For those clients that we've worked with, EPiServer is primarily being leveraged by an organization's Communication/Marketing Department as owners of the system (and then supported by Experis or internal IT staff). The immediate pain points that it has been able to address is the ability to manage the publication of content and new pages without having to rely on other resources bandwidth for assistance.
Pros
Innovation - EPiServer is constantly looking at ways to improve their product and partner with organizations that can develop add-ons to improve the overall features of the core platform. For Example: SilverPop (marketing automation) and Celum (digital asset management).
Content Management - It may seem obvious that a WCM product should manage content/reuse well; but, let's be honest, not all products do what they claim to do well. In this case, EPiServer understands the core functionality and has created product that is intuitive and exceeds customer expectations in this area.
Previews - EPiServer has built-in templates (emulators) that allow you to easily confirm how your content is going to be displayed on a variety of devices before you publish your content. This is advantageous as it eliminates the guess work and need to redo content (or even code) after you've gone to production because you weren't able to thoroughly test it before hand.
Cons
Translations - When we first started to work with the product, the platform was missing the basic ability to export/import XLIFF for translation companies to leverage; and, it relied on developers that had created an Open Source module called "Translate X". The module was buggy, version specific and had little to no documentation. Since then, EPiServer has partnered with other software/translation companies (IE: Translations.com) to improve this experience; however, I believe that there is still room for improvement and other options.
North America User Conference - Adoption for EPiServer is growing in NA; and, there are more partners than before willing to help with your specific implementation. One of the things that I would like to see is an annual conference where the community can come together, publicly discuss their pain points, success stories, conduct demos, talk about the product road map, etc; and, would be similar to what other competitors (such as Sitecore & Ektron) do.
Likelihood to Recommend
Key Questions To Ask:
What is your current technology stack and/or what technology is your in-house developers able to support?
What is your current budget for (1) Software (2) Annual Software Subscription (3) Implementation Services?
What are the top 3 business challenges you are expecting to resolve with this purchase?
How many CMS authors will need to have access to the system?
What role will digital marketing play in your decision making process?
What role will eCommerce play in your decision making process?
What business requirements do you have that will not be met by out-of-the-box features of the platform?
Does your site need to support translations (now or in the future)?
Where will the site be hosted (IE: On your servers, the cloud, etc)?
We use Ektron in our company to support content management for more than 10 websites, allowing the Marketing department to push new content as desired. Besides serving content to websites, we also have Smart Forms to integrate dynamic User Interface elements; for smaller websites, we connect to Ektron using either their API or Web Services. This allows to have very dynamic website with little effort from the development team once they go live, allowing other departments to take ownership.
Pros
Allows user control management and publishing flow in a seamless way
Content versioning
Multiple content access (i.e. native control, API, Web Services)
Cons
Content Manager interface - UI and performance
Web Services
Better MVC integration
Likelihood to Recommend
Main key was the ability to integrate Ektron on websites, allowing logged in users to select and edit content directly from their browsers when accessing the sites. Ektron will be a little more challenging to use if this is required into an MVC environment. Also, it makes the projects a bit heavier to deploy.
VU
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology (Staffing and Recruiting company, 1001-5000 employees)
