Magnolia vs. RWS Tridion Sites

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Magnolia
Score 8.1 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Founded in Switzerland in 1997, Magnolia is a CMS used to build composable digital experiences. Magnolia helps create fully integrated customer experiences and speeds up digital delivery of content. Magnolia boasts 480 enterprise customers, thousands of Community Edition deployments, and more than 200 certified Magnolia Partners around the world. They further state that their enterprise customers include Sanofi, Generali, the Atlassian, The New York Times, Harley Davidson, and Union…
$3,500
per month
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
MagnoliaRWS Tridion Sites
Editions & Modules
DX Core
$3500
per month
DX Cloud
$6000
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
MagnoliaRWS Tridion Sites
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
MagnoliaRWS Tridion Sites
Considered Both Products
Magnolia
Chose Magnolia
Magnolia DXP offers similar or more capability compared to the other platform, while much easier to implement. For example, Adobe Experience Manager tend to be more monolithic in nature, heavier footprint compared to Magnolia. Hence when implementing a DXP, it is much faster to …
Chose Magnolia
The Broadleaf CMS was quite basic and was not a full fledged CMS and hence we had to chose Magnolia to address the business requirement for our B2B platform
Chose Magnolia
I need to specific and say I've had experiences of these platform from previous roles, they were not considered by Good Things Foundation.

