Overview
What is Magnolia?
Founded in 1997 with a vision to create the first truly open content management system, Magnolia is presented as a fast way to launch digital experiences. With a mission to help clients move fast and stay flexible and boasting users…
Magnolia - a convincing business CMS
Magnolia CMS
Great product, would recommend highly
Magnolia was the best digital decision we've made
Personalisation is key
Magnolia is still our go to platform for our clients and ourselves
Good value for money - highly extensible
Large amount of possibilities with low learning time
Magnolia is a highly extensible CMS with tons of integrations and features for enterprise content management
Simple, intuitive, and easy-to-use.
Magnolia, That Great Unknown
Meh
A Robust Yet Challenging CMS Solution.
Magnolia is an all in one content management system which is easy to customise.
Awards
Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards
Popular Features
- Page templates (73)8.989%
- Role-based user permissions (70)8.181%
- Admin section (71)8.080%
- Publishing workflow (74)7.575%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
What is Magnolia?
Founded in 1997 with a vision to create the first truly open content management system, Magnolia is presented as a fast way to launch digital experiences. With a mission to help clients move fast and stay flexible and boasting users among brands like Atlassian and The New York Times, Magnolia…
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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44 people also want pricing
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What is Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)?
Adobe Business Catalyst was a cloud-hosted system for building and managing web content and online stores with a built-in CRM framework in addition to sales, service, and marketing features including eCommerce and Email Marketing tools. It has been end of life (EOL) since 2020.
Features
Security
This component helps a company minimize the security risks by controlling access to the software and its data, and encouraging best practices among users.
- 8.1Role-based user permissions(70) Ratings
Permissions to perform actions or access or modify data are assigned to roles, which are then assigned to users, reducing complexity of administration.
Platform & Infrastructure
Features related to platform-wide settings and structure, such as permissions, languages, integrations, customizations, etc.
- 8.4API(62) Ratings
An API (application programming interface) provides a standard programming interface for connecting third-party systems to the software for data creation, access, updating and/or deletion.
- 7.6Internationalization / multi-language(62) Ratings
The software supports multiple languages, countries, currencies, etc.
Web Content Creation
Features that support the creation of website content.
- 8.5WYSIWYG editor(66) Ratings
What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get editing tool allows users to build pages without writing code.
- 8.4Code quality / cleanliness(66) Ratings
Code generated by WYSIWYG editor is clean and validates according to W3C standards.
- 8Admin section(71) Ratings
The admin page is easy to navigate and use.
- 8.9Page templates(73) Ratings
The CMS has standard webpage templates or types of web pages (e.g. homepage, article page, interior page, blog page, etc.); users can also build custom templates.
- 7Library of website themes(1) Ratings
A library of website frameworks or themes is available as a starting point for building a website.
- 8.5Mobile optimization / responsive design(64) Ratings
The CMS helps users build webpages that work well on mobile devices – whether m-dot pages or responsively designed pages.
- 7.5Publishing workflow(74) Ratings
The software allows users to set up a custom workflow for updating the website, including approval processes.
- 7Form generator(59) Ratings
Users can build website forms for visitors to fill out.
Web Content Management
Features for managing website content
- 7.5Content taxonomy(64) Ratings
Users can create multiple levels and types of content categories including tags.
- 7.1SEO support(64) Ratings
The CMS helps users create the right website infrastructure (pagination, page headers, titles, meta tags, url structure, etc.) to increase the site’s visibility in search engine results.
- 7.8Bulk management(58) Ratings
Users can change an attribute on a group of documents or sites all at once through features such as global search and replace, making bulk changes easier.
- 8Availability / breadth of extensions(63) Ratings
There is a broad library of extensions, plug-ins, modules or add-ons that allow users to easily customize their websites without building custom code.
- 7.1Community / comment management(52) Ratings
Users can put post/page comments through an approval process, auto-approve commenters based on their email addresses, block commenters by IP address, delete comments, etc.
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- Downloadables
- FAQs
What is Magnolia?
Founded in 1997 with a vision to create the first truly open content management system, Magnolia is presented as a fast way to launch digital experiences. With a mission to help clients move fast and stay flexible and boasting users among brands like Atlassian and The New York Times, Magnolia DXP supports industries ranging from automotive to telecommunications, offering enterprise features and headless agility to help them stay ahead.
From humble beginnings in Basel, Magnolia's footprint is now global with offices on five continents and more than 200 certified Magnolia Partners strategically located around the world.
