Acquia DXP

I use Acquia primarily for front-end development and building reusable components. We employ a model approach with the paragraph model to build reusable components and layout builders. 

We also utilize micro front-end concepts, tweak templating, and dynamic themes with personalization features, allowing users to configure their themes.

The best feature of Acquia is its deployment capabilities and the DX product, which recently released a new framework called DX Acquia. This framework enables faster site building, even for those who may not be technically strong, with pre-available theming and components. Acquia ensures we always have the latest releases available, which is a positive step forward in growth.

In terms of scalability, Acquia is not suitable for e-commerce; it's more suited for content publishing and marketing websites. Due to security concerns, Acquia and Drupal  have not gained strength as fully transaction-based platforms.

I have used Acquia for almost six years.

I have not had any issues with the stability of Acquia.

Acquia is comfortable with content-type websites, but not very scalable for ecommerce. It works well for content-rich, marketing-focused sites with flexible content management. Initially, there was difficulty running setups locally, however, Acquia Cloud  has simplified the process.

Acquia's platform support is generally good. During past projects where we needed platform upgrades, their support team was helpful, even though sometimes our team had to be involved in fixing issues. 

On a scale from one to ten, their support is about a seven.

Neutral

Initially, we faced challenges with setup due to Acquia's enabling of Docker  and related toolkits. However, with Acquia Cloud, the setup has become much easier.

We worked collaboratively with the Acquia platform team, particularly during platform upgrades and issue resolutions.

Acquia licensing works on a yearly subscription basis. The subscription amount is typically covered by the client as part of the agreement. I'm not sure about the current pricing, but it was a yearly web subscription.

Overall, I would rate Acquia seven out of ten. I would recommend this product to other people, especially for smaller applications with limited budgets. The support is good, and having the owner of Drupal  also own Acquia is advantageous.

The usual use case is for the customer to have a centralized way to manage their websites. We manage multiple websites, sometimes with different types, plus some customers also have products they want to showcase. We manage these websites using Acquia DXP .

Acquia DXP  offers the tools to make it easier to maintain, manage, and deploy websites in a centralized way for multiple channels.

The features of DXP that are most valuable include Acquia Site Factory, which allows for the management and creation of websites, offering a UI for managing the process of creating and deploying the websites. Additionally, Content Hub provides a centralized way to manage content.

There are areas where Acquia DXP could be improved. For example, in Site Factory, the provisioning of environments can take time. You often need more environments than what's available by default, which requires going through support and sales processes. Having more stacks available by default would be beneficial. With Content Hub, there are issues with certain types of design and content incorporation, so more flexibility is needed.

We have been using DXP from 2020 to 2024.

There are not many issues, and Acquia uses a mailing list to communicate when there are problems. They also provide a status page to check the availability of solutions. They communicate about platform maintenance, and typically there is no action needed on our side.

Acquia DXP has high scalability because it is built on AWS . It allows you to scale the solution according to your needs. You can configure some aspects yourself on the cloud platform, and for specific needs, you might need to go through support.

The support is normal, offering standard SLAs. When creating critical issues, a follow-up is needed on your side. Sometimes there are difficulties when dealing with critical issues due to the lack of a 24/7 available team. However, they are responsive and provide guidance.

Neutral

The initial setup is not the easiest stack to set up initially. That said, it is well documented. For an experienced developer, the setup would be relatively straightforward and rated as a nine.

For anyone evaluating this solution, it's important to have senior developers and senior people working with it, as junior developers may struggle with the setup. Having the right people on board is essential for enterprise projects. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

I was an Assistant Dean for Online Education at the School of Engineering. We used Acquia Digital Experience Platform for handling our website, flex space dot org. It is a free and open website of learning space exemplars that is available globally.

Acquia kept our website running flawlessly. Despite being a complex website used globally, it was stable and transparent for me. We had uninterrupted service and the site never went down.

Acquia was able to support everything our designer came up with. Every  user is almost like a mini administrator, which spoke well to how they were connected globally.

Once the site was originally developed, it needed to be transferred onto Acquia, which was quite a task. There were challenges whenever Drupal  changed its version, as we had to ensure everything still worked.

We have been using Acquia for several years. It has been more than two years because we were running FlexSpace on it.

