Tech Insights
AEM vs. HubSpot vs. Contentful: How to Choose the Best CMS for Your Business Website
Choosing a CMS can define your marketing strategy and give you the tools you need to streamline your outreach. You can make your CMS a powerful sales engine in the online space, so you should choose one that meets your needs. By studying the key features of a range of CMSs you’ll be better equipped to choose the CMS that will best suit your needs. You can start by sorting them based on their type: traditional, headless, and hybrid.
In this article, you’ll explore 3 content management systems, learn how to choose the best CMS, and find out about the pros and cons of 3 seminalCMSs: Adobe Experience Manager, Contentful, and HubSpot CMS Hub – you’ll be able to easily spot the differences between Adobe Experience Manager vs. HubSpot and AEM vs. Contentful.
How to Choose the Best CMS: Understanding the Core Value of Content Management Systems
All content management systems are software solutions that can be grouped according to their type. The main categories are traditional, headless, or hybrid. You can decide on a CMS quicker when you learn what each type means in terms of content delivery. It will be much easier to see how to choose a CMS if you are aware of their capabilities.
Traditional
A traditional CMS is a unified software system that lets users create, manage, and edit content. Traditional content management systems have the back end connected to the front end, which means there is a firm bond between the technical implementation and layout. Some traditional CMS systems let you enrich the traditional CMS with new features by adding plug-ins.
Headless
A CMS without a rigid front-end system for displaying and delivering content is called a headless CMS. These CMSs become content repositories. Application programming interfaces (APIs) step in to deliver content to any device since there’s no predefined template within a headless CMS.
Hybrid
A hybrid CMS combines headless and traditional CMS features. Hybrid systems take the API-driven architecture and couple them with design systems, giving developers and content managers more freedom. Developers can create APIs to deliver content layouts to end users, and content managers can use templates to make and edit web pages quickly.
Choosing a CMS can be a complicated task! Consider the following pieces of advice below.
How to Choose the Best CMS: Solving the Technical Conundrum
Choosing a CMS is comparable to choosing a business partner: it isn’t a snap decision you make overnight. You should be able to compare your needs with what a CMS offers and see which solution meets your business objectives more closely. Here you’ll find 5 key directives that can guide you toward choosing the best CMS for a business website.
Tip #1. Consider All Stakeholders’ Opinions
Your team may consist of developers, marketing specialists, and sales agents. Get input from all of them. Ask all your teams to share the must-have features and nice-to-have features they need in the would-be CMS. Based on the feedback you receive, you will have a clear idea of their technical requirements, understand management perspectives, and understand which CMS can contribute the most to your marketing efforts.
Tip #2. Seek Customization Capabilities
Your business is unique, so your CMS should allow customization if you need any. You may need to add widgets, change colors, or shape the layout differently. The best CMS for a business website is flexible, as it should give your team room to experiment with the way content is presented.
Tip #3. Focus on Security
Keeping your users, data, and the entire site safe is paramount. So, you need to investigate what a CMS offers in terms of protection. Do you need to create backups yourself? Is updating software your responsibility? Do you need to install security add-ons? If you lack resources or knowledge to guarantee cybersecurity, then you should consider a CMS that offers security features to ensure your site is protected.
Tip #4. Explore Marketing Tools
You may want to check and see if a CMS supports social media integration, marketing automation, lead generation software, and a client relationship management system. You need a unified system to keep your marketing team on track.
Tip #5. Inquire About Integrations
Your CMS should allow you to add the extensions and third-party services necessary for your business workflow. The ease of integration defines how flexible a CMS can get. Usually, a CMS offers a marketplace with available third-party services or gives you a chance to add the specific ones you need.
Tip #6. Request a Proposal Document
To make a well-informed decision, ask a set of your chosen vendors to create a proposal document. Set crucial criteria and the key objectives you want to achieve with their help and note their responses. A marketing technology company should convey why they are the right choice for you and provide case studies with hands-on experience.
AEM vs. Contentful vs. HubSpot
Adobe Experience Manager vs. HubSpot vs. Contentful have different origins and, thus, cater to specific business purposes. Compare your goals to what each CMS offers to choose the best CMS for a business website.
AEM
AEM is designed to deliver exceptional user experience across platforms such as desktop, mobile, email, and social channels. AEM CMS allows you to employ headless, hybrid, or traditional development techniques, depending on your needs. AEM combines the five modules known as sites, assets, mobile, forms, and community. Remember that you will need AEM development services to craft your CMS. The CMS can unite technical expertise and marketers, addressing multiple business needs thanks to its technological implementation.
AEM comes with a number of tools that enhance the product: Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, Adobe Audience Manager, Adobe Commerce Cloud, Marketo Engage, and more. If you apply all these solutions, you can quickly analyze data coming from different channels, divide website visitors into cohorts, create profiles of your buyer’s personas, and enable personalization and custom experiences through different channels.
Now, let’s see what Adobe Experience Manager benefits are and what downsides the CMS may hold.
| Pros | Cons |
| Personalization. AEM lets you achieve a high level of personalization when distributing content. You have to factor in personalization when choosing a CMS. Based on a specific user profile that includes their location, search history, and user behavior, the platform delivers personalized content to visitors. | A long learning curve. AEM is a complex solution, especially when combined with other Adobe Marketing Cloud products. The learning curve can be steep for non-technical users. |
| Scalability. The platform can grow as your business grows. As you expand your outreach, you’ll need to handle multiple sites. AEM gives you the freedom to create multi-language platforms. | Complex implementation. AEM is complex to install and set up. You will need to ask certified, experienced experts to help you implement an AEM environment. |
| Flexible. One of the major Adobe Experience Manager benefits is the ability to create and manage content along with edits. Thanks to the WYSIWYG structure you can visualize what the changes will look like when live. | Pricey. AEM is a relatively expensive CMS. If you have sufficient budget, you’ll be able to afford it, but you may end up paying up to a million dollars per year. |
| Easy to integrate. AEM has a framework-agnostic foundation that can easily integrate with other third-party services. | |
| Comprehensive. AEM CMS offers great coverage for marketing needs thanks to complementary solutions by Adobe Experience Cloud. You can run any marketing campaign and track its results. |
Who is AEM Good for?
Large enterprises are likely to use Adobe Experience Manager to create a web platform that delivers personalized content to site visitors. Because of its global reach, companies can create multi-language websites and manage them through an AEM environment. Here at Exadel, you can find certified AEM experts and prime marketing technology services to build responsive platforms with personalization at their core, which is the kind of service you’ll need to meet the technical demands of this CMS.
HubSpot CMS
HubSpot CMS is a content management system that helps you create, manage, and distribute content on your site. HubSpot Hub CMS gives you two options: build a site using HubL (HubSpot’s template language) or choose ready-made themes and templates.
HubSpot has some important benefits and drawbacks, including:
| Pros | Cons |
| CRM. HubSpot CMS offers a client relationship management (CRM) tool. You can use the CRM to learn how your content performs. You can also learn about your visitors’ behavior by syncing your contacts with the CRM. | Difficult to migrate. If you choose to apply a different tool, migration can become a major bottleneck. |
| HubSpot marketplace. HubSpot has multiple CMS themes, templates, modules, and applications you can install to complement your CMS. The marketplace holds both free and paid solutions, which have all gone through a security check. | Difficult to customize. When you have high UI/UX expectations that require custom code, you end up writing a lot of code. And the customizations you create may not be so easy to add. |
| A/B testing. You can test how different pages on your site perform using the built-in A/B testing feature. The feature will show you how users interact with content, contact forms, CTAs, marketing emails, and web pages to help you choose the layout and message that resonate with your customers most. | Slow website unless optimizedy. Website performance can lag. If you need a simple site without any advanced features, your website speed will be great, but if your platform has a lot of advanced features you write additional lines of code for, you have to optimize your code to avoid jeopardizing performance. |
| All-inclusive nature. HubSpot CMS lets you access all the necessary tools for your business team, ensuring smooth integration. Analytics, lead generation, email marketing tools, reporting, social network integrations, and other solutions you may need all feature in HubSpot. | Limited themes.HubSpot offers a limited number of themes to play around with. If you can’t find the perfect fit, you’ll have to create your own theme, and that’s where developers step in.Developers can work with modules, templates, and CSS files to craft a unique theme that matches your brand identity across all web pages. |
| Intelligent marketing. The key feature of the HubSpot CMS is its ability to offer visitors personalized content. Your website visitors will land on a specific web page based on their device, location, language, and referral type. You can show repeat visitors even more personalized content. | |
| One-stop publishing. HubSpot CMS lets you publish content across social media, email, and blogs using the CMS, which saves time and automates mundane tasks. |
Who Does HubSpot Work Best for?
This CMS can work well for enterprises that deliver personalization on their site. Choosing a CMS is less complex due to all of their out-of-the-box solutions. You can set up a site using HubSpot’s drag-and-drop editor and themes. But if you have unique needs, you should use the HubL coding language to create new features. All marketing tools are included by default, so you won’t have to look far.
Contentful
Contentful is an API-driven headless cloud-based CMS. The CMS has a reliable back end to help you manage your content. Unlike traditional CMSs, there are no content models you should adhere to, so you can create your own content models. Editors can then quickly compile web pages and reuse content types.
