Substack vs XM Cloud
Compare Substack and XM Cloud for your content needs. Find out what actual users are saying about each product and which one is best suited for you!
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What Users Say
See what users who have used Substack and XM Cloud have to say about their overall experience with the product.
Substack's Key Strengths
Read what users love about Substack.
XM Cloud's Key Strengths
Read what users love about XM Cloud.
Substack's Key Issues
Read what issues users have with Substack.
XM Cloud's Key Issues
Read what issues users have with XM Cloud.
What Marketers & Content Creators Say
Hear from the users who uses Substack and XM Cloud daily about their experience with the editors.
Substack's Editorial Experience Highlights
What marketers love about Substack's editor.
XM Cloud's Editorial Experience Highlights
What marketers love about XM Cloud's editor.
Substack's Editorial Experience Issues
What marketers dislike about Substack's editor.
XM Cloud's Editorial Experience Issues
What marketers dislike about XM Cloud's editor.
Mobile Editing
Find out how the platforms handle the mobile-first experience for the new generation of workforce on the move.
Substack has launched a mobile editor for creating posts directly on iOS and Android devices, offering essential functionalities.
Sitecore XM Cloud allows mobile-first editing with low-code tools, but some features may require desktop for full functionality.
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.
Substack does not support automatic related blog linking features; manual linking is required.
"If you'd like to share certain parts of a post or allow readers to jump to a specific section of a long post, try adding anchor links."Source
"Recommendations are a Substack super ... However, I couldn't find evidence of automatic related content linking."Source
"I was wondering if it is a good idea to create a substack and post my content on there as well and even link the substack post back to my main blog."Source
XM Cloud does not support automatic linking of related blog posts; linking must be done manually.
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.
Substack lacks built-in automatic CTA linking; users rely on external tools for automation features.
"Substack provides no automation tools at all; the author notes this is a primary reason users leave for competitors."Source
"Substack lacks several critical features needed for effective email marketing, including automated email sequences."Source
"Users discuss the absence of integrated automation features in Substack, noting their reliance on external tools."Source
Sitecore XM Cloud does not support automatic CTA linking directly for AI-driven context matching.
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.
Substack supports commenting on posts from both subscribers and non-subscribers, with moderation options available.
"Navigate to your publication's Settings and click on Community. Slide the toggle to enable comments."Source
"You can now enable comments on your posts for anyone on your mailing list, even if they’re not a paid subscriber."Source
"Writers can choose whether to allow comments from everyone or only paid subscribers."Source
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
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.
Substack does not support multi-tenancy, focusing primarily on individual writers and content monetization.
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
What Developers Say
Hear from developers who've integrated and built on Substack and XM Cloud about their experiences.
Substack's DX Highlights
What developers love about building with Substack.
XM Cloud's DX Highlights
What developers love about building with XM Cloud.
Substack's DX Issues
What developers dislike about building with Substack.
XM Cloud's DX Issues
What developers dislike about building with XM Cloud.
Content Modelling
Find out how developers model and manage their content with the platform with key highlights and limitations.
Substack does not offer built-in content modelling features or custom content types.
"Substack offers limited customization, focusing more on content rather than design."Source
"Directus allows you to create custom schemas, manage data, define roles & permissions for your organization."Source
"Substack doesn’t allow customization for its newsletter formats, thus limiting content modelling."Source
Sitecore XM Cloud fully supports content modeling with customizable data templates and flexible presentation components.
Custom React Components
Find out if the platform supports custom React components to go beyond the basic HTML components for content.
Substack does not support custom React components directly in the content editor.
"Over the years, I’ve written and reviewed hundreds of React components for a $1.7B GenAI startup."Source
"I wanted to display my Substack posts on my website instead of a subscribe link, so I created my own Substack feed component!"Source
"A customizable React component renders the login page based on the user's UI settings."Source
"The new components are both fully customizable AND robust."Source
"I have used substackapi to achieve this Custom Embed Substack Signup Form."Source
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
Full Text Search
Find out if the platform supports full text search across multiple fields to help users find content quickly.
Substack's search functionality is weak, lacking full text search across all content and authors.
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
Starter Kits
Discover starter kits and templates to help you get started with the platform.
Substack offers various starter kits and templates for creators.
(Expand section to see a list of Substack templates and starter kits.)
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.)
Pricing & Plans
Compare the prices of Substack and XM Cloud.