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Brightspot vs. Adobe Experience Manager
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How to overcome Adobe AEM performance issues — and the best CMS alternatives to mitigate

Smiling man working at office workstation for Adobe Experience Manager article

If you’ve already made the financial commitment to using Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), and feel stuck, we can help. We’ve assisted numerous Adobe Experience Manager customers with optimizing AEM’s functionality by pairing it with the Brightspot CMS, our powerful, extensible, API-first platform.


Top Adobe Experience Manager performance issues & how Brightspot is the best CMS alternative for your needs


Below we’ve outlined the top challenges and AEM performance issues companies encounter when working with Adobe Experience Manager and how we can help you overcome them.

Adobe Experience Manager is one of the largest content management solutions in the world. But with that size comes a reputation for being complex and difficult to learn. While Adobe Experience Manager works well for some organizations, Adobe Experience Manager performance issues, plus the total cost of implementation and time to deployment prove limiting to many.

Adobe AEM licensing costs can be high

The licensing fees for Adobe AEM vary by business needs and which options are implemented, but in general, costs average $250,000 to $1,000,000+ annually. In a review of content management systems, Gartner noted: “Adobe's WCM offering is one of the more expensive in the market, sometimes being twice the price of its nearest competitor.”

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Why Brightspot is the best Adobe AEM alternative when it comes to cost

Brightspot’s CMS is, on average, half the price of Adobe Experience Manager. What’s more, you can reduce maintenance costs by managing your content yourself. Because Brightspot is designed with end users in mind, editorial teams can start publishing their own content on the same day.

Time to launch can be slow with Adobe AEM

If you’re working with Adobe AEM, you can expect a 9-to-18-month rollout and implementation timeline. Compare this to Brightspot, where teams can go from idea to launch in a matter of weeks and with access to best-in-class publishing features and in-built collaborative tools like notifications and custom workflows. Standing up microsites and landing pages can be done in a matter of hours.

Adobe AEM alternative case study: Sotheby's


Sotheby’s migrated from Adobe AEM to Brightspot, enabling seamless integration between editorial content and its auction engine. This transition saved millions in print costs, streamlined digital catalog production for over 600 annual auctions, and drove a 95% increase in user sessions and a 78% growth in luxury goods sold.
We originally partnered with Brightspot to implement an enterprise CMS that delivered high-quality user experience, which was a success. Now, years later, Brightspot is still ensuring our digital properties embody vivid images, powerful search and compelling stories, and that our editorial content integrates with our auction engine to provide a seamless experience for our users.
Kiddi Hrobjartsson, Sotheby's Vice President, Platform and Application Strategy
Kiddi Hrobjartsson
Sotheby's Vice President, Platform and Application Strategy
Brightspot CMS case study: Sotheby's

Adobe AEM deliverables often involve hidden costs

One of the most common Adobe AEM performance issues is that many of the essential tasks demoed by Adobe’s sales teams are not achievable solely with Adobe Experience Manager. Companies often find that to meet their business objectives they must also license Adobe Analytics, Adobe Tag Manager and other Adobe products to supplement their AEM implementation, significantly increasing licensing fees.

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Why Brightspot is the best Adobe AEM alternative when it comes to launch implementations


With Brightspot's CMS, there are no hidden costs. We deliver on-time and on-budget. Every Brightspot launch involves a true partnership between our team and our customer. Our out-of-box CMS implementation options include in-CMS analytics and a broad portfolio of API integrations. We believe these are essential to your success, not extras you should pay more for later.

Heavy involvement from developers can be a burden with Adobe AEM

First and foremost, your developers can expect a complicated installation and setup for Adobe AEM. They will be required to build everything — from text boxes and templates to submit buttons and edit screens for users. Simply put, it is not a product that you can deploy and then hand over to your editorial team.

A huge challenge of the Adobe AEM platform is that it can be hard to grasp for those without advanced HTML skills. Because the system is not designed for editors, additional costs and time required for training should be factored in or the responsibility of creating, developing and managing the system will fall primarily in the hands of your IT team.

We want to empower your teams to do the things they do best, so Brightspot was designed to fit into your publishing process, freeing publishers to quickly distribute content to every channel without the need for IT. In turn, your development team gets to focus its priorities, while content producers get to create.

Adobe AEM alternative case study: Scripps


Scripps migrated 50+ sites from Adobe AEM to Brightspot, modernizing its digital newsroom for 61 TV stations across 41 U.S. markets. This transition streamlined content workflows, enabled local-to-national story syndication, and saved time and resources with a single, extensible CMS platform.
One of our reporters told me how much he appreciates our CMS. Says it’s the best he’s ever used across multiple stations and station groups.
Scripps station digital director
Brightspot CMS case study: Scripps

Adobe AEM’s rigid architecture can be cumbersome

A key reason Brightspot is preferred by editorial teams is our content discoverability. With our clean, folderless infrastructure, powerful federated search and customizable dashboard, editors can move quickly and avoid time wasted in tracking down content. Adobe AEM’s folder structure and basic search functionality can be challenging to navigate and require more clicks and time than they should.

Adobe AEM does not offer federated search out-of-the-box and their basic search functionality is not powerful enough to parse large amounts of data and return relevant results. Unless you know exactly where you saved something, searching for a particular item is time-consuming.

Adobe AEM alternative case study: TV Azteca


Mexico's second-largest media company migrated 13 properties from AEM to Brightspot, consolidating their multisite publishing into a single CMS. This transition resulted in an estimated annual cost saving of $1 million and streamlined content management across their platforms.
TV Azteca case study promo

Measurement isn’t included out-of-the-box with Adobe AEM

In today’s growth culture, publishers rely on metrics to remain competitive and make informed decisions. But with Adobe Experience Manager, analytics features aren’t available out-of-the box.

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Why Brightspot is the best Adobe AEM alternative when it comes to analytics


Brightspot features out-of-the-box analytics, which means you won’t need IT or development support in order to get basic analytics on your site. It’s worth noting that Brightspot has integrations with analytics providers such as Google Analytics and Parse.ly as well as Adobe Analytics. We believe in working within whatever ecosystem you’re accustomed to; so, if you have an analytics system in place that you would like to continue using, there’s a good chance we have an out-of-the-box integration for it or can explore an integration with it.

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Adobe AEM alternatives: More resources

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Alternatives to Adobe AEM: FAQS

Is Adobe AEM the best CMS?

Whether Adobe AEM is the "best" CMS depends on your organization's specific needs, budget and technical capabilities. Adobe AEM is a robust, enterprise-level content management system that excels in features like advanced personalization, scalability and seamless integration with other Adobe products like Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target. However, it also comes with a steep learning curve, high implementation costs and significant ongoing maintenance requirements.

For organizations seeking alternatives to Adobe AEM, Brightspot CMS is an excellent option. Brightspot offers comparable enterprise-level capabilities, such as headless and hybrid CMS architecture, advanced personalization and scalability. It differentiates itself by providing a more user-friendly interface, faster deployment times and lower total cost of ownership. Additionally, Brightspot’s flexibility allows businesses to create custom workflows and integrations tailored to their unique needs, making it a strong contender for organizations looking for a powerful yet accessible CMS solution.

Ultimately, the "best" CMS is the one that aligns with your goals, resources and content strategy.

Who competes with Adobe Experience Manager?

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) faces competition from several CMS platforms that cater to organizations looking for robust content management and digital experience solutions. Leading alternatives to Adobe AEM include platforms like Brightspot CMS, Sitecore, Contentful, Acquia and WordPress VIP.

Among these, Brightspot CMS stands out for its ease of use, flexible deployment options (traditional, headless or hybrid) and faster time-to-market compared to AEM. Brightspot also offers enterprise-grade features such as advanced personalization, multilingual support and seamless integration capabilities—all without the high costs and steep learning curve associated with AEM.

Other competitors, such as Contentful, excel in headless CMS offerings, while Sitecore focuses on digital marketing capabilities. The choice of a CMS ultimately depends on your organization's specific needs, budget and technical requirements. For many, Brightspot CMS provides a compelling balance of power, flexibility and usability, making it a top competitor in the space.

What's the difference between Adobe AEM and Brightspot?

Brightspot was built to delight editors and empower developers. With best-in-class editorial tools and robust admin features, Brightspot allows your editorial team to create and publish timely, relevant content faster and more easily than ever before. Here are some of the highlights of the Brightspot platform that make it a perfect Adobe AEM alternative:
  • An incredibly flexible, lightweight foundation that can be tailored to the way you publish, enabling creators to quickly distribute content to every channel without the need for IT;
  • A highly personalized dashboard and streamlined user interface that make it possible to publish with less than 10 minutes of training;
  • Robust federated search, core to the Brightspot platform, which increases the discoverability of your content and makes it easy to locate any asset;
  • Authoring tools that editorial teams love: In-line editing capabilities, an enhanced rich text editor, leading edge secure preview capabilities and bulk editing, advanced version control, field-level locking and workstreams;
  • An API-first approach to CMS architecture that smoothly integrates with your proprietary data as well as third-party data sources to reduce context switching for your team;
  • Customizable drag-and-drop Workflow Engine that can be tailored to the way you work;
  • An expert team of Brightspot developers, implementation teams and platform teams to support you from day one.

AEM can work (well enough) for organizations that can afford both its costs and the significant training time required. But as the digital landscape evolves, budgets shrink, and competition grows tighter, many companies find that difficult.

We’ve replatformed countless clients off of Adobe AEM. Request a Brightspot demo today and find out how you can replatform quickly and drastically improve your overall content management experience with the Brightspot CMS.

See Brightspot in action

Ready to see how Brightspot compares to Adobe Experience Manager? Connect with one of our CMS experts today to learn more about the real-world differences between Brightspot and AEM.

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