Kentico Xperience vs. Spree

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.

Incentivized

Spree is a great solution if you have a highly customized business idea and need a very robust eCommerce solution to support your very creative and detailed sales methods. Because it's an open source platform, there are a ton of ways that his platform can be customized to meet virtually any business idea that you can dream up. With that said, the platform requires dedicated development support to make sure everything is stable and supported at all times.

Incentivized

• 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

Incentivized

• Quick and easy access, nice interface when logging in.
• Access to customer's info, easy to change user names and passwords when issues arise with login.
• Easy to use for the most part - a lot of ways to search for information regarding customer's info.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• For the ATS portion, ability to download applicants would be helpful
• We have to use our developers to change some simple things on the web format

Incentivized

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.

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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

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.

Incentivized

I don't want to knock other products but let's say that the more famous shopping carts, although they have great functionality off the peg, are limited in terms of branding ability and further customisation. Invariably you get a site which looks and feels like many others. This will suit many companies as a low cost option which is very competent. However the fully customisable front end that we need, and will continue to develop, is not possible with these turn-key solutions.

Incentivized

• 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.

• Decent plugin ecosystem
• Easily add and manage new products

Incentivized