10 Best Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)

Contentstack was the 2019 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Web Content Management Systems (WCMS). Contentstack is a headless CMS with features that include advanced image management, unlimited environments, and versioning and rollback. This software is a SaaS headless CMS and keeps its features laser-focused on what it wants to excel at, rather than spreading itself too thin. Contentstack is great at modular blocks/groups and batch and scheduled publishing. Integration explanation: Third-party app integration is possible with Google Analytics, Optimizely, Ooyala, YouTube, MonkeyLearn, IMB Watson, Shopify, Marketo, Egnyte, and Brightcove. Additionally, specific web integration with an API can be integrated. The UI is a little clunky, which lost them a few points in the evaluation criteria for user experience and aesthetics. For example, certain elements seemed too large or too small in their place and drag-and-drop grids feel a bit awkward. Contentstack starts at $3500/month and has a free demo.

Pimcore is an enterprise open-source DXP used by over 80,000 companies and is a consolidation of PIM/MDM, DAM, CMS/UX, and eCommerce tools. Its flexible application architecture supports scaling and extension when needed, forming an agile ecosystem. Pimcore scores well in the Value for Price evaluation category due to the very low yearly cost as well as having a freemium version available for users. More features are opened up in the Enterprise Subscription, which has a higher price tag, but the freemium version will be more than enough for smaller teams. Integration explanation: Pimcore efficiently aggregates data from various internal data sources— such as CRMs, ERP software, hard drives, suppliers, external partners, and syndicators. Product data integration is facilitated through easy import and export of data between Pimcore and external systems. Pimcore is highly customizable but often needs much work right out of the box in order to meet specific needs. It’s not a plug-and-play tool and set-up might take some experimentation and time. Pimcore starts at $1.99/year and has a freemium version as well as a free trial.

Used by Warner Music Group, Acquia provides the tools to build, operate, and optimize websites, apps, and other digital experiences. Their products include Acquia Cloud, Acquia Cloud Site Factory, Acquia Lightning, Acquia DAM, Acquia Lift, Acquia Commerce, and Acquia Journey. Acquia is easy to pick up, even for non-technical users; this makes it great for groups needing to get larger teams onboard with digital content management and DX delivery. They scored well in Usability on the evaluation criteria because of all of this. Integration explanation: Acquia Dev Desktop has a full Drupal-specific stack that includes Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Also, due to its integration with Acquia Cloud, Dev Desktop is the easiest method to publish, develop, and synchronize your local Drupal websites onto the web. The cost is quite prohibitive so a major con is that this tool might not work well for smaller businesses/groups. Also, it would help if there were more options for installing custom software on the servers. Acquia starts at $215.50/month and does not have a free trial.

Based in San Diego, MindTouch was named one of the 2017 Hot 100 best privately held software companies by JMP Securities and has 43 million monthly users. MindTouch offers plenty of styles and formatting options for your content via embedding and other tools. MindTouch aces a lot of features: the WYSIWYG authoring tools are easy and intuitive to use, customizability options are robust, and it has great Enterprise features like SSL, CNAME, and white-labeling. Integration explanation: You can extend MindTouch content into other applications or systems with embeddable web widgets or a secure API. The crux of Mindtouch integrations is a set of connectors called “Touchpoints” and their open API is available for developers to further customize MindTouch content integrations. IT support or third-party intervention may be required due to advanced scripting and style requirements. This lost them a few points in Usability, as smaller teams may find this prohibitive. MindTouch offers custom quotes upon request and has a free demo.

As a comprehensive digital experience platform, Expresia is designed to empower organizations, agencies, and developers by breaking down barriers and building brand-defining digital products. With more than 15 years of experience in development, they offer a unified vision to assist brands of all sizes to build their ideal digital-first experience. Expresia also helps brands develop customer-centric strategies by delivering superior digital experiences for consumers in real-time. They employ an expert team of highly skilled tech-savvy professionals who can help you carry out a seamless collaboration between technical, marketing, and business teams to build out the best possible outcome. Their all-in-one SaaS digital experience platform is built to empower brands to create future-proof digital assets and attain a sustainable competitive edge. With Expresia, you can bring a consistent workflow to your development team and build a reliable and flexible digital experience with our robust technology. Expressia offers up to 100,000 API requests/month for free with unlimited users. If you need more wiggle room, pricing starts at $500/project as follows a pay-as-you-use model.

