Top Optimizely Alternatives You Should Consider

Once known primarily as a powerful personalization tool, Optimizely has recently repositioned itself as a fully-fledged content management system (CMS). This shift has put Optimizely in direct competition with well-established players like WordPress and Drupal, which have dominated the CMS landscape for decades.

While Optimizely brings its personalization expertise to the table, WordPress and Drupal offer unparalleled flexibility, customization and integration. Their focus has always been on building websites and that's what they do best. 

While personalization is undeniably important, it becomes a moot point if the website doesn’t function well. What's more, when hosted on Pantheon and integrated with Lytics Personalization Engine, WordPress and Drupal become even stronger alternatives.

As businesses look for cost-effective alternatives to Optimizely, WordPress and Drupal are great choices. Known for their content management capabilities, these platforms ensure that your website is scalable and secure. 

Let’s compare the three CMSs in more detail:

Optimizely vs. WordPress and Drupal

When we look at different CMSs, it's obvious that WordPress is the most popular, powering 56% of the top 10,000 websites with a known CMS. Drupal has a respectable 8.3% share, however, Optimizely is at just 0.1%.

Just because it's less popular, it doesn’t mean Optimizely should immediately be dismissed. Most people will be familiar with the company as a personalization tool and may even be surprised to learn that it now offers CMS functionality too. 

Optimizely has evolved from an A/B testing tool into a comprehensive suite of products designed to help businesses unlock their digital potential. Its key features and capabilities are:

• Web Experimentation: Optimizely's core strength lies in its A/B testing and multivariate testing capabilities. It enables users to create different variations of web pages, test them with real users, and determine which version performs best based on predefined goals.
• Personalization: The platform offers personalization features, allowing businesses to deliver targeted and customized experiences to different audience segments based on their preferences and behaviors.
• Content Management: Optimizely provides content management tools that enable marketers to plan, create and launch digital experiences easily. It supports the entire content lifecycle from creation to optimization.

Optimizely clearly offers a lot of functionality that businesses want and need. However, at Pantheon, we believe that choosing a CMS requires careful consideration of the platform’s core philosophy and principles. This means acknowledging that Optimizely’s strengths are in its testing capabilities. If you want every page to be an experiment, then it’s a great option! The reality though is that most people will want some of that functionality but primarily are looking for a CMS that is easy to use, customizable and future-proofed. 

For us, that means open source. WordPress and Drupal are open source, meaning anyone can see and modify their code. In contrast, Optimizely is closed-source and built on a .NET framework.

One big difference between these platforms is how they're built. WordPress and Drupal are open source, meaning anyone can see and modify their code. In contrast, Optimizely is closed source and built on a .NET framework.

WordPress is particularly favored for its user-friendliness, making it an ideal choice for large enterprises, which require multiple teams to manage and upload content without constant developer intervention. While Optimizely is known for its personalization features and extensive testing capabilities, these functionalities are not exclusive and can be integrated into WordPress and Drupal using plugins and modules.

Choosing Drupal or WordPress on Pantheon simplifies personalization even further by automatically incorporating the Lytics Personalization Engine, which we will explore in more depth in the following sections.

Which CMS Offers the Most Customization?

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Optimizely’s closed-source nature inherently limits its flexibility and customization potential. In contrast, WordPress and Drupal excel in adaptability. Drupal is renowned for its limitless customization options, supporting ambitious and intricate digital experiences that can be tailored extensively to meet specific business needs.

WordPress is not far behind, offering an extensive range of plugins extending functionality and customization beyond basic content management. This ecosystem of plugins allows businesses to enhance their sites in various ways without deep technical expertise.

Additionally, the popularity of WordPress and Drupal ensures a vast network of agencies and developers familiar with these platforms, providing businesses with a broader selection of partners for developing custom solutions. This large and engaged community support further solidifies WordPress and Drupal as superior choices for organizations looking for a powerful but flexible CMS framework.

A Closer Look at Security

The nature of a CMS's architecture can significantly impact a website’s vulnerability to threats. As a closed-source platform, Optimizely may initially be considered a highly secure platform. However, proprietary software does have security challenges. Without the transparency afforded by open-source models, the wider community cannot participate in identifying and fixing potential vulnerabilities. This lack of public scrutiny may leave hidden weaknesses undiscovered, potentially exposing users to targeted attacks by hackers.

On the other hand, WordPress and Drupal benefit immensely from their vast and active support communities. These communities are important for bolstering security. They continuously scrutinize the code, spot potential security flaws and swiftly develop patches to address them. This collaborative approach to security helps quickly mitigate risks and fosters constant improvement and vigilance.

