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Optimizely Content Management System vs. Sitecore Digital Experience Platform

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    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

    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/AThe Sitecore Experience Platform (Sitecore XP) is a digital experience platform used to build websites and create customer experiences online. The solution boasts fast content authoring, built-in personalization features, testing and other optimizations, as well as analytics and marketing features.N/A
    Pricing
    Optimizely Content Management SystemSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Optimizely Content Management SystemSitecore Digital 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 Digital Experience Platform
    Considered Both Products
    Optimizely
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    End of day, the real boon of Optimizely Content Management System is not simply the management of the content, but the speed of both deployment and performance across the board. Significant difference between the old SiteCore CMS we previously used in just about every single …
    Incentivized
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    I think Optimizely does well connecting tools and processes into one ecosystem.
    Incentivized
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    We chose Optimizely (at the time Episerver) after rigorous evaluation and due to overall impression that it was the right long term fit.
    Incentivized
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    Optimizely Content Management System fits our needs best being fully customisable and modular.
    Incentivized
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    Optimizely Content Management has more content marketing features
    Incentivized
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    I've used a lot of content management systems, like Sitecore, WordPress, everything. I think this one is the easiest for different teams to use. So between marketing, customer service, and IT, everyone from different backgrounds can use this.
    Incentivized
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    Better multi-tenant solution with easier + more flexible authoring experience. .Net based and we are .net shop. Overwhelming client interview feedback was that Optimizely Content Management System was right fit for our use cases.
    Incentivized
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    I think Optimizely has the best set of tools synthesized together to form a full product suite.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    I think Optimizely is better because of its product roadmap and proven history of innovation. The product and support teams are easier to work with than other competitors I've used. Great customer support.
    Incentivized
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    Preference in .Net and the limited functionality of saas offerings like Kentico has kept us on Episerver. Investigation is constant in searching for a solid .Net core solution that is headless first, and provides a similar admin experience to Episerver with a site tree …
    Incentivized
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    Episerver outranks these products in most cases. There are some functions in each product that you would love in Episerver but when you sum it up Episerver is the greatest :)
    Incentivized
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    Sitecore is leaps and bounds ahead as far as personalization and profiling are concerned. They also have much more extensible publishing options. But we know (and many clients know) that it is a.) Expensive and b.) Incredibly time consuming to implement.
    Incentivized
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    I've only briefly reviewed Sitecore and Crownpeak as a comparison for episerver, and after reading other reviews that I mostly agreed with I came to the same conclusion about episerver. Their flaws are there but not something that is holding them back more than any other …
    Incentivized
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    Ultimately it depends on needs. Price point for Episerver can be similar to Sitecore and is definitely less than Adobe. I think Episerver is strong because the product isn't looking to replace powerful systems (email, etc.) which is why their add-ons are so successful. Sitecore …
    Incentivized
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    Epi is cheaper. But very comparable functionality.
    Incentivized
    Chose Optimizely Content Management System
    I believe that EPiServer is here to stay; and, we routinely see them competing against other similar .NET technology platforms in this space (IE: Sitecore & Ektron). Experis has been following the Gartner Magic Quadrant and Forrester Wave reviews; and, EPiServer is well …
    Incentivized
    Sitecore
    Chose Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Sitecore DXP stands out from the other products in terms of reusability, faster time to market, it's extensive feature capabilities.
    Incentivized
    Chose Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    The XM cloud technology stack is ahead of the platforms and its data structure is easier to learn.
    Incentivized
    Chose Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Other tools lack one or the other and fail to provide a comprehensive best experience for everyone - content authors, marketers and developers. Sitecore comes with out of the box authoring host, best content authoring and WYSIWYG editing experience and much more.
