2025 Industry Report
Enterprise CMS and DXP platforms: choosing the right solution
- Our preferred platforms for authorability, implementation speed, ecosystem and ROI
- Compare features, costs, and benefits to make an informed decision
JT
by Jake Tracey
Published: November 24th, 2024
2025 Industry Report - Enterprise CMS / DXP Platform Comparison
WordPress: free, with limitations
WordPress is one of the world's most popular publishing platforms and as a basic CMS tool is powerful and easy to use.
For many enterprise use cases, additional functionality for tasks such as content approval workflows, web forms, image optimization and IDP integration can be added through the plugin store. The most feature rich and well maintained incur additional costs.
This ecosystem, while rich with features, creates maintenence and security overheads as plugins are released by external parties, so potentially vulnerable code may be deployed.
This may present an issue if PII data is being held on your server, and should be considered in terms of your overall security posture.
Recent events in the Wordpress community have led to significant instability which has raised questions about its long-term viability as a platform.
Magnolia: powerful and competitive across price points
Magnolia has become increasingly more visible in the enterprise CMS space, having expanded this year with significant AI enhancements to their platform.
New AI capabilities streamline content creation and management, allowing for faster time-to-market and increased efficiency for content teams. A mature Java-based architecture supports large-scale deployments, handling high volumes of traffic and content without issue.
Magnolia boasts a complete range of enterprise DXP functionality, accessible both through a comprehensive module system built into the product and via connectors that enable seamless integration with third-party services. This flexibility allows businesses to customize their DXP to meet their specific needs and integrate with their existing technology stack. The robust API and extensive documentation facilitate straightforward custom development and integration efforts.
Hosting options for Magnolia include both on-premises and cloud-based solutions, providing businesses with the flexibility to choose the deployment model that best aligns with their infrastructure and security requirements. Implementation complexity is minimized through well-defined technical design patterns and a rich set of developer tools. These tools significantly reduce development time and improve developer productivity, leading to faster time-to-market for new features and content updates.
Magnolia provides unique and user-friendly personalization and localization features, empowering content authors to easily adapt content to different audiences and regions. Simultaneously, it offers a headless option for clients who prefer to leverage existing assets, such as a design system, or component library during their implementation.
Compared to similar enterprise CMS platforms, Magnolia represents great value for money, with a feature set that competes with the most mature CMS offerings at more approachable price point.
Adobe Experience Manager:
Managing complexity and power
Managing complexity and power
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) is widely used by enterprises seeking to manage complex digital ecosystems. Its modular architecture allows for flexible customisation, accommodating diverse business needs and integration with various systems. This adaptability is a key strength for organisations with established tech stacks.
AEM offers robust capabilities for omnichannel content delivery, personalisation, and marketing automation, positioning itself as a comprehensive solution for enterprises with large-scale needs. Features like its integrated DAM (Digital Asset Management) simplify asset management; workflow automation speeds up content creation; and robust analytics provide valuable insights into content performance.
However, the platform's complexity can often be a double-edged sword. While its features are extensive, and it is highly scalable, developing for and maintaining AEM typically requires a high degree of technical expertise and significant investment in resources. A skilled team of developers and administrators is essential for successful implementation and ongoing management.
AEM's strength lies in its ability to manage sophisticated content workflows and personalised experiences at scale. It excels in scenarios where many content creators need to collaborate and publish content to multiple channels. This makes it a suitable choice for large organisations with complex content needs.
For enterprises looking for a cloud-based architecture that includes an immense amount of functionality and integration, AEM remains a powerful but demanding platform that should be carefully considered based on organisational capabilities and long-term goals. The cost of implementation and maintenance should be carefully weighed against the benefits.
In addition to this, Adobe Cloud provides access to Edge Delivery Services as a part of the license, which in many cases negates the need for using standard AEM, improving the authoring, performance and time-to-market significantly.
