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Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP) vs Adobe Experience Manager 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

Acquia Digital Experience P...
Ranking in Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Adobe Experience Manager
Ranking in Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (3rd), Web Content Management (1st), Enterprise Social Software (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) category, the mindshare of Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP) is 2.4%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Adobe Experience Manager is 14.3%, down from 19.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Adobe Experience Manager14.3%
Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP)2.4%
Other83.3%
Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)
 

Featured Reviews

AA
Software Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Site building has become faster and code deployments are managed smoothly across environments
In my opinion, one of the best features Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP) offers is Site Studio. Because for every new site that I have to spin up, it uses the same governed components. It makes it faster, launches with zero brand drift, and editors never need a developer for day-to-day page building. Site Studio helps my team launch sites faster because, for example, when I have a new site from the client that needs to be added as a sub-site into the main branch, I don't have to do much. I can use the existing base and speed up the process by using it. It makes it really easy for me to do that with Site Studio. Sometimes it can be a little tricky, but in my case, it makes the process a little bit faster. Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP) has positively impacted my organization because it eased the process.
Hilax Chamberlain - PeerSpot reviewer
Digital Marketing Manager at Ford Motor Company
Centralized content management has unified our digital channels and delivers consistent experiences
Adobe Experience Manager offers enterprise-level digital assets management and very robust customization, brand value consistency, and omnichannel delivery. It saves development and maintenance time. The digital asset management and omnichannel delivery features have benefited my team by managing our digital assets, ensuring brand consistency, and enabling us to deliver customized content easily to our clients. Organizing and obtaining information from results is beneficial. Strengthening our online experience as a brand is valuable. Easy integration with other Adobe services improves productivity and provides a smooth experience. Adobe Experience Manager has positively impacted my organization by enabling component and page reuse, which reduces application size. It saves manual effort for maintaining all applications, improves traffic, and ensures consistency across all our applications. It provides better security, scalability, and makes our applications more robust.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Content Hub provides a centralized way to manage content."
"One of the most valuable aspects is working with a recognized firm, which sometimes surpasses the commercial and marketing requirements for big customers."
"Every user is almost like a mini administrator, which spoke well to how they were connected globally."
"Acquia ensures we always have the latest releases available, which is a positive step forward in growth."
"Adobe Experience Manager offers several best features, including user-friendliness and a more secure platform than any other content management systems I have worked with."
"I like the profiling and segmentation."
"AEM is a CMS and so much more, it requires more of my skills."
"The integration of customer behavior and website setup is impressive."
"Adobe Experience Manager is quite a powerful product that you can use to design files and export them."
"The most valuable features of Adobe Experience Manager include its capability to manage content and create reusable fragments."
"Adobe Experience Manager is pretty stable."
"It is easy to learn. You don't need to be an advanced Java developer."
 

Cons

"One area for improvement is the way Acquia sizes their platform for customers, which can be quite ambiguous and often results in penalties after doing business."
"Once the site was originally developed, it needed to be transferred onto Acquia, which was quite a task."
"In terms of scalability, Acquia is not suitable for e-commerce; it's more suited for content publishing and marketing websites."
"In Site Factory, the provisioning of environments can take time."
"Adobe Experience Manager needs more optimization. The frequency of components where we have vitals of a page or an app needs to be optimized because these are heavy Java codes along with some AEM developments."
"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."
"Programming model could be improved, it's a monolithic solution."
"This review attempts to sum up the miserable experience of using Ektron from a developer's perspective, a server administrator's perspective, and the actual end content editor's perspective."
"I assigned a rating of eight because there are certain limitations we must consider, and there are restrictions in Adobe Experience Manager that we cannot resolve."
"The licensing plus implementation and maintenance cost is very expensive, making it not suitable for small organizations, and the setup is very complex."
"Bug troubleshooting is challenging and requires developer expertise."
"The pricing and setup cost for Adobe Experience Manager is a bit higher compared to different content management tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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 really costly."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP)?
Acquia licensing works on a yearly subscription basis. The subscription amount is typically covered by the client as part of the agreement. I'm not sure about the current pricing, but it was a year...
What needs improvement with Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP)?
In terms of scalability, Acquia is not suitable for e-commerce; it's more suited for content publishing and marketing websites. Due to security concerns, Acquia and Drupal have not gained strength ...
What is your primary use case for Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP)?
I use Acquia primarily for front-end development and building reusable components. We employ a model approach with the paragraph model to build reusable components and layout builders. We also util...
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?
Adobe Experience Manager performs well overall, though some improvements could be made. Bug troubleshooting is challenging and requires developer expertise. Pricing is higher and not as pocket-frie...
What is your primary use case for Adobe Experience Manager?
Adobe Experience Manager is one of the most powerful and scalable CMS platforms I have ever used. It serves as our central content management tool for managing all our applications and delivering a...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ABInBev, MARS, Bayer, and more.
Metra
Find out what your peers are saying about Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP) vs. Adobe Experience Manager and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.