    Incentivized
    Chose Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Launchrock, Webdam, eZ, crownpeak, SignalMind
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    97%
    Would buy again
    170 Answers
    90%
    Would buy again
    19 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    144 Answers
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    17 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    93%
    Happy with the feature set
    164 Answers
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    20 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    93%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    104 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    18 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    86%
    Implementation went as expected
    120 Answers
    95%
    Implementation went as expected
    19 Answers
    Features
    Optimizely Content Management SystemSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Optimizely Content Management System and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Optimizely Content Management System
    8.4
    169 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    9.9
    37 Ratings
    21% above category average
    Role-based user permissions8.4169 Ratings9.938 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Optimizely Content Management System and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Optimizely Content Management System
    7.8
    166 Ratings
    0% below category average
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    9.8
    34 Ratings
    20% above category average
    API7.8159 Ratings9.934 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language7.8127 Ratings9.732 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Optimizely Content Management System and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Optimizely Content Management System
    7.7
    194 Ratings
    2% below category average
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    9.2
    37 Ratings
    26% above category average
    WYSIWYG editor7.6178 Ratings8.237 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness7.9166 Ratings9.436 Ratings
    Admin section8.0178 Ratings9.537 Ratings
    Page templates8.0172 Ratings9.735 Ratings
    Library of website themes7.497 Ratings8.322 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design7.9176 Ratings9.034 Ratings
    Publishing workflow8.1172 Ratings9.736 Ratings
    Form generator6.4131 Ratings9.735 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Optimizely Content Management System and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Optimizely Content Management System
    7.5
    180 Ratings
    0% below category average
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    9.4
    36 Ratings
    35% above category average
    Content taxonomy7.9165 Ratings9.735 Ratings
    SEO support7.1164 Ratings9.733 Ratings
    Bulk management6.9137 Ratings9.531 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions7.5142 Ratings8.534 Ratings
    Community / comment management8.0117 Ratings9.632 Ratings
    Results and Analysis
    Comparison of Results and Analysis features of Optimizely Content Management System and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Optimizely Content Management System
    -
    Ratings
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    7.5
    16 Ratings
    7% below category average
    Conversion tracking00 Ratings7.716 Ratings
    Test reporting00 Ratings7.417 Ratings
    Funnel Analysis00 Ratings7.417 Ratings
    User Segmentation00 Ratings7.717 Ratings
    Digital Experience Platform
    Comparison of Digital Experience Platform features of Optimizely Content Management System and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Optimizely Content Management System
    -
    Ratings
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    8.2
    19 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Campaign management00 Ratings8.820 Ratings
    Cloud enablement00 Ratings8.119 Ratings
    Content aggregation00 Ratings8.219 Ratings
    Content classification00 Ratings8.619 Ratings
    Multi-channel content personalization00 Ratings7.819 Ratings
    Customer data analytics00 Ratings7.418 Ratings
    DXP Third-Party Integrations00 Ratings7.319 Ratings
    Multi-website management00 Ratings8.918 Ratings
    Digital asset management00 Ratings8.418 Ratings
    Editorial workflows and task management00 Ratings8.018 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Optimizely Content Management SystemSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Small Businesses
    Umbraco CMS
    Score7 out of 10
    Yext
    Score6.8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Square Online
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Progress Sitefinity
    Score7.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
    Progress Sitefinity
    Score7.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Optimizely Content Management SystemSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.5
    (223 ratings)
    8.7
    (49 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.8
    (34 ratings)
    8.7
    (11 ratings)
    Usability
    8.5
    (92 ratings)
    9.0
    (24 ratings)
    Availability
    9.2
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (8 ratings)
    9.1
    (4 ratings)
    Online Training
    10.0
    (4 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    6.4
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Optimizely Content Management SystemSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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
    Sitecore
    Sitecore offers Content Hub with Product Content Management and Content Management Platform. The Digital Experience Platform and Content Hub can both host structured content and publish the finalized version to Experience Edge. Both platforms offer different ways to manage content. During a technical and business evaluation, the evaluation panel must understand the difference between a Content Modelling focused approach, or a layout management focused approach. Sitecore Digital Experience Platform is also best not to be used to host many files and images in the Media Library. That responsibility should be offloaded to a digital asset management company like Sitecore Content Hub DAM. The technology evaluation panel must also understand how to work with a Headless CMS, where the HEAD needs to be hosted, and the costs associated with the HEAD. Composable DXP is fantastic, but everyone must understand the various cost components. Marketers and the data team will need to go into the CDP and Personalize the platform with an excellent understanding of how a composable "installation" works. All the Martech vendors have similar challenges that data and development teams need to work through with a full experience. Any CDP/analytics platform will, at some stage, require further data enrichment from other sources. Understanding the Sitecore Search features and limitations is also essential.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    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
    Sitecore
    • Comprehensive Solution: Sitecore offers a fully integrated suite of products that cover the full spectrum of DXP capabilities, including search, personalization experimentation and more, delivering a complete composable DXP solution for customers.
