At Newpath we get asked a lot about the differences between various platforms such as Kentico Xperience, Optimizely, Drupal, Kontent, Sitecore, WordPress and more. We also get asked if one is better than the other, or which is most appropriate for a given project. Let’s jump in and take a specific look at Kentico Xperience, Kontent and Drupal today.
Let’s start with the difference between Kentico Xperience and Kontent
Kentico Xperience is a web content management system (CMS) that allows users to create and manage digital experiences, including websites, forms, and e-commerce functionality.
Kontent is a headless CMS that allows users to create, manage, and distribute content across multiple channels, such as websites, mobile apps, and voice assistants.
The key difference between the two is that Kentico Xperience is a traditional, monolithic CMS, while Kontent is a headless CMS. This means that Kentico Xperience provides a built-in visual editor for creating and managing website pages, while Kontent provides a set of APIs for creating and managing content that can be consumed by a wide range of digital channels.
Kontent.ai was designed as a cloud-first, API-first solution from the beginning. Xperience by Kentico has been completely rewritten as a cloud-native hybrid solution, offering existing customers a smooth transition.
It’s worth noting that Kentico Software no longer owns or operates Kontent. This is a separate business. Petr Palas separated the products and then the businesses completely in 2022.
Let’s look at Drupal
Drupal is a free, open-source content management system (CMS) that allows users to create and manage websites, web applications, and digital experiences. Drupal is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database to store content.
Drupal’s core features include a powerful content modelling system, multilingual support, robust access controls, and a large library of modules and themes that can be used to extend the functionality of the CMS. Drupal’s modular architecture allows developers to add new features and functionality to their websites without having to modify the core codebase.
Drupal is popular among developers for its flexibility and scalability, making it a great option for large, complex websites and web applications, such as corporate websites, e-commerce sites, and government websites. It’s also used by many organizations for building web sites and applications with high security standards.
Drupal is also known for its active and engaged community of developers, designers, and users who contribute to the development of the CMS and provide support and assistance to other users.
Kentico Xperience vs Kontent vs Drupal
As we know, Kentico Xperience, Kentico Kontent, and Drupal are all content management systems (CMS) that allow users to create and manage digital experiences, such as websites and web applications.
Kentico Xperience and Drupal are what’s termed as monolithic systems. Kontent is a headless system. A monolithic architecture is a traditional software architecture in which all of the components of a system are integrated into a single, unified application. A headless architecture, on the other hand, separates the front-end and back-end components of a system, allowing them to be developed and deployed independently. In a headless system, the front-end (or “head”) communicates with the back-end (or “body”) through an API, rather than being tightly integrated with it. This allows for greater flexibility and scalability, but can also make the system more complex to develop and maintain.
Kentico Xperience is a traditional, monolithic CMS that provides a built-in visual editor for creating and managing website pages, forms, and e-commerce functionality. It also includes features such as multilingual support, personalisation, and marketing automation.
Kentico Kontent is a headless CMS that allows users to create, manage, and distribute content across multiple channels, such as websites, mobile apps, and voice assistants. It is designed to be highly flexible and to integrate with other technologies, it uses a set of APIs to provide the functionality.
Drupal is a free, open-source CMS that is popular among developers for its flexibility and scalability. It has a powerful content modelling system, multilingual support, robust access controls and a large library of modules and themes that can be used to extend the functionality of the CMS. It’s particularly great for large, complex websites and web applications, such as corporate websites, e-commerce sites, and government websites.
Kentico Xperience comes with a 3 tier annual licensing model that starts at around $16,000 per annum.
Kontent (known as Kontent.ai) also comes with tiered licensing and use fees on a per annum basis, with pricing starting at around $50,000 per year.
Drupal, being an open-source system is free for use. There are no licensing fees for the software. Do keep in mind however that you will likely require paid plugins to make best use of the system and get the full functionality and feature set that your business requires.
Drupal developers are in abundance and widely available, and Drupal web development is vastly popular, however it does carry a higher cost than that of more widely used CMS platforms such as WordPress.
Kentico and Kontent developers are in short supply in Australia, finding a Kentico web agency with resources free can be tricky from time to time, as the space is in high demand, hence the price for Kentico & Kontent developers is significantly higher than that of a Drupal developer.
Is one better than the other for your project?
Each of Kentico Xperience, Kontent and Drupal are powerful applications that can be used to create and manage digital experiences, such as websites and web applications. The choice between them will depend on the specific needs and requirements of your project, your budget, your desired timeline – to launch, and your internal team composition and their ability to manage each platform, as each come with differing requirements in terms of upkeep, administration and use.
The team at Newpath design, develop and maintain solutions across Kentico Xperience, Kontent and also Drupal. We have years of experience helping clients select and maintain the right platform for their needs, while giving them scope for growth into the future. Contact us today to discuss which platform is the right fit for your project and how our experienced and certified team can help make your project a success.
