Bloomreach vs. Enonic

Getting a clear-cut overview of content management systems and digital platforms is often difficult. We have therefore crafted this comparison between CMSs Bloomreach and Enonic, to assist in your consideration process.

Quick Bloomreach facts

Bloomreach is an American software company founded in 2009. The company initially offered an ecommerce personalisation platform, using algorithms to automatically deliver content matching user intent, driving search results with AI, and providing actionable analytics. In 2016, Bloomreach acquired open-source Hippo CMS. The resulting Bloomreach Experience Manager (brXM) is open and based on Java, and joins the Bloomreach portfolio of Bloomreach Experience Cloud (brX) and Bloomreach Search & Merchandising (brSM).

brXM is a hybrid CMS, employing both traditional and headless CMS capabilities in one. Bloomreach integrates single page applications to provide previewing, drag and drop, and visual editing, and utilises REST APIs for headless delivery. Being primarily a Platform as a Service (PaaS), Bloomreach claims a scalable architecture and continuous deployment. Finally, brXM also touts omnichannel personalisation and dynamic targeting by courtesy of the company’s personalisation roots.

Compare Enonic to 17 leading CMS vendors:

Quick Enonic facts

Enonic is a Norwegian software company founded in 2000. The company is primarily known for Enonic XP—a web application platform based on JavaScript, Elasticsearch, and the Java virtual machine. With Enonic XP you can build progressive web applications, complex websites, and web-based APIs. The platform features integrated NoSQL and search, while the CMS interface “Content Studio” can be installed and upgraded as an application. The CMS features a WYSIWYG interface, permissions and roles management, version control, multisite, and advanced image editing.

Enonic XP is also open-source, meaning you can try it extensively before subscribing to software support or a hosted solution. It is also a hybrid CMS, which means that developers can create traditional websites and landing pages, while at the same time use XP in headless mode for distributing editorial content to any device or client. Enonic can optionally be hosted in a fully managed cloud platform, Enonic XC.

Bloomreach pros and cons

Bloomreach was named the only 2020 visionary vendor in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms. According to Gartner, Bloomreach strengths include integrations with several best-of-breed digital commerce vendors, AI-driven search, personalisation, and product recommendation, and a growing set of implementation partners.

In SoftwareReviews’ Data Quadrant of 2020, Bloomreach is in second place (behind Enonic), with particularly strong scores in customer experience and emotional footprint. Other sources tell of a certain developer popularity and a strong SEO plugin.

As for potential Bloomreach disadvantages, Gartner points out the company’s strong focus on commerce-driven use cases. Gartner consequently advises potential buyers to carefully consider Bloomreach’s ability to support a broader digital experience strategy. Gartner also mentions that Bloomreach is still in the process of transferring to a fully cloud-native architecture, being a hybrid cloud solution today.

Other areas of improvement include webapps, core life cycle, cloud scalability, front-end migration, SLA possibility, and roll-back functionality.

Enonic pros and cons

Enonic was named leader in the 2020 Web Experience Management Data Quadrant by SoftwareReviews. Achieving high scores overall, Enonic customers are very likely to recommend the product, with prevailing opinions such as “unique features,” “integrity,” “helps innovate,” “continually improving,” and “saves time.”

Analysts Boye & Company says Enonic is a “highly extensible, feature-rich web experience platform, [they are] well-positioned as a cost-effective open-source alternative to proprietary solutions like Episerver and Kentico and is also able to compete with more well-known alternatives like Drupal and Umbraco.” Boye also highlights developer-friendliness, the ease of building custom web solutions, direct access to influence product direction, and the engaged community.

Learn more: This is what customers say about Enonic »

As to the disadvantages, Mike Johnston of CMS Critic thinks more help and support options in the dashboard would be in order, while a verified user review on Gartner.com misses a migration tool for migrating sites to Enonic XP.

Boye & Company reflects on the techy nature of Enonic: “Presently, though, the product is more likely to impress technical colleagues than business users.” Boye also thinks that content processes could be better supported, and misses real-time editing, multi-language and translation processes. Also, the community outside Norway might be slim, according to Boye.

Comparison between Bloomreach and Enonic

	brXM	Enonic XP
Coding language	Java	JavaScript and/or Java
Database requirements	Yes, several different stacks. Standard: MySQL 5.7 or 8	None, embedded NoSQL
License	Apache Software License 2.0 with some exceptions	GPLv3 with linking exception and commercial license for paying customers
Source code	Open (GitHub)	Open (GitHub)
Integrated search	Yes, based on Elasticsearch	Yes, based on Elasticsearch
Headless/decoupled	Yes, based on REST	Yes, based on GraphQL
Flexible content types	Yes	Yes
WYSIWYG page editor	Yes	Yes
Responsive UI	Yes	Yes
Image editor	No, predefined sizes and crops by the developer	Yes, including focal point and image service
Page template editor	Unclear	Yes
SEO management	Yes, via plugin or brSEO module	Yes, app from Enonic Market
Version control	Yes	Yes
Video content	Yes, embedding	Yes, embedding
Hosting	Any cloud, brCloud	Linux or Windows Server, any Cloud, Enonic Cloud
Support plans	Yes, by vendor	Yes, by vendor
Free support	Forum	Forum, Slack
Community	Yes	Yes
Training	Yes, by vendor	Yes, by vendor
Plugins	Yes, plugins from Essentials feature library and Bloomreach Forge	Yes, apps from Enonic Market

Example: Publishing content in Bloomreach

In brXM, content items are called “documents.” Navigate through a logical tree structure, and add a new document in the appropriate folder. The document will be in editing mode, where you fill in the fields before clicking “Save & Close,” which transports you to a “viewing mode.”

See also “Edit Existing Content” and “Content Publication” on Bloomreach.com.

Example: Publishing a blog post in Enonic

You determine the location of a content item in Content Studio through a logical tree structure. Once the blog post draft is created, you can navigate through fields systematically, before saving, previewing, and finally publishing:

What CMS should you choose?

There are many factors coming into play when an organisation is considering what digital platform it will choose to boost its goals. In the case of Bloomreach versus Enonic, it appears that Bloomreach is best suited for commerce and online retail, while Enonic is best suited for content driven web apps.

Download a head-to-head comparison from SoftwareReviews:

Both CMSs support headless and complex websites, so then it all boils down to differences in developer flexibility, content editor user experience, community, support, security, hosting capabilities, and finally pricing.