HCL Digital Experience vs. RWS Tridion Sites

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
HCL Digital Experience
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
HCL Digital Experience is based on the former IBM Web Content Manager and IBM WebSphere Portal products, acquired by HCL Technologies from IBM in late 2018. The product allows the user to create, manage and deliver engaging omnichannel digital experiences to audiences with responsive content, targeted offers, seamlessly integrated applications and consistent branding across channels (web, mobile, and hybrid mobile/web applications and more).N/A
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
RWS Tridion Sites provides web content management capabilities, connecting people, processes, and information across teams, brands, and markets, to deliver impactful online experiences globally. RWS Tridion Sites' DPX platform enables the use of either traditional or headless publishing. It includes advanced features such as automated personalization, multilingual capabilities and Semantic AI. The BluePrinting® technology at the core of RWS Tridion Sites simplifies reuse and…N/A
Pricing
HCL Digital ExperienceRWS Tridion Sites
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HCL Digital ExperienceRWS Tridion Sites
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HCL Digital ExperienceRWS Tridion Sites
Considered Both Products
HCL Digital Experience
Chose HCL Digital Experience
Each of the options had good points and bad points. Building a site with tight integration to HCL Commerce and SAP backend systems was just easier with HCL DX. Security is also a concern and HCL DX provided better fine-grained security across the board. HCL DX also allowed us …
Chose HCL Digital Experience
When compared with CMS products like Adobe Day CQ, Fatwire, Interwoven:
        • IBM Web Content manager is reliable and scalable
        • Better customer service and IBM is keen on helping customers fix any issues with quick turnaround
Chose HCL Digital Experience
IBM Web Content Manager comes with IBM WebSphere Portal. Both [have been] leaders in the portals and content management space for a long time with proven capabilities. Our clients also have other products from the IBM stack and they fit along nicely.
Chose HCL Digital Experience
I used Liferay WCM; the open source system is too customizable such that what you get out of the box is not adequate. However, the portal pages in Liferay blend better with WCM than IBM: This is not always an advantage if you want to build a WCM site separated from portal …
Chose HCL Digital Experience
Adobe Experience Manager,Liferay Portal,Magnolia (V5 and later versions),Adobe CQ
Chose HCL Digital Experience
Magento and Prestashop are E-commerce CMS platforms.
They are used in a different scale of application than WCM.
RWS Tridion Sites
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
Interwoven teamsites, Documentum, Adobe - teamsites and documentum are old and limited. Adobe rocks but I like where I am and Tridion does a lot of the same things. No need to reinvent the wheel or move to a lateral product.
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
It is a nuclear missile compared to the other handguns and knives on the market today. But it also requires nuclear technicians and expertise that a handgun doesn't require. Do you need to decimate your competition and you have the investment capabilities necessary to put a …
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
Tridion is much better for multi-site installations, though Sitecore is a bit easier for content editors to know content types are being used based on visual icon indicators. We've had content editors pick the wrong templates by accident, but Sitecore's visual indicator …
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
Adobe CQ is SDL Tridion main competitor. Sitecore is designed for smaller companys. Adobe CQ is all java and thus has limitations. Sitecore is also all .net and has limitations. Both use a dynamic model and everything is compiled at runtime. SDL Tridion can be published in a …
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
Tridion again seemed to be more enterprise level then EpiServer, EpiServer allowed for faster ramp up time of a intuitive .NET framework, but Tridion seemed to have more tools and overall functionality once the CMS was customized towards the needs of the customer.
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
I did not play a role in selecting this product so I can't say how it stacked up. I do know that Tridion is an improvement over the last CMS.
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
I feel that SDL Tridion's User Interface is to difficult for content authors to understand. I worked with a client that used Tridion for years and she still would get lost in the UI and had to ask questions. There was close to 30% of continual time spent on the project simply …
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
SDL Tridion is far superior to CommonSpot. It is much more user friendly and increases efficiency.
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
I believe the biggest selling factor for SDL was its customer service and it ability to be responsive. We knew that it was a company that was going to be around for a long time and would continue to provide the support that we would need in the long term.
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
Tridion's strength is really hosting multiple websites across development, test stage and production.
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
The decision to purchase Tridion was made at a corporate level removed from the technical teams. Against our previous open source solution, this has been wildly expensive, impossible to find experienced developers for, and has required completely retooling our organization.
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
SDL has a better API and also handles high server load much better. Also, the built-in integrations for translations are more suited for performing lots of translations for many sites. However, Umbraco, like Tridion, has a great community and finding solutions with both …
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
We didn't chose WordPress because can't handle the traffic we generate. Sitecore is what we are currently looking at and it looks like a much better alternative to Tridion.
