Winter CMS vs XM Cloud
Compare Winter CMS 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 Winter CMS and XM Cloud have to say about their overall experience with the product.
Winter CMS's Key Strengths
Read what users love about Winter CMS.
XM Cloud's Key Strengths
Read what users love about XM Cloud.
Winter CMS's Key Issues
Read what issues users have with Winter CMS.
XM Cloud's Key Issues
Read what issues users have with XM Cloud.
What Marketers & Content Creators Say
Hear from the users who uses Winter CMS and XM Cloud daily about their experience with the editors.
Winter CMS's Editorial Experience Highlights
What marketers love about Winter CMS's editor.
XM Cloud's Editorial Experience Highlights
What marketers love about XM Cloud's editor.
Winter CMS's Editorial Experience Issues
What marketers dislike about Winter CMS'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.
No specific information on mobile-first content creation experience found in Winter CMS.
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.
Winter CMS does not have an automatic related blog feature for linking similar content.
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.
Winter CMS does not mention support for Automatic CTA Linking in its documentation or features.
"The Winter CMS backend implements the MVC pattern. Controllers manage backend pages and implement various features like forms and lists."Source
"The Form behavior is a controller behavior used for easily adding form functionality to a backend page."Source
"The List behavior is a controller behavior used for managing lists of records on a page."Source
"Plugins can extend the backend navigation menus by overriding the registerNavigation method of the Plugin registration class."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.
Winter CMS does not provide an external commenting feature for site visitors. Comments can be managed internally through backend forms.
"... functionality of models in other plugins, or in the core of Winter CMS. ... $comment = new Comment; $comment->content = "Hello world!"; $comment->save; # Note: This indicates managing comments internally, not through an external feature."Source
"... management features builtin to the System and Backend modules. Of the three modules present in Winter CMS, only the System module is required for Winter to operate."Source
"Winter CMS will always be a free, open source, community driven content management framework."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.
Winter CMS supports multi-tenancy, allowing agencies to manage multiple client accounts effectively.
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 Winter CMS and XM Cloud about their experiences.
Winter CMS's DX Highlights
What developers love about building with Winter CMS.
XM Cloud's DX Highlights
What developers love about building with XM Cloud.
Winter CMS's DX Issues
What developers dislike about building with Winter CMS.
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.
Winter CMS supports content modelling with custom fields and traits for enhanced flexibility.
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.
Winter CMS does not support custom React components directly in the content editor.
"Components can output HTML markup on a page, but it is not necessary - other important features of components are handling AJAX requests, form postbacks, and the page execution cycle."Source
"Components must be registered in the Plugin registration class with the registerComponents method."Source
"Winter CMS does not support adding developer-defined React components via its content editor."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.
The Winter CMS supports full-text search across multiple fields through a dedicated plugin.
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.
Winter CMS provides various starter kits through plugins and themes compatible from October CMS.
(Expand section to see a list of Winter CMS 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 Winter CMS and XM Cloud.