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Adobe Experience Manager vs WordPress 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
Ranking in Web Content Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (8th), Enterprise Social Software (6th), Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) (1st)
WordPress
Ranking in Web Content Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Web Content Management category, the mindshare of Adobe Experience Manager is 13.0%, down from 15.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WordPress is 14.2%, down from 14.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web 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…
RICARDO FILIPO - PeerSpot reviewer
Very customizable, and forms the base for most websites on the Internet
I work in the community, and I'm part of a team making the core of WordPress. We are responsible for creating how WordPress will change in the next version. The main point is concurrency. For example, we have Squarespace, Wix, and a lot of other frameworks with the same features and functionalities. All those frameworks are going to a completely no-code experience. Anyone can then have a website. You're just dragging, dropping, and writing texts very easily. It's like using Facebook. WordPress comes from a node way. There was a time when the webmaster needed to code in HTML, PHP, or some language to have a website. It has changed over time, but we still have some old things inside the backend of WordPress. We are currently removing all those old things. Day by day, WordPress will be easier to use and more user-friendly. WordPress needs to improve its usability. That way, it will be easier to create websites, e-commerce, CRM, platforms for education, or anything else. It would be good if WordPress improved its AI. For example, if you have a blog, the blog will be auto-writing. I'm working on this, and we have some solutions. Another feature should be the identification of users. It's related to AI. For example, if you go to a website like Facebook or another social network, it's possible to learn everything about you if you go to that place. WordPress has something like that, but it's not so deep. I am personally working on that feature. Anyone coming to a WordPress website will be identified. It's tricky because we have a kind of privacy to follow, so we need to balance both things.

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 a content management system, and we use it to create and manage a website."
"The most valuable features of Adobe Experience Manager include its capability to manage content and create reusable fragments."
"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."
"The integration of customer behavior and website setup is impressive."
"Easy to work with the solution."
"I like the profiling and segmentation."
"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."
"The product provides capabilities to build modern websites and can be used for various aspects of services."
"The standout feature is its high degree of customization. Creating user-friendly, easily maintainable websites is a breeze, especially with the convenient admin access."
"I like the tool's plugins."
"The themes are useful. They change the look and feel of a website with just one click."
"Good for rapidly turning around all the elements required for online sales funnels."
"I like how it integrates graphics and words, and more generally, the way people can develop the choices of spaces for different websites."
"The best feature in WordPress is Elementor. It lets you easily create one-page landing sites."
"The best feature of WordPress is its flexibility."
 

Cons

"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."
"The latest trend is to render everything in the client-side framework. For example, SPA or single page application. This is a feature that needs improvement. The cloud deployment pipeline needs to be improved as well."
"A little bit of background knowledge of coding and website structure is required."
"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."
"Adobe's technical support is so-so."
"Programming model could be improved, it's a monolithic solution."
"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."
"The licenses are very expensive."
"I would like to have the ability to customize the whole WordPress installation. WordPress comes with a number of core features. I would love to be able to remove those I'm not using at the moment."
"The system should be more informative."
"The backend development process needs improvement."
"WordPress needs to adapt to new technologies. It also needs to improve scalability. We don't have optimized content and plugins in the tech stack."
"It may be useful to have a downloadable program that you could have on your desktop that allows you to create and maintain the program while offline."
"It could be a little bit easier to use."
"I would like to see the addition of social media integration features in WordPress."
"I would like to see a new UI."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's really costly."
"Users have to pay a yearly licensing fee to use the solution, which is highly-priced."
"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."
"WordPress is a free CMS. Installing WordPress is free, although the domain will cost money."
"Regarding pricing, we have the flexibility to utilize certain themes and plugins across multiple websites for a single one-time cost. However, there are instances where themes come with only one activation key, limiting their use to a single website. Certain plugins and themes come with a significant cost, with the least expensive theme priced at around $120. Additionally, plugins typically range from $80 to $90 per year for a subscription. Consequently, it can be considered somewhat costly in this regard. Conversely, when it comes to WordPress, there is no expenditure involved."
"WordPress is an open-source product, meaning it is available for free."
"WordPress is a free solution."
"WordPress is a free CMS. Installing WordPress is free. The domain and pushing data costs money."
"It is an open-source platform. It doesn't need any license."
"As per my understanding, WordPress is an open-source product, owing to which there are no requirements to make any payments towards its licensing costs."
"Set up cost is nothing. Pricing is free. You need to pay a cost only for the domains, hosting, and to buy themes."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
47%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
14%
University
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

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 WordPress?
The best feature of WordPress is its flexibility.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WordPress?
The cost of a project using WordPress varies widely and depends on the specific requirements. It can range from as low as $500 to as high as $3,000 or more, depending on the complexity and scope of...
What needs improvement with WordPress?
WordPress could use improvement in terms of optimization, especially for large websites with extensive databases and many images. When clients want to build projects like Amazon on WordPress, it te...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Metra
TIBCO Software, Code for America, Crosswise, Essio Shower, AdLemons, Applied Geographics
Find out what your peers are saying about Adobe Experience Manager vs. WordPress and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.