Experience Manager is Adobe’s answer to a DX platform, offering forms and communications processes, web content management, and high-traffic handling with cloud scale and security. This Managed Service offers automation and monitoring in your digital experience strategy. As with most Adobe products, the software is uber feature-rich. The tool particularly excels in the way it handles component building blocks and the flexible workflow integration. If you can swallow the cost, it truly is one of the best web content management tools for larger companies. Integration explanation: This integration between Adobe Campaign Standard and Adobe Experience Manager allows you to use content created in Adobe Experience Manager in your Adobe Campaign emails. You cannot perform A/B tests for contents imported from Adobe Experience Manager. Adobe AEM lost some marks in the Value for Price section of the evaluation criteria just because it’s the most cost-prohibitive software on this list by far. As to be expected with all things Adobe, you get all the meaty features at a price. Adobe AEM starts at $250,000/year and has a free demo.

Founded in 1997, Magnolia provides DX tools to build your fully tailored digital platform, create and preview experiences for any channel, and accelerate personalization and optimization and is available in the cloud or on-premises, used in headed or headless architectures. Magnolia scored well in the integration sections of our evaluation criteria because of its extensive flexibility and connectivity. Well documented APIs, open-source software, and the free Community Edition make it very developer-friendly. Integration Explanation: Integration of other software is possible through Java API, REST, SOAP, CMIS, XML, and so on. Magnolia sports an out-of-the-box connector to commerce tools and an API-first, cloud-native e-commerce platform. The major con of this tool is that it isn’t mobile or tab friendly, which severely limits what devices it can be used on and where they are used. Magnolia offers custom quotes upon request and has a free trial as well as a Free Community Edition of the software.

Rigor monitors and alerts mission-critical flows optimizes website performance with actionable insights and analyzes your applications. This tool can identify performance defects impacting mobile users by emulating upstream and downstream speeds and latency with Network Throttling. Rigor does reporting, analytics, measurables, and KPI tracking very well, scoring them highly in the Features-Reporting segment of the evaluation criteria block. Once data is collected, they continue to excel in information visualization, site health metrics, and pinpointing dysfunction areas. Rigor did not have any third-party or out-of-the-box integration solutions listed on their site. One minor con is that monitoring on a single URL is limiting; the future scope of web-based content should be considered before committing under this restriction. Rigor starts at $250/month and has a free trial and demo.

Founded as CoWare AG in 2001, Censhare is a digital experience platform that features support for all file formats (including video and 3D), multi-level duplicate checks, automated versioning, an integrated image editor, and rule-based archiving and de-archiving. This tool has a great workflow engine with a focus on customizations and configuring different workflows. The process/workflow design flow is flexible and speeds up time-to-market. Integration explanation: InDesign integration is their strongest feature here. Additionally, The integration with censhare Web Content Management is ideal for apps that are being continuously updated in real-time. Due to the cost, they lost points in Value for Cost in the evaluation criteria segment simply because it’s hefty compared to comparable options with just-as-good feature sets. Censhare starts at $1000/month and does not have a free trial.

Content management, content personalization, and content as a service with creation features for content hubs, landing pages, and apps, as well as tools to sync web experiences with email, PPC, SEM, other web channels. Mura has a strong API, allowing you to use the software as you want and leaving room for much flexibility, scalability, and integration. This was one of the strongest features of the software. Integration explanation: Mura plugins are an update-safe way to extend Mura CMS and add new functionality. Plugins are developed by the third-party themself and can be searched for using “Mura CMS plugin” as a keyword in GitHub. There is no “official” plugin list otherwise. Written in CFML and web-hosted by ColdFusion, Mura lost some Usability points per our evaluation criteria simply because these are “less common” than their alternatives. You may find difficulty gathering a community and finding contractors who work (cheaply) with these conditions. Mura offers custom quotes upon request and has a free demo.