Cleverbridge vs. Kentico Xperience

Cleverbridge is a great partner - they are particularly well suited for mid-sized companies - not sure about the largest of companies. Their scale is good but not the best. Their technical acumen is quite good and they totally understand their market - unlike other companies in this space they don’t suffer from hubris - they roll up their sleeves and work with individual clients to succeed. Their management is very knowledgeable, friendly and approachable.

Incentivized

Well suited for marketers that do not have in-house web programming or web designing resources available. Less appropriate for people that aren't computer savvy (i.e. don't know how to use basic programs like email, Excel, PowerPoint) or for those who are not detail-oriented because if you skip certain steps when adding/editing content, your webpage won't render correctly and/or create negative impact for search engine optimization without you knowing it.

Incentivized

• Excellent partnet
• Terrific at subscription software
• Excellent security and uptime

Incentivized

• Ease of use for the developer, content authors, and internet marketers that use it. The user interface in Kentico 8 truly is amazing and easy to pick up with no training.
• Strong customization and integration capabilities, including the built in REST service, Integration Bus, and elegant API. I love the fact that if there is anything not in the box we can use the system to extend it or connect it to any CRM, ERP, or other third party service very easily.
• Large out of the box functionality. There is an extremely high level of value that the platform provides. Instead of having to build extra modules for things like Event Booking, Forums, Polls, or E-commerce, they are already there for us to use.
• Ability to control the HTML output of the site at a very fine level. Creating HTML5 is very easy in Kentico and implementing any design, as responsive, is totally possible in the system.
• The ability to get a very high level of insight into the visitors journey through the website and market back to them with the Contact management, Lead Scoring, and Marketing Automation modules is very impressive.
• The scalablity of the system is impressive. Running a very highly trafficked web site is totally possible with Kentico and its strong caching and web farm capabilities.
• The support that Kentico provides is top notch, 24/7 global support is included with any purchase, 7 day bug fix policy, and excellent documentation
• The development community is engaged and ready to help if you are a developer learning Kentico, and the Kentico partner community is very strong as well.

Incentivized

• Because of the many different settings, it becomes hard sometimes to set everything up
• The slow system can take up to 10 seconds to save something

Incentivized

• Their slogan - "Right First Time Technology" - I get what they mean, but some things may be lost in translation. This is a sentence fragment in English, and some clients may be turned off by it.
• Easier to understand documentation - their official documentation could use an overhaul. All of the information is there, but most of their code examples need to be fleshed out a bit. This aspect of their product can be very hard to navigate for first-time Kentico developers.
• Email Queue - this should be in the same section as Email Marketing; currently this is under Configuration

Incentivized

We are locked into Kentico for the long haul. It provides us with an easy and flexible solution for a very non technical company to create a site and have the features they want, especially with the inclusion of EMS into our license. Now we have a true platform to build and grow our solutions.

Usability is native, but the system is complex. It has a knowledge base, but who reads that, right? So without explanation, sometimes it's hard to understand how to move and set things. But as soon as you get it, it's not a problem anymore. There are 2 major things, which keeps me from giving a higher score: 1 - Delay in time when making changes; can take up to 2 sec when opening a product, and 10 secs when saving a product update. When you do several updates, it is time consuming; 2 - A lot of settings, which also in the end becomes time consuming.

Incentivized

It seriously is one of the best interfaces I have ever used. I also love the fact that I can use UI personalization to secure any functionality by user or role that I don't want that role to have access to. The best part is the customization of the UI, I can add in any button, tab, or menu item I want through it, no code required.

Incentivized

Their support staff is friendly, knowledgeable, and will work with you until your issue is fixed. This could take a few phone calls back and forth, but they are very diligent in helping you.

Incentivized

The system provides many opportunities to integrate and enhance the platform and makes it easy to do so.

Cleverbridge has a very flexible system, which operates with an enormous amount of settings. It is simultaneously good and bad, because on one hand it is good to be able to adjust settings for each tiny tiny part, but on the other hand it is time consuming. In the sense that it has wide range of supported currencies and languages, it is definitely a plus to operate on Cleverbridge, as you have the opportunity to reach many local markets. Their team also has tons of expertise in e-commerce, which is a definitely bonus for your team, because you get not only the system, but also tips and hints on how to make things better, and avoiding mistakes others have made before.

Incentivized

Previously we used Microsoft SharePoint as a content management system and it was very limited, required a ton of support, and we encountered bugs on a weekly/monthly basis. All of the negatives that we had associated with SharePoint went away when we switched to Kentico. It was really night and day and Kentico has really helped us move forward and become much more efficient.

Incentivized

• We've just started with Cleverbridge so we'll see

Incentivized

• Kentico has allowed us to deliver to clients more quickly, more cheaply, and with high quality to our clients. It's an inexpensive licensing model, an easy development platform, and powerful enough we can deliver amazing results to our clients.
• Kentico's quick setup and deployment model has allowed me to very quickly ramp up new developers. This saves money and time.
• We routinely see extraordinary returns in visits, time on page, and other critical metrics after rolling out Kentico-based systems/applications.

Incentivized