Sitecore Experience Manager vs. WordPress

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Sitecore Experience Manager
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Sitecore Experience Manager is an enterprise-grade CMS competing with Oracle WebCenter, IBM Web Content Manager and Adobe. It presents a fairly wide and comprehensive swath of inbuilt features. In Sitecore WCM editing takes place from within the page with its inline editor, allowing editors and authors to create display rules and content within the context of the page in an integrated process. It allows the creation of blogs, wikis, polls, integrates with social media, and is mobile…N/A
WordPress
Score 8.5 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.N/A
Pricing
Sitecore Experience ManagerWordPress
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Sitecore Experience ManagerWordPress
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Sitecore Experience ManagerWordPress
Considered Both Products
Sitecore Experience Manager
Chose Sitecore Experience Manager
Of all the competitors listed above, Sitecore owned, by far, the best combination of power, easy-of-use, and extensibility. It easily outperformed the other paid-for CMS systems. Its power is especially noticeable in its ability to handle very complex workflows, security …
Chose Sitecore Experience Manager
Sitefinity is improving but at the time of decision making it had nothing that could compare with the A/B testing and personalisation features that Sitecore offers. This was a key differentiator and ultimately ensured Sitecore was purchased. WordPress isn't really comparable …
Chose Sitecore Experience Manager
Sitecore provides and enterprise grade CMS over WordPress and allow us to do the customization we need for our unique environment. Optimizely might be better for AB testing.
Chose Sitecore Experience Manager
WordPress and Wix are great solutions for a small business or a solopreneur who's just looking to get a simple website up and running. For larger businesses with more robust content, I think Sitecore offers a bit more flexibility. Wix and WordPress are both really simple to get …
Chose Sitecore Experience Manager
Launchrock, Webdam, eZ, crownpeak, SignalMind
WordPress
Chose WordPress
WordPress is perfect for small to mid-sized business, but enterprise support is better in Sitecore and Sitefinity.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Sitecore Experience ManagerWordPress
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Sitecore Experience Manager
9.0
19 Ratings
12% above category average
WordPress
8.2
127 Ratings
2% above category average
Role-based user permissions9.019 Ratings8.2127 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Sitecore Experience Manager
8.0
17 Ratings
4% above category average
WordPress
6.4
104 Ratings
18% below category average
API8.016 Ratings6.394 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language8.014 Ratings6.679 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Sitecore Experience Manager
8.4
19 Ratings
10% above category average
WordPress
8.0
133 Ratings
5% above category average
WYSIWYG editor8.019 Ratings8.3120 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness9.018 Ratings7.3121 Ratings
Admin section9.018 Ratings8.6131 Ratings
Page templates8.016 Ratings8.3128 Ratings
Library of website themes8.06 Ratings8.5130 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design8.016 Ratings8.6129 Ratings
Publishing workflow8.017 Ratings8.5125 Ratings
Form generator9.017 Ratings6.3104 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Sitecore Experience Manager
8.4
18 Ratings
14% above category average
WordPress
7.9
131 Ratings
7% above category average
Content taxonomy9.016 Ratings6.9113 Ratings
SEO support8.014 Ratings8.2118 Ratings
Bulk management8.012 Ratings7.5100 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions8.017 Ratings8.5121 Ratings
Community / comment management9.014 Ratings8.5120 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Sitecore Experience ManagerWordPress
Small Businesses
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Sitecore Experience ManagerWordPress
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(27 ratings)
8.9
(169 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(9 ratings)
9.4
(36 ratings)
Usability
7.3
(4 ratings)
9.6
(16 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(3 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(2 ratings)
10.0
(10 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(2 ratings)
9.0
(9 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
Sitecore Experience ManagerWordPress
Likelihood to Recommend
Sitecore
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
Automattic
If your business relies heavily on content creation, and particularly on blog posts, then WordPress is really the best option you have. But if you don't have a blog, you only need static pages, or you want to build an eCommerce site, then you might want to explore other alternatives.
Read full review
Pros
Sitecore
  • 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
Automattic
  • WordPress is incredibly easy to set up and get running with little to no technical knowledge. Most web hosts will do it for you, since it's so easy.
  • With thousands of themes available for free and for low cost, WordPress can accommodate any design you can imagine.
  • The community behind WordPress is generous, and there are loads of educational opportunities both online and in person to learn and connect with other users.
Read full review
Cons
Sitecore
  • 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.
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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
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.
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Automattic
My rating is based on the knowledge I have of the community that WordPress has had built around it for years now. It's as solid as it comes when you talk about community involvement and expansion. There's no other CMS out there that can match-up with it, hands down.
Read full review
Usability
Sitecore
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.
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Automattic
It's a sophisticated but easy to use piece of software. Many of the content addition pieces are familiar from other pieces of software so there isn't a huge learning curve. And for new areas, there is a lot of info on WordPress.org as well as other WordPress help sites.
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Reliability and Availability
Sitecore
No answers on this topic
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
Sitecore
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
Sitecore
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
Automattic
WordPress itself only has community service so your experience will depend on where you turn. Online, through forums and community boards, support is rudimentary but effective. You can easily turn to your local community and find exceptional individuals who know and use WordPress regularly for more advanced, inexpensive, support. I'm rating this less than 10 because of the lack of any formal support provided by a company.
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In-Person Training
Sitecore
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
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.
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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
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.
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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
Sitecore
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.
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Automattic
We have considered and operated within Shopify and Squarespace. Both serve their purpose for niche clients, but we do recommend WordPress as being the superior option. We find that WordPress is easier to use and offers maximum scalability while the others are more challenging to design, code, configure and launch.
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Scalability
Sitecore
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
Sitecore
  • 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.
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Automattic
  • WordPress helps us reduce website management costs because we can oversee updates in-house.
  • WordPress is easy to use, reducing the amount of time we spend on website management.
  • The ease of use enables us to offer website management for clients, helping us grow our capabilities/business.
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ScreenShots