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Optimizely Commerce Connect vs. Optimizely Content Management System

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Optimizely Commerce Connect

    Score6.6 out of 10
    N/AOptimizely Commerce Connect is a PaaS e-commerce backend solution coupled with Optimizely's PaaS CMS to help e-commerce organizations, of any type, create highly customized websites and buying experiences with a two-in-one content and commerce solution.N/A

    Optimizely Content Management System

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AOptimizely Content Management System (CMS) is purpose-built for marketers, and fully composable for developers. The CMS supports the end-to-end content lifecycle, helping users to deliver on-brand, high-impact digital experiences that 'wow' audiences.N/A
    Pricing
    Optimizely Commerce ConnectOptimizely Content Management System
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Optimizely Commerce ConnectOptimizely Content Management System
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredRequired
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Optimizely Commerce ConnectOptimizely Content Management System
    Considered Both Products
    Optimizely
    No answer on this topic
    Optimizely
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    More flexible and easy to use
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    86%
    Would buy again
    6 Answers
    97%
    Would buy again
    170 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    6 Answers
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    144 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    71%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    93%
    Happy with the feature set
    164 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    86%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    93%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    104 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    71%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    86%
    Implementation went as expected
    120 Answers
    Features
    Optimizely Commerce ConnectOptimizely Content Management System
    Online Storefront
    Comparison of Online Storefront features of Optimizely Commerce Connect and Optimizely Content Management System
    Feature
    Optimizely Commerce Connect
    8.8
    27 Ratings
    12% above category average
    Optimizely Content Management System
    -
    Ratings
    Product catalog & listings9.126 Ratings00 Ratings
    Product management9.126 Ratings00 Ratings
    Bulk product upload6.422 Ratings00 Ratings
    Branding9.124 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile storefront9.121 Ratings00 Ratings
    Product variations9.122 Ratings00 Ratings
    Website integration9.125 Ratings00 Ratings
    Visual customization9.124 Ratings00 Ratings
    CMS9.126 Ratings00 Ratings
    Online Shopping Cart
    Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Optimizely Commerce Connect and Optimizely Content Management System
    Feature
    Optimizely Commerce Connect
    8.2
    20 Ratings
    7% above category average
    Optimizely Content Management System
    -
    Ratings
    Abandoned cart recovery8.216 Ratings00 Ratings
    Checkout user experience8.220 Ratings00 Ratings
    Online Payment System
    Comparison of Online Payment System features of Optimizely Commerce Connect and Optimizely Content Management System
    Feature
    Optimizely Commerce Connect
    8.2
    18 Ratings
    2% below category average
    Optimizely Content Management System
    -
    Ratings
    eCommerce security8.218 Ratings00 Ratings
    eCommerce Marketing
    Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Optimizely Commerce Connect and Optimizely Content Management System
    Feature
    Optimizely Commerce Connect
    8.8
    26 Ratings
    13% above category average
    Optimizely Content Management System
    -
    Ratings
    Promotions & discounts8.222 Ratings00 Ratings
    Personalized recommendations9.122 Ratings00 Ratings
    SEO9.122 Ratings00 Ratings
    eCommerce Business Management
    Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Optimizely Commerce Connect and Optimizely Content Management System
    Feature
    Optimizely Commerce Connect
    8.0
    26 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Optimizely Content Management System
    -
    Ratings
    Multi-site management9.121 Ratings00 Ratings
    Order processing7.320 Ratings00 Ratings
    Inventory management7.316 Ratings00 Ratings
    Shipping7.317 Ratings00 Ratings
    Custom functionality9.124 Ratings00 Ratings
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Optimizely Commerce Connect and Optimizely Content Management System
    Feature
    Optimizely Commerce Connect
    -
    Ratings
    Optimizely Content Management System
    8.4
    169 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.4169 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Optimizely Commerce Connect and Optimizely Content Management System
    Feature
    Optimizely Commerce Connect
    -
    Ratings
    Optimizely Content Management System
    7.8
    166 Ratings
    0% below category average
    API00 Ratings7.8159 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language00 Ratings7.8127 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Optimizely Commerce Connect and Optimizely Content Management System
    Feature
    Optimizely Commerce Connect
    -
    Ratings
    Optimizely Content Management System
    7.7
    194 Ratings
    2% below category average
    WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings7.6178 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness00 Ratings7.9166 Ratings
    Admin section00 Ratings8.0178 Ratings
    Page templates00 Ratings8.0172 Ratings
    Library of website themes00 Ratings7.497 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design00 Ratings7.9176 Ratings
    Publishing workflow00 Ratings8.1172 Ratings
    Form generator00 Ratings6.4131 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Optimizely Commerce Connect and Optimizely Content Management System
    Feature
    Optimizely Commerce Connect
    -
    Ratings
    Optimizely Content Management System
    7.5
    180 Ratings
    0% below category average
    Content taxonomy00 Ratings7.9165 Ratings
    SEO support00 Ratings7.1164 Ratings
    Bulk management00 Ratings6.9137 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions00 Ratings7.5142 Ratings
    Community / comment management00 Ratings8.0117 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Optimizely Commerce ConnectOptimizely Content Management System
    Small Businesses
    Ecwid by Lightspeed
    Score10 out of 10
    Umbraco CMS
    Score7 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Shopify
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Square Online
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    IBM Digital Commerce
    Score9 out of 10
    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Optimizely Commerce ConnectOptimizely Content Management System
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.1
    (27 ratings)
    8.5
    (223 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    4.6
    (2 ratings)
    9.8
    (34 ratings)
    Usability
    7.7
    (8 ratings)
    8.5
    (92 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (4 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (8 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (4 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    2.7
    (1 ratings)
    6.4
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Optimizely Commerce ConnectOptimizely Content Management System
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Optimizely
    Our experience may be unique because we opted for an Optimizely team to implement our website/console set-up and connection to our PIM and ERP. The experience may have been different with a 3rd party or it may not have. That said, we have been live with our primary website for almost 2 years and I still do not consider it was ever "done". We have been going back and forth on functionality issues and bugs since launch. I have low confidence that changes made the previous day will 100% be online the next - so my team rechecks the work they did the previous day to ensure everything is online. The addition of a second channel and enhancement requests have compounded the issues. I feel this product would work fine with singular or less complex market SKU offerings.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    If you want to build a website quickly there are plenty of ways to do so with some great examples and plenty of support both from the company and in the forums. if you want to build a more complex structure you can but be ready to spend the time to build exactly what you need as a solid foundation goes a massive way before building out content and making those choices early and sticking with them helps
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Optimizely
    • Episerver has a robust discount engine. This engine, combined with "visitor groups" allow our marketing department to categorize customers and offer a variety of discounts to targeted customers at specific times.
    • Episerver has a full-featured, storefront experience that can handle everything you might want for an e-commerce website.
    • Episerver offers A/B testing that can be helpful for trying out new content ideas and tracking the results.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    • I think the user interface for content admins is very good and very competitive. And compared to other providers, the technology that CMS in particular has. So the way it integrated the net ecosystem is very well because it follows the MBC pattern. So basically it just allows really simple implementations for what would normally be complex components on any other sort of vendor that's out there.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Optimizely
    • Support. Episerver used to have direct support and access to the tech team to discuss and resolve issues. The new support portal is not enough for developer needs.
    • Quality Assurance. We find issues in the Episerver code that should have been resolved in QA before release.
    • Sales. Episervers sells the framework as a solution while showing Alloy. While it helps Episerver sell more, it puts the implementation partner into trouble as the client thinks they bought the solution. Episerver does not provide a solution. It provides a framework that you can build a solution on.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    • Magento did have some nice tools for creating product groups or carousels for promotion. Opti seems to be lacking in that.
    • A blog - maybe this is available and we don't have it installed, but a searchable blog would be very appreciated.
    • Structured Data/MicroData - maybe it's our install, but this seems to be missing
    • Meta data: we have access to limited types and need to make a request from IT, it would be nice to be able to access more to adjust for SEO needs.
    • When in a folder on the BLOCKS tab, it would be wonderful to hit the MEDIA tab and stay in that same folder.
    • I have some less technical people that will make folders with spaces - which Opti handles, but it would be great if it wouldn't accept a space or gave an error message not to use them.
    • I think I know why the extra code is added to urls and image links, but it causes issues when taking things from our testing site to the live site. For example, I need to copy the Navigation from Inspect Element on testing to put it in production. I have learned to work around it, but it's not my favorite.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Optimizely
    Really want to be able to spend more time and resources on rolling out new things with Episerver but at the moment we seem to be fixing alot of issues and pain points with the way our system was setup.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    Since I work on the implementation side of things, and do not directly own licensing for Ektron CMS, I have to base this rating off of how I think it will be received or presented to customers looking to start a new site deployment. I try to remain CMS agnostic, though my specialty is with the .NET and Microsoft stack. Because of the experience I have working with Ektron, I tend to be more forgiving with the shortcomings as I am familiar with how to work around them or past them from experience. Being familiar with the community available also helps, as you become familiar with the best approaches to find solutions to your issues. Each product has it's ups and downs and all of them are only going to be as good as the company or development team implementing them can make them. This is EXTREMELY important to remember when choosing a CMS, as it can make or break your expensive investment.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Optimizely
    The administrative interface is largely intuitive and relatively easy to use. The complexity of business needs and ability to customize can affect this (i.e. you have to set up and develop with the user in mind), but the basic structure is largely solid. There are some areas of redundancy (such as Commerce Manager overlapping with other administrative areas) that can sometimes cause confusion or offer some functions in one place, whereas other related functions are managed on a completely different page.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    From our editors perspective they find the CMS system easy and to clear to use. Our developers find it very easy to design on and appreciate the level of service support available. It's also always evolving and getting better every year. We find this investment reassuring and encourages us to try keep pace and see how we can continue to push the envelope and continue to improve all aspect of our websites and online touch points.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Optimizely
    No answers on this topic
    Optimizely
    Unplanned outages or errors are fairly rare in our instance. And when there are issues, they're usually fixed fairly quickly
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Optimizely
    We had an incredible team at Episerver Supporting us with the go live, reviewing our integration, and pushing our integration partner to deliver a quality product
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    I attended multiple trainings/tutorials early in the process. The vendor-supplied content about Optimizely was engaging for users/attendees (I often analyze training content, compliance programs, governance plans), which helps our OCM people by having good "word of mouth" about the product long before a rollout ever happens. I actually when the user-focused portion of the Optimizely Academy twice in 2022 to ensure I had a grasp on operability and to be able to support the training and OCM efforts
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Optimizely
    No answers on this topic
    Optimizely
    Ektron is one of the best solution for .Net platform. Over the years have improved the performance issues that the previous versions had. My only complain is right now you can't do Page builder pages if you choose to have a MVC architecture
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Optimizely
    Fully understand what is OOTB feature of the platform before proceeding to develop. Then implement a customization of key features once you can prove they are working as OOTB to make them more user friendly and productive for the business. Eg pre order and e gift card
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    I was not fully involved.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Optimizely
    Optimizely Commerce Connect offers a very wide range of features for admin users. There is less a need for an IT specialist or programmer to be involved when changes need to be made.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    Optimizely Content Management System is much more feature rich, and less complex that the other CMS platforms we have used. Optimizely Content Management System is more intuitive in how the content is structured and how easy it is to pull blocks of content to create the layout of a page.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Optimizely
    • Positive: We have a usable website - better than what we had before and we are seeing a constant increase in adoption.
    • Positive: Counter associates are using the website to help customers.
    • Negative: Too much time being spent QCing previous work.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    • Flexibility with design that allows us to work towards our mission of 'Tennis Opened Up'
    • Speed of deploying content, meaning users can really on us for the most up-to-date content on tennis in Britain
    • Ability to have different logged-in areas for different user groups, allowing us to create more bespoke and personalised experiences
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Optimizely Commerce Connect Screenshots

