Item: Crownpeak CMS
Rating: 10
Author: Sean Brasher

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our entire web department uses DXM to build websites, including websites for our clients. It allows our enterprise clients to have a tool that supports both their non-technical content creators as well as their UX engineers.

Pros and Cons

Having all the tools all in one place - you don't need a separate quality tool or asset management tool for instance
Ease of use is great because even non-technical users can get in and add content after minimal training.
Personalization and A/B testing built in makes a HUGE difference in how marketers build a site.

Crownpeak moved to a web browser admin tool in 2018, which has made the admin experience much better, but there are still a couple of features missing from the browser version that won't arrive until later in 2019.
Integration with 3rd party digital asset management tools would be great.
Smoother integration with source control would be nice.

Return on Investment

Improved digital experience - allows us to build exactly what we need instead of settling for what the platform can do.
Reduced reliance on IT - with the whole product as SaaS in the cloud and using a web browser as the admin tool, it is completely off IT's radar.
Improved marketing options - we can now optimize and personalize our content instead of using one-size-fits-all.

Role of Reviewer

Developer

Size of Website Built with Crownpeak CMS

100-1,000 pages

Adaptability

The biggest form of adaptation is in the templates and in applying custom script on top of those templates. Between those two tools we've resolved 99% of the custom needs that we've encountered. The remainder we handled via some type of integration with a 3rd party tool. What I like here about Crownpeak is that it gives you a publishing platform but then lets you handle what you publish and how.

Support Rating

Their support replies quickly and they have a portal where you can track your issues. They are willing to get on the phone with you and work through complex issues and their sales team will assist as well. They actually pay attention when you bring up issues and will offer workarounds and occasionally emergency patches when needed. They are not scared to dig into your specific implementation with experts on the phone or in person to get something resolved.

Likelihood to Recommend

Crownpeak is great for a company with a marketing team that wants to build sites in a competitive environment where their conversion rates matter and where they are looking for an edge through personalization or optimizing their content. It is also best suited for sites with a lot of content that you need to manage.

It is less appropriate for very small sites or sites where the design is more important than the content. It can be used for small sites but it is overkill for them and there are open-source options to use instead. Similarly, in a site like a portfolio site for a designer, you would have an easier time building exactly what you want outside of a CMS platform.

Implementation Rating

We typically go from signing a contract to launching a site in 3-6 months, including a lot of time on content creation and strategy that have nothing to do with the actual implementation of the site within the tool. Before that, we had some large enterprise sites that went a year before launching, so this was a massive win for us in terms of speed. Again, the biggest difference here is in big sites, which is why the tool is better for those sites.

Enterprise-level CMS platform with all the tools in one place

Overall Satisfaction with Crownpeak DXP