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
Adobe does a great job in managing sites. Its user interface for authors is intuitive and leaps and bounds better than SDL Tridions new 2013 UI. The ease of install and management makes Adobe CQ a much better product. However, Adobe CQ (AEM) has limitations. It cannot scale as …
Features
HCL Digital ExperienceRWS Tridion Sites
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
HCL Digital Experience
5.0
Ratings
49% below category average
RWS Tridion Sites
9.0
Ratings
11% above category average
Role-based user permissions5.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
HCL Digital Experience
4.1
Ratings
68% below category average
RWS Tridion Sites
9.1
Ratings
18% above category average
API4.10 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language4.10 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
HCL Digital Experience
2.9
Ratings
90% below category average
RWS Tridion Sites
8.5
Ratings
10% above category average
WYSIWYG editor7.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness3.10 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Admin section3.10 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Page templates1.10 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Library of website themes1.10 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design4.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Publishing workflow1.10 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Form generator3.00 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
HCL Digital Experience
1.9
Ratings
117% below category average
RWS Tridion Sites
7.6
Ratings
3% above category average
Content taxonomy1.10 Ratings9.00 Ratings
SEO support2.10 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Bulk management2.10 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions2.10 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Community / comment management2.10 Ratings3.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
HCL Digital ExperienceRWS Tridion Sites
Small Businesses
Bloomreach - The Agentic Platform for Personalization
Bloomreach - The Agentic Platform for Personalization
Score 8.6 out of 10
ManageWP
ManageWP
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
Bloomreach - The Agentic Platform for Personalization
Bloomreach - The Agentic Platform for Personalization
Score 8.6 out of 10
Enterprises
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
OpenText Web CMS
OpenText Web CMS
Score 5.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HCL Digital ExperienceRWS Tridion Sites
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.9
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
5.7
(0 ratings)
6.3
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
HCL Digital ExperienceRWS Tridion Sites
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM Web Content Manager is well suited for intranet employee portals, websites which drive extensive marketing content, and e-commerce sites to provide product images and details. It cannot be used a document management system to store large volumes of data as it's purely a web content management system.
Read full review
SDL Tridion works well for organizations with a large website with a lot of content to continuously create and manage. The use of page templates and component presentations makes creating new pages fairly straightforward. It can be a little cumbersome when it comes to trying to "break from the norm" and build web pages that are outside of the template-driven format; however, there are ways around this to create pages that break away from the normal page-template format of the website. In this regard, SDL Tridion can be pretty flexible, allowing us to create a lot of custom functionality to keep up with constantly changing web trends.
Read full review
Pros
  • Well designed web content management system with clearly defined relationships between the various web content objects such as sites, site areas, authoring templates, presentation templates, library resources, components, web content objects, etc.
  • Can create robust content creation and publishing workflows with workflow stages and workflow actions
  • Web Content can be rendered on multiple devices and browsers in a responsive and adaptive manner.
Read full review
  • Makes it easy to spin up a new site quickly
  • Allows for numerous users to work on the same site without conflicting with each other's changes
  • Allows you to unpublish changes or revert to old versions if you make a mistake
  • Allows you to time publishing actions (for example, you can set it to happen overnight)
Read full review
Cons
  • Search is not working well. We could not get it work even we worked it with IBM support.
  • Java Applet in Ephox editor is pain. You have to watch that you update your Java version correctly or You cannot edit anything. This might work somehow on enterprise environment with tight workstation configuration. I think that Java Applet editor is the worst part of IBM WCM
  • IBM WCM needs lot of capacity on database and appserver.
Read full review
  • If you are hoping to orbit the planet with a CMS, Tridion is built to leave the solar system. It is a very very powerful solution built for very serious enterprise businesses in hope of robust capabilities, which could be good or bad.
  • Supporting business users is a hefty lift and requires significant training and regular retraining, and support.
  • It's a niche solution that originally came out of Europe and was largely unknown in America. But today it's growing in popularity across the United States.
  • Finding capable support, and developers specializing in Tridion capabilities isn't always easy. And 8 years ago it was nearly impossible, involving finding European developer support shops in order to get the assistance needed. This is changing though and American developer firms are becoming more widely available.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
IBM products always moves forward to adapt to new requirements and technologies. I have used versions 6, 6.1, 7 and 8 of IBM WCM, and I know IBM is ready to revamp the tool based on emerging needs, and still provide the capabilities to migrate your old system to the newer versions.
Read full review
I am giving this a semi-high rating because we have already got Tridion up and running and we are still in the process of moving the sites over to Tridion. It is unlikely we will be moving things to a new CMS AGAIN in the near future as the cost to get Tridion was high.
Read full review
Usability
New versions has increased user experience facilitating usability.
Read full review
The editor user interface is very user friendly and in-site editing makes simple updates fast and easy. The extensibility of Tridion is a big plus and the ability to add our own options into the default Tridion interface helps us integrate with external systems. Finally, the user permissions and security system helps us deploy it within our large organization.
Read full review
Support Rating
We had some issues related with performing and the support was suitable and sucessful.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Implementation was successful due to Websphere application server used.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Each of the options had good points and bad points. Building a site with tight integration to HCL Commerce and SAP backend systems was just easier with HCL DX. Security is also a concern and HCL DX provided better fine-grained security across the board. HCL DX also allowed us to use multiple technologies and maintain a cohesive feel across everything.
Read full review
Interwoven teamsites, Documentum, Adobe - teamsites and documentum are old and limited. Adobe rocks but I like where I am and Tridion does a lot of the same things. No need to reinvent the wheel or move to a lateral product.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Unique, easy and user friendly solution that has increased business benefits such as a single repository for all company's products. It provides a better customer service.
  • A huge network of offices managed centrally increasing SEO, marketing, business and clients.
  • Employee efficiency reducing time through a single automated solution.
  • Internal communication within the company has been helped by Web Content Manager as a way of transparency, shared repository and networking with the goal of bringing teams and colleagues together.
Read full review
  • SDL is a very complex system. Creating custom components by external vendors turned out to be expensive.
  • The learning curve is very slow, so training takes a lot of time and cost.
  • The revamped corporate site looks clean, modern, and is mobile-friendly.
Read full review
ScreenShots