The departures and arrivals reveal different reasons for choosing a CMS. Several companies arriving on AEM are consolidating sites onto an enterprise standard; companies leaving describe wanting a lighter or headless CMS, fewer developers between the marketing team and the page, or lower cost. Contentful is the most common named destination, receiving four of the eight moves to another CMS. The complaints that recur among its lower raters are cost, dependence on developers for everyday changes, and an authoring experience they describe as dated. For where Contentful’s own leavers went, see Contentful alternatives; for Sitecore, several of whose leavers moved to Adobe, Sitecore alternatives.
The alternatives, by destination category
Every destination buyers name, grouped by the type of platform they moved to. Eight moved to another CMS, three built their own, one moved its sites onto its commerce platform, two moved a single job elsewhere, and two have not yet named a replacement.
What lower-rating Adobe Experience Manager buyers complain about
That it is expensive for what teams get from it. “It's an overpriced Corvette when all we need is a Honda Accord to get to the grocery store,” says a buyer rating it 3. Another, at 6: “AEM is one of the most expensive tools on the market.”
That everyday changes need a developer. “It is very dev heavy,” says a buyer rating it 4. “Even changing something as simple as a module or a picture can be a week-long process.” Another, at 6, calls it “a very locked system and you need an AEM developer to add any new capabilities.”
And that it feels dated next to newer CMSs. “It's a legacy tool. It's slow, cumbersome, not very intuitive, quite difficult to make updates,” says a buyer rating it 5. One at 6 says “there are way more modern ways of doing a CMS now, looking at like a headless CMS.”
Where buyers go
Sixteen companies here have left Adobe Experience Manager or are leaving it. Eight moved to another CMS, three built their own, one moved its legacy sites onto its commerce platform, and two moved a single job — their DAM, or their email building — elsewhere. Two more are leaving without a named replacement: a large technology company because “the cost of the enterprise agreement was too high,” and a nonprofit that is “sunsetting AEM.”
Another CMS
An automotive services company moved because “AEM was not the preferred headless choice, and that Contentful, from a headless standpoint was much more forgiving.” A large retailer describes its AEM site as “a lot of bespoke code that we had to build to make the site and the pages work the way that we wanted to.” A media nonprofit and a software company, after an acquisition, made the same move.
An apparel brand moving its site content bucket by bucket says Amplience is “a whole lot less buggy than AEM was.”
No head-to-head published yet
A distributor switched to a headless CMS because “we kind of hate doing business with Adobe; they're just not an easy company to work with, and we could never get the product recommendations to work.”
No head-to-head published yet
A media company that rates AEM 8 is moving to Arc XP: “the fact that we're moving away from AEM is not necessarily an no to AEM, it's just that we found a platform and needed a platform that was just a touch stronger and stronger from an editorial perspective.” A home-goods retailer moved to Brightspot years ago “because it would make us more nimble as a production company.” Both are rated by too few buyers to publish a figure.
No head-to-head published yet
Built in-house
A technology company rating AEM 2 is moving to its homegrown platform: “They're too expensive,” and it “can't get off of them fast enough.” At a software company, teams “ran into a lot of issues” and had “trouble integrating it with our larger stack,” so it is moving to in-house tooling. A financial-services company “decided to replace AEM for all of our websites, rather build it themselves.”
No head-to-head published yet
Commerce platform
A jewelry retailer has spent four years moving market by market to “move our legacy sites, which were on Adobe Experience Manager and a custom platform, onto Salesforce Commerce Cloud.”
No head-to-head published yet
One job moved
A footwear retailer: “We switched to Dash from AEM, and it was a huge savings and it's also more efficient.”
No head-to-head published yet
A health and beauty retailer moved email building off AEM to work “without needing to employ AEM developers every time we wanted something new.”
No head-to-head published yet
Read across the groups, companies leaving cite lower cost, less developer dependence and, in several cases, a headless architecture. Contentful is the most common named CMS destination, receiving four of the eight moves to another CMS. Not every move is a verdict on the product: the media company moving to Arc XP rates AEM 8, and is leaving for a platform built for its newsroom.