Magnolia Features
Web Content Creation Features
- Supported: WYSIWYG editor
- Supported: Code quality / cleanliness
- Supported: Content versioning
- Supported: Admin section
- Supported: Page templates
- Supported: Mobile optimization / responsive design
- Supported: Publishing workflow
- Supported: Form generator
- Supported: Content scheduling
Web Content Management Features
- Supported: Internal content search
- Supported: Content taxonomy
- Supported: SEO support
- Supported: Browser compatibility
- Supported: Bulk management
- Supported: Page caching
- Supported: Availability / breadth of extensions
- Supported: Built-in e-commerce / shopping cart
- Supported: E-commerce / shopping cart extension
- Supported: Community / comment management
- Supported: Import / export
- Supported: Website analytics
Platform & Infrastructure Features
- Supported: API
- Supported: Internationalization / multi-language
Security Features
- Supported: Role-based user permissions
- Supported: User-level audit trail
- Supported: Version history
- Supported: Simple roll-back capabilities
CMS programming language or framework Features
- Supported: Java
Magnolia Screenshots
Magnolia Videos
Magnolia Integrations
- commercetools
- SAP Commerce Cloud
- Salesforce Commerce Cloud
- BigCommerce
- Bynder
- CELUM ContentHub
- Cloudinary
- Matomo Analytics
- Adobe Analytics
- Google Analytics
- Adobe Marketo Engage
- Adyen
- Siteimprove
- Elasticsearch
- RabbitMQ
- Apache Solr
- Oracle WebLogic Server
- IBM WebSphere Hybrid Edition
- Ehcache
- Memcached
- Microsoft Translator
- Spring Framework
- WildFly
- Adobe Commerce (Magento Commerce)
- Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
- Translations.com
- GraphQL
- movingimage Enterprise Video Suite
- Salesforce Sales Cloud
- Netlify Platform
- Google Translate
- Bootstrap
- CAS
- REST APIs
- CommerceKit
- Biocryptology
- JBPM
- LDAP
- SiteMesh
Magnolia Competitors
Magnolia Technical Details
Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
---|---|
Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
Mobile Application | Mobile Web |
Supported Countries | Global |
Magnolia Downloadables
- DXP 101: From disjointed to seamless customer experiences - A beginner’s guide to Digital Experience Platforms
- Choosing a CMS for the Future of Ecommerce: The challenges brands face when attempting to deliver modern commerce experiences
- Reimagining Content & Commerce: Providing digital experiences for tomorrow’s customers
- Magnolia in a Can: Containerization with Magnolia
- Choosing a CMS: The Ultimate Guide - A step-by-step guide to finding the right system for your organization’s needs
Frequently Asked Questions
Magnolia Customer Size Distribution
Consumers | 0% |
---|---|
Small Businesses (1-50 employees) | 10% |
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees) | 57% |
Enterprises (more than 500 employees) | 33% |
Comparisons
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Reviews and Ratings
(120)Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-24 of 24)Large amount of possibilities with low learning time
- API Rest calls
- Organising contents
- Usability by non-technical people
- User interface
- Administration site performance
- More consistency when indicating if a content is published or not
Magnolia is a highly extensible CMS with tons of integrations and features for enterprise content management
- Hybrid headless
- Integration
- Easy to use UI
- Robust permission controls
- Extended DAM features
- Internal site search (currently is handled through optional 3rd party).
Simple, intuitive, and easy-to-use.
- Easy to onboard new users - using components is fairly intuitive.
- Once standardized components are built, propping up a new site is pretty easy and quick.
- Workflows allow my team to stay hands off with editing, but still review changes before they go live.
- Simple user interface.
- Can send direct links to edit a page
- Cannot revert to previous version if it hasn't been published.
- Individual users cannot delete failed publishes and messages (which makes it look like there are open requests).
- Publishing larger folders of images is often not possible.
- We had to design our own preview link solution for sites integrated with Angular
- Doesn’t always play nice with Angular
Magnolia, That Great Unknown
- Shows page content
- Easy development
- Intuitive
- Content loading times
- Documentation in the absence of examples
- Content that applies [across] different types of nodes (Example: 2 types of nodes within a content app)
Magnolia is cool
- Api Rest
- Page translation
- Multisite management
- Management of informative messages to the user
- Improve performance on heavily loaded content apps
- Information and control of the livecopy actions carried out
Magnolia is a product that allows a high degree of customization for both publishers and developers
- Ease of page setup for user editors
- Personalization of content based on the characteristics of the visiting user
- Open source makes developers' lives easier
- Intuitive interface
- Use of JCR limits the amount of content that can be handled efficiently.
- The latest version has made it more complicated to customize content apps than in previous versions.
- It has a steep learning curve for new developers.
- Perfect for easy audio file management.
- Documentation through Magnolia is nice.
- Easy marketing content management with Magnolia.
- The digital asset provides easy management.
- The Magnolia cloud setting is confusing.
- Data migration through cloud deployment is not easy for any operator.
- For Magnolia to perform well, you will need a stable computer machine in my opinion.
A Feature-Packed DCX Solution!
- It's easy to use and custom reports can be generated.
