Digital experience platforms (DXPs) have become increasingly important in today’s business landscape. A DXP is a comprehensive set of technologies that allows for the creation, management, delivery, and optimization of personalized digital experiences across various customer journeys. This platform can cater to different audiences, such as consumers, partners, employees, and citizens, and provides a seamless customer lifetime journey.
A DXP serves as the backbone of a digital business ecosystem through its API-based integrations with adjacent technologies. It has a wide range of use cases, including B2C, B2B, and B2E. The core capabilities of a DXP include content management, personalization, analytics, customer journey mapping, collaboration, AI, and cloud capabilities.
Gartner recently released its Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms. Here are the DXP vendors that have made it to the list.
1. Acquia
Acquia is a Leader in the Magic Quadrant, offering its DXP with two primary components: Acquia Drupal Cloud and Acquia Marketing Cloud. It is headquartered in Boston, MA, and is often deployed in communications, media and services, education, financial services, manufacturing, retail, and consumer packaged goods verticals.
Acquia is the primary sponsor of the open-source web content management (WCM) system known as Drupal. The Acquia Open DXP offers features such as personalization, analytics, customer journey management, and a customer data platform.
The Acquia DXP can be accessed in both platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) ways with additional components such as Site Factory for multisite management, digital asset management (DAM), CDP, Personalization, Campaign Studio and Campaign Factory accessible through the SaaS option. Its Site Factory is a standout feature available as SaaS that allows organizations to coordinate deployment across networks of sites and easily implement branding changes.
Its capabilities are enhanced with machine learning and have a low-code visual designer UI. Prebuilt configurable machine learning models are included in the product. Acquia actively supports intranet and employee portal use cases such as event management, knowledge management, executive communications, and collaboration.
2. Adobe
Adobe emerged as a leader in this Magic Quadrant. Adobe Experience Cloud offers a wide range of features such as content management, analytics, personalization, customer journey, and customer data management. It is available both as a managed service PaaS and SaaS.
Adobe has an established brand name and highly recognizable technology in the world of digital experience management. It is widely adopted with many buyers choosing it as an established solution. The primary use case for Adobe’s technology is B2C but it is also used for certain B2B purposes and occasionally for B2E.
It provides customers with sophisticated functionalities for external consumer-facing digital marketing needs. It has a comprehensive ecosystem of design and creative agencies, systems integrators, marketing and advertising agencies, and creative tools to support its products.
3. Bloomreach
Bloomreach is a Visionary in the Magic Quadrant. Its DXP, Bloomreach Commerce Experience Cloud, gives businesses an edge with its powerful modular capabilities: Content Management System (CMS), Discovery features for search and merchandising optimization, and Engagement tools such as Customer Data Platforms (CDP) for personalization and analytics.
Bloomreach is headquartered in Mountain View, California, U.S., with offices across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and partner presence in Latin America. It primarily targets digital commerce experiences for B2C use cases, but it has widened its reach within this vertical to include manufacturing and distribution for B2B use cases.
Bloomreach’s Engagement provides differentiating customer data management, single shared data layer aggregation in real-time, machine learning segmentation & personalization activation across multiple channels and touchpoints.
4. CoreMedia
CoreMedia is a niche player in the Magic Quadrant. Its DXP offering is the CoreMedia Content Cloud with capabilities in content management, integration, and interoperability. It is available as vendor-managed PaaS or can be self-managed either on-premises or in a public cloud.
CoreMedia has a presence in EMEA, North America, and Asia/Pacific regions. It has clients across multiple verticals such as retail, finance, healthcare, etc. who use its DXP mainly for B2C, B2B, and B2B2C use cases, to support digital commerce experiences.
Its strengths include providing a platform for global multisite operations to ensure brand consistency, a wide set of integrations supporting complex environments, comprehensive support for globalization, and scaling capabilities for global brand rollouts.
5. Crownpeak
Crownpeak is a Niche Player in the Magic Quadrant. Its DXP – the Crownpeak Digital Experience Platform – provides content management, presentation, orchestration, consent management, compliance, governance, and security. It is headquartered in Denver, Colorado U.S., with presence in Europe and is often used by organizations in manufacturing, communications & media, banking & securities, and retail for B2B & B2C use cases.
Crownpeak provides robust AI-based personalization capabilities using its Experience Optimization Engine via OEM model with Dynamic Yield. With native UI and Vue-based FEaaS, Crownpeak enables customers to drive front-end consistency while maturing their DXC adoption.
6. HCLSoftware
HCLSoftware is a Challenger in the Magic Quadrant and its DXP, HCL Digital Experience (DX), forms part of a wider HCL Customer Experience (CX) product portfolio. It offers core capabilities such as content management, DAM, CDP called Signals, and low-code application development.
HCLSoftware mainly provides its services in government, life sciences, insurance, financial services, and other verticals. Key differentiators include its security governance capabilities making it suited for larger organizations operating in strict security and compliance environments.
It also provides a framework approach to building complex DXP solutions converging the functionality of DXP, Multiexperience Development Platforms (MXDP), and Low-Code Application Platform (LCAP). Its strengths lie in B2E with access control and HCL Connections collaboration product powering intranet communities.
7. Kentico
Kentico is a Niche Player in the Magic Quadrant, offering two Digital Experience Platform options: Kentico Xperience 13 (2020) and the new Xperience by Kentico. It targets digital marketers with content management, marketing automation, and digital commerce capabilities.
