Optimizely vs. Sitecore – A Comparison of Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)

Written by Manpreet Kaur

Content Writer

Optimizely and Sitecore are popular digital experience platforms that provide unified content and eCommerce features to deliver personalized customer experiences. While both these platforms share database management and architecture similarities, they aren’t quite the same.

A closer look at these digital experience platforms helps to understand their features and explore why Optimizely is a preferred choice over Sitecore.

Optimizely

Optimizely is a digital experience platform that unifies web content management, eCommerce, multiple-channel marketing, and predictive analytics in a single platform. It strengthens the digital transformation approach allowing businesses to deliver real-time personalization to end-users and assists them in creating an omnichannel digital existence. It can be seamlessly integrated with the following tools and platforms:

  • Optimizely Commerce Cloud

  • Optimizely B2B & B2C Commerce

  • Optimizely Intelligence Cloud

  • Optimizely DXP

  • Optimizely Content Cloud

Sitecore

Sitecore emerged as a CMS and progressed into a DXP empowering marketing teams to create a consistent digital experience. All the Sitecore tools are developed in .NET and use SQL-based Sitecore Experience Database. Businesses can easily integrate third-party software with the help of an API-based xConnect service layer that delivers high flexibility. Sitecore offers the below tools and platforms:

  • Sitecore Content Hub

  • Sitecore Experience Platform

  • Sitecore Experience Manager

  • Sitecore Experience Commerce

With a brief overview of both these digital experience platforms, let’s delve deeper to understand why Optimizely proves to be the ideal DXP to take your business to the next level. Optimizely offers impeccable unified content creation and optimization capabilities that deliver higher value to the end-users in real-time.

  • Create and Optimize: Optimizely simplifies content management with dynamic recommendation capabilities and behavioural data insights. It enables business users to accumulate information from customer data, commerce interactions, and experiments, which is further used to create and optimize content to drive customer engagement, satisfaction, and repeat purchases.
  • Improved Editor Experience: Analyzing Optimizely vs. Sitecore from an editor perspective, Optimizely stands the front-runner. It is easy to work with Optimizely’s content editor. However, verified reviews reveal that the Sitecore Experience Editor proves to troublesome at times. While the Sitecore Horizon aims to reduce the glitches with its advanced editing capabilities, these fixes may not be adequate to assist content editors.
  • Speed: Optimizely enables businesses to streamline operations, offer faster deployment to generate a higher ROI, and pave the path to consumer satisfaction. The complex architecture of Sitecore makes simple processes cumbersome and risks the time-to-market. In contrast, Optimizely’s intuitive interface helps to customize and configure easily, decreasing the time-to-market. Also, Sitecore upgrades begin after 300 hours of work and take months to accomplish. Therefore, users prefer to stick to the older versions and miss out on new capabilities. Optimizely offers quick upgrades, which helps businesses to keep their website up-to-date and explore new features to ensure satisfied customers.
  • Simplicity: Optimizely features a well-designed architecture that removes all complexities through automation, providing an intuitive user interface at affordable and transparent pricing models. Thus, businesses can analyze the features in different pricing plans and make informed decisions. Meanwhile, users have reported an unpleasant experience with Sitecore, owing to its confusing pricing plans and pushing strategies to migrate on-premise customers to cloud subscriptions. Additionally, Optimizely offers dedicated customer support, while Sitecore still has a long way to go to support its customers.
  • Cloud: Optimizely offers the Platform as a Service or PaaS model to enable users to harness the potential of cloud computing; ensuring ease of use and economical technology consumption. Businesses can collect data using cloud-based services and deploy AI to personalize all the interactions.

It allows for easy migration to the cloud reducing hassles and IT costs. Organizations can have a live website and get the integration done from a DXP implementation partner. This ensures business continuity and helps to scale the business whenever they are ready for it. Meanwhile, Sitecore has faced backlash from its customers for forceful attempts to move on-premises customers to the cloud and trails behind in its cloud offering strategies.

Optimizely has become a DXP leader by helping businesses create, experiment, and accelerate their eCommerce strategies. It is essential to have a dynamic DXP that is capable of addressing business requirements. Royal Cyber is a trusted Optimizely partner with over a decade of experience implementing DXP solutions. Contact us so we can support your implementation and help you get the most value of your investment.

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