Magnolia vs. Tridion

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Magnolia
Score 8.3 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Founded in 1997 with a vision to create the first truly open content management system, Magnolia is presented as a fast way to launch digital experiences. With a mission to help clients move fast and stay flexible and boasting users among brands like Atlassian and The New York Times, Magnolia DXP supports industries ranging from automotive to telecommunications, offering enterprise features and headless agility to help them stay ahead. From humble beginnings in Basel, Magnolia's…N/A
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Tridion (formerly SDL Tridion) aims to connect people, processes, and information through a complete portfolio of collaborative Content Management, Knowledge Management and Headless delivery technologies. Combine with Accelerators for fast time-to-value and RWS Translation Management solutions for global reach. Its key components include: Tridion Sites provides web content management capabilities, connecting people, processes, and information across teams, brands, and markets,…N/A
Pricing
MagnoliaTridion
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
MagnoliaTridion
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Features
MagnoliaTridion
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Magnolia
8.1
66 Ratings
1% above category average
Tridion
9.0
9 Ratings
12% above category average
Role-based user permissions8.166 Ratings9.09 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Magnolia
8.0
64 Ratings
4% above category average
Tridion
9.1
8 Ratings
17% above category average
API8.457 Ratings8.36 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language7.557 Ratings10.07 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Magnolia
8.0
70 Ratings
5% above category average
Tridion
8.5
8 Ratings
11% above category average
WYSIWYG editor8.561 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness8.461 Ratings8.07 Ratings
Admin section7.966 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Page templates8.968 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Library of website themes7.01 Ratings8.24 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design8.559 Ratings9.07 Ratings
Publishing workflow7.569 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Form generator7.056 Ratings8.33 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Magnolia
7.5
65 Ratings
2% above category average
Tridion
7.6
8 Ratings
4% above category average
Content taxonomy7.560 Ratings9.07 Ratings
SEO support7.159 Ratings9.06 Ratings
Bulk management7.954 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions8.058 Ratings8.35 Ratings
Community / comment management7.148 Ratings3.03 Ratings
Best Alternatives
MagnoliaTridion
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
OpenText TeamSite
OpenText TeamSite
Score 5.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
MagnoliaTridion
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(74 ratings)
9.9
(22 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.1
(9 ratings)
6.3
(15 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(69 ratings)
8.5
(2 ratings)
Performance
8.5
(68 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
MagnoliaTridion
Likelihood to Recommend
Magnolia
Magnolia is very well suited to scenarios where there are multiple end points for content eg. apps, remote devices, websites etc. and with multiple users. Magnolia is very good at working with different "shapes" of content so it's not necessarily all about HTML content for the web which tends to be the default for a number of other products of this nature. This means that it's more logical for people to work with structured data and easier for the applications to sort and manage that content when they receive it.
This works really well when you have multiple team members (often in multiple locations). We've had clients who've had people in twelve European locations with sixteen languages and they can share skills and resources between them but still manage their own content.
Magnolia is less appropriate for SMEs who have fewer digital assets and content. It's not to say that it can't be done but it's more that the budget would not necessarily fit.
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RWS Group
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.
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Pros
Magnolia
  • Use of YAML to define content models with code.
  • Versatility of defining actions for custom handlers.
  • Reloading classes when code is modified in a local dev environment is nice. While it doesn't seem to work when changes extend beyond the method body (i.e., adding methods), it remediates the pain of long startup times.
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RWS Group
  • 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)
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Cons
Magnolia
  • As a developer the learning curve is long, you can start developing relatively quickly but getting to know the platform in depth takes time.
  • Having a history of modifications not only at the page level but also at the Content Apps level would be very useful.
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RWS Group
  • 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.
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Likelihood to Renew
Magnolia
We have invested a lot of time and energy into tailoring a solution that works for the company.
We think the new features in v6.2 will help us get to the next level
We also don't have the resources to rebuild a website platform from scratch even if we wanted to
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RWS Group
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.
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Usability
Magnolia
There are a ton of small things that could make this CMS great Off the top of my head... 1) Better navigation between a component and its corresponding node in the jcr ( devs often have to flip between a page and a spot in the jcr even though there could be a button to take you from a page/component in the pages app to its location in the JCR) 2) Why does a content editor need to open the page to edit the page properties? They could just as easily edit the dialog from the tree view if they have many pages to touch, and it would save them time by not having to render the page.
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RWS Group
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.
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Performance
Magnolia
I gave [it] 7/10 only because of the loading time of pages. Otherwise, I think it deserves an 8. Normally this is not an issue per [se] but considering the rating matrix and as I have been asked to honestly write about it. Yes, the page loading times could be improved.
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RWS Group
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Magnolia
You always get an answer based on your SLA. But you always get a solution. That's the successfactor in this case. To often i was frustrated about people in a company without even a clue what there product is about or how to solve a problem. Magnolia's Support Team does a very good job and try to help you in most of the cases
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RWS Group
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Magnolia
Prior to using Magnolia as an enterprise CMS solution, different teams leveraged different website platforms including WordPress, Weebly, and others. While these other platforms may be slightly more user friendly to the content editor, they don't offer nearly the same amount of customization and digital best practices out of the box that are customizable by web development teams like Magnolia does. The other solutions may work better for a quicker/simpler web implementation without technical resources but don't have the depth and breadth of capability and functionality that Magnolia has and fall flat.
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RWS Group
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.
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Return on Investment
Magnolia
  • Magnolia has brought about positive impacts. For instance, we need not outsource web design and marketing services because thanks to this software, we can handle most work inhouse
  • The software is affordable with no compromises on capabilities and therefore it is gives us value for money.
  • The templates makes the whole process easy
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RWS Group
  • 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.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Magnolia Screenshots

Screenshot of the customer experience: Brings together content and audiovisual digital assets to form more compelling digital experiences.Screenshot of the Magnolia App Launcher, used to switch between workspaces and manage pagesScreenshot of Magnolia's native analytics integration framework, used to take advantage of data directly in the authoring UI, coupled to content.Screenshot of global search that brings relevant content, no matter where it resides.Screenshot of customizing the ecommerce experience.