Stability-wise, it was pretty good. We had uninterrupted service and the site never went down.

It scaled as the user base grew, and there were no problems allowing for expansion.

Their support team was outstanding. I had a consistent portfolio person to call when issues arose. Acquia takes good care of their employees as the point of contact changed only once or twice over the years.

Positive

The initial setup was tricky as it involved a lot of information to move over to Acquia. Every  time Drupal  changed its version, we had to ensure everything continued to work seamlessly.

Acquia was part of a university-wide contract through SUNY, and they were very competitive in pricing. Education always seeks the most value for the dollar spent.

We looked at multiple website hosting services.

Acquia's support platform is commendable. Having a consistent point of contact made any issues manageable, and I would recommend the product to others.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

We primarily use the Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP)  to develop sites and apps in the financial customer and retail sectors. We also work with big brand sites. We use the platform to build websites, mobile applications, solutions for digital asset management, and marketing campaigns.

The main advantage of using Acquia’s platform is the opportunity to work with a recognized firm, which gives us extensive commercial and marketing support. 

However, there have been some structural issues within our organization that have led to changes and restructuring, which impacted our use of certain tools within the platform.

One of the most valuable aspects is working with a recognized firm, which sometimes surpasses the commercial and marketing requirements for big customers. 

Additionally, they offer useful digital asset management features and personalization tools, although there have been compatibility issues.

One area for improvement is how Acquia sizes its platform for customers, which can be ambiguous and often results in penalties after doing business. 

Issues with defining site requests and visits are not standard in the market. They also need to improve their support and technical advisory services. The manuals provided lacked clear and complete information.

We have been using the solution since 2017.

In three years, there was only one incident involving downtime of about forty-five minutes with a Bank, which was quickly resolved. Otherwise, the stability was quite commendable.

Scalability is a challenging aspect due to some mysterious elements in the platform’s design. Minimizing issues was sometimes encouraged, which was not ideal. Scaling might mean increasing capacity or decreasing it, and this last, is the complex part. 

They are usually okay, and depending on the complexity of the ticket, we can reach good experts who are far from the CX knowledge base. However, once we had customer support service in Latin America, we faced unprofessional attitudes as tech advisors. Despite participating in advisory meetings, the experience with this particular was less supportive than expected.

Neutral

We had previously been developing on Drupal  CMS before switching to Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP) .

Our first steps in 2017 were complex since we subscribed to an ambitious and complete DXP  project with several modules for a mature customer. Now, we are very familiar with most of the platforms, and we have updated the Acquia methodology with our Agile way of work and always suggest approaching step by step your paint points while the customer adopts the expertise needed for the next step. 

We have implemented Acquia first for ourselves and then as a service to several customers—more than 7 customers with more than 45 sites, directories, apps, and digital signings. 

On highly demanding traffic sites of large organizations with several digital channels, different brands, or assets that need to be healthy governance by efficient teams concerned with what they publish, the quality of the information, and the performance of their digital products, the ROI is over 40%/Y or hight when you quantify the easy and quick to go life with any modification. 

The pricing is considered expensive compared to other vendors, but you have to make your own TCO calculations to understand its value. The service model is based on the demand, the level of SLA needed, and the other services the customers need to build and program for any digital products. Sometimes, the Platform Sellers want to quote you everything you possibly need, and we advise you to ramp up as you need the subscription as a preferred strategy to avoid wasting costs on features that your customers are not prepared to use. 

Yes, as part of the company process, we are always looking at the strengths and weaknesses of the market offer to advise our customers and develop skills around them. I have been involved in integrating and developing Oracle's Colud application for Digital Experience and Customer Experience, Adobe AEM and the Marketing Suits, and several others for several years. Technology is becoming a commodity per-ce in its features and capabilities, especially if it is a SAAS or PAAS solution, a trend in the last few years. So, the main difference is how they compile for the market you are in and how well their value satisfies your customers' needs. 

I would recommend the product, as it fits well with specific dimensions and needs, depending on the customer and company's needs. However, it might be challenging for others with strong Microsoft, Google or similar product affiliations.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten, more for the company policy and unclear partnership with the integrators than for the technical aspects of the solution, which is higher than 7.