tool based on emerging needs, and still provide the capabilities to migrate your old system to the newer versions.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Hannon Hill
    Cascade CMS is completely usable on mobile devices, we can train our content editors in a single 2-hour session, and we support 1,000 users with a very small team.
    There is a level of complexity for the system administrators, site managers and web programmers who implement templates and content types. But the complexity is neither arbitrary nor inconsistent – and once learned provides a powerful environment within which we can develop robust sites that are beautiful and powerful, yet easy for our content editors to manage.
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    New versions has increased user experience facilitating usability.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Hannon Hill
    Amazing customer service and VERY customizable.
    Incentivized
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    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Hannon Hill
    Does a great job.
    Incentivized
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    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Hannon Hill
    They have always regarded any question or problem we encountered as very important. We have never felt that they ignore or downplay any issue and not once has anything been left unresolved. They also hold an annual conference where users are invited to attend and share their experiences and wisdom with the entire Cascade community. And with the care and support the provide, we all feel a part of that community.
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    We had some issues related with performing and the support was suitable and sucessful.
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Hannon Hill
    Training was helpful.
    Incentivized
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    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Hannon Hill
    Still needed that physical help
    Incentivized
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    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Hannon Hill
    The key to any CMS implementation is PLAN, PLAN, PLAN. Proper planning with Cascade can increase your satisfaction exponentially once the site migration/creation is complete. When all is said and done, your implementation can make your site run like a Yugo or Maserati. Be smart and deliberate in your decisions. Drive the Maserati. It is already paid for.
    Incentivized
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    HCLSoftware
    Implementation was successful due to Websphere application server used.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Hannon Hill
    We selected Cascade server seven years ago, and the CMS environment at the time was clearly different than it is today. We decided to go with a vendor solution rather than a free solution because the long term cost in hosting a free solution is not, in fact, free; we've found Cascade to have been an excellent choice for us.
    Incentivized
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    HCLSoftware
    Magento and Prestashop are E-commerce CMS platforms. They are used in a different scale of application than WCM.
    Concerning Joomla, it's a useful CMS forsmaller website. Once again this is an other scale of application than WCM Liveray can compete WCM 7 concerning the : ¤ specific development ¤ security ¤ responsive
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Hannon Hill
    I used it only a few times.
    Incentivized
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    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Hannon Hill
    • Initially, ROI was positive - because we completely redesigned the website when we implemented Cascade.
    • Over time, the inability to keep up with the latest interactive tools has reduced visitors time on site.
    • Also over time, the difficulty of use has led to less buy-in by backend users, leading to outdated pages, little timely information, and lower visitors.
    Incentivized
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    HCLSoftware
    • Negative: Very complex architecture for on-premise deployments (too many servers to installed)
    • Positive: Easy customization
    • Negative: Architecture limited to cloud solutions
    • WCM is an old product and needs an update
    • Blog, and community are not integrated in Digital Manager for discussion
    • Templates are not available to integrate basic services (FileNet, more complex BPM , e-commerce)
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots