Selecting the right CMS is not an easy task with; there is in excess of 1,000 vendors in the very dynamic CMS marketplace. Unfortunately industry analysts tend to evaluate too many vendors for the needs of most buyers. Consider CMS Watch which has 42 systems in their Web CMS Report and Gartner with 18 vendors in their recently updated Magic Quadrant. How do you narrow it down even further, so you can get to a shortlist of vendors you should examine closer and potentially send your RFP to?
Based on our extensive experience with CMS selection, we have created the below Top 10 list with vendors you should always consider. This is geared towards buyers from large and complex organisations with significant web demands.
What it requires to be on the list:
- Significant dedication to CMS. It does not have to be everything the vendor does, but to mitigate your risk, CMS has to be very important to them. This includes a history of relatively smooth upgrades combined with on-going technology investments in improving the system.
- Global footprint. You can either find direct vendor representation or experienced partners in almost all parts of the world to help you with the implementation. There are also successful references around the world for you to learn from.
- The vendor has something very significant to offer. This easily turns into yet another unhelpful long list, so we kept the list short and predict that the list will change in 2010. A vendor can only get on the list if we can remove another one. This means that many vendors, even though they might have interesting references, are not on this list.
You can reduce the list further by considering licensing and technology. Some on the list might also not have local partners in your region. If you feel troubled by suddenly having too few vendors, remember that you also need to find a good implementation partner to support you. To find the right one, you should send to more than one implementation partner for each vendor; this way you will easily end up with 10 – 12 qualified companies on your list.
Here a few comments about some of those missing from the list:
- Microsoft is not on the list as neither SharePoint nor Oxite are good fits for Web CMS. Despite tremendous adoption, SharePoint is often chosen for the wrong reasons. Also, as mentioned on this blog, content management does not seem important to Microsoft. For additional details, you can consult our research on Best Practices for Using SharePoint for Public Websites.
- Several other large vendors are absent, eg. Autonomy, IBM, Oracle, as they are often simply overkill for Web CMS. Not only are their products very expensive, but they are also very complex to implement and use. We challenge buyers who insist on adding them, that they carry additional risk due to the CMS being acquired from smaller vendors and their diminutive focus on WCM in the overall picture.
- Many significant, but still regional vendors, eg. CoreMedia, e-Spirit and Terminalfour are left out as they do not yet have a global footprint. There are regional differences in the market, which we will cover in separate forthcoming blogs.
- Alfresco has very good marketing, in particular for an open source vendor. The actual product is quite complex with weak usability and many on-going architectural changes.
- Joomla lacks a few important features such as workflow, custom roles and custom content types. This combined with security concerns means that we do not always recommend Joomla.
- WordPress is a very popular blogging platform, which might slowly be morphing into a CMS, but is still lacking in many enterprise features, including security. In too many regions it is also quite difficult to find any significant SI that offers WordPress implementation support.
Most CMS vendors are having a great time, c.f. recent earnings from Day Software, FatWire and Sitecore, but I’m hoping this list will help you save some time and confusion while navigating a still very crowded marketplace.
I welcome your feedback and stay tuned for regional shortlists soon!
Thanks to James Hoskins (@jameshoskins), John Goode (@johngoode), Jon Marks (@McBoof) and Mark Morell (@markmorrell) for valuable input.
UPDATE: Aug 18 – In response to popular demand, I’ve released a wrap-up with additional background on the shortlist
Bertrand August 12th, 2009 6:45
Thank you for this list.
Would you care to explain why _ if it was considered at all _ eZ Publish is not part of this list ? It answers all of your requirements, is already widely adopted.
This is really not a rant but a genuine question !
Janus Boye August 12th, 2009 6:45
Bertrand,
We did in fact consider eZ. As you may know, we still use eZ Publish ourselves for http://jboye.dk and we have also added eZ to quite a few shortlists in Scandinavia. A few of our Danish CoP members also use eZ.
I realize that eZ has experienced growth, but still I don’t see eZ among the global top 10. Perhaps in the future, if you continue to do well and get a better footing in the US.
Ted Nyberg August 12th, 2009 6:45
Good to see both EPiServer and Umbraco made the list – guess I didn’t choose my focus areas by chance!
I’ve only played around a little bit with Sitecore, but I will give it a fair chance. Also, I’m glad to see Sharepoint isn’t on the list – I absolutely agree with your listed reasons for excluding it.
