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.
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Titan CMS
Score 8.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Titan CMS is a web content management system (CMS) for building public websites, intranets, or extranets from Northwood Software. .Titan CMS is built on Microsoft C#.NET 4.0, SQL 2008 R2, and is designed to operate on the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit operating system. Titan CMS offers web and data management, e-commerce, SEO, third-party code integration, site analytics, workflow and security.
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
Titan CMS is a good full featured CMS if users are fairly tech savvy. It is under active development and has added significant features through the years.
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)
Utilizing a Filter to determine what shows on a page saves countless hours of configuring content that should be displayed on a page - it's been a lifesaver how easy it is to set up too.
Smart Search takes the search box and makes it magical. Common misspellings and alternate names can still send a user to the proper page!
Data nodes and filters can also be configured to Find a Dealer, Doctor, Location etc. It puts the power into a users hands and makes is easy to use.
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.
I would love to see a "View this Page" button after a page has been updated/published. Every time I publish a new page, I have to open a new browser window, navigate to a different tab, copy the page url "example/example/example" and paste it after "www.mywebsite.com" in order to preview the new page/content.
If Titan and WordPress were in a beauty competition, there is no way that Titan would win. Titan's dashboard, buttons, etc are dated and bland, and is in dire need of a refresh.
A drag and drop to upload feature would be very helpful.
Creating forms is very cumbersome and the pop-up window in which the form is created needs to be revamped. The font-size is much too small and it is not as customizable as it could be.
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.
Titan CMS had a great support system and they helped make my experience go smooth. They offer courses to help people get acquainted, offer support over the phone and are more than willing to make your experience a great one. Once I was familiar with Titan I always found myself wanting to learn more and do more to improve upon the website. Titan makes CMS fun and exciting!
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
Everything we've needed to accomplish, Titan CMS has been able to accomplish. From multiple levels of user rights, document rights, tagging pages and documents to make filters do the work of content displayed on a page - it's all easy to set up too. Creating a content rich product detail page template and customizing a ecommerce cart to work for those using a dealer network - needing a request for quote, to go to dealers instead of a self checkout.
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
I understand that our Web Development Team is very busy, however, sometimes there is a delay in response and a followup email is needed to determine the progress of the issue/question
It was customized to include screen shots of our site and how users can access the content that only pertains to them as well as advanced training sessions for admin duties and everything that goes along with it. Training is in small groups and can be private (your company only) if you like too.
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
Talk to your project manager for Titan early on in development about minimalizing customizations. It seems obvious, but many times they do what you ask in the respect of "This is how we do it now, make that happen in Titan" vs. think of how Titan can deliver the same results within the confines of the base software. It's not a fault, just human nature.
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.
Clients have access to the online and PDF documentation, also tips and how-tos for the most current versions of Titan CMS in the market. Check out our full documentation library! unlimited Dev/ QA/ Server install. Load balancing, and cluster support included. Upgrade options included free of cost along with unlimited CPUs per server.
Positive ROI by allowing content contributors embedded within departments with the department domain knowledge to update the site directly. More efficient and less centralized spending.
Requirement for investment in training users of CMS cuts into ROI. Would recommend a two-step workflow where department content contributors enter information into CMS and then approval step is done by webmaster team to ensure content meets standard formatting guidelines. This workflow functionality exists in the Titan CMS.
Positive ROI experienced during projects such as moving to a responsive design because much of the content can migrate untouched. Also positive when updating graphics in template to give site new look.
