Optimizely Content Management System vs. WordPress

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
WordPress
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Wordpress is an open-source publishing platform popular with bloggers, and a content management system, known for its simplicity and modifiability. Websites may host their own blogging communities, controlling and moderating content from a single dashboard.
$3
per month 6 GB storage
Pricing
Optimizely Content Management SystemWordPress
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Personal
$4
per month 6 GB storage
Premium
$8
per month 13 GB storage
Business
$25
per month 50 GB storage
Commerce
$45
per month 50 GB storage
Enterprise
Contact for pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Optimizely Content Management SystemWordPress
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPricing for Business and Commerce plans vary on number of GB.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Optimizely Content Management SystemWordPress
Considered Both Products
Optimizely Content Management System
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.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
None quite like this, but I have had experience with HTML sites and CSS and WordPress and Wix, but nothing quite on the level of what Optimizely produces.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Umbraco is quite close to my heart. I've done lots of CMS implementations in Umbraco, done a little bit of Sitecore, done some WordPress. Well, it's a more refined commercial product that's more mature. So Umbraco for example, that's an open source free content management …
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely Content Management System takes the best bit of previous platforms and simplifies them without removing the more advanced features but not making the necessary to get things going. allowing for any user to jump in and start working is a massive help but empowering …
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 …
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 :)
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
I think the security and stability of Optimizely Content Management System exceeds that of its competitive platforms.
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
Optimizely Content Management System is much more functional and robust out of the box
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
It does feel a bit more legacy, but sometimes legacy can be good for companies. For both the companies we mapped against, it was clear the idea of server maintenance was out of question for us and we wanted a service that would provide uptime and us just doing the work of …
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Being able to keep one catalog source that can spread to our multiple business units and being able to have our development team create custom widgets for new functionality.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
I didn't see Konakart in the dropdown options, so I want to make sure we compare against this platform as well. With other platforms, the features are either so basic that you can't get very advanced in your site UX, or the interface is so unfriendly to it's users that it's …
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely Content Management System fits our needs best being fully customisable and modular.
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
It's comparable to the ones that I mentioned in most ways. I selected this product because it was the easiest and most affordable. Easiest in terms of we already were on the Optimizely platform, so to go to another would be lots of work time and money. So it was truly the least …
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Good value for the cost.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Optimizely Content Management System provides a very scalable CMS out of the box vs other CMSs. I do like the opensource community of the other CMSs.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
More robust management of advanced content page by page or across pages.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
Much easier to use and more developer friendly
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
More options and a higher level of technicality with other SaaS.
Chose Optimizely Content Management System
It is much more intuitive and easily customizable.
WordPress

No answer on this topic

Features
Optimizely Content Management SystemWordPress
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
8.5
167 Ratings
3% above category average
WordPress
8.2
159 Ratings
0% below category average
Role-based user permissions8.5167 Ratings8.2159 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
8.0
164 Ratings
3% above category average
WordPress
7.9
134 Ratings
2% above category average
API8.0157 Ratings7.9124 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language7.9125 Ratings7.9103 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
7.8
192 Ratings
1% above category average
WordPress
8.1
166 Ratings
4% above category average
WYSIWYG editor7.7176 Ratings7.9151 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness8.2164 Ratings7.3152 Ratings
Admin section8.1176 Ratings8.3164 Ratings
Page templates8.2170 Ratings8.7160 Ratings
Library of website themes7.496 Ratings8.5162 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design7.9174 Ratings8.6161 Ratings
Publishing workflow8.2170 Ratings8.2154 Ratings
Form generator6.8129 Ratings7.2131 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Content Management System
7.6
178 Ratings
3% above category average
WordPress
8.2
164 Ratings
10% above category average
Content taxonomy8.1163 Ratings8.2142 Ratings
SEO support7.1162 Ratings7.9148 Ratings
Bulk management7.0135 Ratings7.5125 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions7.6141 Ratings9.2152 Ratings
Community / comment management7.9116 Ratings8.3152 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Optimizely Content Management SystemWordPress
Small Businesses
ManageWP
ManageWP
Score 10.0 out of 10
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ManageWP
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
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User Ratings
Optimizely Content Management SystemWordPress
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(221 ratings)
8.6
(203 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.7
(34 ratings)
5.6
(38 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(90 ratings)
8.1
(50 ratings)
Availability
9.2
(4 ratings)
9.5
(3 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(8 ratings)
10.0
(11 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(4 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.4
(2 ratings)
9.0
(10 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Optimizely Content Management SystemWordPress
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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Automattic
Wordpress is a great solution for a website of nearly any type. It may not be as suitable if a fully custom solution or app is needed, and it does have some limitations when it comes to connecting it to external products (especially if the product doesn't have any support from a native system), and it does require a lot of testing. Multiple plugins in one install are common but also increase the risk of conflicts, and when those do occur, it can be exceptionally time-consuming and tedious to identify what is causing the issue. As third parties create many plugins, you're also at risk with each potential security breach, which needs to be kept in mind. I would be cautious to use WordPress to store any sort of sensitive PPI. That said, it's a wonderful, easily customizable solution for many, many different types of websites and can allow even inexperienced client users with low-tech knowledge to update basics.
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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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Automattic
  • Easy to use User Interface
  • Coding / Plugin Implementation is awesome
  • There's always a solution available for the platform
  • Security is easy to use and robust
  • Implementation with 3rd party platforms, such as Google's variety of tools
  • Can download and host on your own server or use their hosted servers
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.
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Automattic
  • WordPress breaks often so you need to have someone who understands how to troubleshoot, which can take time and money.
  • Some plugins are easier to customize than others, for example, some don't require any coding knowledge while others do. This can limit your project if you are not a coder.
  • WordPress can be easily hacked, so you also need someone who can ensure your sites are secure.
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.
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Automattic
The complications we have and the lack of support. Every plugin has a differente team of support in charge and make one plugin work with the other one always affects the website performance. It's a thousand times better to have only one provider with all functionalities included unless you are an expert web developer or have a team dedicated to it
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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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Automattic
Extremely easy to use and train users. It took very little time to get everyone trained and onboarded to start using WordPress. Anytime we had any issues, we were able to find an article or video to help out or we were able to contact support. The menu options are well laid out so it is easy to find what you are looking for.
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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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Automattic
Anyone can visit WordPress.org and download a fully functional copy of WordPress free of charge. Additionally, WordPress is offered to users as open-source software, which means that anyone can customize the code to create new applications and make these available to other WordPress users.
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Performance
Optimizely
No answers on this topic
Automattic
Mostly, any performance issues have to do with using too many plugins and these can sometimes slow down the overall performance of your site. It is very tempting to start adding lots of plugins to your WordPress site, however, as there are thousands of great plugins to choose from and so many of them help you do amazing things on your site. If you begin to notice performance issues with your WordPress site (e.g. pages being slow to load), there are ways to optimize the performance of your site, but this requires learning the process. WordPress users can learn how to optimize their WordPress sites by downloading the WPTrainMe WordPress training plugin (WPTrainMe.com) and going through the detailed step-by-step WordPress optimization tutorials.
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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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Automattic
I give this rating, which I believe to be a great rating for a community based support system that's surrounding it. Most platforms and products have their own, and as WordPress does have their own team that help here and there, a lot of it's handled by community involvement with dedicated users who are experts with the system who love to help people.
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In-Person Training
Optimizely
No answers on this topic
Automattic
Varies by the person providing training. High marks as it's incredibly easy to find experienced individuals in your community to provide training on any aspect of WordPress from content marketing, SEO, plugin development, theme design, etc. Less than 10 though as the training is community based and expectations for a session you find may fall short.
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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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Automattic
It is very easy to find online resources to learn how to do just about anything with WordPress.
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Implementation Rating
Optimizely
I was not fully involved.
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Automattic
WordPress is not a great solution if you have: 1) A larger site with performance / availability requirements. 2) Multiple types of content you want to share - each with its own underlying data structure. 3) Multiple sites you need to manage. For very small sites where these needs are not paramount, WordPress is a decent solution
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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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Automattic
WordPress isn't as pretty or easy to use as certain competitors like Jimdo, Squarespace or HubSpot, but it makes up for it with its affordability, familiarity and the ability to find quality outside help easily. The same can't be said for certain competitors, as you might need to find an expert and it could get costly.
Read full review
Scalability
Optimizely
No answers on this topic
Automattic
WordPress is completely scalable. You can get started immediately with a very simple "out-of-the box" WordPress installation and then add whatever functionality you need as and when you need it, and continue expanding. Often we will create various WordPress sites on the same domain to handle different aspects of our strategy (e.g. one site for the sales pages, product information and/or a marketing blog, another for delivering products securely through a private membership site, and another for running an affiliate program or other application), and then ties all of these sites together using a common theme and links on each of the site's menus. Additionally, WordPress offers a multisite function that allows organizations and institutions to manage networks of sites managed by separate individual site owners, but centrally administered by the parent organization. You can also expand WordPress into a social networking or community site, forums, etc. The same scalability applies to web design. You can start with a simple design and then scale things up to display sites with amazing visual features, including animations and video effects, sliding images and animated product image galleries, elements that appear and fade from visitor browsers, etc. The scaling possibilities of WordPress are truly endless.
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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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Automattic
  • Allowed us to being all websites under a single umbrella, saving costs on similar products.
  • It's increased our website turn time and made us faster and more efficient at launching websites.
  • Edits and tweaks happen much faster as we have a customized environment.
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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.