Crownpeak CMS vs. HCL Digital Experience

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Crownpeak CMS
Score 7.2 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Crownpeak CMS is a composable, enterprise-ready content management system that empowers global teams to seamlessly orchestrate personalized digital experiences across all content channels. Marketing teams can create, manage, and monitor inclusive, accessible, and transactional experiences fast without compromising on functionality, security, or service.N/A
HCL Digital Experience
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
HCL 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
Crownpeak CMSHCL Digital Experience
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Crownpeak CMSHCL Digital Experience
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Crownpeak CMSHCL Digital Experience
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Crownpeak CMSHCL Digital Experience
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Crownpeak CMS
8.9
25 Ratings
10% above category average
HCL Digital Experience
5.0
5 Ratings
46% below category average
Role-based user permissions8.925 Ratings5.05 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Crownpeak CMS
8.0
22 Ratings
4% above category average
HCL Digital Experience
4.1
5 Ratings
65% below category average
API7.819 Ratings4.14 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language8.120 Ratings4.15 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Crownpeak CMS
8.1
27 Ratings
6% above category average
HCL Digital Experience
2.9
5 Ratings
89% below category average
WYSIWYG editor7.726 Ratings7.04 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness7.626 Ratings3.15 Ratings
Admin section8.325 Ratings3.15 Ratings
Page templates8.427 Ratings1.15 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design8.425 Ratings4.04 Ratings
Publishing workflow8.527 Ratings1.14 Ratings
Form generator7.823 Ratings3.02 Ratings
Library of website themes00 Ratings1.15 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Crownpeak CMS
7.9
27 Ratings
8% above category average
HCL Digital Experience
1.9
5 Ratings
115% below category average
Content taxonomy7.725 Ratings1.15 Ratings
SEO support8.524 Ratings2.15 Ratings
Bulk management8.122 Ratings2.13 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions7.321 Ratings2.14 Ratings
Community / comment management00 Ratings2.13 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Crownpeak CMSHCL Digital Experience
Small Businesses
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Kentico Xperience
Kentico Xperience
Score 7.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Crownpeak CMSHCL Digital Experience
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(30 ratings)
9.0
(11 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(5 ratings)
5.7
(6 ratings)
Usability
8.2
(16 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Availability
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.6
(27 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(15 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
8.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.6
(2 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Crownpeak CMSHCL Digital Experience
Likelihood to Recommend
Crownpeak
Crownpeak DXM is a great solution if you are looking for a flexible platform that allows engineers to quickly develop while also making it easy for content authors to work especially in scenarios where you need multi-language support. It is also good for scenarios where you want a cloud-based solution and are looking for just one vendor to handle hosting and offer the CMS.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
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.
Read full review
Pros
Crownpeak
  • Build & manage digital experiences without dependency on your IT team
  • Built-in Digital Quality tool (DQM) tool allows you to check the quality of content and any accessibility issues and immediately flag any issues before publishing.
  • Build websites with the component-based technology and spend less effort in creating the best user experience for the end-user
Read full review
HCL Technologies
  • 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.
Read full review
Cons
Crownpeak
  • Crownpeak moved to a web browser admin tool in 2018, which has made the admin experience much better, but there are still a couple of features missing from the browser version that won't arrive until later in 2019.
  • Integration with 3rd party digital asset management tools would be great.
  • Smoother integration with source control would be nice.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
  • 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.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Crownpeak
None of our Crownpeak clients are currently thinking about replatforming.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
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
Crownpeak
Crownpeak DXM is a flexible easy to use CMS platform speaking to the most challenging localization scenarios. Crownpeak users have the freedom to integrate DXM platform with their existing technology at no cost. Moving from legacy systems to the Saas platform is painless and cost-effective. Extensive targeting and personalization options are something that users will benefit from.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
New versions has increased user experience facilitating usability.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Crownpeak
We have never encountered any issues with the availability.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Performance
Crownpeak
Pages load very fast on production (assuming you develop with basic SEO practices in place) due to Crownpeak's publishing architecture. The slide downside is that publishing can be a bit slow at times.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Crownpeak
Crownpeak DXM's service and support are outstanding. We have immediate access to both the tech support team and the software engineering team. We can get a support person on the phone whenever needed, and we can schedule impromptu training sessions at any time. Best support I have ever received from a platform provider in 20 years of software and application development.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
We had some issues related with performing and the support was suitable and sucessful.
Read full review
In-Person Training
Crownpeak
We received on-site training from Crownpeak, the trainer had touched upon every possible scenario and provided great insights about the product & ease of implementation.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Crownpeak
My team left training with a solid understanding of how to use the product and the developer training ended with a test to ensure the ability to properly develop was learned properly. Recently, Crownpeak has added a self-paced training option which makes it extremely flexible to on-board new developers.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Crownpeak
SaaS model is perfect for us to avoid slow and costly version updates to get access to new features and functions. Crownpeak is a true SaaS model, so we get all the good new stuff without the need to invest in effort, time or money. this frees our teams to focus on content creation and deployment, which is pretty fast because the DXM publishes straight to html through the headless model.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
Implementation was successful due to Websphere application server used.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Crownpeak
I was not at this team within my organization during the evaluation period of Crownpeak. However, my previous team used Sitecore. Crownpeak is a bit easier to use from a UI perspective and has more creative options within the tool. Sitecore's clunky UI also was a reason I found out later why we ended up using Crownpeak as our DXM.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
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
Crownpeak
In some recent projects we have delivered to our clients, we were able to roll out sites in shorter time period due the scalability of the Crownpeak's DXM solution.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Crownpeak
  • I'm pretty sure it raises our back-end development costs by making the development process (of creating input forms and producing outputs from the content) more complicated and painful than it needs to be.
  • It helps lock our clients in to us because not a whole lot of agencies have Crownpeak expertise.
  • It helps our clients not have to deal with their own IT teams, which they tend to dislike working with.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
  • 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)
Read full review
ScreenShots