XM Cloud vs Contentful

Compare XM Cloud and Contentful for your content needs. Find out what actual users are saying about each product and which one is best suited for you!

XM Cloud
XM Cloud
Meet the CMS that takes your website further, faster. Grow traffic, boost engagement, and drive conversions with AI-assisted authoring, workflows, personalization, and A/B testing - all built in.
Contentful
Contentful
Contentful is a leading headless content management platform that allows users to create, manage, and distribute content across various platforms seamlessly, providing complete freedom in designing their content models.

What Users Say

See what users who have used XM Cloud and Contentful have to say about their overall experience with the product.

XM Cloud's Key Strengths

Read what users love about XM Cloud.

Contentful's Key Strengths

Read what users love about Contentful.

XM Cloud's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with XM Cloud.

Contentful's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with Contentful.

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What Marketers & Content Creators Say

Hear from the users who uses XM Cloud and Contentful daily about their experience with the editors.

XM Cloud's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about XM Cloud's editor.

Contentful's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about Contentful's editor.

XM Cloud's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about XM Cloud's editor.

Contentful's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about Contentful's editor.

Mobile Editing

Find out how the platforms handle the mobile-first experience for the new generation of workforce on the move.

XM Cloud:
Limited Mobile Experience

Sitecore XM Cloud allows mobile-first editing with low-code tools, but some features may require desktop for full functionality.

"...easy-to-use visual tools for authoring, A/B testing, and personalization - powered by brand-aware AI copilots."
Source
"...mobile-first approach, allowing us to have a solid base for our build."
Source
"...difficult to create layouts for different breakpoints..."
Source
Contentful:
Not Suitable for Mobile

Contentful does not explicitly support mobile-first content creation for marketers; mainly desktop-centric.

"Contentful is mainly an API-based headless CMS, emphasizing structured content delivery rather than a mobile-first editing experience."
Source
"Contentful focuses on optimizing web performance metrics but does not emphasize mobile content creation."
Source
"No significant discussions regarding mobile-first content creation features for Contentful."
Source

Automatic Content Linking

Find out if the platform supports automatic linking of related content to help user discover more content without additional manual effort from the marketer. This automatically create topical clusters of content and is essential for SEO.

XM Cloud:
No Automatic Content Linking

XM Cloud does not support automatic linking of related blog posts; linking must be done manually.

"XM Cloud relies on traditional content linking methods without AI-driven automation."
Source
"Linking of related content in XM Cloud needs to be managed manually, not automatically."
Source
"Current capabilities do not include automatic related blog linking, requiring manual setup."
Source
Contentful:
AI-Powered Related Content

Contentful supports automatic related blog linking with Content Source Maps, linking content fields automatically.

"With Content Source Maps, this setup is now fully automated. Our APIs now return source maps for fields that link directly to the corresponding field in Contentful."
Source

Automatic CTA Linking

Find out if the platform supports automatic display of Call-to-Actions using AI to help users take actions that are relevant to the content they are reading.

XM Cloud:
No Automatic CTA Linking

Sitecore XM Cloud does not support automatic CTA linking directly for AI-driven context matching.

"XM Cloud does not have any references to automatic CTA linking capabilities."
Source
"Dynamic placeholders allow unique key generation, but don't automatically link CTAs."
Source
"The official Sitecore documentation and resources do not mention automatic CTA linking."
Source
Contentful:
No Automatic CTA Linking

Contentful does not support automatic call-to-action linking features.

"Links are a powerful way to model relationships between content."
Source

Comments

Find out if the platform supports comments from your users to improve user engagement. This is often a great way to collect feedback and user emails.

XM Cloud:
No Comments Supported

Sitecore XM Cloud does not have built-in commenting features for users to leave comments on content.

"You can add comments to projects, stages, or tasks when collaborating with other users."
Source
"Sitecore XM Cloud focuses on site management, personalization, and performance, lacking user-facing commenting."
Source
"In the ‘migrations’ I usually think about I’m often looking at an existing Sitecore customer trying to move to XM Cloud, but the fact is that there are a lot of options out there and Optimizely is pushing hard to pull those customers over to their SaaS CMS."
Source
Contentful:
No Comments Supported

While Contentful has a comments feature, it's primarily for internal collaboration. It does not support external visitor commenting out of the box.

"The Comments tab allows you to communicate with collaborators in your space by creating comments, replying, and tagging members."
Source
"Entry comments. Users can add comments to an entry. This allows for teams to collaborate and have conversations."
Source
"Contentful's flexible content modeling goes far beyond blog posts. Here’s how you can leverage Contentful and Netlify to create a nested commenting system."
Source

Multi-tenancy

Find out if the platform supports managing multiple clients or projects within a single account. This is useful for agencies, multi-client or multi-project scenarios.

XM Cloud:
Limited Multi-tenancy

XM Cloud operates as a single-tenant instance; however, the underlying delivery environment supports multi-tenancy.

