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Crownpeak DXM - Truly SaaS!
Updated February 15, 2022

Crownpeak DXM - Truly SaaS!

Joel Macaluso | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Crownpeak DXP

We are a Crownpeak partner and implement DXM for various clients. Typically it is used by the marketing, or digital, department on behalf of the whole organization. It serves as a the backbone for the web presence for a business. i.e., it's the product that allows a business to maintain its website easily and effectively, refreshing content as needed.
  • The SaaS platform eliminates the headache of upgrades and patches and allows businesses to just focus on the site development and day-to-day management.
  • Crownpeak's technical support team is always prompt with answering any question or issue that arises.
  • The lack of real-time debugging may contribute to additional development effort at times.
  • Although its my understanding that its being addressed, the publishing queue can be slow at times during extremely heavy publishing loads.
  • Our clients have seen a lower cost of ownership due to fully SaaS platform.
  • Our clients appreciate eliminating the need for painful upgrades.
As an agency, we work with several different content / digital experience platforms. My clients who chose Crownpeak over other options did so primarily due to the lack of need to perform costly upgrades and the ability to support multiple development options (i.e., not just .Net).
Developer
1,000-10,000 pages
We've recently begun building out headless solutions on Crownpeak using Vue. This has allowed us to build solutions more quickly, typically while utilizing lower cost resources. In addition, not having to worry about upgrades allows our clients to focus their budgets on important things like new functionality, targeted landing pages, and other initiatives that help drive revenue.

Do you think Crownpeak CMS delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Crownpeak CMS's feature set?

Yes

Did Crownpeak CMS live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Crownpeak CMS go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Crownpeak CMS again?

Yes

Crownpeak's support team is very prompt and well equipped to answer questions or resolve issues. I would like to see more involvement by peers in the new Crownpeak Community Portal but suspect that will happen over time.
There's always some level of training with new DMX administration, and Crownpeak's decoupled architecture can be a little confusing to new users at first, but its easy enough to overcome and the layout of the content management process is well done.
For companies looking to move into a truly cloud-based environment without the complexity of managing servers and upgrades, Crownpeak really shines. It is extremely easy to use from a content editor point of view. Sites built on Crownpeak DXM can be managed by developers with "mid-level" experience, unlike many competitors. Managing digital quality (SEO, accessibility, brand standards, etc.) is a very powerful advantage. Although it is quite capable at integrating with third party solutions, companies that are looking for a ton of "out-of-the-box" add-ons (e-commerce for example) will not find it appropriate.

Crownpeak CMS Feature Ratings

9.3
WYSIWYG editor
10
Code quality / cleanliness
8
Admin section
9
Page templates
10
Mobile optimization / responsive design
10
Publishing workflow
9
Form generator
9
9.0
Content taxonomy
10
SEO support
10
Bulk management
9
Availability / breadth of extensions
7
10.0
API
10
Internationalization / multi-language
10
10.0
Role-based user permissions
10
CMS programming language or framework ()
Not Rated

Using Crownpeak DXP

ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • Content Updating
  • Creating Templates
  • Building Landing pages
  • Debugging certain coding issues

Using Crownpeak DXP

Typically my clients have 10-20 people working with the platform. There roles vary but include content editors, designers, SEO specialists, and front-end developers.
5 - Depending on the complexity of the implementation, this could vary. However, on the more "straight-forward" implementations a traditional front-end development team might be all you need. Of course, if there are custom, complex integrations with 3rd party systems you might need more diverse skillsets.
  • Cloud-based Solution
  • Decoupled Architecture
  • Development Flexibility
  • Headless / React Front-End Implementation
  • Continue to support additional clients to help grow their web presence.
None of our Crownpeak clients are currently thinking about replatforming.

Evaluating Crownpeak DXP and Competitors

Yes - A couple of our clients were replacing discontinued products such as Ektron.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
Cloud based, truly "headless" nature of the product allows for a lot of flexibility. Not having to constantly upgrade is a big plus.

Crownpeak DXP Implementation

  • Third-party professional services
We are a 3rd party company (iMedia) who implements Crownpeak on behalf of our clients.
Yes - Typically the process includes multiple phases: a) discovery, b) define, c) design, d) development and e) deploy. Once we finish the define phase, if there is a decision to be made on which DXM is the most suitable, we will do this at this time.
  • Not being able to debug code as easily as developers are accustomed to.
  • Publishing speed at times when doing a large content restructure.
Simply by not having to spin up and manage multiple server environments, our clients have been able to quickly deploy content updates. Timelines to launch will vary, of course, depending on the complexity of the project but knowing that "launch-day" is essentially covered due to the SaaS nature of the product is a huge relief for us as well as our clients.

Crownpeak DXP Training

  • Online training
My team left training with a solid understanding of how to use the product and the developer training ended with a test to ensure the ability to properly develop was learned properly. Recently, Crownpeak has added a self-paced training option which makes it extremely flexible to on-board new developers.

Configuring Crownpeak DXP

Configuration options are fine.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
Yes - we have added extensive custom code - Crownpeak allows you to build out extensions and we have taken advantage of that on several projects to interface to other systems.

Crownpeak DXP Reliability

Our clients typically have multiple websites running on Crownpeak without issues.
Due to its architecture, its vital that the product is available at all times. Crownpeak understands that.
Pages load very fast on production (assuming you develop with basic SEO practices in place) due to Crownpeak's publishing architecture. The slide downside is that publishing can be a bit slow at times.

Relationship with Crownpeak

Crownpeak has been very responsive with questions typically answered quickly.
Crownpeak sales and support team are very responsive based on our experiences.
Make sure all groups (developers, marketers, decision makers) are involved in the sales process

Upgrading Crownpeak DXP

Yes - Yes, with Crownpeak, you are always on the current software version so you don't have to "upgrade" like traditional platforms. If you want to utilize new features, then you have to restructure your templates like you would with any platform.
  • Faster publishing processes