Top Free Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) Software
Check out our list of free Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) Software. Products featured on this list are the ones that offer a free trial version. As with most free versions, there are limitations, typically time or features.
If you'd like to see more products and to evaluate additional feature options, compare all Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) Software to ensure you get the right product.
More than 10,000 websites rely on Progress Sitefinity web content management system to engage, convert and retain visitors across the entire customer lifecycle. Companies large and small look to Sitefinity to engage audiences with thoughtful, relevant content; personalized experiences that increase conversions; a consistent, responsive experience across all channels, including mobile; ready integration with backend systems; digital commerce; and Sitefinity Insight to track, analyze and shape eve
OutSystems is the most complete full-stack application development platform. Using high-productivity, connected, and AI-assisted tools, developers can build and deploy a full range of applications — from consumer apps to critical business systems — fast, right, and for the future.
Kentico Xperience is the award-winning digital experience platform that combines content management, digital marketing, and commerce. Available on-premises or in the cloud, Kentico Xperience is an easy-to-use solution for modern websites. It provides personalized experiences and integrates seamlessly into any technology stack. Kentico Xperience empowers companies and brands to increase customer engagement, deliver personalized content to the right audience, and optimize performance to win more
Liferay Digital Experience Platform is an enterprise-grade platform that enables companies to create and connect personalized digital experiences across web, mobile, social, in store and other touchpoints. It provides the technical foundation (deep integration, security and modularity) for your digital business to orchestrate unique customer experiences, as well as business value features to support a deeper understanding of your customers.
Kentico Kontent is a headless CMS that simplifies content production for marketers so that they can focus on creating high-quality content without requiring developer involvement. This frees developers to focus on what they do best—building engaging online experiences that look great in every channel.
Rigor helps businesses of all sizes enable fast and reliable digital experiences for their end users. With Rigor’s easy-to-use performance monitoring and optimization software, our customers are able to monitor their user’s experience throughout the development lifecycle, communicate trends to stakeholders, and take action to improve performance by leveraging our step-by-step optimization insights.
dotCMS is a cutting-edge Hybrid Content Management System (CMS) that allows organizations to build, manage, and deploy content-enabled applications such as websites, single-page apps, mobile apps, and more. Our API-first approach enables users to manage content, images, and assets in one centralized location and deliver them to any channel. Used by Fortune 500 companies, SMBs, and digital agencies alike, dotCMS empowers you to develop multi-channel content-driven web applications quickly. The
Jahia believes strategic digital experiences don’t have to be complex to build. Built on a cloud-based platform, we help organizations all across the world leverage their content and customer data to fully engage with their customers. With an unparalleled level of flexibility and connectivity, Jahia integrates into existing technology stacks and can be customized to meet each organization’s specific business needs and challenges. Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Switzerland, Jahia has offi
Siteglide is a Digital Experience Platform (DXP) that helps Digital Agencies build and manage User-First Experiences such as Online Courses, Marketplaces, Membership Sites and Customer Portals.
CentricMinds is a leading cloud-based Digital Workplace Solution used by small, medium, and large sized organizations. It’s proven to improve employee engagement and internal communication and enables employees to work from anywhere. The platform offers a native mobile app for iOS and Android devices. For over 15 years, CentricMinds has been providing superior Digital Workplace Solutions and our flagship Digital Experience Platform to over 500 organizations, including publicly listed companies,
Kony Quantum (formerly AppPlatform) is the leading low-code platform that enables businesses to quickly build enterprise-grade applications — without compromising on user experience, security, or innovation. From visual editing tools to streamlined deployment and updates, Kony Quantum brings the best of what low-code has to offer so developers can work faster, smarter, and at scale. We know that digital capabilities can change or expand over time or during your application build. With Kony Quant
The Acquia Platform helps businesses transform to meet the ever changing needs of the digital world. Unify your business and technical teams together around one platform that helps you build amazing digital experiences faster.