"XM Cloud runs the Experience Manager environment as a single-tenant instance. The delivery environment..."
Source
Contentful:
Multi-tenancy Supported

Contentful supports multi-tenancy, allowing users to manage multiple client accounts from a single interface.

"Multi-tenancy architecture means that all our customers and applications share a single, common infrastructure and code base that is centrally maintained by us."
Source
"Our solution? A single, unified content platform."
Source
"Contentful's multi-tenancy concept is extensible on all levels and continuously delivers new features."
Source

What Developers Say

Hear from developers who've integrated and built on XM Cloud and Contentful about their experiences.

Ease of Integrating XM Cloud:
Hard
Integration with Sitecore XM Cloud is notably complex, often requiring additional time and investment, as well as partner assistance.
Ease of Integrating Contentful:
Medium
Contentful integration is manageable but involves a learning curve and can become costly for larger projects.

XM Cloud's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with XM Cloud.

Contentful's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with Contentful.

XM Cloud's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with XM Cloud.

Contentful's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with Contentful.

Content Modelling

Find out how developers model and manage their content with the platform with key highlights and limitations.

XM Cloud:
Customisable Content Types

Sitecore XM Cloud fully supports content modeling with customizable data templates and flexible presentation components.

"Content modeling means creating the schema structure of an element that will be presented on your website. You do this using templates, also known as data templates."
Source
"Sitecore XM Cloud is an entirely new product, focusing on content modeling and APIs."
Source
Contentful:
Customisable Content Types

Contentful supports content modeling with flexible structure and customizable content types, including various field types and validations.

"A solid content model is the foundation of every great digital project. Your model is the bones of your project; it tells our APIs what kind of content to send to your end application."
Source
"You can set up your content model with the following tools: Visual modeler — Visually build your content model, view the content types and references."
Source
"This guide will lay out a set of best practices that are considered good content modeling patterns."
Source
"Currently, editor interfaces are fully supported in templates. These include all configurations for content type fields."
Source

Custom React Components

Find out if the platform supports custom React components to go beyond the basic HTML components for content.

XM Cloud:
Custom React Components Supported

Sitecore XM Cloud supports custom React components through registration, allowing rich interactions ineditors.

"In XM Cloud, developers can bring their own code (BYOC) by referencing an external code base that includes components."
Source
"At the time of writing, XM Cloud Components are new and do not have a full feature set. Because of this, only standard React/Next.js components should be used."
Source
"You can build a component by providing Sitecore managed data to a third party API like Google Maps API."
Source
Contentful:
Custom React Components Supported

Contentful supports custom React components, allowing developers to enhance content editing with interactive components.

"To use custom components in Experiences, you need to register them."
Source
"You can import your own design system components into Experiences to create on-brand digital experiences."
Source
"The Forma 36 Design System and React component library provides a comprehensive collection of UI components."
Source

Full Text Search

Find out if the platform supports full text search across multiple fields to help users find content quickly.

XM Cloud:
Full Text Search Supported

Sitecore XM Cloud supports full-text search allowing users to search content across multiple fields.

"Searches for a full-text phrase within a value. For example, searching for 'apple pie' returns items for which the value is 'We made apple pie'."
Source
"Sitecore Search is a cutting-edge, AI-powered, headless content discovery platform, empowering users to craft tailored and predictive search encounters."
Source
Contentful:
Full Text Search Supported

Contentful supports full-text search across multiple fields, allowing users to search content effectively.

"In Contentful, full-text search terms are left anchored...full-text search is built into the standard entry listing endpoint."
Source
"Contentful's full-text search capabilities allow searching across all fields."
Source
"Contentful does include some intriguing full-text search capabilities out-of-the-box that searches across all fields."
Source

Starter Kits

Discover starter kits and templates to help you get started with the platform.

XM Cloud:
Available

Sitecore XM Cloud has various starter kits including Next.js and Angular templates.

(Expand section to see a list of XM Cloud templates and starter kits.)

Contentful:
Available

Contentful offers various starter templates including Next.js and Gatsby options.

(Expand section to see a list of Contentful templates and starter kits.)

Pricing & Plans

Compare the prices of XM Cloud and Contentful.

XM Cloud's Pricing
XM Cloud
$0 / subscription
- Bundled with Pages and embedded personalization
- Includes Headless Services and Experience Edge in a single subscription
Contentful's Pricing
Free
$0 / forever
- 5 users
- 2 locales
- 1M API calls/month
- Community support
- 1 Intro Space
- Structured content
- Developer tools
Lite
$300 / month
- 20 users
- 4 locales
- 2M API calls/month
- 0.75TB/month CDN
- Technical support
- Extended editorial tools
- Optional Medium Spaces
Premium
$81000 / year
- Custom users
- Unlimited API calls
- Custom CDN
- Dedicated support
- Enhanced governance and security
- Contentful Studio compatibility

Compare with other technologies

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Wisp is the best solution for blogging. Try it free today!