Why you should choose Contentstack over Adobe Experience Manager

Highlights

Learn how Contentstack outperforms Adobe Experience Manager:

• Ease of use: Build and deliver engaging, personalized experiences with ease; no technical required
• Flexibility: Break free from vendor lock-in by choosing best-of-breed technologies
• Scalability: Cloud-native design for effortless growth
• Cost-effectiveness: Lower initial costs with high ROI
• Time-to-market: Quicker deployment, faster innovation

Experience the seamless, scalable and cost-effective solution with Contentstack.

Customers' digital points are shifting lightning-fast, and your customers can navigate different channels with a single click. Connected and omnichannel experiences, speed and convenience are features that set your website apart from others. They’re not nice to have but are a must-have for every business. That’s why most businesses rely on a composable digital experience platform (DXP).

These DXPs deliver exceptional journeys, helping you meet the right audience at the right time and place. Using a composable DXP, you can integrate a digital asset management (DAM) system, content management and customer experience management. Among the top DXPs are Contentstack and Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). 

What is Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)?

Adobe Experience Manager is Adobe’s legacy content management system (CMS). AEM can provide much-needed structure to your content, reducing the complexity of managing it and saving your business time. 

The CMS helps you personalize marketing, communications, data and analytics to deliver more relevant experiences.

Due to its features, AEM enhances brand visibility and customer engagement. However, AEM has a steeper learning curve and would cost more. Many companies choose Contentstack over AEM because its headless CMS provides content and asset management across different channels. 

What is Contentstack?

Contentstack is a headless CMS and a DXP that helps you create and deliver exceptional digital experiences at scale using best-of-breed technology. Unlike traditional CMS platforms, Contentstack separates content creation from its presentation layer. This lets your developers build innovative applications with any front-end technology. Contentstack accesses your content via an application programming interface (API). The platform offers superior flexibility and maintains a consistent experience across various digital channels, including websites, mobile apps and IoT devices.

Contentstack's user-friendly interface helps your content authors collaborate and streamline workflows. Its features include version control, custom content modeling and a library of plugins and integrations with top tools. The API-first architecture helps you distribute content across different platforms. 

The Contentstack advantage

Ease of use

Contentstack offers a user-friendly interface, simplifying content creation and management. With a headless CMS and composable DXP, your writers can find their way around the straightforward dashboard to focus on what they do best—writing great content—without worrying about the complicated technical details. Due to ease of use, team members can speed up content creation, increasing productivity. Contentstack is a go-to choice for many teams looking for an accessible solution.

Flexibility and customization

Contentstack's headless approach creates a customized tech stack that aligns with your needs. As it separates content management from presentation, you can choose the best tools for your business requirements—from a frontend framework to specialized analytics platforms. 

Companies using other headless CMS often limit themselves to specific workflows and processes. Contentstack's modular architecture integrates and replaces with other components, allowing your team to innovate.

Scalability and performance

Contentstack makes your website scalable. When you grow, you need infrastructure to process more information, accommodate more users and provide more content. As a cloud-first CMS, Contentstack provides exceptional performance so you and your business processes can scale.

Cost-effectiveness

Contentstack is often cheaper than other headless CMS options. When you consider the total cost of ownership, Contentstack is the clear winner. With AEM, you face traditional licensing fees and ongoing maintenance costs. You need a lot of technical expertise. All these factors can add up over time. However, Contentstack offers a flexible pricing model that reduces your upfront expenses.

Return on investment

Contentstack integrates with third-party tools, providing a better return on investment (ROI). The high speed to market, increased engagement metrics, and flexibility to adapt to market changes equate to monetary benefits. This makes Contentstack appealing to those seeking to improve their online presence and overcome the financial challenge.

Key features of Contentstack

API-first content management approach

Using Contentstack's API-first approach, your developers can work with content across various platforms. The platform delivers content and fits into different front-end technologies. Building through the API-first approach, you can architect compelling digital experiences while avoiding shortcomings of a traditional CMS platform.