Headquartered in Brno, Czech Republic, it is typically used by midsize organizations in financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing verticals across various B2B, B2C, and B2E use cases.
It has an organic approach to innovation which produces a unified platform with a common look and feel. It is popular among clients for its ease of use and deployment, low-/no-code capabilities plus headless and hybrid support that are available in the new Xperience by Kentico.
8. Liferay
Liferay is a niche player in the Magic Quadrant and its DXP, the Liferay Experience Cloud, appeals to organizations that need complex and secure environments. It supports B2B, B2C, and B2E use cases in sectors such as manufacturing, telecommunications, government, and financial services. Liferay DXP offers capabilities for experience management, content management, personalization, and analytics.
It is based in Diamond Bar, California, and has presence across Latin America, EMEA, and Asia/Pacific regions.
Liferay offers subscription licenses for its whole suite regardless of use, providing security to prospects with concerns about increasing costs. Its extensible architecture makes it well-suited for use cases blurring the boundary between traditional B2C experiences and implementations requiring heavy integrations and custom development.
9. Magnolia
Magnolia is a Visionary in the Magic Quadrant, offering content management, personalization, and search capabilities. The platform is available on-premises or as a PaaS offering in a public or private cloud.
Based in Basel, Switzerland, it has presence across North America, EMEA, and Asia/Pacific regions. It is deployed by midsize and large organizations in various sectors such as banking, travel and hospitality, and media and communications for B2C and B2B use cases.
Magnolia embraces a composable approach with no-code connector packs and low-code microframeworks for the integration of third-party technologies. It enables the integration of third-party technologies natively within the Magnolia UI. Magnolia Cloud supports hosting headless front-end applications plus expanded strategic partnerships to offer capabilities outside core offerings.
10. OpenText
OpenText is a Challenger in the Magic Quadrant and offers the OpenText Experience Platform with capabilities like content management, analytics, personalization, optimization, and DAM. It is available on-premises, on public cloud services (Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, or Google Cloud Platform), on OpenText Private Cloud Services, or as a managed service.
OpenText has a global presence and is used in multiple verticals including manufacturing, government, retail, financial services, and insurance. It is most suited for B2C use cases but also applicable to some B2B use cases.
OpenText provides governance, security, account management, and auditability in authenticated experiences which makes it ideal for buyers needing these features. Its technology is extensible and customizable with APIs for integration, documentation, and a developer community to facilitate customizations.
OpenText provides capabilities beyond DXP development such as customer communications management and content collaboration which could benefit organizations looking for a single vendor relationship.
11. Optimizely
Optimizely is a Leader in the Magic Quadrant and provides a Digital Experience Platform that includes content management, personalization, customer data management, and analytics capabilities. It is available as a hybrid cloud solution. Optimizely is based in New York, with presence across EMEA and parts of the Asia/Pacific region.
Optimizely is most often used by midsize-to-large enterprises in retail, manufacturing, high-tech, healthcare, commercial services, and financial services for B2C and B2B use cases. Its strengths include broad digital experience capabilities suitable for both suites and modular approaches, simple scalable pricing, liquid templating options, and the ability to remove limits on channels and users.
12. Progress
Progress is classified as a niche player in the Magic Quadrant. It offers a core product, Sitefinity DX, complemented by other capabilities such as Sitefinity Insight for personalization and optimization and Corticon for decision-making and business process management. The offering is available on-premises or fully managed as PaaS via Sitefinity Cloud.
Progress is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts with a significant global presence through its efforts and partners. Sitefinity DX targets midsize organizations looking to grow and is mostly deployed for B2C marketing use cases.
Its new digital experience business unit demonstrates a commitment to the DXP space with improved coordination of its product portfolio for customers. The ThemeBuilder allows for the implementation and coordination of experience design across web and mobile apps and components.
13. Sitecore
Sitecore is a Leader in the Magic Quadrant, with headquarters located in San Francisco, California, and a presence in EMEA and Asia/Pacific. Its DXP stack includes Sitecore Experience Platform (XP), Experience Manager Cloud (XM Cloud), Sitecore Search, Sitecore CDP, Sitecore Personalize, Sitecore Content Hub (CMP/DAM), and Sitecore Connect.
It is most commonly used across Financial Services, Manufacturing, and Automotive verticals. The vendor is investing in tech to reduce time-to-market while also improving support for integrating with third-party systems.
XM Cloud supports customers in building their own templates using low-code and no-code features. The Sitecore360 customer success program offers onboarding services and instructor-led training to assist customers with migrating and transforming their digital experience strategies.
14. Squiz
Squiz is a niche player in the Magic Quadrant, offering a DXP platform with capabilities for content management, search, personalization, data management, and integration. Its headquarters are in Sydney, Australia, with a small presence outside the Asia/Pacific region.
It is often deployed by midsize organizations in government, utilities, and higher education verticals and used for B2C, B2E, and B2B use cases.
The platform includes experience and solution accelerators plus prebuilt integration recipes, which have the potential to speed up time to value. It provides prebuilt collaboration and knowledge-sharing capabilities for B2E scenarios.
This Magic Quadrant provides the information necessary for application leaders to help identify suitable vendors and products when making selection decisions related to digital workplace applications. By studying each vendor, leaders can assess which of them best aligns with their requirements to make an informed decision.
Source: Gartner
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