AEM Edge Delivery Services:
Ease of use and performance, at a price
Ease of use and performance, at a price
AEM Edge Delivery Services (EDS) represents a significant shift in Adobe's approach to content delivery, offering a modern, streamlined alternative to traditional CMS solutions. Designed with speed and efficiency in mind, EDS excels in delivering exceptional performance, including perfect Lighthouse scores, making it a standout choice for enterprises focused on user experience and SEO.
An additional unique feature of EDS is Document Based Authoring, which allows content authoring to be done completely within Microsoft Word or Google Drive. This provides a well-known, easy-to-adopt experience for content authors, as well as integrating directly into an enterprise's existing document workflow practices.
One of the defining strengths of EDS is its simplicity for developers. Unlike the traditional AEM platform, EDS is lightweight and far easier to code for, significantly reducing development time and effort. Its reliance on edge computing ensures faster load times and more reliable performance, even under heavy traffic, giving it a distinct advantage for businesses aiming to scale globally.
By enabling faster deployment cycles and providing an intuitive development environment, EDS empowers teams to deliver high-quality digital experiences with less friction. For enterprises frustrated with the complexity of traditional AEM, Edge Delivery Services provides a compelling alternative that combines Adobe's robust infrastructure with a developer-friendly approach, ensuring that both performance and usability are prioritised.
2025 DXP Report Report: key takeaways
While a popular choice for smaller websites and blogs due to its ease of use and vast plugin ecosystem, WordPress presents significant limitations for enterprise-level deployments. Its open-source nature, while offering flexibility, also means that security vulnerabilities are constantly emerging, requiring dedicated resources for maintenance and patching.
Furthermore, the reliance on third-party plugins often introduces compatibility issues and security risks, significantly increasing the overall maintenance burden and potentially exceeding cost benefits. For enterprises, the long-term cost of maintaining and securing a WordPress site often outweighs the initial low cost of entry.
Furthermore, the reliance on third-party plugins often introduces compatibility issues and security risks, significantly increasing the overall maintenance burden and potentially exceeding cost benefits. For enterprises, the long-term cost of maintaining and securing a WordPress site often outweighs the initial low cost of entry.
Magnolia CMS emerges as a strong contender for enterprise implementations, offering a compelling balance of power, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness.
Its robust feature set includes advanced content modeling, robust workflow capabilities, and excellent performance, catering to the demands of complex digital projects.
Magnolia's focus on developer experience results in shorter development cycles and easier maintenance, leading to a significant return on investment (ROI).
The flexible architecture allows businesses to scale their platforms as needed, accommodating growth and changing business requirements without major overhauls. This platform is particularly suited for enterprises that value a high level of customisation without sacrificing ease of management.
AEM is a mature, powerful, and feature-rich CMS designed for large enterprises with significant digital content management needs. However, AEM's complexity and high cost necessitate a thorough evaluation of organisational capabilities and long-term goals.
AEM is a mature, powerful, and feature-rich CMS designed for large enterprises with significant digital content management needs. However, AEM's complexity and high cost necessitate a thorough evaluation of organisational capabilities and long-term goals.
The implementation process is extensive, requiring specialised expertise, and the ongoing maintenance and support can be resource-intensive.
While AEM provides sophisticated capabilities for highly customised and scalable solutions, the investment requires a substantial IT budget and experienced personnel capable of managing the intricacies of the platform.
Organisations should carefully weigh the cost-benefit analysis before committing to AEM. It's a solution for enterprises that demand a robust, flexible, and highly scalable platform and are prepared for the considerable investment required.
For those enterprises that are looking to move to a cloud-based solution and are existing Adobe customers, we recommend planning a migration to Edge Delivery Services, which offers many improvements over the traditional AEM platform, with substantially faster time to market and performance improvements.
For those enterprises that are looking to move to a cloud-based solution and are existing Adobe customers, we recommend planning a migration to Edge Delivery Services, which offers many improvements over the traditional AEM platform, with substantially faster time to market and performance improvements.
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