MACH architecture

Contentstack uses the MACH principles to provide a contemporary architecture to make your website more responsive and progressive. With microservices, you gain scalability and become free from your monolithic architectures. The cloud-native architecture enhances your performance and resilience, enabling you to meet market needs.

Developer centric features

Contentstack enhances your developer’s experience by providing tools and resources to streamline workflows and increase productivity. Offerings like SDKs in various programming languages, detailed documentation and a user-friendly interface allow your development teams to build your website as you like. Contentstack allows developers to work and apply their skills to create innovative solutions.

Marketing agility

Contentstack's integration features allow your marketing teams to adjust your campaigns and content strategies. Thanks to its flexible content delivery, marketers can roll out targeted initiatives across different channels without depending on developers. An agile website helps you react to emerging trends and customer feedback.

Support for rapid development

With Contentstack setup, supporting the development cycles is easy, helping your teams roll out changes. Features such as version control, staging environment or continuous delivery allow you to keep up with the changing digital pace. The focus on rapid development allows you to innovate.

Case study: How did Contenstack improve the publishing speed and the engagement rate of Dawn Foods?

Dawn Foods teamed up with Contentstack for their MACH digital setup, allowing content managers to update and publish content without needing developers. Before 2019, orders were handled manually, so they wanted a flexible and scalable online platform. Contentstack was a great fit, making content updates and publishing fast and easy. Thanks to the platform, publishing speed jumped by 80%, and the company rolled out six major releases within six months. Over half of Dawn’s artisanal bakery customers switched to buying online, with many trying out new products. The marketing team can now offer personalized customer experiences without writing any code.

After using Contentstack, Gireesh Sahukar, Vice President of Digital at Dawn Foods, said:

“I have worked with content in other systems such as Adobe, Kentico, Sitecore and more. It was pretty painful. To think that my team is managing all the content without needing technical skills whatsoever is astonishing.”

Read the complete case study here.

Difference between Contentstack and Adobe Experience Manager

User-friendliness and learning curve

Contentstack is easy to use and doesn’t need technical knowledge, helping non-technical users navigate the software’s interface. Even though AEM has many features, managing the platform requires more time and technical knowledge. The difference makes Contentstack the first choice for your development team. 

Flexibility and customization

Contentstack provides a headless CMS approach where the content management layer is split from front-end delivery. This flexible approach allows you to use different technologies based on your business needs. As AEM is part of the Adobe system, you integrate only the tools and technologies that Adobe offers. This makes customization more challenging and resource-heavy.

Scalability

Contentstack's cloud-native design makes scaling easy, helping you handle more content and customer traffic as you grow. While AEM can scale, its monolithic setup needs more planning and resources to scale your business.

Cost and ROI

When considering the total cost of ownership, Contentstack is a budget-friendly option. Its flexible pricing structures lower initial investments and upkeep costs and deliver a higher ROI. In contrast, AEM's licensing fees and extra costs associated with technical management can increase your financial burden.

Time-to-market

Contentstack shortens the time it takes to deliver new digital experiences and applications. Content deployment is faster because of the platform’s design and a well-supported API. However, AEM increases your development cycles and the speed at which content gets to the market.

FAQs

What does an Adobe Experience Manager do?

Adobe Experience Manager controls your content and digital assets across different touchpoints, supports content creation and manages your assets.

What is AEM used for?

AEM manages and delivers digital content across websites, mobile apps and social media platforms. It integrates with other Adobe products to enhance your marketing strategies.

Is Adobe Experience Manager a CRM?

AEM is not a CRM; it’s a CMS and DAM system. However, it can integrate with other CRM platforms.

Learn more

In today's fast-moving digital world, the right platform is key to success. Adobe Experience Manager is strong in content management, but Contentstack’s headless CMS outclasses AEM in flexibility, scalability and savings. With MACH architecture, Contentstack creates engaging digital experiences.

If you’re ready to shake up your digital strategy and want to understand how Contentstack can help, talk to us.