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Eighteen companies here describe moving onto AEM, against 16 moving off. Four came from Sitecore, three from WordPress, one from TeamSite and one from SDL Tridion; two from homegrown or proprietary platforms; four were consolidating several legacy or regional sites onto one; one replaced a landing-page tool; and two did not say where from.
From Sitecore, for ease of use. A wealth-management firm that moved says AEM is “easier to use than Sitecore, which was the reason why we migrated.”
From WordPress, for security. A healthcare insurer moving its sites says “WordPress has a lot of security issues.”
From many sites to one standard. An industrial manufacturer whose regions ran on Magento, WordPress, Drupal and Adobe “decided to choose one and chose Adobe for that reason, implemented and started closing all of the legacy systems.”
A pattern emerges across the two directions. Several arrivals involve standardizing sites on an enterprise platform; departures include buyers seeking lower cost, less developer dependence or a move toward headless architecture.
When does staying on Adobe Experience Manager make sense?
Positive buyers emphasize scale across many sites and languages, reliability, and fit with the rest of the Adobe stack. Other buyers describe enterprise agreements that can make switching difficult even when satisfaction is lower.
Scale and reliability. A buyer rating it 9 says “none of the CMS compared to Adobe, at least I think in terms of scalability, the kind of features they provide, the kind of reliability they have.” Another, at 8: “It's stable, it's scalable, it works, it adapts, and we can customize it as we see fit.”
Fit with the Adobe stack. A buyer rating it 8 chose AEM’s DAM after an RFP because “AEM seemed to be the best integrated with our existing tech stack” — while adding that it is very expensive.
One buyer values its enterprise familiarity. A technology chief rating it 10, moving off Sitecore, compares choosing it to buying the safe enterprise standard of an earlier era: “it's like you don't really make a wrong decision.”
But enterprise agreements cut both ways. “We're pretty much locked in with Adobe because they've got big agreements at the top level,” says a buyer rating it 6. Another, at 5, would replace it but says “it's an enterprise kind of relationship, and we aren't able to replace that quickly.”
Our read — ours, not a buyer’s — is that AEM sits on both sides of CMS decisions. Several companies move onto it while standardizing sites on one enterprise platform, often from Sitecore or WordPress; others move off it for lower cost, fewer developers in the loop or a headless architecture.
Common questions
Why do companies leave Adobe Experience Manager?
Buyers leaving AEM cite lower cost, less developer dependence and, in several cases, a move toward headless architecture. Other departures involve integration problems or a CMS better suited to a specific job. Not every move reflects dissatisfaction: one buyer moving to Arc XP rates AEM 8 and describes the new platform as a better fit for editorial work.
What do companies replace AEM with?
Of 16 departures here, eight moved to another CMS, three built their own platform, one moved sites onto its commerce platform, two moved individual jobs elsewhere and two had not named a replacement. Contentful was the most common CMS destination, receiving four of the eight moves to another CMS.
Is Contentful better than AEM?
These interviews do not establish one as universally better. Contentful was the most common CMS destination among AEM leavers, receiving four of the eight moves to another CMS. Buyers moving off AEM cite reasons including headless architecture and reducing bespoke development, while positive AEM buyers emphasize scale, reliability and fit with the Adobe stack.
Is Adobe Experience Manager too expensive?
Cost is a recurring complaint among lower-rating AEM buyers and appears in departures from the platform. Buyers also describe developer requirements that add to the burden of operating it. Positive buyers, however, emphasize its scale, reliability and integration with the Adobe stack, so these interviews do not establish that its cost outweighs its value for every organization.
Why do companies move to Adobe Experience Manager?
Eighteen companies here describe moving onto AEM, compared with 16 moving off. Sitecore and WordPress are the most frequently named origins. Several arrivals involve consolidating multiple sites onto one enterprise platform; individual buyers also cite easier use than Sitecore and security concerns with WordPress.
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