with great complexity comes great complexity
August 18, 2022

with great complexity comes great complexity

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Other

Modules Used

  • Cloud Platform
  • Cloud IDE
  • Site Studio

Overall Satisfaction with Acquia Digital Experience Platform

Acquia built and hosts the websites for our university library system -- at least 8 libraries under one umbrella. I QA'ed for the build team, and I maintain and enhance the site subsequent to build and launch. I use the Cloud Platform dashboard and the Cloud IDE, in conjunction with Github, to manage the configuration of the front end, while others are in charge of content.
  • the site is powerful
  • you can get very granular with configuration and content
  • layout is very simple to execute, but it doesn't look simple on the front. it's simple to execute complicated things
  • almost endlessly customizable with modules
  • the support portal can be hit and miss. sometimes there are very helpful people who get back to you in a timely manner, but more often there's a lot of lag time for the ticket to get picked up and in between responses, which can also be less than helpful.
  • it seems like the different departments within acquia (support, management, build teams) don't communicate with each other.
  • because features are so dense and granular, sometimes the workflow or how they are connected can be really complex to access.
  • being able to give the content editors more independence because of the role permissions
  • making the site a lot more responsive to our changing needs
  • as well as making it more responsive to different mobile device viewports
It took a little time and effort to get the content managers trained on the new system and figure out which content pages and templates we needed, but now that they are up to speed they are much more empowered to work on their own content, and even point out issues. From the standpoint of our department, that which frees us up to actually fix issues and work on enhancements, which is a great benefit.
We have 2 sites under the main domain (this is considered a multi-site with config split) and several sub-sites, so I don't know that we've really given the scalability a true run for its money, but so far, so good.
The documentation that both Acquia and Drupal provide are vastly and immediately noticeably superior to Cascade. The customizability of the platform with drupal modules means that enhancements can be made very easily instead of painfully and by digging into a language there's very little documentation for. We still have to google for answers with Acquia/Drupal, but at least answers exist and it's fairly likely that someone else has also experienced the problem. And there are many communities for support as well.

Do you think Acquia Digital Experience Platform delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Acquia Digital Experience Platform's feature set?

Yes

Did Acquia Digital Experience Platform live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Acquia Digital Experience Platform go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Acquia Digital Experience Platform again?

Yes

You are able to create almost anything you want, and make almost endless customizations with drupal modules. This is I think the strongest feature of Acquia.
The biggest drawbacks are the inherent complexity - with great customizability comes great complexity-- and the unreliability of the support.
I think that once you truly grasp and are comfortable with the workflows, it will be a very smooth and logical process, but that takes concentrated effort because of the complexity. But, changes on the front end are instantaneous and cascading. It's a tradeoff, which is expected, you just have to be prepared for that.

Acquia Digital Experience Platform Feature Ratings

WYSIWYG editor
8
Code quality / cleanliness
6
Admin section
9
Page templates
9
Library of website themes
Not Rated
Mobile optimization / responsive design
7
Publishing workflow
8
Form generator
Not Rated
Content taxonomy
8
SEO support
Not Rated
Bulk management
9
Availability / breadth of extensions
9
Community / comment management
Not Rated
API
8
Internationalization / multi-language
Not Rated
Role-based user permissions
8