dotCMS vs. Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)
Why choose dotCMS over Adobe Experience Manager
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) is one of the most well-known enterprise content management systems, known for its feature-rich ecosystem and integration with the Adobe Cloud. But with that complexity comes cost, steep learning curves, and operational overhead that don’t serve all businesses equally.
dotCMS is designed to empower developers and marketers alike - with a faster time to market, greater composability, and significantly lower total cost of ownership.
DOTCMS HIGHLIGHTS
Here’s the TL;DR of why companies choose dotCMS over Adobe Experience Manager
Flexible Architecture & Deployment
AEM is a traditional, monolithic, closed-source platform that requires deep Adobe expertise. Its limited composability and vendor lock-in hinder modern IT agility, and brand consistency and personalization require more manual development efforts.
dotCMS goes beyond headless to offer a universal approach with powerful APIs for content, layout, and personalization - supporting both headless and traditional delivery in one platform. It easily integrates with modern front-end frameworks and external systems of your choice - no vendor lock-in, no rigid stack requirements.
Faster Time to Market & Usability
AEM is known for its steep learning curve, especially for non-technical users. Content teams remain dependent on developers for most changes and updates. AEM’s rigid workflows can slow down approval cycles and go-to-market speed.
dotCMS offers a Universal Visual Editor with drag-and-drop page builders, inline editing, and block editor authoring for marketers. UVE allows real-time previewing and editing across SPAs, PWAs, and other headless apps. Workflow Management makes collaboration seamless with customizable, visual workflows for content approvals and governance.
Scale With Your Organization
AEM has heavy infrastructure requirements and complex on-prem or cloud-managed deployments. Performance tuning with AEM can be resource-intensive and reliant on high-cost infrastructure. Proprietary licensing, closed APIs, and suite lock-in can limit your ability to evolve over time.
dotCMS has proven enterprise-grade scalability to handle 50,000+ API calls per second with sub-5ms response times in production environments. Built-in dotCDN accelerates content delivery with global cache coverage. dotCMS is used by global brands to streamline digital experiences across multilingual, multi-brand environments.
Low TCO
AEM licensing starts in the six-figure range and can easily exceed $1M/year for full-suite access. It requires extensive professional services for setup, integrations, and ongoing support. AEM also comes bundled with features that often go unused, inflating costs without adding value.
dotCMS offers transparent pricing with no hidden fees for core features like content types, users, domains, or API calls. Self-hosted or cloud-native options allow for flexible deployment and cost-effective scaling. We offer a free Business Source License Community Edition for full testing and proof-of-concept work.
FAQs
But I have a few questions…
I’m already using Adobe Experience Manager, is it easy to switch to dotCMS?
Definitely. We’ve done many migrations from AEM to dotCMS. You’ll work hand-in-hand with our implementation team or a dotCMS certified partner to scope out the project and ensure a smooth transition to dotCMS. Through our Business Source License (BSL) offering, dotCMS is easy to test before purchasing.
Honestly, are there areas where Adobe Experience Manager is better than dotCMS?
Yeah, Adobe Experience Manager does offer some advantages, particularly for very large enterprises needing deep integrations with other Adobe products and highly customized digital experiences. But dotCMS stands out by offering impressive enterprise-grade capabilities with far greater flexibility, faster implementation times, and a significantly lower total cost of ownership - making it the smarter, more agile choice for most organizations.
Are there specific feature differences to highlight between dotCMS and Adobe Experience Manager?
When you’re doing your evaluation, it’s important to consider how features are built and how well they fit into your existing tech stack. Both dotCMS and AEM have extensive feature lists to fit your unique use case.
Explore how dotCMS stacks up against Adobe Experience Manager
| Features | dotCMS | AEM | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture & Approach | dotCMS is a modern, API-first headless CMS, universally developable across frameworks and channels, with GraphQL and REST support, ElasticSearch, and advanced caching for high performance. | AEM offers a traditional or “monolithic” approach, meaning the front and back end are tightly integrated, forcing users to use plugins for any framework customization. | ||
| User Friendliness | dotCMS is built with both technical and non-technical users in mind, has an intuitive UI with expert tooling, and our Universal Visual Editor allows anyone to create and manage pages. | AEM’s technology focus often sacrifices user-friendliness, making it difficult to use. Without in-house expertise, hiring a consultant adds costs, and managing permissions and workflow controls is complex for any organization. | ||
| Scalability | Perfect for mid-market and enterprise companies, dotCMS’ multi-tenant architecture and core functionality can be deployed headlessly and scale across teams and projects without the overhead and costs of AEM. | AEM has a high cost and heavy infrastructure. Expanding these capacities requires more overhead costs for servers and maintenance. | ||
| Cost | dotCMS has clear and predictable pricing and keeps your total ownership cost low. | AEM licensing starts in the six-figure range and can easily exceed $1M/year for full-suite access. It requires extensive professional services for setup, integrations, and ongoing support that add to the total cost of ownership. | ||
| Support | Customer obsession is deeply rooted in our values and culture at dotCMS. We partner with our customers to ensure they are successful. | AEM support relies on self-service tools and partners to provide first-line support, which is typical of working with a large vendor like Adobe. |
Case Studies
You're in Good Company
From Fortune 500 brands, government agencies, to higher education, our powerful and flexible CMS delivers proven business results across a wide range of industries and organizations.
A global leader in HVAC markets decreases operational costs and increases marketing effectiveness by replatforming multiple brands to dotCMS
A global leader in air conditioning and refrigeration markets partnered with Nebbiu to launch all their brands' websites on dotCMS under one multi-tenant content management solution.
Before dotCMS, our client was wasting a lot of money struggling to maintain numerous technologies that hosted each of their companies under different environments. Implementing dotCMS has given them the freedom to focus more on their bottom line rather than juggling outdated software and constant bug fixes. dotCMS was the perfect solution to simplifying their complex needs.
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