Sitecore.

Digital Experience Platform

Most popular enterprise DXP with 15+ years of market dominance. Heavy, complex, powerful. Founded in 2001 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Now based in San Francisco.

What is Sitecore?

A Digital Experience Platform (DXP) combines content management, personalization, marketing automation and customer analytics to orchestrate coherent digital experiences across multiple channels.

Sitecore is the classic, on-premise DXP: enormous, versatile and very complex. It now also offers XM Cloud (SaaS variant) but that's a separate product line. Traditional Sitecore is primarily used by large financial institutions, insurers and utilities.

What makes Sitecore different?

Sitecore dominates through market position and ecosystem, not through modernity. The system has been expanded over the years with countless features: content management, personalization, A/B testing, email marketing, analytics, customer data platforms. This makes Sitecore both immensely powerful and immensely complex.

Market inertia is a big part of Sitecore's success. Many organizations (especially in the financial sector and utilities) sit deep in Sitecore for years with numerous custom integrations in .NET applications. Switching costs are enormous, so they stay.

Weight is the shadow side. Sitecore implementations are slow, resource-intensive and require dedicated teams of specialists. Many organizations experience Sitecore as "all-in-one" that nobody really needs, but from which they are bound.

Strengths

Fully integrated ecosystem – Content, personalization, testing, marketing automation, analytics all in one platform.

Market dominance in enterprise – Well represented in large financial and utilities sector; much available expertise.

Deep personalization – Advanced segmentation and experience personalization for complex B2B scenarios.

Native high-scale – Built for websites with millions of visitors and hundreds of content editors.

Who uses Sitecore?

Sitecore is dominant in financial sector, insurance and utilities. Dutch and European presence is strong.

LeasePlan Bank – Dutch financial services

VGZ – Largest Dutch health insurer

DTG – Dutch media conglomerate

BDR Thermea Group – European manufacturer

Sparebanken Vest – Norwegian financial institution

WAGO – German industrial company

Our perspective

Sitecore is the system many organizations are "stuck with". It offers great value for complex, personalized B2B and financial websites, but carries heavy technical debt. In our practice we see more and more organizations that want to replace Sitecore with more modern alternatives, but the switching costs are so high that they remain stuck.

Suitable for

Very large enterprises with 100+ million annual visitors

Financial institutions and insurers with complex personalization requirements

Organizations deep in Sitecore ecosystem that need to modernize

B2B scenarios with high personalization and complex customer journeys

Consider carefully

Enormously heavy implementations; takes months to years

High license costs and long-term contracts

Requires dedicated teams of Sitecore specialists (.NET experts)

AI features lag behind competition (Contentful, Storyblok)

Is Sitecore suitable for enterprise?

Yes, but that doesn't mean "optimal". Sitecore is designed for enterprise and offers features that smaller systems lack. However: many organizations don't use Sitecore because it's optimal, but because they're stuck. For greenfield projects we almost never recommend Sitecore anymore unless you have very specific, complex personalization requirements.

Summary: Sitecore is a very powerful but heavy DXP that has seen its golden years. For organizations already in Sitecore: modernization via XM Cloud is a valid path. For new projects: consider whether you really want this amount of complexity or if SaaS alternatives are more future-proof.

Need help with your platform choice? We provide honest advice on whether Sitecore (or replacement) is the right answer for your organization.

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In practice

Integrations & ecosystem

Sitecore integrates with its own suites (Dynamics 365, Marketing Cloud) and external tools via APIs. The .NET binding means integrations are usually custom–you build them yourself. XM Cloud (SaaS variant) offers better API-first architecture. Sitecore ecosystem includes hundreds of partners and integrators; this provides many optional features but also adds complexity.

Implementation

Sitecore implementation takes 6-18 months for an average enterprise. The learning curve is steep. You need a dedicated infrastructure team, .NET developers, Sitecore specialists and usually an implementation partner. This is not a quick start; it's a multi-year commitment.

Support & community

Sitecore offers 24/7 enterprise support and a large partner/integrator network. The community is traditionally strong (Sitecore User Groups, Symposium events). Documentation is extensive but sometimes dated. You're heavily dependent on (expensive) partners for support.

AI & development

Sitecore launches SitecoreAI (November 2025) as an AI-first evolution of XM Cloud with agentic capabilities. This is an attempt to modernize against competition, but the platform inertia is large. In our experience Sitecore follows rather than leads on innovation.

Compare with alternatives

How does Sitecore compare to Optimizely?

Both are traditional, .NET-based DXPs. Optimizely feels modernization better and is more lightly built. Sitecore offers more integrated features (personalization, marketing automation) but is more complex. Optimizely wins on user-friendliness; Sitecore wins on feature depth. For most use cases we recommend Optimizely over Sitecore.

Also check out our analyses of other Digital Experience Platforms:

Optimizely – Lighter, more modern than Sitecore; better testing engine

Umbraco – Much cheaper, more flexible; fewer enterprise features

Contentful – Pure SaaS headless CMS; no DXP features but future-proof

Storyblok – Modern headless with visual editor; better for 2020s architecture

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use Sitecore headlessly?
Yes, XM Cloud (SaaS variant) is headless-first. Traditional Sitecore can do headless via APIs but feels unnatural.
How much does a Sitecore implementation cost?
Platform licenses: €60,000–€300,000+/year. Implementation: €500,000–€3,000,000+ depending on scope. Plan for multiple years and million-euro budgets.
Can I host Sitecore myself?
Traditional Sitecore: yes, on-premise. XM Cloud: no, SaaS only. Sitecore Managed Cloud is managed hosting on Azure.
How long does training take?
Developers: months. Content editors: weeks. This is not an intuitive system.
What if I want to move away from Sitecore?
Very high switching costs. Custom integrations, .NET binding, years of data. This is a strategic commitment.
Do we really need all Sitecore features?
Probably not. Most organizations use 20% of Sitecore's capabilities. This makes a lot of complexity unnecessary.

Need help with your DXP choice?

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