- Once the initial configuration is done, anyone without technical knowledge can manage the digital content.
- Search Engine Optimization can be done with extra filters configured from within the main console.
- The initial setup does take a bit of time to complete.
Magnolia: Authoring & Development High Level Overview
- Easy to start authoring (simplicity during editing pages/ components) as the UX is straightforward for newcomers.
- Flexibility by proving light modules that helps front-end developers work independently compared to backend/Java modules' developers.
- The personalization mechanism is easy to use (the variants/traits logic is really simple to familiarize yourself with).
- The multiple site mechanism is easy to set up (for EE version) even for non-developers.
- YAML configuration flexibility is easy to change on the fly (for developers).
- There is a need for out of the box ready & reusable components (customizable components, e.g. banners).
- Resource (js) loading mechanism (resources can be added at multiple levels: e.g. pages, components, files, etc.) is very hard to manage sometimes in real projects.
- The drag 'n drop of components in UI author is not supported.
- Documentation needs a lot of improvement, especially for migration to the newest version (Magnolia 6.2).
- It would be nice to add integrations with other CMS systems (e.g. Adobe AEM, Hybris, etc.) or other systems in general.
- I would appreciate more dynamic renditions for images/assets (e.g. now there are only predefined dimensions - thumbnails/medium, etc.).
- I would appreciate improved functionality for publishing & unpublishing during a specific date & time.
Magnolia is Much More Than a Normal CSM Platform!
- It helps to create and manage multiple web pages at a time and content management is very easy.
- We can easily integrate third-party plugins and tools to get detailed analytics of web data and content.
- The CSM platform tool is user-friendly and platform tabs are easy to handle and understand.
- The automated management and pre-built templates are great.
- Initial loading time is much more than it should be.
- Sometimes, it is hard to understand the tools and plugins integration processes through codes for new users.
- Magnolia is sufficiently configurable/flexible, allowing us deploy our plugins and content.
- Besides, Magnolia supports numerous language, giving us the global presence.
- The substantial and powerful editing approaches from the application advances our companies communications process.
- Lastly, through e-commerce support, the company obtains a worldwide competitive edge.
- The process of designing some web page content requires an expertise in ICT field.
- Besides, the learning process of Magnolia is hectic and time consuming.
- Lastly, the problem of uploading and publishing files that are enormous/large is felt from Magnolia.
Best CMS Software For Business
- Magnolia is an all in one CMS software - it houses many features making it very capable.
- The software is easy to understand and use.
- Magnolia is secure and this ensures only people with clearance can access it.
- Magnolia makes web design page fast and easy thanks to page templates. In addition, for customization needs, there are coding options as well.
- Magnolia works well until you try publishing/loading big files. It can be problematic.
Very Resourceful and Robust
- Magnolia is great when uploading small files.
- Customizing pages and designing new ones is easy.
- The page templates save time.
- The software is relatively easy to use.
- While it can publish content seamlessly, it is not always great when handling large files.
My Experience With Magnolia
- Designing web pages is easy with Magnolia.
- Handling web optimization and ensuring that every page is responsive (mobile friendly) is easy with Magnolia.
- The software is also amazing when it comes to publishing - (small files - large files takes forever).
- The publishing workflow capabilities are also top notch.
- Magnolia can be annoying when publishing huge files for instance photos and videos.
- While it is easy to use, the UI could be better and needs improvement.
An All Inclusive CMS Software - Magnolia
- There is a lot to celebrate about this software. First, it is so easy to use thanks to the amazing UI and well outlaid features.
- Magnolia offers many features making it easy to handle design, SEO, and publishing.
- Magnolia also wins when it comes to security. It is very secure and this is an important feature.
- I haven't experienced any other problems besides the issues of slow loading when publishing large files.
- I like that we can easily design web pages and publish content seamlessly.
- This software houses lots of features making it the best CMS.
- The admin panel is resourceful and user friendly.
- Working with the software is easy thanks to provision of templates and an easy to use editor.
- With this software, it is easy to develop responsive websites which is important to usability of our website.
- It is not as affordable as other competitors out there.
- Can sometimes lag, more so when handling large files.
Magnolia is among the best!
When Crescendo is asked to implement Magnolia, it is usually because the overall project gets done faster, cheaper, and at a higher level of quality than what has been experienced in the past. Magnolia itself is a good fit for us and our clients because it allows everyone to move faster on both the implementation and then the ongoing content operations, digital marketing, and platform efforts.
- Fast
- Flexible
- Good for integrations
- Cost effective
- Scaling to very large implementations
- Author instance redundancy
I cannot recommend Magnolia for smaller scale content management projects where other tools like WordPress or HubSpot could make more sense.
