Kentico Xperience vs. Sitecore Experience Manager

Kentico is a robust and flexible CMS platform that is great for managing multiple websites and multiple environments (dev, stage, and production for instance). It makes content management very easy and makes it easy to keep the environments synced with the same content. However, the Kentico CMS does require a bit more technical understanding to get it set up properly and requires a bit more effort and support than, say, free open-source options.

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Great for companies that are looking to create customized, tailored content solutions and be willing to put in the hard work and effort to maximize the value out of the tool. If your company is just looking for very basic content management without all the bells and whistles, I'd recommend looking elsewhere for less [money].

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• I love the intuitive top and left navigation within the content management platform. I can easily find what section, sub-section, and page I'm looking to edit
• For creating content, the WYSIWYG editor is so intuitive; it feels like you're working on an MS Word doc!
• The tab for adding metadata in simple fields takes away the headache of having to hunt and peck through code to add H1 tag, page description etc.
• The image library is easy to edit and manage

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• Personalisation of advertising banners based upon knowledge of the customer, like location or previous searches enables us to target customers with products and offers that they are more likely to engage with, which has been done to good effect.
• The use of Sitecore for content management enables the business and design team to perform changes to things, like images, content and page structure, which would otherwise have required a code release, which is costly in terms of man power.
• The A/B testing in Sitecore is good because it allows us to statistically verify minor changes to the site - like advert changes or component ordering on the page - as to whether or not they positively impact conversion.

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• Kentico needs to invest in more enterprise class environment management utilities -- example: global CDN support via the CMS is sorely lacking. There are work-arounds, but it should be more elegant.
• The Kentico staging module could be improved to support the concept of bundled releases. Current staging module functionality is good, but could be improved.
• Kentico ecommerce support is a touch immature. While content management is superb, Kentico lags in this area when compared to many open source ecommerce engines.
• Kentico is lacking MVC support. 99% of the time this isn't an issue for the end-user or business user, but can be a hurdle for technology teams depending on the team's makeup.

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• Sitecore is Customer Engagement Platform. It comes with lots of features (e.g. Authoring, Analytics, personalization, A/B Test, Webforms for marketers etc), But, most of them are not being used by many clients. If you are really looking for just CMS (only authoring and publishing), then I don't think Sitecore is a way to go.
• You need to have a strong Sitecore certified developer base to manage the Sitecore platform (if you are using all features). It's the same case with others. But, finding a Sitecore certified (costs $$) developer is tough in the market. Now the market is growing (thanks to Sitecore promotional events) and Sitecore is gaining popularity, It may be easy to find such developers in the future. If you want to leverage most out of the Sitecore community you need to be a Sitecore certified developer.
• Sitecore comes with lots of built-in features and marketplace components. I feel this puts in a little tricky situation. It gives an opportunity for a normal developer to use some of the free marketplace module, which may or may not be supported in a future version of Sitecore. which may put the entire platform in risk to upgrade to latest Sitecore version. You need to have a proper process to control and validate the marketplace components before using them.

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We are locked into Kentico for the long haul. It provides us with an easy and flexible solution for a very non technical company to create a site and have the features they want, especially with the inclusion of EMS into our license. Now we have a true platform to build and grow our solutions.

Sitecore has proven that it can deliver on its promise of a robust, reliable enterprise CMS solution with plenty of features. Also, they keep updating it with more and better features. Now that we are highly trained on it we have started on getting the most out of it and we plan to keep doing more of that in the future.

It seriously is one of the best interfaces I have ever used. I also love the fact that I can use UI personalization to secure any functionality by user or role that I don't want that role to have access to. The best part is the customization of the UI, I can add in any button, tab, or menu item I want through it, no code required.

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With any platform that offers so much capability, usability will naturally be more challenging. Sitecore does an admirable job and made massive strides in version 8, but at some times offers too many ways to achieve the same task allows users to sometimes take a path less efficient than the preferred path.

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Their support staff is friendly, knowledgeable, and will work with you until your issue is fixed. This could take a few phone calls back and forth, but they are very diligent in helping you.

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Sitecore Support is very knowledgeable and helpful. We have raised a number of issues with them and they rarely fail to come up with an acceptable solution.

Sitecore captures and remembers every single interaction your customers and prospects have in any part of the system, allowing you to build comprehensive, ever-learning profiles of each individual. From email marketing, to social media, to online shopping, Sitecore remembers where each interaction left off so you can automatically continue the conversation. Sitecore helps you manage your content for each and every experience your customers enjoy. Customize what content you want and the system will take care of how it's displayed.

The system provides many opportunities to integrate and enhance the platform and makes it easy to do so.

Make sure you work with a partner that can help you take advantage of the entire platform. Specifically we see a lot of customers not taking advantage of Sitecore DMS and thus missing a huge opportunity. Sitecore is a platform that is meant to be constantly optimized and improved upon.

I've used Sitecore, Ektron, Joomla!, WordPress, and SharePoint (if you want to count that as a competitor for CMS). Kentico 8 blows them all out of the water. Nothing is more intuitive in the way that content is created, the way the site is setup, and how efficient rollouts can be with Content Staging.

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The decision to select Sitecore was not ultimately mine, but the fact that we were able to leverage in-house Microsoft .Net (C#) experience on a platform that had a library of extensions, but also allowed us to customize and keep private our confidential IP has been a big help. When you see a SharePoint site or a Drupal site you can usually tell "oh this is a MS SharePoint site", but with Sitecore the ability to customize and have different views even different components based on device type makes Sitecore a clear winner.

• Kentico has enabled faster speed to market for SMEs. They are empowered to enter content them selves while still having that content go through editorial review to ensure tone of voice and brand are maintained.
• Deploying Kentico has freed up web developer resources from manual content entry enabling them to build more useful solutions to support the business efforts
• Tapping into the Kentico event pipelne allows us to trigger external system events when product content is published.

• ROI depends so much on implementation. Its would be difficult to comment in a positive or negative regarding CMS product to direct ROI. A non-technical user would be surprised at what a basic installation of Sitecore looks like. "Hello World" comes to mind. With that in mind we can look at two things, Sitecore Support and Sitecore Partners.
• Certified Internal Developers and Sitecore Support: This depends on the qualifications of your existing departments regarding implementing a enterprise CMS. No experience to some experience, this is a no brainer, rigorously vet top and middle partners and hire one to lead this effort. If your experienced still hire a partner and vet them but hire a middle to small partner and have them help, not lead.
• "Sitecore Window": You could equate Sitecore in some implementation as throwing expensive parts at a car problem. If your business requirements and data consumption needs are not within this cost window then in the end on paper it will be difficult to see ROI or that there just wasn't a return. Then it will be time to look at other lower cost alternatives The initial cost is just the start. Over engineering and expensive horizontal integration partners can cost someone a promotion or job.
• If your content workflows are complex, sites rendering data requirements are large and performance and scalability are paramount. Sitecore should be in your top 3.

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