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Adobe Experience Manager vs Adobe Web Experience Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Adobe Experience Manager
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (5th), Web Content Management (1st), Enterprise Social Software (5th), Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) (1st)
Adobe Web Experience Manage...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Customer Experience Management (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Customer Relationship Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Adobe Experience Manager is designed for Enterprise Content Management and holds a mindshare of 3.3%, up 2.8% compared to last year.
Adobe Web Experience Management, on the other hand, focuses on Customer Experience Management, holds 2.1% mindshare, down 2.4% since last year.
Enterprise Content Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Adobe Experience Manager3.3%
SharePoint11.8%
OpenText Content Management8.4%
Other76.5%
Enterprise Content Management
Customer Experience Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Adobe Web Experience Management2.1%
Genesys Cloud CX3.5%
Salesforce3.3%
Other91.1%
Customer Experience Management
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2771634 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Program Manager /Senior Lead Solution Architech- Product Technology & Gen AI at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Have faced challenges with setup and pricing but have found flexibility and support helpful
Adobe Experience Manager needs more optimization. The frequency of components where we have vitals of a page or an app needs to be optimized because these are heavy Java codes along with some AEM developments. The code language should be optimized or they should have some string functions or web plugins to create a lighter version rather than implementing large amounts of code lines. They should start implementing industry best practices which are not currently offered. We perform our internal development for customization at our own pace. We have multiple frameworks that help us in various ways. We are advancing in terms of AI integration. We have already started our own POCs before Adobe implements these features.
Syed Hasan - PeerSpot reviewer
Specialist Leader at Deloitte
It has a lot of features, and it is very easy to learn, use, integrate, and manage
It would be better if it also supports some styling. Currently, whenever we have to do design for a particular client according to their brand strategy, it takes a good amount of effort. Adobe never focuses on this area. They say that you design your pages, templates, etc. If they can define common components or a common section of the style sheet so that if you want to have a button by default, you can go and just mention the specifications, such as the color code, and those specifications are automatically followed across the whole site or multiple sites according to the brand strategy. Such functionality will be helpful because currently, it takes a lot of effort to manage them separately. They can increase the number of components in terms of combinations. For example, if I take an image and a text component, currently, Adobe gives you just an image and text component. It should provide multiple versions, such as image, text, and video. That's because, on most of the sites, clients always come up with this combination. They want to have a video. They want to have an image, and they want to have some text. There could be options to have any of the following combinations: * The image on the left, the video on the right, and the text at the bottom. * The image on the left, the video on the right, and the text at the top. * The image in the center, the video on top, and the text at the bottom. If they can come up with such permutations and combinations, it will make the work easier. It will help us in putting out the site in a faster way, instead of us having to do the regular development every time. They can come up with some out-of-the-box components to help you drag and drop a video that will be displayed in a particular player. Currently, some of the features are not available, and we have to customize them. They can look into the top video players that are being used by most of the end-users from a location and provide out-of-the-box components. They can look into the features of YouTube, Vimeo, and other top players.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It's a complete package. You don't need to look elsewhere for digital marketing."
"Adobe Experience Manager is one of the best enterprise-level content management and digital experience platforms available."
"I like the native applications such as Adobe Target, Adobe Analytics, and Adobe Experience Platform. Because of these, it's very easy to connect and obtain reports on how my website is doing, how many have visited it, how frequently, etc. The multiple publisher concept is one of the best parts of this solution."
"I like the profiling and segmentation."
"It is easy to learn. You don't need to be an advanced Java developer."
"If you want to use content in a mobile application and you want the content in some other application, you can simply expose it from the CMS to different clients or different systems. It's easy. On top of that, the technology underlying AEM is open-source and is very powerful like Apache Sling and JCR."
"Adobe Experience Manager is a content management system, and we use it to create and manage a website."
"Adobe Experience Manager is one of the best enterprise-level content management and digital experience platforms available."
"Good content and digital management capabilities."
"The templates and components that come out of the box are very helpful, especially in terms of the content fragments and experience fragments. Every client would like to have some templates and components, and they would like to cut down the effort of having to create every component that's customized. So, they try to use them out of the box. Other than that, the user roles and permissions workflows, third-party integrations, and system integration are the features that are very important."
 

Cons

"The licensing plus implementation and maintenance cost is very expensive, making it not suitable for small organizations, and the setup is very complex."
"The licensing plus implementation and maintenance cost is very expensive, making it not suitable for small organizations, and the setup is very complex."
"I haven't seen any areas for improvement in Adobe Experience Manager as it's a full-fledged CMS tool, and Adobe is already working on enhancements for the solution. Adobe is working to make Adobe Experience Manager more valuable and easier to use for any user, even non-technical ones, through multiple components and templates. Day by day, Adobe provides the latest update to Adobe Experience Manager, and if my team needs any particular change, it just needs to be reported to the Adobe team. As Adobe Experience Manager has a broad scope and a lot of use cases and features, it's a solution that requires some time and effort from you in terms of learning, especially if you're implementing it for different clients, which could be an area for improvement."
"Programming model could be improved, it's a monolithic solution."
"The licensing model is opaque, and technical support could be improved, especially for smaller companies."
"Adobe Experience Manager could improve by allowing the reuse of components like a progress bar across multiple pages to make the development process more efficient."
"Tool-wise, the Adobe Experience Manager support team is not very responsive when the user face issues in AEM as a Cloud Service."
"A little bit of background knowledge of coding and website structure is required."
"It would be better if it also supports some styling. Currently, whenever we have to do design for a particular client according to their brand strategy, it takes a good amount of effort. Adobe never focuses on this area. They say that you design your pages, templates, etc. If they can define common components or a common section of the style sheet so that if you want to have a button by default, you can go and just mention the specifications, such as the color code, and those specifications are automatically followed across the whole site or multiple sites according to the brand strategy. Such functionality will be helpful because currently, it takes a lot of effort to manage them separately."
"Unable to handle very large video files."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There's a free trial for one month for Adobe Experience Manager, which you can use for learning purposes, then, after the trial period, you'll need to purchase the license. Adobe offers a few plans for Adobe Experience Manager, but I'm unaware of how much my company is paying."
"It's really costly."
"It's a costly solution. I would rate the price at two out of five on a scale from one to five, where one is the most expensive and five is the most competitive."
"Users have to pay a yearly licensing fee to use the solution, which is highly-priced."
"It's definitely an expensive solution, but it comes with a lot of features and scalability. As compared to other content management systems that we have in the market, AEM is the costliest one. There is no hidden or additional fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise20
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Adobe Experience Manager?
It is easy to learn. You don't need to be an advanced Java developer.
What needs improvement with Adobe Experience Manager?
I think Adobe Experience Manager can be improved by making it simpler to use. I do not have anything specific in mind regarding needed improvements. I chose seven because if the app were simpler, I...
What is your primary use case for Adobe Experience Manager?
My main use case for Adobe Experience Manager is to share papers with colleagues and to edit PDF files. I use Adobe Experience Manager to share or edit documents with my colleagues because we work ...
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Also Known As

Adobe Day CQ5, Ektron Social Marketing, Episerver Content Cloud, Adobe CQ5
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Metra
Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, University of Georgia, The University of Auckland, Dalhousie University, KfW Bankengruppe, IG Group, National Australia Bank, Investec, New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT), Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), Singapore Tourism Board, European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, IBM, OpenText and others in Enterprise Content Management. Updated: January 2026.
879,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.