Publishing Made Easy With Magnolia
- There is so much to like about Magnolia, firs the software houses many features
- I like that using and understanding Magnolia is easy more so for the tech-savvy gurus
- The software is amazing when it comes to creating and designing pages thanks to the templates and the editor
- The software is affordable with no compromises on capabilities.
- My only concern and probably concern of other web experts is that the software misbehaves when publishing huge files at ones. Uploading becomes a problem.
Effortless Publishing With Magnolia
- The software offers many features making it multipurpose
- Understanding and using Magnolia is easy
- It is relatively affordable
- Besides the issues of uploading multiple files that seems problematic, I have not experienced other problems
Magnolia CMS Review
- Content Management within Magnolia CMS is well structured. Developers are given the freedom to choose how content will be manage and are even given the ability to connect to other systems from within Magnolia.
- Magnolia CMS's ease of use for the business is a big win for the product. The business partners have the ability to go into Magnolia CMS to make quick edits and publish content easily due how when they are editing their site, it still looks exactly like the live site, except with overlays.
- Magnolia CMS constant improvements on its REST APIs has helped our other systems leverage Magnolia CMS heedlessly more effectively over the years. Initial support for our Angular apps with Magnolia was difficult at first, but with recent improvements, the headless approach with Magnolia CMS has become more streamlined.
- Magnolia CMS documentation could use some work. Particularly, more thorough examples of usage of a particular feature can greatly help with understanding the full scope a feature can provide.
- For version 6.x of Magnolia CMS, I find the Find Bar to be a performance hog and at times imprecise. Specifically, when searching the Configurations app for a specific module, most times it returns nested matches instead of the parent module.
- The publish and include subside feature is a double-edge sword. It is convenient feature when working with small subset of content. However, as soon as the content grow larger and nested, this feature can bring down our server.
At the time, a scenario where Magnolia CMS was not suited for our organization when the idea of separation between code and content arose. The "code side" was created using Angular while the "content side" was Magnolia. The integration between the two was difficult but as of now, Magnolia CMS has amended those failing and it has improved this scenario for us.
Magnolia helps us accomplish all our website needs!
- Workflow process works great, allowing for editor, reviewer and publisher roles.
- Easy to use interface.
- Flexible components that work for all types of sites.
- Some previously working functions, no longer work in the current version of Magnolia (email notifications & show changes).
- Being able to see who the last person that touch an asset would be helpful.
- Magnolia desperately needs reporting capabilities from workflows.
I can't really think of any scenarios where using Magnolia would not be appropriate.
-Magnolia Review
- It's intuitive
- It's customizable
- The version we currently use (Magnolia 5) is [aesthetically] pleasing
- With virtual mapping, it would be useful for there to be a way to organize items in groups and to filter (e.g., alphabetically).
- Still, with virtual mapping, it would be easier if a page didn't become redirected until the virtual URI is published. Currently, the page being redirected becomes inaccessible once a vanity URL is created, even if left unpublished.
- More online references/documentation for front-end users.
- An edit mode that lets you make changes to the actual page (i.e., what the page looks like to a website visitor), which would be a separate edit mode [that] currently exists (editing to the back-end, which looks more like a database).
- The ability to multi-task in the CMS. For example, if approving publishing requests, the ability to edit pages while the CMS processes the approvals.
Why choose Magnolia as Open Source CMS?
- The usability of Magnolia is appreciated, a content editor easily learns how to manage the content in two hours only.
- Magnolia is open, flexible and extendible and it is possible to modify or improve the standards features. Using Java API, REST, SOAP, CMIS, XML, etc. makes it possible to integrate other software or legacy data.
- Magnolia as a modular architecture, a module has its lifecycle, configuration, version handing and dependency: this is a good approach for package content and functionality.
- Magnolia is written in Java, the platform of choice for enterprise IT systems. It is scalable, stable and secure, and Magnolia separates the staging from public environment.
- Magnolia lacks of an administrative dashboard showing all the workflow, possibly in a graphical representation of their status.
- The audit module only logs in a file: having a dashboard for the audit would be a nice improvement.
- When the time comes to configure templates and components in the Standard Templating Kit is quite complicated and boring at times. A widget to help the developer would be a very interesting job. In addition, having the possibility to configure template and component in the Standard Template Kit by code would be nice.
- Implementing a customization in the administrative UI or in the dialogs isn’t simple and the developer must know Vaadin.
- Migrating from the previous major release is complicated and expensive, since Magnolia 5 isn’t compatible with the old major versions (Magnolia 4).
- Easy to use for end users
- You can use both jsp and ftl
- It lets you easily develop a site for both mobile and desktop (V5 only)
- Nice templating mechanism
- Uninstalling modules it too messy
- Almost no documentation
- It uses 2 dbs (one on filesystem) and so it is impossibile to get back in case of errors when publishing new version of self made modules
I think it is still a little bit tough to update from one major version to another due to the lack of documentation.