Stig Andersen August 12th, 2009 6:45
Thank you for sharing your knowledge, Janus. Most interesting as always.
Could you elaborate on why one of three selection criteria is global footprint? Consider an organization in search for a CMS with national or regional presence only. I would claim that a product from a vendor with little dedication to the market say, across the Atlantic should not be short listed. Au contraire; focus could be plus.
Bertrand August 12th, 2009 6:45
Janus,
the fact is that eZ Publish hasn’t really entered the US market at that time (even though it has been used by the Hachette (successfully, this goes without saying) for about 2 years, and lots of minor / medium customers.
I guess that is the price to pay when you start in europe and decide to focus on this place
On the other hand, eZ has been settled in chicago for over a year now, and the biggest installations are now in western europe more than scandinavia (I can say for sure that french companies are big fans of eZ Publish !)
I hope we can make it in the next one !
Janus Boye August 12th, 2009 6:45
Stig,
I agree that regional focused vendors is a good thing for buyers. Many Australians buy local systems, so does Scandinavians, Americans etc. around the world.
This top 10 is for large and complex organisations with significant web demands. If you are based in Germany, then you might also want to consider some of the regional vendors, but if you have a global operation, eg. like BASF or Siemens, you probably also need a vendor that can support you on the different continents.
Bertrand August 12th, 2009 6:45
Absolutely. We indeed notice that small/medium business are more likely to adopt eZ Publish in Norway, for instance.
Since we now have offices in norway, danmark, germany, belgium, france, japan & north america, we do cover an acceptable geographical region
Tony Byrne August 12th, 2009 6:45
Hi Janus!
Well, I understand the desire for universal short-lists, but working with large, global organizations, I frequently come up with lists that are quite different than the one above (several vendors/projects added, quite a few removed, even within a language group, etc. etc.).
I think you are over-weighting “vendor footprint,” which will vary in importance to the customer depending on their circumstances. Just like cost, functionality, architecture, et. al. will also vary in importance as discriminators.
Cheers from soupy Washington!
Jon Marks August 12th, 2009 6:45
I see I’m quoted as a contributor, so to add my 2p. I would have called this: “The Top 10 Vendors We See On Shortlists” as opposed to recommendations. In my little CMS pond, 7 of the 10 in the list always appear on the revelant shortlist. Not the shortlists are often based on budget or technology requirements, so it is also highly unlikely that more than 2 of the above will ever appear on the same list (which the exception of the smaller .NET vendors Ektron, EPiServer and SiteCore).
And note that the fact that these guys always end of on shortlists most certainly doesn’t mean that they win everything. They’ll often lose to a product which is more targetted to the customer’s problem but isn’t broad enough to make every list.
Peter Joles August 12th, 2009 6:45
Good list. All reputable vendors in my opinion. I don’t see Alterian CME anywhere on the list? For reference we support both Java and .Net on SQL Server or Oracle.
David Hobbs August 12th, 2009 6:45
Thanks Janus for drawing a line in the sand, and I wish those of us consulting on CMS selections would come up with some more definitive filters for selection.
I’ve thought of writing a blog post that goes something like:
a) if you have a really small site, then by all means use whatever your friends are using (this accounts for about 99% of Twitter traffic
)
b) if you have a medium-sized site then either: a) start with a list (perhaps yours above) or b) go with a system integrator and whatever they recommend if you’ve done a lot of successful work with them already (probably blasphemy to some reading this!)
c) if you are using a large site (let’s say 100K pages or larger with lots of back-end integration), then a full-blown CMS selection (with wide-open possible vendors) is required.
The bottom line: I think usually lists imply something about the size / complexity (designers often list Top CMSes which include just Drupal, Joomla, and Wordpress for example)? Maybe it’s just about defining the assumptions more carefully? You list assumptions above, but perhaps there are others that aren’t stated?
I don’t claim to be an expert on the differences between specific CMS vendors, so would defer to others on the exact makeup of the lists.
Also from hot and humid Washington,
– David
Gabe Sumner August 12th, 2009 6:45
This is a great list! Quite helpful.
Full dislosure, I work for Telerik/Sitefinity CMS. However, I’m not going to send the obligatory “hey, what about us?” comment though…
I will say this though;
The chart currently has a large jump between free/open-source and commercial. It jumps from £0 to >$30,000 with no middle ground. There are a lot of projects in that middle ground.
Sitefinity CMS is priced at $899. There is also a Community edition that is free. We were reviewed in the last two reports from CMS Watch and have experienced some wonderful growth in this middle ground.
