TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Cascade CMS vs. Sitecore Digital Experience Platform

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cascade CMS

    Score5.4 out of 10
    N/ACascade CMS (formerly Cascade Server) by Hannon Hill is a content management system, with built-in tools to help users eliminate stale content, increase digital outreach, and promote end-user adoption and accountability. Cascade CMS is designed for decentralized web teams in most major industries, including higher education, government, healthcare, and technology. Included is Clive, an engagement and real-time personalization tool for collecting information and using it to craft personalized…N/A

    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/AThe Sitecore Experience Platform (Sitecore XP) is a digital experience platform used to build websites and create customer experiences online. The solution boasts fast content authoring, built-in personalization features, testing and other optimizations, as well as analytics and marketing features.N/A
    Pricing
    Cascade CMSSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cascade CMSSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cascade CMSSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Considered Both Products
    Hannon Hill
    Chose Cascade CMS
    The version of Sitecore that I use right now doesn't have a UI showing the assembled web page. That suits my current company's needs, but for most people, they want to see their changes within the tool as they make them, visible within their web page. Cascade Server does that …
    Incentivized
    Sitecore
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Would buy again
    12 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    91%
    Delivers good value for the price
    10 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    13 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    12 Answers
    Features
    Cascade CMSSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Cascade CMS and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Cascade CMS
    8.0
    19 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    9.8
    31 Ratings
    18% above category average
    Role-based user permissions8.019 Ratings9.831 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Cascade CMS and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Cascade CMS
    7.1
    13 Ratings
    7% below category average
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    9.7
    28 Ratings
    15% above category average
    API7.012 Ratings9.927 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language7.37 Ratings9.525 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Cascade CMS and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Cascade CMS
    7.1
    19 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    8.9
    31 Ratings
    15% above category average
    WYSIWYG editor6.119 Ratings8.231 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness6.018 Ratings8.529 Ratings
    Admin section8.019 Ratings8.930 Ratings
    Page templates9.017 Ratings9.428 Ratings
    Library of website themes5.52 Ratings8.416 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design7.015 Ratings9.027 Ratings
    Publishing workflow9.019 Ratings9.329 Ratings
    Form generator6.47 Ratings9.428 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Cascade CMS and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Cascade CMS
    6.9
    18 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    9.2
    30 Ratings
    24% above category average
    Content taxonomy8.013 Ratings9.428 Ratings
    SEO support7.014 Ratings9.326 Ratings
    Bulk management9.014 Ratings9.024 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions6.011 Ratings8.728 Ratings
    Community / comment management4.85 Ratings9.726 Ratings
    Results and Analysis
    Comparison of Results and Analysis features of Cascade CMS and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Cascade CMS
    -
    Ratings
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    7.5
    10 Ratings
    13% below category average
    Conversion tracking00 Ratings7.69 Ratings
    Test reporting00 Ratings7.410 Ratings
    Funnel Analysis00 Ratings7.310 Ratings
    User Segmentation00 Ratings7.510 Ratings
    Digital Experience Platform
    Comparison of Digital Experience Platform features of Cascade CMS and Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Feature
    Cascade CMS
    -
    Ratings
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    8.0
    12 Ratings
    14% below category average
    Campaign management00 Ratings7.712 Ratings
    Cloud enablement00 Ratings8.412 Ratings
    Content aggregation00 Ratings8.112 Ratings
    Content classification00 Ratings8.212 Ratings
    Multi-channel content personalization00 Ratings8.012 Ratings
    Customer data analytics00 Ratings7.411 Ratings
    DXP Third-Party Integrations00 Ratings7.612 Ratings
    Multi-website management00 Ratings8.711 Ratings
    Digital asset management00 Ratings8.312 Ratings
    Editorial workflows and task management00 Ratings8.111 Ratings
    User Ratings
    Cascade CMSSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.9
    (44 ratings)
    9.4
    (41 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.1
    (26 ratings)
    9.0
    (9 ratings)
    Usability
    9.1
    (4 ratings)
    9.1
    (16 ratings)
    Availability
    6.7
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.1
    (5 ratings)
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.1
    (4 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    Configurability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cascade CMSSitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Hannon Hill
    No answers on this topic
    Sitecore
    Sitecore offers Content Hub with Product Content Management and Content Management Platform. The Digital Experience Platform and Content Hub can both host structured content and publish the finalized version to Experience Edge. Both platforms offer different ways to manage content. During a technical and business evaluation, the evaluation panel must understand the difference between a Content Modelling focused approach, or a layout management focused approach. Sitecore Digital Experience Platform is also best not to be used to host many files and images in the Media Library. That responsibility should be offloaded to a digital asset management company like Sitecore Content Hub DAM. The technology evaluation panel must also understand how to work with a Headless CMS, where the HEAD needs to be hosted, and the costs associated with the HEAD. Composable DXP is fantastic, but everyone must understand the various cost components. Marketers and the data team will need to go into the CDP and Personalize the platform with an excellent understanding of how a composable "installation" works. All the Martech vendors have similar challenges that data and development teams need to work through with a full experience. Any CDP/analytics platform will, at some stage, require further data enrichment from other sources. Understanding the Sitecore Search features and limitations is also essential.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Hannon Hill
