Today, we’ll explore:

• Quick Recap – What are Optimizely and Sitecore?
• Intro to Sitecore – Pros and Cons
• Why Optimizely - Benefits of Migrating from Sitecore to Optimizely
• Optimizely is a Forrester DXP Industry Leader
• Upcoming Sitecore Update
• Choosing the Right Agency for Migration

Looking for ways to empower your internal teams, improve your customers' digital experience, and gain more value from your technology investments?

Migrating from Sitecore to Optimizely One might be the right move for your business.

While Sitecore is a popular platform, more businesses are switching to Optimizely One, and for good reason -

1. Optimizely was named a Leader and received the highest scores possible in 11 criteria in the Forrester Wave™: Digital Experience Platforms.
2. Optimizely offers customers a flexible and fully composable CMS, built on industry-leading technology and Microsoft’s .NET Core foundation– for blazing fast performance, top-notch security, and long-term scalability.
3. Plus, a full suite of powerful marketing technology solutions to create better, more personal digital experiences.

As a customer experience agency and Optimizely Platinum Partner, Whereoware deeply understands the need for feature-rich and flexible technology solutions.

"Clients want a solution that will scale and grow with their business needs. Optimizely provides a full set of marketing capabilities, while still making it easy for marketers to manage day-to-day activities," explains Eric MacKenzie, Whereoware’s Chief Technology Officer. “Optimizely One creates this foundation and caters to all types of clients that are at different points in their lifecycle. Our clients grow with the platform, instead of having to look at new technology stacks every couple of years."

Let’s explore why Sitecore’s upgrades have customers considering moving to Optimizely and the benefits of making the switch.

Quick Recap – What are Optimizely and Sitecore?

At its simplest, both Sitecore and Optimizely are competitive technologies, used by businesses to create sophisticated digital experiences across websites, mobile applications, marketing and more.

Sitecore, an enterprise-level content management system (CMS) and digital experience platform, is known for its comprehensive content management and operations, digital commerce, and personalization capabilities.

Optimizely One is a powerful marketing orchestration and digital experience platform (DXP), with AI-centered digital optimization and experimentation tools. Optimizely One helps businesses plan, create, launch, and analyze personalized digital experiences, while running experiments along the entire customer journey.

While both platforms have similar features, Optimizely stands out as a more versatile and user-friendly platform. Plus, their market-leading roadmap offers a stronger focus on experimentation and a broad set of marketing capabilities.

Let’s dive deeper into how these platforms compare.  

Intro to Sitecore – Pros and Cons

Sitecore Pros

Sitecore offers a complete, cloud native and composable DXP. They support four different CMS options -XM, XP, XM-Cloud and Content Hub One, in addition to headless solutions.

They’ve made several acquisitions in the last few years and are in varying stages of integrating these technologies into their solutions.

Sitecore is trusted by 3,000+ brands and boasts highly recognizable clients relying on their powerful technologies, from General Mills, to Comcast, Honda, and Aston Martin.

Experts are impressed by Sitecore’s digital asset management (DAM) system. It earned high marks in Forrester’s Wave for Digital Asset Management for overall usability.

Sitecore also offers a large global network of solution partners to choose from, so clients needing Sitecore-certified developers won’t have a hard time finding one in their region.

Sitecore Cons

The pick-your-own-adventure of Sitecore’s many CMS options comes with added risk, complexity, cost, and a focus on developers to build the right solution stack to meet customer needs.

Similarly, XM-Cloud is headless-only and requires a number of dependencies to deploy their headless experiences, like developers, a CMS, CDN with GraphQL, and deployment tools.

Currently their CMS is built on legacy .Net frameworks, which goes against Microsoft’s recommendation that all new development projects use .NET5 or later. This creates risk and limitations, from site speed to flexibility and security.

Overall, critics and customers complain that Sitecore isn’t quite delivering on its promises when it comes to security, upgrade paths, segmentation, personalization, and ease-of-use.

A major concern is the costs are as high as the complexity – not ideal for businesses relying on smooth and scalable digital transformation projects to advance their business.

Why Optimizely - Benefits of Migrating from Sitecore to Optimizely

Many Sitecore customers, tired of the complexity, lagging technology foundation, and reliance on developers to build and manage digital experiences, are thinking about switching to Optimizely.

The migration to Optimizely offers numerous benefits, making it a favorable choice over Sitecore:

1. Enhanced User Experience

Optimizely’s intuitive interface, drag and drop WYSIWYG functionality, AI/ML insights, and advanced personalization capabilities are easy to work with – meaning, marketers can build, update, and own content without needing developer intervention.

‍PSST – ask us about our Optimizely CMS Accelerator, built by Whereoware.

The Optimizely Accelerator empowers site admins and marketers to efficiently build and design on-brand web elements and layouts using an intuitive and interactive, data-driven tool.

The Accelerator ensures each layout and content update maintains visual theming and consistency across multi-site environments.

This means a marketer can quickly make a content update and then push it to other pages or websites –saving a huge amount of time, while maintaining consistency.

See the Accelerator in action and how we helped client ConnectWise scale its multi-site experience using Optimizely.

2. Robust Experimentation Features

Optimizely lives up to its name by prioritizing experimentation.

