Optimizely Content Management System vs. Umbraco CMS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Optimizely Content Management System
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Optimizely Content Management System (CMS) is used to deliver digital experiences across channels and devices with a marketer-friendly interface, AI-generated insights that drive real-time personalization, and flexible content delivery options—including headless delivery.N/A
Umbraco CMS
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Umbraco is an open-source .NET Core CMS with over 700,000 active installs worldwide and with more than 200,000 active community members. It was first released on February 16th, 2005, and is still to this day an open-source project backed by a commercial company. To ensure Umbraco is always running the latest technology, the company has aligned with Microsoft's .NET release schedule to always have the Umbraco CMS…
$0
Pricing
Optimizely Content Management SystemUmbraco CMS
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Umbraco Free
$0
Umbraco Cloud Starter
$45
per month
Umbraco Heartcore Mini
$49
per month
Umbraco Heartcore Starter
$239
per month
Umbraco Cloud Standard
$283
per month
Umbraco Cloud Professional
$758
per month
Umbraco Heartcore Professional
$999
per month
Umbraco Professional
$12,000
per year
Umbraco Enterprise
Flexible pricing
per year
Umbraco Cloud Enterprise
Flexible pricing
per month
Umbraco Heartcore Enterprise
Flexible pricing
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Optimizely Content Management SystemUmbraco CMS
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThe Umbraco CMS and all of its core features are the same across all plans. The paid on-premise plans include support, onboarding, licenses to add-on products (Umbraco Forms) as well as a discount on developer training courses. Umbraco Cloud is the CMS hosted on Azure Cloud servers with automated upgrades, unlimited hosting, and smooth deployments. All features can be found on Umbraco.com. Umbraco Heartcore is the managed Headless SaaS version of Umbraco.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Optimizely Content Management SystemUmbraco CMS
Considered Both Products
Optimizely Content Management System
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
It's a more holistic solution for our clients, offers the security they crave with the ease of use
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Code first approach over Siteore.. Umbraco is a good alternative for those who can't afford an Optimizely license.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Good value for the cost.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Much easier to use and more developer friendly
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Both Umbraco and Optimizely have a lot of common denominators, but the main difference from a development perspective is how content types are implemented in code in Optimizely vs. defining content types in the Admin UI in Umbraco, where Optimizely has the upper hand, making it …
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely Content Management System is better supported, but more expensive. The support is what we needed and the possibility of having direct access to the company that develops the product.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely CMS better handles large scale websites offering personalization and editing content in bulk out of the box but is not free/cheap.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Out of those listed, only Umbraco is applicable as it can be directly compared to Optimizely CMS (with the other 3 being Headless solutions, which should instead be compared with Optimizely Headless, which I haven't worked with)
Umbraco offers a really visual experience and far …
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Umbraco is a similar product that does a lot of the same things well and has a big community behind it when you need help with something. However Optimizely Content Cloud feels more refined to work with, plus the official support is sometimes a godsend when you can't find the …
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Episerver outranks these products in most cases. There are some functions in each product that you would love in Episerver but when you sum it up Episerver is the greatest :)
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Among all the CMS products that I've tested, Episerver had a stronger coupling with an e-commerce product (Episerver Commerce), and that was the main reason we went with it. Besides that, the main reasons why I wouldn't go with each, would be mainly:

