Adobe Experience Manager vs WordPress: which is better for your business?

The charts state a clear winner. WordPress has an over 60% share in the content management system market, and it’s still growing. With a lucrative 43.2% of all websites using WordPress (at the time of updating this article), it is likely that your business didn’t stray away from embracing the platform, too.

Here at NerdCow, we are WordPress supporters. Not blind supporters, though. We consciously evaluate solutions available on the market to advise our clients. To educate ourselves further, we dived into the bottomless Web to find out if Adobe Experience Manager is better than WordPress.

How much does Adobe Experience Manager cost?

WordPress was, is and will always be a free piece of software for everyone to enjoy. It started as an open-source project years ago. It remains licensed under the GNU Public License meaning you can turn it upside down and make it serve any purpose without paying a penny.

The Adobe CMS, on the contrary, is a subscription-based and closed-source software. The price is available upon request and largely depends on the business and the components they wish to implement. We haven’t seen a quote below $100,000 yet, and some businesses pay $250,000 to $1,000,000, and up, annually.

Winner: WordPress

The features of Adobe CMS vs WordPress

Adobe Experience Manager draws a close relationship between the depth of your pocket and its functionality. The price you pay for their cloud-based solution is linked to the feature extensiveness.

Don’t be put off, though. If you can afford Adobe’s solution, it can be moulded into any shape or form thanks to the unlimited number of features and functionalities. Especially when it comes to e-commerce, where it triumphs.

WordPress started off as a blogging platform but ever since has drifted into a much broader territory and proved to be a reliable partner in various scenarios. Calling it the jack of all trades isn’t as gullible as it sounds.

WordPress can be adapted to any project scope. With almost 55,000 free plugins at its side, there are virtually no limits to what it can do. But don’t clap your hands yet, as there are other boundaries that may apply to your use case. It’s best to consult your requirements with an agency which can advise on the best approach. And don’t forget that using WordPress plugins has disadvantages.

Winner: WordPress

AEM vs WordPress – which is easier to use?

In the likelihood that your team often changes the website content, the ease of use is a thin line between being efficient and staying behind the schedule. As a business owner, you need to equip your team with knowledge enabling them to utilise the platform. And that is an additional cost. So how do the systems compare here?

WordPress takes pride in its intuitive dashboard interface. They present available options in simple navigation. With the introduction of WordPress Gutenberg, the drag-and-drop page builder, anyone from your marketing team can build appealing landing pages or update pages as they need.

On the flip side, when you build a bespoke WordPress website, we tailor the entire experience to your ecosystem and daily workflow. A custom website might look nothing like the WordPress you’ve used in the past. It’s easy to build custom features on top of the CMS, but since they don’t exist in the base version of the platform, it will be a new editing experience.

One of the most outstanding features of Adobe Experience Manager is its component building blocks and flexible workflow integration. But there is another side to the coin. As with most products that pack a ton of functionality and features, AEM is not always the easiest CMS to work with. Most of the advanced configurations and integrations require assistance from a web development team and proper training for your staff.

Winner: Draw

Adobe Experience Manager support vs WordPress

WordPress doesn’t have a support department as such. Instead, there is a fantastic community full of experts on any matter. Your team can get help via renowned support forums. They can also find an answer to most questions in WordPress’ flawless documentation. It’s moderated by people all over the World on a daily basis. However, if you seek a vocal interaction with another human, you are out of luck.

Adobe Experience Manager shines when it comes to customer care. Being a paid solution, they provide centralised support for all their clients via various communication channels. Next time your business is in trouble with AEM, pick up a phone and give them a buzz. No more chasing for the answer around on the forums or in Google.

Winner: Adobe Experience Manager

Is Adobe CMS better than WordPress?

Comparing the systems using our four criteria, WordPress wins.

However, there is much more to each CMS which may sway the verdict the other way. It wouldn’t be feasible to objectively judge them, so we encourage you to explore the topic further on your own before making a big commitment.

What is obvious from our experience is that they target different audiences. Thanks to WordPress’ flexibility and lack of a price tag it can accommodate businesses of any size, and most definitely startups or small companies with a limited spend. At the same time, it can still appeal to enterprises. Headless WordPress opens up a myriad of possibilities for more complex workflows.

Adobe Experience Manager is regarded as a leading web experience platform. It aims at enterprise-level customers, who prefer a premium product and don’t mind paying for it.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.