Umbraco V/s Sitecore : A Comparison Based on Scalan Labs Experience

April 28th, 2021

Businesses have a number of options when it comes to choosing a Content Management System. With the adoption of the right CMS, businesses can easily manage and maintain their webpages, even if they aren’t technically adept at managing websites. A CMS application allows multiple contractors to add, edit, modify and publish changes/content efficiently. There are a lot of contenders around when it comes to choosing the best CMS for your business.  

In this article, the spotlight is on Umbraco and SiteCore, and a discussion on what would be more suitable for each type of businesses. Reading through these comparisons may help you in making a wise decision. 

What’s Umbraco – A Brief.

Umbraco came into existence in 2000 as an open source .NET CMS and as a solution for all those costly options around, and it would be free, as long as it is being used in its ‘out-of-the-box state. At the time, CMS were costly enterprise-based solutions or custom-built ones that were expensive too. As CMS was backed by a commercial organization, extra module usage will require payment

The CMS was meant to be a friendlier, economical version of its counterparts, and hence started with just three core developers, with a small community of 25 supporters. The CMS company still remains small, but its community grew far and wide with over thousands of installations globally. 

What’s SiteCore – A Brief.

Sitecore CMS founded in Denmark in 2001, lets developers harness the powers of flexibility, scalability and security of .NET frameworks, making it easy to manage the full spectrum of content across the different platforms. With its powerful suite of features, it lets the personalized customer data to be captured, complete with their interaction, behavior and patterns, making it easier for businesses to deepen engagement and improve their ROI. There will be a rich profile of each individual, and with time, more information will be added, depending on their buying and browsing patterns. 

The rich insights make it easier for the developer to score and rank visitor interactions to help priorities follow ups, and with the Path Analyzer, to track on a page-to-page level. 

The Scalans Labs experience helps businesses select what they need

At Scalans Labs, we would help you analyze what you need before deciding on the Umbraco Vs Sitecore factors. For websites that don’t need personalization, going the Umbraco route would be more feasible, because being a minimalist CMS, it doesn’t bother you with unnecessary features that you would probably never really use. 

However, businesses planning to scale with more complex requirements, there will be a change management process and more authors to be trained to use it. Companies will need more dev Ops to manage the servers and the ever-growing database. 

With Sitecore, businesses never have to worry about whether the CMS would be able to handle whatever is thrown at it. It comes with all the planning and the architecture that works for it, making it the perfect choice for large enterprises that need something more than just a simple website or a content management system. 

Sitecore comes equipped with marketing automation tools, eCommerce tools and several other tools that help businesses reach out to their customers, engage them and be more productive than ever. It is important to have an experienced developer to get things straight with this CMS, including providing future management and support, and with Scalans Labs backing you to the core, solutions would be reached faster than ever. 

On the other hand, businesses looking for a quick-to-the-market, free system, Umbraco would be a better choice for them. Hence, it is more suitable for businesses looking for a simple, yet fast launch, with lesser room for sophistication. 

Points of comparison to note between the two:

1.Platform

Both CMS runs on Microsoft .NET framework. Building a website with either of these CMS is basically the same, and will work on whichever front end stack the developer choses. It uses the same kind of Visual Studio development tools, with Microsoft SQL as database server and Windows IS as web server. The only difference with Sitecore and Umbraco is that the former requires the purchase of a license and the latter is open source. 

2. Installation

Umbraco is very easy to set up and run. The installation is standalone and simple as it comes with a single installer. It is also possible to pull down the NuGet package to the Visual Studio Solution.

 Installing a single instance is done with a lot of care and consideration. This takes a few hours of work, since the developer has to install the Sitecore Installation Manager or PowerShell with Sitecore Installation Framework. 

3. Templating features

 Building templates is a piece of cake with Umbraco. The interface is quite descriptive, intuitive (making it easy to edit) and simple, so there is less planning and complexity involved, making it easier for developers to manage continuity across templates. If over the time, developers add to the system, they will, however, have to remember to keep it simple.

There are third-party community-built plugins to help the developer jump directly into building the features, but a fair amount of customization is also required as they dive further in. 