My experience is that Magnolia delivers the power of these high end platforms but is generally more accessible to get going and develop …
Chose Magnolia
Magnolia is in a league of it's own vs the other platforms I have previously used. Rather than being a turnkey solution Magnolia puts the power into the hands of your company and developers allowing you to build anything you can imagine. Being a DXP rather than a CMS Magnolia …
Chose Magnolia
Magnolia is not as costly as other enterprise grade platforms and is easier to deploy, more reliable and less resource hungry. It's often also easier to use and certainly easier to use than it's Open Source counterparts. It also manages content in a much more structured manner …
Chose Magnolia
I've used several CMSs like AEM and EpiServer, and comparatively, they all excel at different things. Magnolia is the best to develop for/against. Episerver has the best/most fluid UI in terms of content editing, and the overall admin experience AEM is just all around sucks.
Chose Magnolia
Similar to how one might choose a specific programming language to solve a specific problem, Magnolia has its place among the rest, depending on the use case. While it does not have the most pleasant user experience compared to others, its customization options are streets …
Chose Magnolia
Cost was prohibitive for SiteCore. We liked the support that Magnolia gives us in terms of being an actual Company. We love open-source, but have had problems with Umbraco in the past in terms of upgrade paths etc.
Chose Magnolia
Of all the ones we looked at that met our requirements Magnolia was clearly the best value for money and had a solid background that you could trust and that could take care of you in case of problems.
Chose Magnolia
For us, Magnolia is the best option for our needs. FirstSpirit by eSpirit is missing on the list. We are moving away from FirstSpirit as it feels outdated. Wix has better usability, but is not suitable for enterprise. WordPress I would only recommend for private projects. …
Chose Magnolia
Putting all together: capabilities, support, community and price... Magnolia is the best combination, maybe not the best on each aspect, but for sure in the combination
Chose Magnolia
I choose Magnolia in front of everyone since it is one of the content managers that best adapts to all the modifications that are required by businesses
Chose Magnolia
Magnolia gains in ease of content creation but loses in documentation and practical examples for developers.
Chose Magnolia
One of the most important points that magnolia has over other products is the possibility of extending its functionalities. Being open-source, it is possible to inspect how everything is done and replicate it to change functionalities. In this way, many features that customers …
Chose Magnolia
When developing, I find Magnolia is better in many different ways, mainly in the consistency of how to create new components and page templates.
Chose Magnolia
I use magnolia because my client asked for it in the beginning because he had a long history of using magnolia for years. I think magnolia is middle-hight rated in the stack of similar products. Maybe it's not very well-publicized and it needs better marketing techniques or …
Chose Magnolia
Good documentation and examples Online demos to mess with and test functionalities Easier to install Better knowledge about the product Ability to centralize content of the same type in apps Better performance in some scenarios Better usability: In the newest versions, …
Chose Magnolia
Magnolia is a good competitor in the DXP scenario: Reduced costs License costs are contained, what brings customers the ability to develop their business with a minor impact Open source platform It helps customers to adapt the platform to some special needs DXP …
Chose Magnolia
Magnolia has all flexible capabilities that offer the user the best cloud marketing experience and great functionalities for effective data analytics generation. Reporting through Magnolia tools is also another important aspect since it allows the production of effective …
Chose Magnolia
Pricing was the major concern for us and we found this to be our option.
Chose Magnolia
Proximus was using Magnolia when I started working.
Chose Magnolia
Used CMS: Hybris CQ5/Adobe CMS AEM
Chose Magnolia
Magnolia has an automatic, and speedy social media publication extension, which spread content to all social sites. Also, the insertion of extensions and plugins is more effective when on Magnolia against the opponents. Magnolia admits and adopts diversity, hence, it is a …
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
MagnoliaRWS Tridion Sites
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Magnolia
8.0
Ratings
1% below category average
RWS Tridion Sites
9.0
Ratings
11% above category average
Role-based user permissions8.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Magnolia
8.1
Ratings
7% above category average
RWS Tridion Sites
9.1
Ratings
18% above category average
API8.50 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language7.70 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Magnolia
8.0
Ratings
4% above category average
RWS Tridion Sites
8.5
Ratings
10% above category average
WYSIWYG editor8.50 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness8.40 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Admin section8.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Page templates8.90 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Library of website themes7.00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design8.50 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Publishing workflow7.50 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Form generator6.90 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Magnolia
7.5
Ratings
2% above category average
RWS Tridion Sites
7.6
Ratings
3% above category average
Content taxonomy7.60 Ratings9.00 Ratings
SEO support7.20 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Bulk management7.60 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions7.90 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Community / comment management6.90 Ratings3.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
MagnoliaRWS Tridion Sites
Small Businesses
ManageWP
ManageWP
Score 10.0 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
Storyblok
Storyblok
Score 9.4 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
MagnoliaRWS Tridion Sites
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(0 ratings)
9.9
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.1
(0 ratings)
6.3
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.5
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
MagnoliaRWS Tridion Sites
Likelihood to Recommend
If you need a business CMS that brings along a good amount of features and also give you the chance to develop features on your own, Magnolia would be a good choice. Even if you have not the fitting infrastructure around, Magnolia provides you different ways like SAAS oder PAAS. If you have to review your code our have any problems the team behind will helps in a short time. Without using the connectors it is not so easy to connect special functionalities like Marketing tools or optimization tools. The DAM is very slow if you have an huge amount of documents and pictures to store for your website - you have to add an external DAM.
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.
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Pros
  • Use of YAML to define content models with code.
  • Versatility of defining actions for custom handlers.
  • Reloading classes when code is modified in a local dev environment is nice. While it doesn't seem to work when changes extend beyond the method body (i.e., adding methods), it remediates the pain of long startup times.
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
  • As a developer the learning curve is long, you can start developing relatively quickly but getting to know the platform in depth takes time.
  • Having a history of modifications not only at the page level but also at the Content Apps level would be very useful.
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  • 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.
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Likelihood to Renew
Magnolia is an innovative CMS, for example it is possible to use the ipad to manage the contents. Magnolia’s team works hard to improve the product; the community is small but active and the support for the enterprise version is good. Magnolia’s team asks the users what they think and what they need, and the new functionalities planned for Magnolia 5.3 are very exciting for example the content personalization.
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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.
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Usability
There are a ton of small things that could make this CMS great Off the top of my head... 1) Better navigation between a component and its corresponding node in the jcr ( devs often have to flip between a page and a spot in the jcr even though there could be a button to take you from a page/component in the pages app to its location in the JCR) 2) Why does a content editor need to open the page to edit the page properties? They could just as easily edit the dialog from the tree view if they have many pages to touch, and it would save them time by not having to render the page.
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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.
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Performance
It's a lean and performant platform. You don't need to put reverse proxy servers in front of it to speed it up (although that does make it go even quicker) as there are various layers of caching built in to the application. While it's a little cryptic, the internal caching system is actually quite configurable and can be tuned to the right sort of content.
Often what tends to surprise many an IT manager is that you can run it on relatively modest hardware. We've often been met with "are you sure ?" but the reality is that it doesn't need a whole lot of horsepower.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
You always get an answer based on your SLA. But you always get a solution. That's the successfactor in this case. To often i was frustrated about people in a company without even a clue what there product is about or how to solve a problem. Magnolia's Support Team does a very good job and try to help you in most of the cases
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Magnolia DXP offers similar or more capability compared to the other platform, while much easier to implement. For example, Adobe Experience Manager tend to be more monolithic in nature, heavier footprint compared to Magnolia. Hence when implementing a DXP, it is much faster to build using Magnolia, at a much lower TCO. The other platform like Kontent.ai and Strapi are pure headless platform and offer lesser features. What really make Magnolia different is the APAC team, who are all out to support their client in the implementation, ensuring their client maximize their platform and the project implementation is successful. This is some thing that is not experienced when using other platform(s)
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
  • We have placed web content management in the hands of the organisation than retained it within the technology team.
  • We were able to quickly move to MVP and release and we are now focussed on moving the platform forward at some pace whilst not being burdened with BAU work inside the technology team as so much as self-service to trained organisational users
  • The use of the SAAS/PASS has inbuilt business resiliency as specialist work and aspects such as underlying security is done by Magnolia and we are able to focus internal effort on building out the platform.
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  • 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

Magnolia Screenshots

Screenshot of the Magnolia App Launcher, used to switch between workspaces and manage pagesScreenshot of the customer experience. This brings together content and audiovisual digital assets to form more compelling digital experiences.Screenshot of global search that brings relevant content, no matter where it resides.Screenshot of customizing the ecommerce experience.Screenshot of Magnolia Orchestratem where users can manage and track campaignsScreenshot of the WYSIWYG page editor