MadCap Xyleme vs. RWS Tridion Sites

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

Love the product and I really like how we use it for public sites. The only negative aspect is that it is just hard to find Tridion devs that understand the tool, grasp .net, react, and understand the blueprint, etc.

• 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

• Makes it easy to spin up a new site quickly
• Allows for numerous users to work on the same site without conflicting with each other's changes
• Allows you to unpublish changes or revert to old versions if you make a mistake
• Allows you to time publishing actions (for example, you can set it to happen overnight)

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

• Tridion is complicated in enough ways that it makes it difficult to train new users. Therefore, we have to limit the number of people with access to the system since we have not yet implemented Workflow.
• When something goes wrong (items fail to publish, or there is unexpected behavior with components), there is little explanation provided that would point us in the right direction to troubleshoot. As a result, content Authors and Editors have to frequently ask for IT assistance.

I am giving this a semi-high rating because we have already got Tridion up and running and we are still in the process of moving the sites over to Tridion. It is unlikely we will be moving things to a new CMS AGAIN in the near future as the cost to get Tridion was high.

The editor user interface is very user friendly and in-site editing makes simple updates fast and easy. The extensibility of Tridion is a big plus and the ability to add our own options into the default Tridion interface helps us integrate with external systems. Finally, the user permissions and security system helps us deploy it within our large organization.

It is a nuclear missile compared to the other handguns and knives on the market today. But it also requires nuclear technicians and expertise that a handgun doesn't require. Do you need to decimate your competition and you have the investment capabilities necessary to put a nuclear missile into the sky? Then definitely do it. Especially if you need a very good multi-lingual blueprint provider like Tridion.

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

• SDL is a very complex system. Creating custom components by external vendors turned out to be expensive.
• The learning curve is very slow, so training takes a lot of time and cost.
• The revamped corporate site looks clean, modern, and is mobile-friendly.

Incentivized