Joomla:
Umbraco CMS
Chose Umbraco CMS
The performance of Umbraco is as good as Episerver. The back office in Umbraco is cleaner and more intuitive than Episerver. Sitecore is a good CMS for large projects, but the learning curve for developers and editors is steep.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Optimizely Content Management SystemUmbraco CMS
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
8.5
120 Ratings
6% above category average
Umbraco CMS
1.0
11 Ratings
156% below category average
Role-based user permissions8.5120 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
8.1
118 Ratings
5% above category average
Umbraco CMS
5.3
10 Ratings
37% below category average
API7.9113 Ratings5.59 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language8.287 Ratings5.19 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
7.6
136 Ratings
0% below category average
Umbraco CMS
1.6
11 Ratings
130% below category average
WYSIWYG editor7.7126 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness7.8115 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Admin section7.9124 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Page templates8.0124 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Library of website themes6.662 Ratings1.010 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design7.9119 Ratings1.010 Ratings
Publishing workflow8.1124 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Form generator6.989 Ratings5.99 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
7.6
127 Ratings
4% above category average
Umbraco CMS
3.6
11 Ratings
68% below category average
Content taxonomy8.1117 Ratings1.011 Ratings
SEO support7.6118 Ratings1.010 Ratings
Bulk management7.099 Ratings4.98 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions7.7101 Ratings5.210 Ratings
Community / comment management7.882 Ratings6.010 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Optimizely Content Management SystemUmbraco CMS
Small Businesses
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 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
Optimizely Content Management SystemUmbraco CMS
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(161 ratings)
1.0
(11 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(30 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(30 ratings)
4.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.2
(4 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(6 ratings)
2.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(4 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.4
(2 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
4.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Optimizely Content Management SystemUmbraco CMS
Likelihood to Recommend
Optimizely
Well suited to an organisation who wants a real presence and a superior customer experience when visiting your website. Very modern look and feel and is great for hosting videos and specialist graphics. It is hard to fault the product and it is up there amongst the best in the market
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Umbraco
Umbraco CMS is the perfect tool for a company that is looking to keep their website updated. The simple to use tools and templates means updating and creating new pages is easy. The WYSIWYG editor is a nice feature, however, for accessibility, there should be some more guidance on what is suitable to be used on the CMS.
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Pros
Optimizely
  • A centralized UI to maintain multiple websites using a common entry point.
  • Page types and blocks that can be highly customized using .NET code, but at the same time allows checks and validations when being created by Marketing/Content Users.
  • A very good set of extra libraries/add-ons that allows to expand website functionality in a very short period of time (Content APIs, Personalization, A/B Testing, Social)
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Umbraco
  • Quick to learn. For most if cases, developer needs to know Razor coding.
  • Doesn't require back-end programming.
  • Has build in users management (developers, content managers) and members management consoles (users of the site).
  • Clear admin tool (especially in version 7)
  • Fast.
  • Creating code from scratch, so it is easier to create clean code.
Read full review
Cons
Optimizely
  • On the technical side, Spire is all built on React Redux, so there's a React framework and then Optimizely built their own framework on top of that React implementation, which is, I'd say customized and non-standard. So learning that as a developer is usually a four to five month learning curve. So that is a con where it's not a standard React redux implementation.
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Umbraco
  • Speed for older sites - Umbraco content can load slowly if you have thousands of pages of content. Of course, this would not be a problem for simpler websites
  • Complexity - since the product is free out-of-the-box, it will take technical expertise to get Umbraco setup properly
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Likelihood to Renew
Optimizely
Since I work on the implementation side of things, and do not directly own licensing for Ektron CMS, I have to base this rating off of how I think it will be received or presented to customers looking to start a new site deployment. I try to remain CMS agnostic, though my specialty is with the .NET and Microsoft stack. Because of the experience I have working with Ektron, I tend to be more forgiving with the shortcomings as I am familiar with how to work around them or past them from experience. Being familiar with the community available also helps, as you become familiar with the best approaches to find solutions to your issues. Each product has it's ups and downs and all of them are only going to be as good as the company or development team implementing them can make them. This is EXTREMELY important to remember when choosing a CMS, as it can make or break your expensive investment.
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Umbraco
No answers on this topic
Usability
Optimizely
The Opti CMS is pretty easy to use once you get used to it. Setting up the experience editor takes some time and difficult to follow and do in a group setting. We found working one on one or in smaller groups works better
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Umbraco
Many end users will be overwhelmed with the admin interface. Some common functions are buried in menus
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Reliability and Availability
Optimizely
Unplanned outages or errors are fairly rare in our instance. And when there are issues, they're usually fixed fairly quickly
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Umbraco
Occasionally, errors will appear in the admin that make it impossible to work without developer support.
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Performance
Optimizely
No answers on this topic
Umbraco
Working in the admin panel (adding / reviewing / editing content) is very slow. The public facing site speed is dependent on what the pages are doing and how well the code was written (whether it is optimized for speed).
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Support Rating
Optimizely
I attended multiple trainings/tutorials early in the process. The vendor-supplied content about Optimizely was engaging for users/attendees (I often analyze training content, compliance programs, governance plans), which helps our OCM people by having good "word of mouth" about the product long before a rollout ever happens. I actually when the user-focused portion of the Optimizely Academy twice in 2022 to ensure I had a grasp on operability and to be able to support the training and OCM efforts
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Umbraco
Support for Umbraco-owned paid plugins is nonexistent.
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Online Training
Optimizely
Ektron is one of the best solution for .Net platform. Over the years have improved the performance issues that the previous versions had. My only complain is right now you can't do Page builder pages if you choose to have a MVC architecture
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Umbraco
Online training is often based on older versions of the platform. So, you'll have to fill in the gaps on your own.
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Implementation Rating
Optimizely
I was not fully involved.
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Umbraco
Spend the time to wireframe the content structure prior to diving in. This helps speed the process of implementation and it serves as documentation for end users.
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Alternatives Considered
Optimizely
Optimizely CMS is part of a more composable suite when it comes to DXPs. With that, some other systems like Sitecore Experience Platform are monoliths, which makes the development and maintenance of those products fairly complex (this includes system architecture). In our experience, Optimizely makes it simpler to implement solutions in a rapid manner and "tack on" additional products if needed as organizations grow and are able to leverage that functionality.
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Umbraco
Umbraco's templating is far superior than WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, but it's update process is WAY behind those platforms. The release schedule of Umbraco is way to often and most releases are to fix something missed in the previous release and not an improvement or new feature of the CMS
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Scalability
Optimizely
No answers on this topic
Umbraco
Without significant development, the product does not scale well.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Optimizely
  • The positive is on ROI as we can get more done without needing to go through 3rd party or know Code to create and add content.
  • Workflows could use improvement. I don't know that there are workflows that I'm aware of.
  • Make it easier to connect to 3rd party software like Hubspot, Magento, email services, etc.
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Umbraco
  • Has helped us to create more engaging pages that push people to complete the online forms
  • We have seen more people buy from us since we launched our new look website
  • We can easily update the content without waiting for the development team to make changes
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ScreenShots

Optimizely Content Management System Screenshots

Screenshot of Marketer-Friendly Interface: A low/no-code interface lets content editors manage their day-to-day.Screenshot of On-page & in-context editing: Content can be created and edited with a full view into how it appears, wherever it's published.Screenshot of Drag-and-drop layouts: Layouts and drag-and-drop functionality to test creative limits.Screenshot of Content TypesScreenshot of DashboardScreenshot of Templates

Umbraco CMS Screenshots

Screenshot of Umbraco 8 backoffice UIScreenshot of Umbraco 8 side by side multilingual editingScreenshot of Umbraco 8 Content AppsScreenshot of Umbraco Cloud project overviewScreenshot of Umbraco Cloud environment overview