Anyway, great article and I appreciate the information.
Jeff Cram August 12th, 2009 6:45
Wow – this is going to stir the pot.
Interesting thoughts and valuable insight on vendors you like. Thanks Janus.
I don’t agree with the concept of a universal short list when evaluating something as broad as WCM. However, I do think it is possible for an organization to quickly get to a short list of 3-5 vendors based on their specific scenario.
I’d recommend separating the idea of a general “best in class” list of WCM vendors from the process of evaluating and selecting a WCM for a specific organization.
Jeff Cram
CMS Myth
Petr Palas August 12th, 2009 6:45
Hi Janus,
I understand that the list is limited to 10 companies, but I would really like to add one more to make it complete
– Kentico CMS for ASP.NET (www.kentico.com).
And I have some very good reasons:
- 2000+ web sites used by clients in 77 countries
- 800+ active implementation partners all around the world
- fully focused on Kentico CMS development (100 % of income)
- 3 new releases per year with smooth upgrades
- offices in Europe and U.S.
- 42 employees and counting
- responsive support highly praised by our clients
- active 3rd-party developer community (http://devnet.kentico.com/Marketplace.aspx)
- we do have something significant to offer – stable, scalable, well designed, full-featured WCMS at a reasonable price, with technology comparable to Sitecore and with excellent support
- major clients include Microsoft, Delta Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Bayer, Gibson, Audi, Mazda, Samsung, Guinness, ESPN, Logitech or Novartis
- 100 to 200% growth every year and profitable since the first year on the market
I hope this will nominate us for the next year
Regards,
Petr Palas
CEO, Kentico Software
http://www.kentico.com
Jed August 12th, 2009 6:45
Why do you suggest Oracle UCM (the product set formerly known as Stellant) is “overkill” – surely it depends on the requirement. If you consider UCM to be an ECMS it is then the most WCM focused ECMS.
Cheers
J
Ian Truscott August 12th, 2009 6:45
Wow Janus, you’ve set a challenge here, to come up with ten Oscars from a cast (as you say) of thousands!
Of course, I too would like to suggest Alterian Content Manager for your list. The challenge I have, to continue my analogy, is how do I suggest that we are also up for ‘best actor’ and muscle our way onto the stage and elbow aside someone already clutching the statuette?
It’s interesting you’ve cut across the normal technology platform, budget, development languages and (for want of a better word) ‘culture’ and market tiers that we normally see shaping a short list. If we were to jump on the stage, stand toe to toe with George ‘Fatwire’ Clooney, snatch the little gold man – would I recognise the other guys around me, as the normal supporting cast?
I feel that we meet your four criteria, but are those criteria enough to whittle down this huge market down to 10? Surely you must be applying some other criteria to the list?
Cheers,
Ian
Tom August 12th, 2009 6:45
You can’t simply dismiss large CMS vendors like IBM, Oracle, and Autonomy (my employer). Immediately removing vendors from a short list assumes that all CMS’s are created equal; they aren’t.
As Tony points out, customer requirements should dictate a short list. Sometimes that short list will include large vendors, sometimes it won’t.
Am I Buying a WCM Solution or Stock? « Word of Pie August 13th, 2009 6:45
[...] Boye has Drupal on his 10 product shortlist. When talking to Tony Byrne about what open source WCM systems I should look at for a project, [...]
Umbraco CMS - nu på uafhængig analytikers liste over gode CMS'er August 13th, 2009 6:45
[...] går publicerede Janus Boye en blogpost: Who should be on your CMS shortlist?. I modsætning til så mange andre inden for CMS-branchen arbejder Janus hverken som leverandør [...]
walchitect August 13th, 2009 6:45
I see that Interwoven Teamsite is not mentioned. It is supposed to be a great (enterprise) CMS.
Why?
Flemming Goldbach August 13th, 2009 6:45
“Microsoft is not on the list as neither SharePoint nor Oxite are good fits for Web CMS. Despite tremendous adoption, SharePoint is often chosen for the wrong reasons.”
Despite your opinion, doesn’t the widespread popularity alone, warrent a place on any shortlist? I mean a short list should list proudcts/vendors worth considering.
Isn’t there a posibility that thousands of customer’s may be right?
Zahoor Hussain August 13th, 2009 6:45
Even though I regularly see these vendors on our clients’ shortlists, the list seems to me to be a very European centric rather than a global list.
