Likelihood to Recommend Great for companies that are looking to create customized, tailored content solutions and be willing to put in the hard work and effort to maximize the value out of the tool. If your company is just looking for very basic content management without all the bells and whistles, I'd recommend looking elsewhere for less [money].
Read full review If you are having students create websites or information pages about something they are studying in class, this is a great option. The fact that students can spend less time getting situated and learning the app and get right to work researching and creating their pages is great. For middle to high school, this is a fantastic app to use. However, if you want more nuanced analytics or want students to focus on blogging more than webpage building, this is limited.
Read full review Pros Personalisation of advertising banners based upon knowledge of the customer, like location or previous searches enables us to target customers with products and offers that they are more likely to engage with, which has been done to good effect. The use of Sitecore for content management enables the business and design team to perform changes to things, like images, content and page structure, which would otherwise have required a code release, which is costly in terms of man power. The A/B testing in Sitecore is good because it allows us to statistically verify minor changes to the site - like advert changes or component ordering on the page - as to whether or not they positively impact conversion. Read full review Drag and drop interface makes it very easy to add all types of content, including images, text, video (and YouTube videos), embeddable applications and more. It's very easy to set up navigation features like cascading menus and sticky navigation (where the menu stays put - may depend on the template chosen though). A technical backend is fairly straight-forward for setting up a fav icon, 301 redirects, SEO, Google Analytics, etc. Robbin Block Creative Marketing Strategist, Instructor, Moderator, Author
Read full review Cons Sitecore is Customer Engagement Platform. It comes with lots of features (e.g. Authoring, Analytics, personalization, A/B Test, Webforms for marketers etc), But, most of them are not being used by many clients. If you are really looking for just CMS (only authoring and publishing), then I don't think Sitecore is a way to go. You need to have a strong Sitecore certified developer base to manage the Sitecore platform (if you are using all features). It's the same case with others. But, finding a Sitecore certified (costs $$) developer is tough in the market. Now the market is growing (thanks to Sitecore promotional events) and Sitecore is gaining popularity, It may be easy to find such developers in the future. If you want to leverage most out of the Sitecore community you need to be a Sitecore certified developer. Sitecore comes with lots of built-in features and marketplace components. I feel this puts in a little tricky situation. It gives an opportunity for a normal developer to use some of the free marketplace module, which may or may not be supported in a future version of Sitecore. which may put the entire platform in risk to upgrade to latest Sitecore version. You need to have a proper process to control and validate the marketplace components before using them. Read full review Weebly doesn't have a lot of templates to choose from, so if you don't have any experience with CSS or HTML, it's hard to customize your site to an extent. Weebly isn't fully SEO friendly. They don't allow you to add H1 tags to pages out of the box. You can't create folder structures when it comes to web page URLs. You can put web pages under a main menu dropdown, but they don't allow you to put all sub-menu items in a structured folder (like site.com/folder/page-1 and site.com/folder/page-2). Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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 Weebly is consistently adding features that line up with our needs. The ease of use makes it the perfect program for us since we have users of multiple age brackets and knowledge of web design. We love that we can give users access to only the pages they are affiliated with
Read full review Usability With any platform that offers so much capability, usability will naturally be more challenging. Sitecore does an admirable job and made massive strides in version 8, but at some times offers too many ways to achieve the same task allows users to sometimes take a path less efficient than the preferred path.
Read full review It is simple to use and offers enough customization to make a website that is personalized. Templates are pretty standard and the help section is laid out well by topic with frequently asked questions. Some design knowledge is helpful, but through trial and error anyone can get a hold of the reins fairly quickly.
Read full review Support Rating Sitecore Support is very knowledgeable and helpful. We have raised a number of issues with them and they rarely fail to come up with an acceptable solution.
Read full review Online Training 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 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 The decision to select Sitecore was not ultimately mine, but the fact that we were able to leverage in-house Microsoft .Net (C#) experience on a platform that had a library of extensions, but also allowed us to customize and keep private our confidential IP has been a big help. When you see a SharePoint site or a
Drupal site you can usually tell "oh this is a
MS SharePoint site", but with Sitecore the ability to customize and have different views even different components based on device type makes Sitecore a clear winner.
Read full review Weebly's designs, plugins, and customization options are a little more advanced in some cases than other similar programs.
WordPress requires a different level of expertise and knowledge of code, keywording, and plugins, so I wouldn't even compare them.
Wix is a little more user-friendly because you can drag and drop your design, which was very convenient for customizing your site. I didn't personally select Weebly, but it is user-friendly and nearly anyone comfortable with a computer could figure it out. Weebly support is also pretty good.
Read full review Return on Investment ROI depends so much on implementation. Its would be difficult to comment in a positive or negative regarding CMS product to direct ROI. A non-technical user would be surprised at what a basic installation of Sitecore looks like. "Hello World" comes to mind. With that in mind we can look at two things, Sitecore Support and Sitecore Partners. Certified Internal Developers and Sitecore Support: This depends on the qualifications of your existing departments regarding implementing a enterprise CMS. No experience to some experience, this is a no brainer, rigorously vet top and middle partners and hire one to lead this effort. If your experienced still hire a partner and vet them but hire a middle to small partner and have them help, not lead. "Sitecore Window": You could equate Sitecore in some implementation as throwing expensive parts at a car problem. If your business requirements and data consumption needs are not within this cost window then in the end on paper it will be difficult to see ROI or that there just wasn't a return. Then it will be time to look at other lower cost alternatives The initial cost is just the start. Over engineering and expensive horizontal integration partners can cost someone a promotion or job. If your content workflows are complex, sites rendering data requirements are large and performance and scalability are paramount. Sitecore should be in your top 3. Read full review Weebly has allowed our business to create a connection with our customers by offering home decor, cooking and styling tips. Weebly gives us the chance to relay information to customers regarding merchandise, current sales and promotions, store hours and locations etc. Which has helped increase business. Weebly has given our not very tech savvy business the opportunity to have a website and stay relevant with our competitors. Read full review ScreenShots