Introduction
Sitecore has been around for a long time, since 2001, making it ancient in internet years. It describes itself as a customer experience management system, maintaining full end-to-end control over the backend and presentation layer. However, as it tries to keep up with new Headless CMS solutions, it is showing its age. Cosmic is an alternative to Sitecore that your developers and content creators will love.
Monolithic vs Headless CMS
Sitecore, as a monolithic CMS, and other older installed CMS systems like it, comes with a coupled front end application layer that requires additional development and maintenance. Cosmic is a Headless CMS meaning that the content API and presentation layer are decoupled which gives your team greater flexibility when it comes to where your content can go.
Cosmic provides everything your team of developers and content creators need: powerful and intuitive APIs for developers, and an easy-to-use dashboard for content creators. We've removed all complexity and CMS maintenance, so your team can focus on building great products faster, together.
But can't Sitecore go Headless?
Although you CAN make Sitecore a Headless CMS, you still have a lot of work to do to bring it up to the level of an optimized CMS system that's truly headless. And along with your application, you will need to maintain the CMS itself, adding more development costs and taking away focus from what really matters: creating great content and user experiences in your main website or app.
Do they recommend going Headless?
Not really and encourage against it (surprise). From their website:
"Headless is not new; it’s just a “new” buzzword. We have always believed in decoupling presentation from content, but a strictly headless CMS introduces significant risk in that it increases the complexity of your solution for both your developers and your marketers. Sure, headless CMSs certainly free developers to choose whatever front-end user interface technology they’d prefer, and that might give you an app with a great user interface. But the downside is that your app’s customer experience will also be decoupled. You won’t be able to personalize that experience, or respond in real time with relevant content, or test and optimize and manage forms and market in context of user interactions. Is a standout user interface worth it if it’s that isolated?"
Cosmic vs Sitecore
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Technology
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MongoDB database, serverless Node.js Lambda functions. | ASP.net, SQL database. |
Scalability
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All components are infinitely scalable. Built on Serverless technology. | Does not scale easily. Limited by servers. |
Security
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We manage the security for you. Data encryption at rest with 256-bit SSL encryption in transit. Two-factor authentication included free. | Sitecore security. |
CMS maintenance
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We maintain everything for you so you can focus on what matters most: building great content and user experiences. | They deploy, host, and maintain everything for you. Along with your application and content, you need to maintain updates and security for your CMS system. |
Global caching
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High-performance global caching layer included. (Fastly) | No caching included out of the box. |
Media CDN
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Global media CDN included. (Cloudfront) | No CDN included out of the box. |
Image processing
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Image optimization and processing service included. (imgix) | Manually manage your own image sizes and optimizations. |
Extendability
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Apps and extensions. | Possible. Limited. Complicated. |
Front end
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BYOFE (Bring your own front end) Front end code is decoupled from CMS. | Front end is coupled with backend CMS. Can be made to be Headless. |
Number of projects
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One login, unlimited projects. | One login, one website. |
Costs
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Save time and money on developer resource spending. Consider us your outsourced CMS team. Team plans start at $99/month. |
You will need to hire developer resources as this system is WAY complicated and outdated. Average salary of a full-stack developer is $111,600 per year. You may need to hire 1-3 developers to maintain the CMS. Plus the cost of licensing Sitecore can be astronomical. |
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Starting at $1,188 per year |
Average $523,200+ per year |
Feature comparison subject to change. Contact support@cosmicjs.com to report any needed updates.
Uptime you can depend on
Don't fear downtime on cloud or Enterprise plans. Enterprise plans start at a 99.95% uptime guarantee. Check our status page for historical uptime on our serverless, cloud infrastructure.
Cosmic drives results for industry leaders
See how Cosmic helps teams deliver amazing content-powered products faster.