Item: Magnolia
Rating: 3
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use this product to implement CMS solutions for the clients our organization contracts with. Clients may be looking to move away from platforms such as WordPress to a solution that is more customizable and can be integrated with external systems.

Pros and Cons

Use of YAML to define content models with code.
Versatility of defining actions for custom handlers.
Reloading classes when code is modified in a local dev environment is nice. While it doesn't seem to work when changes extend beyond the method body (i.e., adding methods), it remediates the pain of long startup times.

The documentation provides samples that are often out of context, and difficult to know where the provided example code should be implemented. More tutorials providing the full project or step-by-step instructions on how to implement subject material would help greatly. Baeldung is a resource I would consider the gold standard in how this is done in other spaces.
The use of JCR and Nodes makes object serialization/deserialization painful. Jackson compatibility or similar would be a welcome enhancement to the developer experience. Maybe leveraging code-gen from light modules to build model classes when possible could help accomplish this.
Modifying the home layout from light modules is frustrating. It seems that any configuration overrides made merge with the default rather than overwriting, which makes for a difficult combination of guess-and-check while referencing the documentation to see what should be in each row/column when making changes.
Including "mark all as read" or "delete all" in the notifications app would be a great quality of life improvement. It seems that by default, users have to individually select messages and operate them.

Return on Investment

Usability

It seems that the best way to customize Magnolia is with light-modules, which requires technical skill beyond the scope of what most end users know. It adds a roadblock between content authors and Magnolia, making it feel inaccessible to new or "non-technical" users. When it comes to actually using the interface, it feels clunky and dated. With limited ways to interact with Magnolia like it's seeming lack of click-and-drag to move apps around (as one example) and limited use of right-click for expanded options, it's reminiscent of early OS X as desktop operating systems were just starting to hit their stride. Simple operations like publication are complicated rituals, and complicated operations are completely out of reach as they require code changes or serious digging into the already cryptic configuration app.

Performance

While I do get occasional "freezes" where the page takes long pauses in loading apps of trivial size (only a handful of entries), I cannot definitively say whether this is caused by Magnolia or the AWS instance on which it's deployed. Most of the time, pages load quickly.

Alternatives Considered

Contentful and WordPress

Similar to how one might choose a specific programming language to solve a specific problem, Magnolia has its place among the rest, depending on the use case. While it does not have the most pleasant user experience compared to others, its customization options are streets ahead of other offerings. It might be considered "overkill" for more basic use cases, but great for complicated flows.

Key Insights

Do you think Magnolia delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Magnolia's feature set?

Yes

Did Magnolia live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Magnolia go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Magnolia again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Contentful, IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse, Microsoft Visual Studio Code, Microsoft Teams

Likelihood to Recommend

It's well suited when there are requirements and handling for content after it's been authored, and highly specific workflows. I would not recommend Magnolia to anyone who wants something that "just works."

A Robust Yet Challenging CMS Solution.

Overall Satisfaction with Magnolia