Hygraph vs. MadCap Xyleme

I would recommend GraphCMS to anyone who is also using Gatsby to build their website. If not, I would recommend them to consider GraphCMS but also consider other options. GraphCMS is a tool in which you are responsible to make the most out of it, but sometimes this requires more time and knowledge than a normal engineer may be able to handle. But with more time and attention, the reward of off-lifting content creation from the developers is a huge time saver in the long run.

Incentivized

Well-suited:

1. Building and keeping up to date modular content (blocks).
2. Maintaining and updating large content library where meaning team members might be working on the same content but using the content in different context (e.g. learning and internal comms).
3. Creating learning content by new/recently onboarded team members.
4. Create simple learning courses with some level of interactively, medium interactivity (tabs, image maps, slider reveal images), create different types of knowledge checks/assessments from multiple choice to drag and drop activities); embed videos and other HTML elements .
5. Integrate with LMS, apply SCORM rules etc
6. Better to use in combination with other media creation tools like Vyond, Storyline. Some things can get tricky (compatibility).

Less appropriate: 1. If you need to build highly interactive learning experience 2. When you don't have a team member you can dedicate specifically to customize templates in Xyleme for your organizational needs (looks, functionality etc.) or and to train team members on this software. You'd need someone on your team to collaborate with Xyleme closely to customize functions for your organization's needs. 3. When #2 and you want a modern/in trend looking output and not willing to compromise on what it looks and feels.

Incentivized

• GraphCMS is easy to work with from the "non-engineer" side of things.
• GraphCMS is very flexible on what data models we can create and how those models are formed.
• GraphCMS uses Graph API, which is easy to write (compared to older API patterns).

Incentivized

• content reuse (linked content modules). Update content block in one place and it updates in all the other places where this block is used (linked)
• easy to train on and onboard new team members
• flexibility of output templates
• web-based tool - easy to develop directly from browser

Incentivized

• GraphCMS is very expensive at the enterprise level.
• GraphCMS requires deep knowledge of the system and requires lots of time to be efficient with it (especially around creating specific data patterns/relationships).
• Multiple times a day, the system will give us errors when attempting to save something but the errors are unclear as to what went wrong (can be irritating).

Incentivized

• several features advertised as device agnostic or mobile friendly do not work properly on mobile
• finicky in many ways, sometimes you need to tinker with details for to long to make things work properly
• many UI solutions/elements that are not intuitive at all (even using the tool almost every day you need to make effort to remember how things are done)

Incentivized

We picked GraphCMS since it used Graph API and easily integrated it into our Gatsby website. It was also cheap (free) and easy to test out the product, making it easier to prove to our company we should pay for the product in the long run. Lastly, it seems to have a bunch of support from other developers which makes us confident will be around for a while (and we won't need to replace it anytime soon). Note: I also looked at Directus and DatoCMS but these were not options within TrustRadius

Incentivized

• Better use of time for our engineers in the long run.
• More control of content for people outside of the engineer team.
• Allows people to edit the content on their own, so they don't need to wait until a developer is available to add something to the website.

Incentivized

• train and onboard new learning developers on the team quickly and get them started to create courses
• ROI - don't have access to this information

Incentivized