HCL Digital Experience vs. Umbraco CMS

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
Umbraco CMS
Score 6.7 out of 10
N/A
Umbraco is an open-source .NET Core CMS with over 700,000 active installs worldwide and with more than 200,000 active community members. It was first released on February 16th, 2005, and is still to this day an open-source project backed by a commercial company. To ensure Umbraco is always running the latest technology, the company has aligned with Microsoft's .NET release schedule to always have the Umbraco CMS…
$0
Pricing
HCL Digital ExperienceUmbraco CMS
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Umbraco Free
$0
Umbraco Starter
$53
per month
Umbraco Standard
$320
per month
Umbraco Professional
$860
per month
Umbraco Cloud Enterprise
Custom Pricing
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HCL Digital ExperienceUmbraco CMS
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThe Umbraco CMS and all of its core features are the same across all plans.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HCL Digital ExperienceUmbraco CMS
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.
Umbraco CMS
Chose Umbraco CMS
We preferred Umbraco because it is built with .NET, and most of our team members have proficiency in .NET. Umbraco is open-source so it was free, we could deploy it anywhere - on-premise or cloud. Umbraco had all features which we needed - SEO support, multi-lingual support, …
Chose Umbraco CMS
Someone else selected before I came on board but I was open-minded and willing to give it a try.
Chose Umbraco CMS
The performance of Umbraco is as good as Episerver. The back office in Umbraco is cleaner and more intuitive than Episerver. Sitecore is a good CMS for large projects, but the learning curve for developers and editors is steep.
Chose Umbraco CMS
Umbraco's templating is far superior than WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, but it's update process is WAY behind those platforms. The release schedule of Umbraco is way to often and most releases are to fix something missed in the previous release and not an improvement or new …
Chose Umbraco CMS
  • The learning curve to develop a web application is very short. The time to market is then insignificant.
  • Umbraco is free and open source.
Chose Umbraco CMS
We chose Umbraco because of their technology, and it was better than our previous CMS, Orchard, which was too complicated even for programmers. Orchard was very good but to develop something it required a really strong knowledge of this framework. In Umbraco it seems to be …
Chose Umbraco CMS
We previously used Wordpress, however this was not easy to use, it was a complicated system and was limited in what we could achieve, there was a big outlay in buying bolts on and ensuring the system was safe. We found we where spammed loads, we tried to make it work however …
Chose Umbraco CMS
Both are comparable. We selected Umbraco CMS because it used .NET instead of PHP. I would recommend choosing the CMS that your staff and technical people will be the most comfortable with.
Chose Umbraco CMS
Umbraco provides the best bang-for-the-buck CMS option on a .NET platform for those that cannot afford Sitecore. It is much friendlier to use than Ektron, is free to use, has commercial grade plugins that are not overly expensive, and provides the functionality that most …
Chose Umbraco CMS
Umbraco vs WordPress
Umbraco has more flexibility and customization options, but less features, reliability/stability, and community support.
WordPress offers less customization for data and content, but it is immensely more stable, has better features /plugins, and includes an …
Chose Umbraco CMS
There is not really an alternative when it comes to CMS based on ASP.Net (MVC4 with Razor). There are a few frameworks, like Booststrap; however framework is not content management system.
I will compare it to Drupal, because the second one is well known. Against Drupal, …
Features
HCL Digital ExperienceUmbraco CMS
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
HCL Digital Experience
5.0
Ratings
49% below category average
Umbraco CMS
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
Umbraco CMS
8.5
Ratings
11% above category average
API4.10 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language4.10 Ratings9.00 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
Umbraco CMS
8.0
Ratings
4% above category average
WYSIWYG editor7.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness3.10 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Admin section3.10 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Page templates1.10 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Library of website themes1.10 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design4.00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Publishing workflow1.10 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Form generator3.00 Ratings7.00 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
Umbraco CMS
7.2
Ratings
2% below category average
Content taxonomy1.10 Ratings6.00 Ratings
SEO support2.10 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Bulk management2.10 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions2.10 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Community / comment management2.10 Ratings6.00 Ratings
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HCL Digital ExperienceUmbraco CMS
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Enterprises
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User Ratings
HCL Digital ExperienceUmbraco CMS
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
5.7
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
3.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
2.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
3.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(0 ratings)
4.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
HCL Digital ExperienceUmbraco CMS
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.
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Umbraco is well suited for websites that are looking to do a wide range of activities that require complex technoligies. An example of this is a company with several different products or services. Umbraco would be overkill for simple sites that are mostly static. It is also difficult to find developers who have Umbraco experience, as it's market share is not all that high
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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
  • Quick to learn. For most if cases, developer needs to know Razor coding.
  • Doesn't require back-end programming.
  • Has build in users management (developers, content managers) and members management consoles (users of the site).
  • Clear admin tool (especially in version 7)
  • Fast.
  • Creating code from scratch, so it is easier to create clean code.
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
  • Migration of data between servers. There are tools that you can pay for that help facilitate this, but like any CMS system, there are still some tricks to getting it to work correctly.
  • Running as a Web Project instead of a Web Site. Umbraco does not run compiled code, but instead compiles it on the fly. I find this to cause some performance issues that would otherwise be resolved with a compiled code base.
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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.
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No answers on this topic
Usability
New versions has increased user experience facilitating usability.
Read full review
Umbraco CMS effectively addresses enterprise content management needs. It's quite mature .NET based CMS, standing out as a leader among its competitors. Websites built with Umbraco are blazing fast. Extensive customization capabilities, and user-friendly content publishing interface makes it an ideal choice for businesses looking for a mature CMS solution.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
Occasionally, errors will appear in the admin that make it impossible to work without developer support.
Read full review
Performance
No answers on this topic
Working in the admin panel (adding / reviewing / editing content) is very slow. The public facing site speed is dependent on what the pages are doing and how well the code was written (whether it is optimized for speed).
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Support Rating
We had some issues related with performing and the support was suitable and sucessful.
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Support for Umbraco-owned paid plugins is nonexistent.
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
Online training is often based on older versions of the platform. So, you'll have to fill in the gaps on your own.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Implementation was successful due to Websphere application server used.
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Spend the time to wireframe the content structure prior to diving in. This helps speed the process of implementation and it serves as documentation for end users.
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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
We previously used WordPress, however this was not easy to use, it was a complicated system and was limited in what we could achieve, there was a big outlay in buying bolts on and ensuring the system was safe. We found we where spammed loads, we tried to make it work however after a year we decided to leave WordPress behind. The company did evaluated Adobe but the dev team decided that Umbraco was the best tool to meet our own needs.
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Scalability
No answers on this topic
Without significant development, the product does not scale well.
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.
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  • CMS is free
  • Support form Umbraco HQ is not expensive, can include Courier or other functionality
  • For most cases does not need back end developer
  • For trained Umbraco developers (Razor coding, using admin tool), developing medium site, takes a few weeks max
Read full review
ScreenShots

Umbraco CMS Screenshots

Screenshot of Umbraco 8 backoffice UIScreenshot of Umbraco 8 side by side multilingual editingScreenshot of Umbraco 8 Content AppsScreenshot of Umbraco Cloud project overviewScreenshot of Umbraco Cloud environment overview