Solodev, a content management and digital customer experience (DCX) platform that lets individuals and organizations work together on their digital transformation in the cloud. With the Solodev DCX platform, entire teams -- from web developers to digital marketers to the C-Suite -- can collaborate and build together. Powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), Solodev provides unparalleled security, scalability and redundancy. Solodev is an AWS Advanced Technology Partner with AWS Education Competency
Preside is an open source cloud-ready platform which enables the rapid creation of powerful digital products. With powerful out of the box features and 150 free extensions it's the perfect platform for building websites, intranets, smartphone apps and much more
Advantage CSP is an enterprise-class framework that powers the websites, mobile apps, and business applications of Fortune 500 companies, while also offering the flexibility to adapt to each organization's unique processes and workflows. Advantage CSP allows businesses to create site pages, digital content, images, videos and more. Its open-ended workflow architecture can be customized to give different system access levels to administrators, managers and users. The WYSIWYG editor allows users
Pimcore is an open-source software platform used by more than 100 000 companies worldwide. It offers state-of-the-art digital asset management (DAM), product information management (PIM), master data management (MDM), digital experience management (DXP/CMS), multi-channel publishing, and digital commerce. Acclaimed by analysts at Gartner and Forrester, its customers include Fortune 100 companies such as Pepsi, Sony, and Audi. The company's headquarters are in Salzburg, Austria. Pimcore’s consol
Top 10 Free Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) Software in 2021
- Progress Sitefinity
- OutSystems
- Kentico Xperience
- Liferay Digital Experience Platform
- Kentico Kontent
- Rigor
- dotCMS
- Jahia Digital Experience Platform (DX)
- Siteglide
- CentricMinds
Learn More About Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) Software
What You Should Know About Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)
Digital experience platforms (DXPs) create, manage, deliver, and personalize digital experiences throughout multiple steps in the customer journey. DXPs cover a lot of ground in terms of the functionality they provide and each of the component pieces of a DXP are often full-fledged software solutions themselves. These pieces include, but aren’t limited to, hybrid or headless CMS software, personalization software, marketing automation software, CRM software, data management platforms (DMP), digital analytics software, various translation and localization tools, and other assorted content management systems.
The development of DXPs arose out of a disconnect between customer data and how it can be leveraged in marketing channels such as websites, social media platforms, advertisements, and customer touchpoints such as customer service, e-commerce platforms, and so on. DXPs help marketers with a way to incorporate customer data into multiple steps of the customer journey, including visits on websites or apps and targeted display advertisements on other platforms. The deep feature set of DXPs allows marketers to orchestrate personalization across multiple channels and touchpoints. DXPs provide a depth and breadth of personalization that is impossible to recreate with only one or a few of the component pieces that make up those platforms.
DXPs are relatively new, and most major competitors in the market arose in the past decade. There is room for fluctuation as the market settles, and market experts are watching the space closely as DXP software vendors prioritize specific features, acquire other software solutions to fold into their own product, and settle on definitions of the category.
Key Benefits of Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)
- Channel-agnostic content delivery capabilities
- Broad orchestration capabilities across marketing channels and customer touchpoints
- Deep personalization across the customer journey
- Potential consolidation of marketing software stack depending on solution type, industry, or size of business
Who Uses Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)?
The solutions offered by DXPs are particularly pertinent to two departments within a business: product or development teams and marketing teams. The components in a DXP may be separated into those that create and maintain websites, apps, portals, etc., and those that create, house, deliver, and analyze marketing materials. There is a significant overlap between these pieces in terms of relevancy to specific teams. While other departments like sales or customer service leverage parts of a DXP (e.g., a CRM component), developers and marketing professionals are the most likely users to leverage a DXP with a major hands-on approach.
Developers — One of the core components of a DXP is the hybrid or headless CMS which allows developers to create and maintain digital experiences that are device agnostic. Headless CMS are called such because they don’t provide a static front-end delivery, allowing the delivery of content to websites, desktop apps, mobile apps, and more without requiring the development of unique front-end outputs for each. Within a DXP, developers are often tasked with creating the channels through which content will be delivered, and since DXPs utilize headless CMS, they don’t have to worry about tailor-making front-ends for each.
Marketers — The majority of components inside DXPs are primarily used by marketing professionals. Key pieces include, for example, those dealing with marketing automation, digital asset management software, and personalization and segmentation. While developers handle creating marketing channels like websites and apps, marketers are tasked with creating and delivering a steady stream of personalized content through those channels. DXPs offer marketers a full suite of tools for the endeavor, including a centralized hub for customer and user data, repositories for content and assets, and myriad tools to ensure experiences are timely and personalized.
Kinds of Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)
DXPs must provide extensive feature coverage to achieve the cross-channel customer experience optimization they are intended for. As a result, vendors leverage one of two models to populate their solution with all the necessary features. Both models have advantages and disadvantages depending on what software solutions the business is already using, so buyers need to ensure their desired DXP fits with their existing software stack.