With Optimizely Experimentation businesses can test (think A/B, multivariate, multi-page, redirect, testing and more), learn, and optimize digital experiences in real-time and for specific customer segments.

Optimizely offers web experimentation and feature experimentation, both integrated with the larger tech stack and fueled by AI insights – arming marketers and developers with the tools and insights needed to test and learn from every customer interaction.

3. Built for Speed, Security, Scalability, and Flexibility

Optimizely is built for speed, both in deployment and operations. Optimizely is built on the latest .NET framework, offering customers major performance gains and an ongoing commitment to evolve with Microsoft's technology and security advancements.

Optimizely's cloud service routinely updates without client intervention for improved performance, security, and feature value-adds.

This cloud-based architecture ensures scalability and flexibility, catering to the dynamic needs of growing businesses.

4. Community and Support

Optimizely boasts a vibrant community and global partner ecosystem.

They also deliver superior customer support, ensuring users have access to the resources they need 24/7/365.

At Whereoware, you receive a dedicated team of technical, UX, and project management experts, skilled in all aspects of the Optimizely ecosystem and larger digital optimization best practices.

Optimizely is a Forrester DXP Industry Leader

We’re big fans of Optimizely, but don’t just take our word for it.

Optimizely is recognized as a ‘leader’ among DXP providers by The Forrester Wave™: Digital Experience Platforms, Q4 2023.

In this evaluation, Optimizely was recognized as the top-ranked solution – rising above Sitecore - in their category and received the highest possible scores in criteria, such as AI/ML, experience front-end, practitioner tools, developer tools, and campaign management. 

Access the full report here. The Forrester Wave™: Digital Experience Platforms, Q4 2023

Forrester agrees, Optimizely excels in areas where Sitecore may fall short:

• Ease of Use: Optimizely’s user-friendly interface allows for quicker adoption and reduced training time.
• ‍Agile Content Management: Optimizely facilitates agile content management, enabling faster content deployment and iteration.
• Advanced A/B Testing: Its superior A/B testing capabilities ensure data-driven decision-making.
• Innovative AI and Machine Learning: Optimizely integrates cutting-edge AI and machine learning for predictive insights and automated personalization.

Optimizely generates 3x ROI in half the time as Sitecore.

Forrester’s Total Economic Impact study showed that Optimizely customers enjoy a 299% ROI over 3 years and a break-even of less than 6 months.

The same study for Sitecore showed a 142% ROI over 3 years and a break-even of 13.4 months.

Sitecore Update – Why Businesses are Switching from Sitecore to Optimizely Now?

Many businesses are considering this migration from Sitecore to Optimizely because of the buzz around Sitecore's constant updates.

Why? The upgrades are time-intensive and costly.

Each Sitecore update entails a host of manual tasks for developers. This is exacerbated by Sitecore's tendency to phase out existing plugins, necessitating the adoption of new ones and an overhaul of infrastructure.

These changes increase the costs associated with re-platforming, but also introduce uncertainties. Additionally, many Sitecore updates typically start at 300 hours of work and might take months.

Businesses are exploring alternatives like Optimizely to better meet their needs.

Businesses that should consider transitioning from Sitecore to Optimizely include:

• Mid to large-sized enterprises seeking a more agile and cost-effective DXP.
• Organizations looking to leverage advanced A/B testing and personalization.
• Businesses seeking to improve efficiency and time spent managing content.
• Companies requiring a scalable solution to accommodate growth.
• Businesses cementing a culture of experimentation to differentiate and incrementally outperform others in their space.

Ultimately, this is indicative of broader industry trend towards more flexibility, improved user experience, and stronger data-driven optimization.

Choosing the Right Agency for Migration

“Partnering with an Agency like Whereoware early in your migration process helps create a more defined plan between Optimizely and your internal teams,” MacKenzie continues. “We can identify potential risks earlier in the process to help with mitigation and planning.”

When migrating from Sitecore to Optimizely, it’s important to choose the right agency to guide you through the process.

An ideal partner, like Whereoware, offers a blend of expertise in both Sitecore and Optimizely. They take the time to understand your specific business needs and offer complete, tailored solutions.

We are an acclaimed Optimizely Platinum Partner for over 10 years, ensuring:

• Deep familiarity with the ins and outs of Optimizely’s technology offering.
• A seamless migration of content and data.
• Customizations according to business needs.
• Ongoing support and optimization post-migration.
• Development, design, strategy, experimentation, and marketing skills in-house.
• Direct connections to Optimizely’s leadership to maximize opportunities.

Our track record includes tried-and-tested migration methodologies. We’ve launched more than 100+ websites and experiences, showcasing our deep understanding and mastery of the Optimizely One Platform and other offerings.

We'll Get It Done

Optimizely is quickly becoming the go-to DXP provider. The transition from Sitecore to Optimizely represents a strategic move towards a more agile, user-friendly, scalable, and better personalized content management platform for a business seeking to grow. These benefits are essential for any business looking to up its customer experience technology.

Whereoware, with deep expertise in Optimizely, proprietary accelerators, and a huge amount of passion for helping clients gain full value from their technology investments, is here to help.  

Learn more about our Optimizely solutions here or contact us to learn about our Optimizely Migration Accelerator Package.