Optimizely Content Management System vs. Sitecore Experience Platform

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Optimizely Content Management System
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Optimizely's Content Management System (CMS) is purpose-built for marketers, and fully composable for developers. The CMS supports the end-to-end content lifecycle so users can deliver on-brand, high-impact digital experiences that 'wow' audiences.N/A
Sitecore Experience Platform
Score 7.3 out of 10
N/A
N/AN/A
Pricing
Optimizely Content Management SystemSitecore Experience Platform
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Optimizely Content Management SystemSitecore Experience Platform
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Optimizely Content Management SystemSitecore Experience Platform
Considered Both Products
Optimizely Content Management System
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely CMS is part of a more composable suite when it comes to DXPs. With that, some other systems like Sitecore Experience Platform are monoliths, which makes the development and maintenance of those products fairly complex (this includes system architecture). In our …
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely came out ahead of other products evaluated across all parameters and the cost model was in line with the budget. The usability was a key factor as well as it was important for our marketing team to be able to self serve as opposed to using external firms. The …
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Code first approach over Siteore.. Umbraco is a good alternative for those who can't afford an Optimizely license.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Easier to initially set up and upgrade. Easier to creat blocks and page templates.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely Content Management System is on par with these other platforms. They all have the strengths and weaknesses so it comes down to what features work best for your needs.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely is a very lightweight platform CMS, quick to implement, and not a monolith.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely Content Management System doesn't invent complexity. It just sticks to common patterns and recommendations from Microsoft. This makes it extremely easy to learn and onboard new developers, and it makes it easier to upgrade and maintain.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely CMS better handles large scale websites offering personalization and editing content in bulk out of the box but is not free/cheap.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
It's a good way to diversify, however it all depends on personal liking of architect which CMS framework to use. However I personally like Optimizely CMS as it's easy to learn and develop.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely is more user friendly for in-house operations
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Ultimately it had little to do with features, as all 3 were capable systems. We preferred the tech stack and 3rd party integrator choices for OCMS.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
We previously used a custom-made CMS. This was quite old and did not have many features, so it's not really a fair comparison. However, we do have engineers who have worked with Sitecore, and they say Optimizely Content Management is a FAR better developer experience. Sitecore …
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Prior to Optimizely, we used Sitecore hosted on-premises. When we started to look at Cloud Migration, the price point was too high for us. Also, once we moved to Sitecore version 9.1, it became too hard to manage. The Epi (Optimizely) was priced just right. We also looked at …
Sitecore Experience Platform

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Optimizely Content Management SystemSitecore Experience Platform
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
8.5
122 Ratings
6% above category average
Sitecore Experience Platform
8.0
1 Ratings
0% below category average
Role-based user permissions8.5122 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
8.1
120 Ratings
5% above category average
Sitecore Experience Platform
-
Ratings
API7.9115 Ratings00 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language8.289 Ratings00 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
7.6
138 Ratings
0% below category average
Sitecore Experience Platform
6.8
1 Ratings
10% below category average
WYSIWYG editor7.7128 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness7.8117 Ratings00 Ratings
Admin section7.9126 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Page templates8.0126 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Library of website themes6.664 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design7.9121 Ratings6.01 Ratings
Publishing workflow8.1125 Ratings6.01 Ratings
Form generator6.990 Ratings00 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
7.6
129 Ratings
4% above category average
Sitecore Experience Platform
6.8
1 Ratings
4% below category average
Content taxonomy8.1119 Ratings8.01 Ratings
SEO support7.6120 Ratings6.01 Ratings
Bulk management7.099 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions7.8103 Ratings00 Ratings
Community / comment management7.883 Ratings5.01 Ratings
Digital Experience Platform
Comparison of Digital Experience Platform features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
-
Ratings
Sitecore Experience Platform
7.4
1 Ratings
22% below category average
Campaign management00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Cloud enablement00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
Content aggregation00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Content classification00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Multi-channel content personalization00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
DXP Third-Party Integrations00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Digital asset management00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Optimizely Content Management SystemSitecore Experience Platform
Small Businesses
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Kentico Xperience
Kentico Xperience
Score 7.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Optimizely Content Management SystemSitecore Experience Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(163 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.6
(31 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(30 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.2
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(6 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Optimizely Content Management SystemSitecore Experience Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
Optimizely
Well suited to an organisation who wants a real presence and a superior customer experience when visiting your website. Very modern look and feel and is great for hosting videos and specialist graphics. It is hard to fault the product and it is up there amongst the best in the market
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Sitecore
We need to spend a lot of time to learn things in Sitecore Experience Platform. I used it for 6 years and there was always something new to learn. Try to start using shortcuts as soon as you start working on it as it really saves a lot of time. Sitecore Experience Platform has maximum number of features which is good but then you need to spend time learning them all
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Pros
Optimizely
  • A centralized UI to maintain multiple websites using a common entry point.
  • Page types and blocks that can be highly customized using .NET code, but at the same time allows checks and validations when being created by Marketing/Content Users.
  • A very good set of extra libraries/add-ons that allows to expand website functionality in a very short period of time (Content APIs, Personalization, A/B Testing, Social)
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Sitecore
  • Sitecore has a decent supply of out of the box components and capabilities that can be fairly easily styled to meet business needs without much customization needed. This often helps speed to market.
  • Sitecore has had the flexibility of offering on-premise hosting or cloud hosting to meet different needs of clients, though recently they have strongly pushed their cloud-based hosting. This is in alignment with the industry and very helpful for organizations that aren't looking to add another product to the portfolio of packages that their internal IT teams need to manage
  • Sitecore has a capable UI for editing content. Though some competition may do better in this regard, Sitecore's editing interface is fully capable.
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Cons
Optimizely
  • On the technical side, Spire is all built on React Redux, so there's a React framework and then Optimizely built their own framework on top of that React implementation, which is, I'd say customized and non-standard. So learning that as a developer is usually a four to five month learning curve. So that is a con where it's not a standard React redux implementation.
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Sitecore
  • Searching something is difficult, we need to backtrack a lot within Sitecore Experience Platform
  • I found Sitecore Experience Platform to be a bit slow, it takes time to load things
  • Its difficult to work with when we need every page and components to have translations
  • Publish items and subitems is possible but sub-sub items need to be published manually or we need to create scripts
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Likelihood to Renew
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.
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Sitecore
No answers on this topic
Usability
Optimizely
The Opti CMS is pretty easy to use once you get used to it. Setting up the experience editor takes some time and difficult to follow and do in a group setting. We found working one on one or in smaller groups works better
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Sitecore
Implemented for various projects such as:›Market and sales intelligence Competitor tracking Management moves Social media tracking Customized information sourcing. Use web-scraping and parsing for data harvesting where the search is keyword-based and, the content and data extractions are required from various websites•Implemented for diverse requirements:›Social media tracking›Image recognition›Pricing comparison›Competitor content mapping›e-Commerce products’ cataloging, etc.
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Reliability and Availability
Optimizely
Unplanned outages or errors are fairly rare in our instance. And when there are issues, they're usually fixed fairly quickly
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Sitecore
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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
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Sitecore
1. Customized software development & maintenance. 2. Technology Consulting - Consulting-based services for technology solutions data engineering or cloud solutions. 3. Used for tapping into multiple data sources such as CRM and marketing automation systems and, creating automated data extracts with a high-end visual representation of data. 4. Implemented for scheduling an existing report to automatically refresh and be delivered to specific users at a specific regular interval.
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Online Training
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
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Sitecore
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Optimizely
I was not fully involved.
Read full review
Sitecore
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Optimizely
Optimizely CMS is part of a more composable suite when it comes to DXPs. With that, some other systems like Sitecore Experience Platform are monoliths, which makes the development and maintenance of those products fairly complex (this includes system architecture). In our experience, Optimizely makes it simpler to implement solutions in a rapid manner and "tack on" additional products if needed as organizations grow and are able to leverage that functionality.
Read full review
Sitecore
All of these platforms have their pros and cons. Selecting the best fit is a matter aligning corporate need vs features provided. Have a .NET shop with an advanced marketing team looking to push UX forward and willing to pay a premium, then Sitecore may be the right fit. Have an organization centered around Java and only looking for basic CMS capabilities or looking for a budget-friendly option, then there may be better options beyond Sitecore.
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Return on Investment
Optimizely
  • The positive is on ROI as we can get more done without needing to go through 3rd party or know Code to create and add content.
  • Workflows could use improvement. I don't know that there are workflows that I'm aware of.
  • Make it easier to connect to 3rd party software like Hubspot, Magento, email services, etc.
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Sitecore
  • We faced issues while integrating it with other tools like Marketo and salesforce
  • Difficult to manage translations in this CMS
  • Easy to create user roles, categories, page structure and tags
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ScreenShots

Optimizely Content Management System Screenshots

Screenshot of SaaS CMS edit view: A drag-and-drop UI authoring and on-page editing lets marketers and content creators build content experiences.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 Screenshot of DAMConnector: The fully featured Optimizely Digital Asset Management can connect to Optimizely CMS to serve as the single source of truth for brand assets.