Buyer's Guide: Digital Experience Platform (DXP)

Executive Summary

A digital experience platform (DXP) is software for building, running and improving an organization’s websites, portals, apps and other digital channels from one system of content. Acquia describes a digital experience platform as an analyst-defined category for software that brings content management, delivery, and optimization together into one system. Liferay describes a DXP as software, typically created for enterprise businesses, that combines the functionality of multiple tools into one platform to create user journeys that scale. To choose one, decide who the experience serves (anonymous visitors, signed-in customers and partners, or shoppers), how much of the stack one vendor should supply, and whether the people who publish every week can work in the editor without a developer.

DXP vendors started from different products: a content management system, an experimentation tool, a CRM, an open-source CMS or a commerce search engine. The starting point still shapes what each platform includes and what you will buy elsewhere. If an implementation partner will build the first sites, choose the partner and the platform together, and put the partner’s services in the same budget as the license.

What Does a Digital Experience Platform Do That a CMS Does Not?

A content management system stores, edits and publishes content. A DXP adds the work around publishing: digital asset management, personalization, testing, analytics and connections to customer data, so a marketing team can change an experience and measure the result without a software release. Adobe states that Adobe Experience Manager Sites lets you create, manage, optimize, and deliver digital experiences across channels. Some DXPs are sold as one product. Others are a family of products from one vendor, licensed separately.

The delivery architecture is the second difference. Adobe defines a headless CMS as a content management system that lets you take content from the CMS and deliver it to any front end using any framework of choice. A coupled CMS renders the pages itself from templates. Several vendors in this guide offer both models, so ask which one each of your channels will use and who will build and host each front end.

Content now has machine readers as well as human ones. Salesforce describes Contentful's core idea as separating content from presentation: content is created once as structured building blocks, governed centrally and delivered anywhere through an API. An AI assistant or agent can reuse structured content without scraping a page, so the content model deserves as much trial time as the page editor.

Accessibility is a legal requirement for many sites. ADA.gov states that WCAG Version 2.1, Level AA is the technical standard for state and local governments’ web content and mobile apps. ADA.gov states that an Interim Final Rule published on April 20, 2026 extends the compliance date for state and local government entities with a total population of 50,000 or more to April 26, 2027, and to April 26, 2028 for public entities with a total population of less than 50,000 and for special district governments. W3C states that in addressing the European Accessibility Act (EAA), most organizations use WCAG and the European Standard EN 301 549, and that the 2026 version of EN 301 549 uses WCAG 2.2. The platform’s editor, templates and components decide how easily authors meet those standards.

Suite, Composable Stack or Portal: Which DXP Architecture Fits?

The first decision is how much of the stack one vendor supplies. A suite bundles the CMS, assets, personalization and testing under one contract. A composable stack joins a headless content platform to separate search, personalization, commerce and experimentation products that your team chooses and integrates. A portal platform puts the experience behind a sign-in and builds it on customer and partner records you already hold.

MACH Alliance describes itself as the global industry body for open, composable, and connected enterprise technology. A composable stack lets you replace one part without replacing the rest. It also makes your team, or your partner, responsible for the integrations, the front end and the release process that a suite would run for you.

Building in-house usually means building the front end, not the content platform. With a headless platform your developers write, test and host the site. With a suite, the platform renders pages from its own templates and components, and your developers extend them.

How do you evaluate Digital Experience Platform (DXP)?

Authoring decides whether the platform is used after launch. Adobe lists creating and publishing content directly from Microsoft Word or Google Docs, or using a visual editor for real-time, in-context page editing. Optimizely states that marketers get a visual editor where they can build, preview, and publish without raising a ticket, and developers get a headless-ready, API-first architecture. During the trial, have a content author, not an administrator, build a page from your own content and send it through your approval workflow.

Personalization and testing need customer data and people to run them. Sitecore states that real-time personalization and A/B testing are built into every page, with no add-ons or separate tools. Optimizely states that Agentic Experimentation supports both web experimentation on the front end and feature experimentation for server-side changes and feature flags. Ask which customer data each targeting rule can use, where that data must live, and who on your team will review results each week.

The content model decides what can be reused. Bloomreach states that Bloomreach Content’s hybrid architecture adapts to how your teams work, whether you need the creative control of a headful CMS, the freedom of headless, or the best of both. Sitecore lists Next.js, Angular and .NET Core among the front-end frameworks a team can pick. Ask the vendor to model one of your own content types, such as a product page or a policy, and show the same entry on the website and in an app.

Speed is measurable before you sign. Google’s web.dev guidance says LCP should occur within 2.5 seconds of when the page first starts loading, pages should have an INP of 200 milliseconds or less, and pages should maintain a CLS of 0.1 or less. Google’s web.dev guidance says a page passes Core Web Vitals if it meets the recommended targets at the 75th percentile for all three metrics. Ask for field data from live customer sites on the delivery option you would buy, not a lab score from a demonstration site.

W3C states that WCAG 2.2 has 13 guidelines, with testable success criteria at three levels: A, AA, and AAA. Conformance depends on the editor, templates and components: check that an author cannot publish an image without alternative text, and that the default components pass an AA audit.