    Screenshot of the customizable checkout workflow, used to tailor the customer checkout experience.Screenshot of where catalogs, custom attributes, UOM, catalog restrictions, and multiple sites are managed at once.Screenshot of an example of a personalized promotion based on user web activity, used to drive conversion and increase average order value.Screenshot of customized recommendations reportingScreenshot of Optimizely Commerce Connect's personalizationScreenshot of Optimizely Opal, available within Commerce Connect to automate promotion creation by mapping products and variants from your existing product data. Turn tedious campaign work into high velocity scalable promotions.

    Optimizely Content Management System Screenshots

    Screenshot of Content delivery: Developers can use modern GraphQL and REST APIs to query content from any source and send it to any channel or device.Screenshot of User roles and permissionsScreenshot of (SaaS CMS): Visual Builder: Add an image: Optimizely Visual Builder offers a range of editing features designed to make content creation and layout building intuitive and accessible to both technical and non-technical users. A drag-and-drop system is used to add, move, and rearrange elements within the layout, for quick and flexible content organization.Screenshot of (SaaS CMS): Visual Builder: Create an experience: Create an Experience functionality in Optimizely Visual Builder offers a code-free way to build and manage captivating digital experiences. It offers pre-built content blocks or elements (like text, images, buttons, forms, etc.) that can be positioned on the page layout as desired. Visual Builder offers extensive options to customize the appearance and behavior of these elements. Users can modify colors, fonts, sizes, animations, and even add interactive features providing flexibility in arranging content, accommodating various design needs and responsiveness across different screen sizes.Screenshot of (SaaS CMS): Visual Builder: Publish: The Visual Builder displays changes in real-time as they are made. This includes side-by-side previews for different devices like desktops, tablets, and mobiles. Before publishing, the Interactive Preview mode can be used to test elements like forms, buttons, and other interactive components to ensure they work as expected on the live site. Changes can then be published directly from the Visual Builder interface, making them instantly available to site visitors.Screenshot of the central location to manage assets, editing and publishing content.