    • Beyond Headless: XM Cloud provides more than just headless capabilities, featuring in-built tools like authoring host, page editor, etc., enabling faster and more powerful implementations.
    • Focus on AI: Sitecore has now got an excellent AI offering called Stream; it looks promising; however, it would be too early to give feedback on the same.
    • Customization: Sitecore's backend is highly customizable, allowing for deep modifications through pipelines and patch configurations.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    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
    Sitecore
    • Experience Editor is a little old fashioned and sometimes slow to use.
    • Bulk operations in the Content Editor
    • Sitecore serialization is should be part of the Content Editor to provide visual reference for items which are serialized and will be overwritten by future deployments similar to what Unicorn does so well
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Read full review
    Sitecore
    Sitecore has proven that it can deliver on its promise of a robust, reliable enterprise CMS solution with plenty of features. Also, they keep updating it with more and better features. Now that we are highly trained on it we have started on getting the most out of it and we plan to keep doing more of that in the future.
    Read full review
    Usability
    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
    Sitecore
    We use Sitecore extensively because it provides a single platform for managing content, personalization, and digital experiences across multiple web properties and customer journeys. At our scale, the biggest value is consistency, governance, and the ability for marketing teams to manage experiences without needing engineering support for every change. It also integrates well with the broader CRM/marketing stack, so it becomes quite embedded once deployed.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Sitecore
    Sitecore captures and remembers every single interaction your customers and prospects have in any part of the system, allowing you to build comprehensive, ever-learning profiles of each individual. From email marketing, to social media, to online shopping, Sitecore remembers where each interaction left off so you can automatically continue the conversation. Sitecore helps you manage your content for each and every experience your customers enjoy. Customize what content you want and the system will take care of how it's displayed.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Optimizely
    I was not fully involved.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sitecore
    Make sure you work with a partner that can help you take advantage of the entire platform. Specifically we see a lot of customers not taking advantage of Sitecore DMS and thus missing a huge opportunity. Sitecore is a platform that is meant to be constantly optimized and improved upon.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    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
    Sitecore
    Really the only comparable product to Sitecore DXP is Adobe Experience Manager. Both are very well established and robust content management platforms. Products like Contentful and Contentstack are very lightweight and do not have as many built-in features like DXP, so it is not a fair comparison. For highly complex enterprise type engagements, Sitecore DXP and AEM are always brought to the table together for consideration.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    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
    Sitecore
    • Since moving the site to Sitecore we have had an increase in conversion - that's the ultimate goal of all these things. It's likely to be partly tied in to the re-design that happened at the same time, but the way in which you can personalise and change things really helps give the best customer journey.
    • The negative impact we've seen is mainly due to expectations around how easily things can be shared between separate instances of Sitecore - if you haven't built stuff sharable it won't be sharable, but the business have been sold Sitecore (partly) on the basis that things would be easily sharable.
    • My developers don't all like working in Sitecore - it takes time to learn, takes a long time to build and run as well as requiring a few processes around it, like Unicorn Sync, etc. One of my devs has actually asked to not work on it again! So, a potential recruitment issue.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    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.