Integrations decide how much custom code the program carries. Optimizely states that Optimizely CMS connects to hundreds of tools through the Optimizely Connect Platform, including Salesforce, Figma and Marketo. Liferay states that it exposes content and services through REST and GraphQL APIs. Acquia states that native MCP support connects any AI agent directly to your content, with no restriction to Acquia's own AI tools. List the systems the DXP must read from and write to, and ask which connectors the vendor maintains and which a partner wrote.

Upgrades are a running cost on any platform you host yourself. Adobe states that AEM as a Cloud Service implements a continuous delivery pipeline for the AEM codebase, with automated updates up to several times a month. For a self-hosted platform, ask how long the last major upgrade took a customer of your size, and what it cost.

Vendors in Digital Experience Platform (DXP)

Representative vendors include Acquia, Adobe Experience Manager, Bloomreach, Contentful, Liferay, Optimizely, Salesforce Experience Cloud and Sitecore. The list is alphabetical, is not a ranking, and is not for sale. How we choose vendors

Digital experience platform vendors divide by the product each one started from. The table names one vendor for each of eight approaches.

Several vendors sell content, data and personalization as one cloud service. Sitecore describes SitecoreAI as unifying content, data, and personalization in one enterprise-grade, AI-powered platform. Adobe describes AEM as a Cloud Service’s deep integration with the Adobe Experience Cloud for online marketing and web analytics products. Ask a suite vendor which of its products the quote includes, and which of the capabilities you saw in the demonstration are licensed separately.

Two vendors build on open-source software. Acquia states that it was co-founded by Drupal's creator, Dries Buytaert, and that its products are built on Drupal. Acquia states that Acquia Cloud Platform is the only infrastructure built exclusively for Drupal, with a 99.99% uptime SLA and FedRAMP and HIPAA compliance. Liferay describes Liferay Digital Experience Platform (DXP) as open-source software that business and technical teams can use to create experiences for every audience. Liferay states that it has equipped 1,200+ businesses worldwide with technology to build solutions like customer and partner portals, supplier portals, intranets and enterprise websites.

Portal platforms start from the people who sign in. Salesforce describes an Experience Cloud site, whether you call it a portal, a help forum or a support site, as a branded digital experience connected to your CRM. Salesforce states that data from your site lives in your Salesforce org, and data living in your Salesforce org can be shared externally through your site. Salesforce states that the Partner Central template includes lead distribution and deal registration. Liferay states that you can run on SaaS, PaaS, or self-hosted, with built-in SSO, role-based access control, encryption, and compliance certifications.

Commerce-led platforms start from product discovery. Bloomreach states that its ecommerce search is powered by Loomi. Bloomreach states that Loomi reads signals from customer behavior and loyalty to the live catalog and store stock to recommend the next best product for each person across every channel. Bloomreach offers Bloomreach Content as Bloomreach Cloud, a Platform-as-a-Service with managed operations and automatic platform updates, or as an on-premise deployment on your own infrastructure.

The eight approaches were written first, and one vendor was then selected for each from the 19 checked for this guide. A place in this table is not for sale. Any DXP vendor, listed here or not, can present its own case in the Spotlight below.

How much should you budget for Digital Experience Platform (DXP)?

DXP licenses are metered on sites, traffic, API calls, users, environments or personalized profiles, and the meter decides how the bill grows when you add a brand or a channel. Contentful lists a Free plan at $0 / forever, for learning and exploring the Contentful Platform. Contentful lists its Lite plan at $300 / month, for smaller businesses managing a single project. For the larger plans of every vendor in this guide, ask for a quote at your current traffic and at the traffic you expect in three years.

AI features add a new meter. Sitecore states that 20+ agents are included in SitecoreAI, with no add-ons or per-token fees. Ask every vendor whether AI features are metered by tokens, credits or actions, and whether that allowance is shared with other products.

Services often cost more than the license. Liferay states that for every dollar of Liferay sold, solution partners earn on average five times that in services. Ask each shortlisted partner for a fixed-scope estimate for the first site and for the yearly cost of maintaining it.

An open-source license removes the license fee, not the cost of hosting, support and development. The Drupal project states that it is open source software distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL), with no licensing fees.

Choosing a DXP Partner Agency and Planning the Rollout

A DXP partner agency designs and builds the sites, connects the platform to your other systems, and often runs it after launch. Vendors certify partners on their own products. Adobe states that partners can earn Adobe’s stamp of approval after attaining certified technical proficiency. Sitecore states that it matches the partners who deploy its solutions to its program, technology, and clients through Sitecore developer certification and comprehensive training. Acquia states that customers can access the expertise of over 700 worldwide partners. Optimizely states that it fits into existing workflows with 700+ technology partners and integrations.

Ask for the certifications of the people who will work on your project, not only the agency’s partner tier. Ask for two reference customers on the same product and deployment option, live for more than a year. Agree in the contract who owns the code, the content model and the hosting accounts if you change partners.

Choose the partner and the platform together. An agency that works on one platform will propose it. An agency that works on several can compare them, and should show certified staff on the one it recommends.

What should you ask vendors about Digital Experience Platform (DXP)?

Ask each vendor and each partner to answer in writing, and to show the answer on your own content.

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