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Adobe Experience Manager vs IBM ECM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

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
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Web Content Management (3rd), Enterprise Social Software (6th), Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) (1st)
IBM ECM
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Adobe Experience Manager is 3.0%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM ECM is 2.2%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

Thomas Becker - PeerSpot reviewer
Impressive integration of customer behavior with an easy setup and okay support
I've worked with all major content management systems. Currently, I work with the leaders such as Adobe Experience Manager, Sitecore, and Acquia Working with big companies, I help them either consider setting up a new content management system or address issues they might have with their existing…
Omar_Ismail - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable solution for automation with high availability
Moving to the cloud with IBM ECM is not allowed. In Saudi Arabia, the cloud infrastructure is still non-operational, potentially for the next two to three months. Static clouds are prevalent among foundational enterprises such as IBM and Oracle. IBM offers its cloud insights, maintaining its cloud ecosystem. IBM's efforts to enhance the user experience within its ECM platform are lacking compared to competitors like OpenText. Progress in implementing new technologies and features seems sluggish. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Adobe Experience Manager is quite a powerful product that you can use to design files and export them."
"I've used several CMS tools, but Adobe Experience Manager is feature-rich, especially for web security and content management. It's more efficient to manage content on Adobe Experience Manager, and you can do a lot with it, such as updating content at any time, and on any platform, even from mobile or tablet. Adobe Experience Manager is still getting updated daily, and it's the best CMS tool in the market for me. I like that you can manage assets in Adobe Experience Manager. I also like that the solution has an analytics dashboard that shows you where the traffic comes from, how many clicks come from a specific location, the number of clicks and impressions, etc. Adobe Experience Manager can be accessed by other teams, for example, the digital media department of my company, so the solution can be used and updated per each team's requirement. Adobe Experience Manager is more than just a web developer tool, as it also allows visibility tracking and has other uses. I also like that the GUI for Adobe Experience Manager is straightforward and catchy. It has separate folders and icons, so using Adobe Experience Manager isn't tough. The solution is straightforward to use and handle."
"It's a complete package. You don't need to look elsewhere for digital marketing."
"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."
"The most valuable features of Adobe Experience Manager include its capability to manage content and create reusable fragments."
"Easy to work with the solution."
"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."
"It is easy to learn. You don't need to be an advanced Java developer."
"The tool is a very stable solution with high availability and no information leakage. It has built-in API integration on-site. You can integrate with other components and applications like SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, etc."
"The content management is all about you as you can make the same content for minimal purpose solutions applications."
"The scalability is a valuable feature, that we're able to display our documents to so many people."
"The vertical scalability, as we can use it across some of our applications."
 

Cons

"Tool-wise, the Adobe Experience Manager support team is not very responsive when the user face issues in AEM as a Cloud Service."
"In comparison to other CMS products, Adobe Experience Manager is missing some capabilities such as proper versioning or a better versioning system and backend connectivity. If something is deleted in AEM, the user cannot recover it. You have to call technical support, and they will need to recover the whole instance. So, it's really difficult. For example, if you delete a page, you cannot recover it. There should be an option to recover it. In AEM, you have to go to the previous state of the instance itself or the virtual machine, and you have to restore everything, which is not good."
"A little bit of background knowledge of coding and website structure is required."
"The licensing model is opaque, and technical support could be improved, especially for smaller companies."
"The licenses are very expensive."
"The solution's pricing and stability could be improved."
"Adobe's technical support is so-so."
"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."
"I would like to see seamless application integration."
"The development platform is not local. For example, you need 100 days in IBM, whereas other platforms, like ServiceNow, need only 20 days."
"I think it's already getting away from Java applets. A lot of our users struggle with keeping up to date with Java versioning, so a lot of the functions they're doing, like printing, emailing, and even some of the viewing, they're struggling with."
"I would recommend not going with ECM 8 and going with FileNet instead. It seems like that is the future of the lower-volume repository. It seems like they are moving away from ECM 8.5 so I think we're going to have some challenges coming up, getting off of that technology."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's really costly."
"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 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."
"Reach out to local IBM partners.​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
44%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
34%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
12%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
While there are many aspects that could be improved, discussing them would require more time. The licensing model is opaque, and technical support could be improved, especially for smaller companies.
What is your primary use case for Adobe Experience Manager?
I've worked with all major content management systems. Currently, I work with the leaders such as Adobe Experience Manager, Sitecore, and Acquia.
What do you like most about IBM ECM?
The tool is a very stable solution with high availability and no information leakage. It has built-in API integration on-site. You can integrate with other components and applications like SAP, Mic...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM ECM?
The product is expensive and has a perpetual license.
What needs improvement with IBM ECM?
The development platform is not local. For example, you need 100 days in IBM, whereas other platforms, like ServiceNow, need only 20 days.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Metra
KeyBank, Standard Chartered Bank, Union Bank, Sistema Tecnol‹gico de Monterrey, Illinois Department of Human Services, UnitedHealth Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Adobe Experience Manager vs. IBM ECM and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.