Building templates is super easy with Sitecore. There are plenty of templating features, but they are not as intuitive as with Umbraco.  But a new User Interface is in the works and it promises intuitive features on all platforms. 

4. Third-party tools 

Umbraco necessitates the need for some additional code customizations in order to activate third-party plugins. 

Sitecore offers smooth integration with third-party services like Mailchimp, Salesforce and LinkedIn. The development process is straightforward and automated. There is a third-party tool known as Unicorn to sync and serialize database items making it easy for developers to perform template changes in the source code repository.

5. Marketing functions and analytics 

Umbraco doesn’t have a built-in marketing or eCommerce functionality, but it is possible to have those as an add-on feature like uCommerce and uMarketingSuite. 

Sitecore is perfect in this regard, thanks to its intuitive combination of CMS and marketing automation tools. 

6. Documentation

With Umbraco, it is possible to set up and start using the platform in a few minutes. It is possible to have a simple site up and running within a few minutes, thanks to the tutorials and developer documentation and the content templates and rendering layouts. 

Abundant developer documentation is available with Sitecore. And it is possible to open a support case whenever needed and with the huge community of developers, help is never far away. 

Feature comparison – Sitecore and Umbraco

Features	Sitecore	Umbraco
Forms based testing	Yes	Yes
True WYSIWYG Editing	Yes (Page Editor)	No
Versioning	Yes	Yes
Language Versions	Yes	Yes
Publishing	Yes	Yes
Scheduled Deployments	Yes	Yes
Workflow Automation	Yes	No
Personalization	Yes	No
A/B Testing	Yes	No
Integrated Analytics	Yes	No
Headless JSS Support	Yes	No, have to custom build
AI Assisted Personalization	Yes	No
Drag & Drop Page Builder	Yes	No
Identity Services	Yes	No
Integrated DAM	Yes	Minimal
Salesforce Connectors	Yes	No
Integrated Commerce	Yes, by Salesforce	Yes, with 3rd party plugin, Marchello
Dedicated Support	Yes	Yes, with fees
License Model	Commercial	Open-source
Development Platform	.NET Framework 4.6+	.NET Framework 4.6+
Email Campaign Manager	Yes	No
Dynamic Form Builder	Yes	Yes
Community Plugins	Yes	Yes
Community Support Forums	Yes	Yes

What’s in the news with Umbraco?

Umbraco released Umbraco Uno in September 2020 to simplify the complex CMS space so non-technical marketers and creative agencies can build and maintain customized websites on their own. They can do this without designers and developers. There is no steep learning curve or coding knowledge required, making it popular among small businesses who may not be able to afford developers and designers at a moment’s notice. 

What’s in the news with Sitecore?

Sitecore released version 10.1 in April 2021, and it contains a series of updates and some new features. There is a redesigned launchpad with its new layout and design, a new upgrade methodology, an improved version of Horizon for a better editing experience, a powerful Sitecore Forms, HTML cache flexibility and so on. 

Deciding on the platform that suits which business

Sitecore is a fully scalable platform where developers can introduce new products without the need for complete redesign. This platform is more suited to large enterprises that require multi-lingual or commerce functionality, complex booking system, elaborate built-in analytics, marketing automation, personalization and so on. 

Umbraco is perfect for businesses with simple needs, just to have a digital presence in front of their clients, especially small to medium sized businesses. 

Conclusion

Sitecore is the proven choice for companies looking for a robust, reliable enterprise CMS solution with more features being added on to it regularly. It has several out of the box features like personalization, marketing, advanced marketing automation tools like follow up emails, A/B testing, engagement automation,  goal tracking and so on. The A/B testing is good in Sitecore because it allows the developer team to statistically monitor minor changes to the site. 

Umbraco is perfect for websites with simple tools and updating and creating new pages is a quick and simple process. Once the website is created, it is not necessary that the development team should be making the updates, practically anyone can do, especially when the changes are simple. Additionally, Umbraco plugins are quite customizable and flexible, making it easy for companies to accommodate it to their needs.  

Get in touch with us to familiarize with the Scalans Labs experience in choosing your model for CMS. If you are still debating on whether to choose Umbraco or Sitecore, schedule an appointment with us, and we will help you out.