When hosted on Pantheon, the security framework for both Drupal and WordPress is enhanced even further. Pantheon provides an added layer of security designed to meet the stringent demands of enterprise-grade websites, significantly elevating the security posture of these CMSs beyond Optimizely’s offering. This combination of community-driven security enhancements and Pantheon's robust security infrastructure ensures that WordPress and Drupal remain highly competitive.

Introducing Pantheon: Your Versatile WebOps Platform

Pantheon is a leading WebOps platform designed to streamline website management and improve operational efficiency for teams. We know how frustrating an inefficient workflow can be when you’re never too sure who is responsible for what, or when nothing seems clear-cut or simple. 

We understand that frustration. So we built a platform that gets straight to the point and creates ease for everyone working on the site. Pantheon is built to support efficient workflows. 

The platform also allows smooth transitions between development stages and makes it easier for teams to manage updates and test new features without risking the live environment. This structure is important for businesses aiming to scale, as it supports a gradual expansion in the size and complexity of web operations without sacrificing performance.

To see more of what we offer, watch our platform demo.

High Uptime and Reliable Site Management With Pantheon

Pantheon’s commitment to reliability is evidenced by our high uptime, a critical factor for businesses that depend on their digital presence. High uptime is not just about availability; it’s also about maintaining a consistent, reliable user experience that can foster visitor trust and engagement. Our promise of fast content delivery is necessary for maintaining optimal engagement rates. Studies have shown that even a one-second delay in mobile load times can reduce conversions by up to 20%.

Pantheon’s Upstreams feature enhances workflow efficiency by simplifying the processes of launching new sites within an existing portfolio or implementing updates across multiple sites. This feature ensures that scalability does not come at the expense of manageability or security.

Focusing on Security

On the security front, Pantheon does not lag. We offer an Advanced Global Content Delivery Network (AGCDN) equipped with a Web Application Firewall (WAF), enhancing site performance and security while enabling personalized content delivery. Additionally, Pantheon protects customer data by adhering to rigorous standards, as evidenced by our compliance with SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR and FERPA.

Pantheon’s standout security features include automated site monitoring, role-based access control and a container-based infrastructure, all of which collectively ensure a secure and resilient environment for web operations. Not to mention, Pantheon’s Autopilot feature keeps sites up to date automatically, further bolstering security and site integrity.

Pantheon + Lytics: A Winning Partnership

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While Optimizely has traditionally been recognized for its strong personalization capabilities, the partnership between Pantheon and Lytics goes to a new level, providing an even more powerful personalization framework without compromising site speed.

Pantheon customers can access Lytics’ Personalization Engine, which introduces enterprise-level customer data platform (CDP) personalization features. This integration allows for a more nuanced and powerful approach to personalization, enabling businesses to leverage complex data insights for highly targeted content strategies.

[With this partnership] we want to turn personalization from something that’s always a ‘next year’ priority to something that could be up and running next week.”

– Josh Koenig, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at PantheoN

This shows the partnership’s commitment to making advanced personalization accessible and immediately implementable. Pantheon customers can begin using Lytics at no additional cost. This approach democratizes access to advanced personalization tools, setting it apart from other platforms where similar capabilities come with a significant price tag.

Pantheon’s partnership with Lytics focuses on usability. The integration is designed with the end-user in mind, ensuring the personalization process is powerful, straightforward and manageable. Editorial teams can easily adapt to and utilize these features directly from the CMS, streamlining the workflow and allowing for quick adaptation and implementation. This user-centric approach ensures that the personalization functionality is a practical asset rather than a complex tool that is difficult to leverage effectively.

Together, Pantheon and Lytics elevate the potential of personalization and guarantee it’s a strategy that businesses can implement swiftly and successfully.

Your Next Move: Migrating to Pantheon for a Sustainable Digital Advantage

With personalization being key to good user experiences, choosing a platform with that capability is a must. However, that functionality cannot come at the expense of the CMS itself. WordPress and Drupal are proven CMSs that allow a business to fully own its content. Running on Pantheon, users get all the additional benefits of our WebOps platform – streamlined workflows, high uptime and peace of mind thanks to our security features.

Thanks to the partnership with Lytics, we now bring enterprise-level personalization capabilities directly to users at no additional cost. This collaboration transforms personalization from a complex, costly endeavor into an accessible and powerful tool for businesses aiming to deliver tailored user experiences quickly and effectively. 

To truly understand Pantheon’s impact on your digital strategy, we encourage you to try the platform for free. This no-risk opportunity lets you see firsthand how Pantheon can streamline your operations, safeguard your data and enhance your content delivery.

Are you ready to elevate your digital strategy? Get in touch with a Pantheon expert today to learn how our platform can transform your business. Whether you want to enhance site security, improve operational efficiency or implement cutting-edge personalization, Pantheon has the tools and expertise to help you succeed!