Optimizely Content Management System vs. RWS Tridion Sites

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Optimizely Content Management System
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Optimizely 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
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
RWS Tridion Sites provides web content management capabilities, connecting people, processes, and information across teams, brands, and markets, to deliver impactful online experiences globally. RWS Tridion Sites' DPX platform enables the use of either traditional or headless publishing. It includes advanced features such as automated personalization, multilingual capabilities and Semantic AI. The BluePrinting® technology at the core of RWS Tridion Sites simplifies reuse and…N/A
Pricing
Optimizely Content Management SystemRWS Tridion Sites
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Optimizely Content Management SystemRWS Tridion Sites
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 SystemRWS Tridion Sites
Features
Optimizely Content Management SystemRWS Tridion Sites
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
8.5
167 Ratings
3% above category average
RWS Tridion Sites
9.0
9 Ratings
9% above category average
Role-based user permissions8.5167 Ratings9.09 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
7.9
164 Ratings
2% above category average
RWS Tridion Sites
9.1
8 Ratings
16% above category average
API8.0157 Ratings8.36 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language7.9125 Ratings10.07 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
7.8
192 Ratings
0% above category average
RWS Tridion Sites
8.5
8 Ratings
9% above category average
WYSIWYG editor7.7176 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness8.2164 Ratings8.07 Ratings
Admin section8.1176 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Page templates8.2170 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Library of website themes7.596 Ratings8.24 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design7.9174 Ratings9.07 Ratings
Publishing workflow8.2170 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Form generator6.7129 Ratings8.33 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
7.5
178 Ratings
1% above category average
RWS Tridion Sites
7.6
8 Ratings
2% above category average
Content taxonomy8.1163 Ratings9.07 Ratings
SEO support7.1162 Ratings9.06 Ratings
Bulk management7.0135 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions7.5141 Ratings8.35 Ratings
Community / comment management8.0116 Ratings3.03 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Optimizely Content Management SystemRWS Tridion Sites
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Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
Storyblok
Storyblok
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
Optimizely Content Management SystemRWS Tridion Sites
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(220 ratings)
9.9
(22 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.7
(34 ratings)
6.3
(15 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(89 ratings)
8.5
(2 ratings)
Availability
9.2
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Optimizely Content Management SystemRWS Tridion Sites
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
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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
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.
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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
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.
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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
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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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
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.
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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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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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RWS Group
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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RWS Group
No answers on this topic
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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RWS Group
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Optimizely
I was not fully involved.
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RWS Group
No answers on this topic
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.
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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
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
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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.
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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.