I would suggest that there are other vendors that would feature on UK or US lists when taking into account the scores their clientbases and partners would introduce.
Kasey August 13th, 2009 6:45
Did you give dotCMS any consideration? I feel its a very viable Java open source alternative to Day and FatWire.
Janus Boye August 13th, 2009 6:45
Flemming,
Just a word on SharePoint: It is far from a popular CMS. It is widely adopted, in particular since it has been forced on so many web projects – often by IT who already had the licenses.
A billion flies can’t be wrong…..
Flemming Goldbach August 14th, 2009 6:45
Thank you for the elaboration on your point about Microsofts CMS platform, Janus.
While I do agree that SharePoint for many reasons is a favorite CMS in many IT departments, I believe that you may underestimate communications- or marketing-professionals, or which business function ultimately owns the public web in a large organisation, if you believe that they will continously accept having forced upon them a product that they do not feel meet their demands.
I guess I believe that in this day and age, the business owners of public web sites have vastly more influence than your average flies
I’m not saying everyone should use SharePoint, my point is just, that given the vast amount of large and fairly prominent public webs that are running SharePoint, doesn’t this mean that the product might at least be worth considering for an organisation, just to form their own opinion about why it is so widely used?
This in my mind is the goal of a shortlist.
Michael Edwardson August 14th, 2009 6:45
When you look at a CMS. You should make a choice between two options:
- event / marketing website : -> template engine
- content centric web environnement: -> open standards
As CMIS is still under development, I should look at a CMS which supports JSR-170. That’s why Day has such a big footprint. But interesting open source alternatives are popping up: Magnolia & Hippo CMS.
These are also Java CMS and there cases so there maturity.
ukdavo August 14th, 2009 6:45
You say…
“This is geared towards buyers from large and complex organisations with significant web demands.”
Then some of the larger vendors are excluded…
“as they are often simply overkill for Web CMS. Not only are their products very expensive, but they are also very complex to implement and use. ”
Forgive my ignorance but this seems a little contradictory. I’m all for less complexity but sometimes you need that for large organisations with complex demands.
I was also under the impression that many large organisations also consider utilising WCM products that are based on ECMs but your list seems to ignore this.
James Robertson August 17th, 2009 6:45
Hi Janus,
I’m surprised to see you publish a list like this! I have significant concerns about any “top” list of CMS products, published by any organisation.
My concerns:
a) I think this hits your vendor-neutral status. I know you take your professional services very seriously, and this gives the unfortunate impression of bias.
b) These are hugely different products. Any list that contains both Drupal and Sitecore is surely crazy. Both valid solutions, but rarely for the same problem.
c) I second the concerns about the weight put on “global footprint”. This cuts out a lot of local solutions, and I’m not sure that the reach of the vendor’s marketing will have much of an impact on project success, as long as local support is good.
d) This is just a “line in the sand”, and the tide comes in twice a day in the CMS market. What might be great today might be overtaken by a different solution tomorrow.
e) These types of lists just don’t help customers who are looking for CMS solutions. It over-emphasises a handful of products, and obscures the creation of clear business requirements.
f) In my work helping organisations select a CMS, I haven’t seen any correlation between the size of the organisation, and the complexity of their requirements. At one point, I was helping Australia’s largest corporation pick a web CMS, and they had the simplest set of requirement we’d ever documented. At the same time a 40-person firm had much more complex requirements.
Anyway, good to see a lot of vigorous debate. Who said the CMS market is dead!
La short liste des 10 meilleurs CMS | bertrandkeller August 17th, 2009 6:45
[...] Who should be on your CMS shortlist?. S'abonner aux commentaires Commentaire | Trackback | Tags : gestion de [...]
The Day’s Delicious | Patchchord.com August 17th, 2009 6:45
[...] Who should be on your CMS shortlist?: A quick read on the ups/downs/pros/cons of various CMS solutions available today. Not [...]
Alex Saunders August 17th, 2009 6:45
Fully agree with James Robertson above — lists like this shouldn’t really be published by those of us who know that each organization can have completely different needs even if they are similar in size or number of pages on the site. Only one of the products you’ve listed would have been remotely appropriate for my latest client, with whom we did a full selection process, and they are a leading national financial services company.
In the end it’s all about the selection process and how thoroughly that is performed. A short list that doesn’t take any business or user requirements into account is just misleading.
Having said all that, consider my curiosity piqued – why has no one mentioned OpenText/RedDot? Almost all of my clients ask that this product is included in the evaluation process, and they tend to be listed in the majority of short lists and reviews of selected vendors/products.