Open DXPs — Open DXPs may be thought of as connective tissue that integrates multiple best-of-breed solutions, allowing users to orchestrate their marketing strategy with the best available point solutions. Leveraging an open DXP is especially attractive to businesses that are already using some of the software components integrated into a given offering. The main appeal of an open DXP is the ability to use the best-of-breed solutions for the individual components needed for a DXP.
However, that strength can also be a drawback for some companies. Since open DXPs consists of multiple, integrated point solutions, users must have a strong understanding of each to get the most out of the larger DXP ecosystem. If a business hasn’t leveraged many marketing tools or content management systems in the past, jumping right into an open DXP may be challenging. Businesses considering an open DXP should ensure their workforce is either already familiar with the individual component pieces of software or be prepared to offer comprehensive training on each solution.
Closed DXPs — Closed DXPs are all-in-one platforms that include all the individual pieces of a DXP in a single, unified system offered by one provider. While open DXPs integrate multiple solutions with each other to achieve all the functionality needed for a full DXP, closed DXP providers offer a one-stop-shop where buyers find all the features they need in one platform. Since all-in-one DXPs are a closed ecosystem, these types of solutions are helpful to companies that thus far haven’t invested much in their marketing stack or those looking to consolidate their stack.
As is the case with open DXPs, all-in-one solutions aren’t without potential issues. Since all the components of a closed DXP are developed and maintained by one provider, there isn’t a guarantee that the individual pieces are best-in-class quality. Closed DXPs also host far fewer integrations with other software solutions (ultimately, to incentivize users to utilize as much of the platform as possible). This is particularly disruptive for companies with an established marketing software stack.
Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) Features
As mentioned previously, DXPs are a collection of multiple software solutions, each with their own granular feature set, meaning DXPs have dozens of features. Listed below are the component software solutions within DXPs and the role they have inside the DXP ecosystem.
Hybrid or headless CMS — Hybrid or headless CMS are a foundational component that DXPs are built on. With headless CMS, users are not required to create bespoke front-ends for applications when planning and designing the delivery of content. This streamlined, device-agnostic content delivery allows businesses to focus their effort on the content itself and how it can be personalized and optimized.
Personalization — Efficient digital experience personalization is the overall goal of DXPs. The personalization tools within DXPs are effective because they provide direct access to multiple repositories of customer and user data. Since businesses often keep that kind of information in many disparate, disconnected silos, other personalization solutions can struggle with effectiveness. DXPs streamline personalization by integrating all these data repositories to the systems that deliver content.
Additional Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) Features
Marketing automation — The marketing automation arm of DXPs handle broad-reaching marketing orchestration by pulling customer and user data from CRMs and data management platforms, delivering experiences across multiple channels, and pulling content from various content storage repositories.
Digital asset management (DAM) — DAM tools are content management systems that specifically handle the storage and delivery of marketing collaterals. DAMs are a pivotal component within DXPs since other pieces like marketing automation tools pull content from it when orchestrating content campaigns.
Data management platforms (DMP) — DXPs include a DMP within their offering to house customer and user data. DMPs sometimes integrate with customer relationship management (CRM) solutions to intake more customer data. DXPs’ personalization capabilities heavily rely on the data housed within this component.
Translation and localization — DXPs include translation and localization tools, which is useful when businesses attempt to personalize digital experiences based on a user’s preferred location or language.
E-commerce platforms — Many DXPs also provide all the functions of an e-commerce platform, allowing businesses to run an online store within the same platform that maintains the rest of their digital presence. E-commerce websites provide many features that regular web content management software do not, like integrations with inventory management and payment gateways.
Digital analytics — Gathering and applying analytics are a key component within DXPs. Businesses leverage digital analytics to measure content performance and user experience which are then used to further refine their digital experiences.
Potential Issues with Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)
Onboarding and implementation — DXPs are packed full of features and fully understanding how to effectively leverage all the pieces of one may be a challenge. Without comprehensive cross-team training, businesses could find themselves paying a lot of money for a tool their team doesn’t use to its full potential. All teams utilizing a DXP should be given training on their specific components, and how all these pieces affect and interact with one another. Efficient cross-team communication and collaboration are essential to get the most out of a DXP.