The dilemma of how to choose the best CMS is easily solved if you know the platform’s strengths and weaknesses.
| Pros | Cons |
| Developer-friendly. The CMS is fun for developers. They can work from their desired editor using Contentful’s command line. Additionally, React components let them add customizations. Contentful also has a vast developer community that engages in creating tools, live coding, and running events. | Developer-reliant approach.Working with Contentful means engaging a developer who can craft a theme from scratch. Be aware though that if you want to experiment with the way the content is presented or even add a simple button, you’ll have to involve a developer. |
| Content modeling. Contentful lets you wrap content in compelling web experiences. Your needs define how your content will be presented. You can distribute it across any channel. RESTful APIs can make your content accessible on desktop devices, mobile apps on any platform, and smart devices. | Primitive software tools. Even though Contentful has SDKs and an integration marketplace, you can only find basic solutions. You’ll have to involve a developer to craft more complex workflows. |
| Structured content. Contentful has a content model that can organize what you publish by type. You can easily assemble content parts into different experiences regardless of channels and devices. Editors can easily update content on other digital channels simultaneously or apply content types across the same pages. | Difficult editing. If you have more than three locales, it becomes difficult to make edits, and your layout can look cluttered after translation. |
When is Contentful a Good Match?
When choosing a CMS, Contentful can be a go-to solution for rapidly growing companies that have an omnichannel approach to marketing, which means you can publish content on iOS, Android, web, and smart devices. The infrastructure of the CMS requires programmers to maintain and update the platform, so if you’re not worried about being reliant on the dev team, you can implement your marketing strategy — simple or complex — with Contentful.
How To Choose the Best CMS Based on Key Technical Characteristics
You’ll have many questions about technical characteristics and solutions during the discovery stage. Trying to decide between Adobe Experience Manager vs. HubSpot or AEM vs. Contentful? Consider this rundown of technical nuances before finalizing your decision:
Supported Media Assets Formats
- AEM supports a rich variety of formats, and you can upload any file. Read this comprehensive documentation on formats to find out whether this CMS supports the one you need
- HubSpot has browser-supported images. Other types are only supported through external links
- Contentful allows you to upload any file and has a preview for the most popular types
Headless Content Renders and GraphQL API
- In AEM, AEM Content fragments are headless with GraphQL, AEM JCR OOTB XML and JSON, Sling model Exporter, CCMS (XML Documentation Add-on for Adobe Experience Manager), and AEM SPA.
- HubSpot doesn’t have designed instruments for headless development.
- Contentful is a pure headless CMS. It supports GraphQL.
CDN and Content cache
- AEM has a middle layer cache and AEM dispatcher to cache static web content and rendered HTML. AEM Managed CDN is available for AEM as a Cloud Service
- HubSpot has a built-in CDN provided by Cloudflare
- Contentful has a multi-region delivery infrastructure built on AWS Regions
Content Versioning
- AEM supports JCR content versioning, all content, and assets. Package Manager supports versions for all content in packages, including back-end and front-end code
- HubSpot’s versioning is supported for Pages, Blogs, and Emails
- Contentful’s versioning is supported for content entries
Omnichannel Digital Experiences
- AEM has a lot of tools that make any integration easy
- HubSpot’s omnichannel experience is leveraged by HubSpot CRM
- Contentful is a simple platform to create an omnichannel experience via unified content. The CMS has a simple and ready-to-expose structure, RestAPI, and hundreds of out-of-the-box integrations
SEO Page Analysis Tools
- AEM doesn’t have such tools
- HubSpot has WebSite Grader
- Contentful lacks SEO page analysis tools
Authoring Workflows
- AEM delivers rich authoring participant workflows
- HubSpot doesn’t support authoring workflows
- Contentful doesn’t support authoring workflows
Digital Assets Management
- AEM lets you manage assets through AEM Asset manager with automation and smart tools
- HubSpot has only simple image storage and a built-in Canva designer
- Contentful allows you to integrate with Cloudinary, Bynder, Dropbox, and Frontify
A/B Testing
- AEM provides you with Adobe Target, Marketo, and Email A/B Test
- HubSpot has A/B test emails and Website Pages A/B Testing
- Contentful lets you test pages through a documented third-party integration with Optimizely
Social Media Sharing Authoring Elements
- AEM has the Social Media Sharing Component
- HubSpot provides the Social Sharing module
- Contentful has no solution for social media sharing author elements
Campaign Execution
- AEM has a tool called Adobe Campaign
- HubSpot provides you with HubSpot Campaigns
- Contentful offers third-party integrations via Webhooks like MailChimp
How to Choose the Best CMS: The Choice That Defines Your Business
CMSes are centered around delivering content, but they also have a set of prevailing features due to their programmatic nature. When choosing a CMS, you can balance your choice based on how tech-savvy your team is. You should also consider whether you can invest in custom development if your needs go beyond the ready-made solutions. You’ll probably want to integrate your CMS with third-party marketing tools, or you can choose a CMS that offers a suite of software solutions complementing the overall platform.
What really matters for your business’s bottom line is how well your content is presented and whether you know your customers. Your choice is no longer about how to choose the best CMS; it’s about capturing data and using it to reach your customers.