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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Drupal

    Score7.1 out of 10
    N/ADrupal is a free, open-source content management system written in PHP that competes primarily with Joomla and Plone. The standard release of Drupal, known as Drupal core, contains basic features such as account and menu management, RSS feeds, page layout customization, and system administration.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
    DrupalHCL Digital Experience
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    DrupalHCL Digital Experience
    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
    DrupalHCL Digital Experience
    Considered Both Products
    Open Source
    No answer on this topic
    HCLSoftware
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    76%
    Would buy again
    13 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    88%
    Delivers good value for the price
    14 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    76%
    Happy with the feature set
    13 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    12 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    87%
    Implementation went as expected
    13 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    DrupalHCL Digital Experience
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Drupal and HCL Digital Experience
    Feature
    Drupal
    8.3
    74 Ratings
    1% above category average
    HCL Digital Experience
    5.0
    5 Ratings
    47% below category average
    Role-based user permissions8.374 Ratings5.05 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Drupal and HCL Digital Experience
    Feature
    Drupal
    7.8
    69 Ratings
    0% below category average
    HCL Digital Experience
    4.1
    5 Ratings
    64% below category average
    API7.364 Ratings4.14 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language8.260 Ratings4.15 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Drupal and HCL Digital Experience
    Feature
    Drupal
    6.5
    78 Ratings
    19% below category average
    HCL Digital Experience
    2.9
    5 Ratings
    84% below category average
    WYSIWYG editor6.371 Ratings7.04 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness8.275 Ratings3.15 Ratings
    Admin section7.078 Ratings3.15 Ratings
    Page templates5.677 Ratings1.15 Ratings
    Library of website themes5.568 Ratings1.15 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design6.572 Ratings4.04 Ratings
    Publishing workflow6.776 Ratings1.14 Ratings
    Form generator6.672 Ratings3.02 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Drupal and HCL Digital Experience
    Feature
    Drupal
    6.6
    77 Ratings
    13% below category average
    HCL Digital Experience
    1.9
    5 Ratings
    111% below category average
    Content taxonomy6.971 Ratings1.15 Ratings
    SEO support6.472 Ratings2.15 Ratings
    Bulk management6.467 Ratings2.13 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions6.670 Ratings2.14 Ratings
    Community / comment management6.869 Ratings2.13 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    DrupalHCL Digital Experience
    Small Businesses
    Umbraco CMS
    Score7 out of 10
    Yext
    Score6.8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Square Online
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
    Progress Sitefinity
    Score7.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    DrupalHCL Digital Experience
    Likelihood to Recommend
    6.8
    (87 ratings)
    9.0
    (11 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    1.0
    (19 ratings)
    5.7
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    6.9
    (20 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    9.7
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.9
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    1.0
    (5 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    6.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    5.1
    (4 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    DrupalHCL Digital Experience
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Open Source
    If you want to set up a basic Not For Profit (NFP) Membership system and content base, Word Press is easier than Drupal. However, if you have specific needs that require a fair bit of customisation then Drupal is the best CRM available. If the webmaster is confident with PHP and SQL, Drupal allows a lot of creativity.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Pros
    Open Source
    • Drag and drop functionality is easy to use
    • Easy to switch between straight text and HTML content
    • Ability to easily have multiple environments so that pages can be built in b/c-stage before they are approved and published
    • Solid user experience where it's clear how to navigate the platform
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Cons
    Open Source
    • This is not an easy CMS to work with if you don't have a good understanding of website development. It isn't "plug-and-play" like Wordpress or Shopify.
    • Over time, doing major updates to the system can be taxing, especially if you aren't well-versed enough in doing system updates in line with your "child" theme and code.
    • The CMS can become somewhat cumbersome with server resources if not carefully optimized while you build and customize it to your liking.
    Incentivized
    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
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Open Source
    The time and money invested into this platform were too great to discontinue it at this point. I'm sure it will be in use for a while. We have also spent time training many employees how to use it. All of these things add up to quite an investment in the product. Lastly, it basically fulfills what we need our intranet site to do.
    Read full review
    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
    Open Source
    As a team, we found Drupal to be highly customizable and flexible, allowing our development team to go to great lengths to develop desired functionalities. It can be used as a solution for all types of web projects. It comes with a robust admin interface that provides greater flexibility once the user gets acquainted with the system.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    New versions has increased user experience facilitating usability.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Open Source
    Drupal itself does not tend to have bugs that cause sporadic outages. When deployed on a well-configured LAMP stack, deployment and maintenance problems are minimal, and in general no exotic tuning or configuration is required. For highest uptime, putting a caching proxy like Varnish in front of Drupal (or a CDN that supports dynamic applications).
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Open Source
    Drupal page loads can be slow, as a great many database calls may be required to generate a page. It is highly recommended to use caching systems, both built-in and external to lessen such database loads and improve performance. I haven't had any problems with behind-the-scenes integrations with external systems.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Open Source
    As noted earlier, the support of the community can be rather variable, with some modules attracting more attraction and action in their issue queues, but overall, the development community for Drupal is second to none. It probably the single greatest aspect of being involved in this open-source project.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    We had some issues related with performing and the support was suitable and sucessful.
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Open Source
    I was part of the team that conducted the training. Our training was fine, but we could have been better informed on Drupal before we started providing it. If we did not have answers to tough questions, we had more technical staff we could consult with. We did provide hands-on practice time for the learners, which I would always recommend. That is where the best learning occurred.
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Open Source
    The on-line training was not as ideal as the face-to-face training. It was done remotely and only allowed for the trainers to present information to the learners and demonstrate the platform online. There was not a good way to allow for the learners to practice, ask questions and have them answered all in the same session.
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Open Source
    Plan ahead as much you can. You really need to know how to build what you want with the modules available to you, or that you might need to code yourself, in order to make the best use of Drupal. I recommend you analyze the most technically difficult workflows and other aspects of your implementation, and try building some test versions of those first. Get feedback from stakeholders early and often, because you can easily find yourself in a situation where your implementation does 90% of what you want, but, due to something you didn't plan for, foresee, or know about, there's no feasible way to get past the last 10%
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    Implementation was successful due to Websphere application server used.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Open Source
    Drupal can be more complex to learn, but it offers a much wider range of applications. Drupal’s front and backend can be customized from design to functionality to allow for a wide range of uses. If someone wants to create something more complex than a simple site or blog, Drupal can be an amazing asset to have at hand.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Open Source
    Drupal is well known to be scalable, although it requires solid knowledge of MySQL best practices, caching mechanisms, and other server-level best practices. I have never personally dealt with an especially large site, so I can speak well to the issues associated with Drupal scaling.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Open Source
    • Given the endless possibilities that Drupal can have, we tend to have great support going on when we get a website launched
    • It has become much much faster and easier for us to launch a new project due to reusability
    • Configuration management in Drupal helps greatly with CI/CD, saves us costs
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    ScreenShots