Michael Meisner August 18th, 2009 6:45
Hi Janus
I wonder why vendors such as Vignette (now OpenText) and Interwoven (now Automony), who through years has been the Grand Old Men in the CMS enterprise segment, are not on your list? And what about MOSS, do you not see MS MOSS as a CM solution?
(And also your list lacks the information, that eg. Tridion operates both with .Net as well as Java code. Does some of the other systems operates with more than one code platform?)
How do you compare Sitecore to EPI-Server? In my understanding they are very much a like? Is that not the case?`
Best of all
Michael
» Wrap-up: Web CMS Shortlist 2009 - J. Boye » Blog August 18th, 2009 6:45
[...] Thank you to the many readers who decided to respond to our recent blog post Web CMS Shortlist 2009. [...]
Web CMS Vendor Shortlist Season | Martin's Blog August 19th, 2009 6:45
[...] Clustering, grouping, ranking CMS vendors seems to be in high season. Janus Boye has released his Web CMS Shortlist recently and an updated 2009 Gartner Magic Quadrant of Web Content Management is circulating. [...]
Pete Stevens August 19th, 2009 6:45
Janus
When you compile your UK list, can you review GOSS Interactive please?
Our product, GOSS iCM (intelligent Content Management), is widely adopted, proven and features all the standard functionality. In addition extra technical features include a email-to-web facility, a “suggest” tool that reads content and suggests metadata, and related items as well as 3rd party integrations such as the ability for SharePoint users to publish to a website from within SharePoint.
GOSS Interactive supplies solutions to an impressive portfolio of high-tech industries and professional services including Brittany Ferries, Virgin Trains, Wrigley and GMTV as well as central and local government authorities.
There is more info here http://www.gossinteractive.com and perhaps we can arrange a demo for you?
For content problems, technology is not the thing « Brain Traffic Blog August 19th, 2009 6:45
[...] this week there was a little Twitter exchange that began in response to j. boye’s post, Who Should Be on Your CMS Shortlist? (Because j. boye is a "vendor neutral" consultation firm, its findings are very [...]
» A breakthrough for open source CMS? - J. Boye » Blog August 27th, 2009 6:45
[...] expand on our recent CMS Shortlist, here are the open source tools that we consider good candidates for your [...]
Reading and Reference List, 8/17 and 8/24 | Anna Kalata August 29th, 2009 6:45
[...] Who should be on your CMS shortlist [...]
» Should Oracle be on your Web CMS shortlist? - J. Boye » Blog August 31st, 2009 6:45
[...] UCM does not come up often in standalone Web CMS selections, which is why it did not appear on our 2009 CMS Shortlist. According to Oracle sales pitches, the product has experienced increased adoption in recent years. [...]
» Was August good for Ektron? - J. Boye » Blog September 25th, 2009 6:45
[...] which had revenues of about €12 million in their latest fiscal year. Ektron did make it to our Web CMS Shortlist 2009 and has been growing rapidly for quite a while. However, this is not unique: many vendors have had [...]
» e-Spirit takes advantage of distraction among competitors - J. Boye » Blog October 15th, 2009 6:45
[...] did not make it oton the J. Boye Web CMS Shortlist 2009 as more than 90% of their revenue is still from the home market. Still, e-Spirit is rapidly [...]
Klaus-M. Schremser (Gentics.com) November 10th, 2009 6:45
Hi Janus,
this is a good CMS shortlist for global companies. But I’m always happy when I see / read you recommending regional players, like our product Gentics Enterprise CMS (Gentics Content.Node). Global cms players have to care about the wishes of the whole world, if you need regional best care, contact us (for Austria, Germany, Swiss or CEE) or meet us at the next janus boye conference in Aarhus
.
greetz from Vienna,
br kms
http://www.gentics.com/en/
J. Boye | What is the cost of commercial software? December 23rd, 2009 6:45
[...] So, where do you find the price? The usual and time-intensive route is that you contact the vendor and enter into the normal sales dialogue. Alternatively you can consult your favourite analysts or talk to existing customers. Customers might also be able to share valuable anecdotes about discounts. I am also happy to share the prices I know and have already publicised a few on this blog, e.g. on the J. Boye CMS Shortlist 2009. [...]
Fantasy CMS for government February 18th, 2010 6:45
[...] best of breed tools have considerable strengths, of course, and it’s not fair to expect them to be all [...]