    • Cascade CMS makes no assumptions about your content. Templates control how the content gets displayed.
    • Workflows are intuitive and allow for one or more people to review content before it is published.
    • The published site is static (no database connection) which allows for faster page loads and reduced risk of attack.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sitecore
    No answers on this topic
    Cons
    Hannon Hill
    • Cascade CMS is not an out-of-the-box pre-built system that you can install, turn on and expect to be serving sites and pages on day one. It's not a blogging system like WordPress, or a drag-and-drop system like SquareSpace (both of which I've used for their own purposes). You need to have someone tasked with management and system administration – and if you implement the on-premise self-hosted version, you ought to have several people. We have the university's IT shop handling infrastructure (server hardware, containers, clustering, operating systems, load-balancing, DNS, database servers, NAS/SAN drives), our Web & Design team managing Cascade CMS (system settings, sites, templates, permissions) and managers coordinating each respective academic unit (A&S, business, education, law, marine science).
    Read full review
    Sitecore
    • Experience Editor is a little old fashioned and sometimes slow to use.
    • Bulk operations in the Content Editor
    • Sitecore serialization is should be part of the Content Editor to provide visual reference for items which are serialized and will be overwritten by future deployments similar to what Unicorn does so well
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Hannon Hill
    Changing systems would require too much effort. Our institution is using Cascade Server, WordPress and Drupal but we only serve 2200 students so we have 1 too many content management systems. Reflecting on current technical resources we would like to drop down to 2. This effort hasn't moved forward because of the extensive work required to migrate content and train users in a new system.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sitecore
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Hannon Hill
    Cascade CMS is completely usable on mobile devices, we can train our content editors in a single 2-hour session, and we support 1,000 users with a very small team.
    There is a level of complexity for the system administrators, site managers and web programmers who implement templates and content types. But the complexity is neither arbitrary nor inconsistent – and once learned provides a powerful environment within which we can develop robust sites that are beautiful and powerful, yet easy for our content editors to manage.
    Read full review
    Sitecore
    Once you learn how to use the platform and can put a solid strategy in place to manage it long-term, it becomes a lot easier to use. The tricky part is working with resources who are familiar with the platform to navigate some of the common implementation and configuration pitfalls. Although Sitecore has worked very hard to overcome some of these from their earlier product versions by creating wizards and improving their support documentation, at the end of the day it is still a very complex and powerful system that needs to be implemented carefully in order to foster the best possible user experience for authors. So it could be rated very usable or not usable at all based on how much planning took place and the quality of the implementation.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Hannon Hill
    Amazing customer service and VERY customizable.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sitecore
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Hannon Hill
    Does a great job.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sitecore
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Hannon Hill
    They have always regarded any question or problem we encountered as very important. We have never felt that they ignore or downplay any issue and not once has anything been left unresolved. They also hold an annual conference where users are invited to attend and share their experiences and wisdom with the entire Cascade community. And with the care and support the provide, we all feel a part of that community.
    Read full review
    Sitecore
    No answers on this topic
    In-Person Training
    Hannon Hill
    Training was helpful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sitecore
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Hannon Hill
    Still needed that physical help
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sitecore
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Hannon Hill
    The key to any CMS implementation is PLAN, PLAN, PLAN. Proper planning with Cascade can increase your satisfaction exponentially once the site migration/creation is complete. When all is said and done, your implementation can make your site run like a Yugo or Maserati. Be smart and deliberate in your decisions. Drive the Maserati. It is already paid for.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sitecore
    Make sure you work with a partner that can help you take advantage of the entire platform. Specifically we see a lot of customers not taking advantage of Sitecore DMS and thus missing a huge opportunity. Sitecore is a platform that is meant to be constantly optimized and improved upon.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Hannon Hill
    No answers on this topic
    Sitecore
    No answers on this topic
    Scalability
    Hannon Hill
    I used it only a few times.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sitecore
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Hannon Hill
    No answers on this topic
    Sitecore
    • ROI depends on what features the customer wants to leverage from Sitecore. Sitecore is not just a CMS. It's CEP platform which comes with Analytics, Personalization, A/B Testing, and Email for marketers modules etc., out of the box.
    • Based on my experience some of the customers lean towards third party services. This is primarily due to lack of the understanding of these features. If a customer leverages these out of the box features ROI will be high. It depends on how much is being [sent] to third parties services.
    • Sitecore has very good accelerators in the market. These accelerators allows you to create response sites very quickly. If a simple campaign site takes 50K to build the site may save at least 50% of that cost. Examples of site accelerators are Brainjocks, Keystone, Cognifide etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots