Choosing a DXP in 2024 & Beyond: How Composable Do You Want to Go?

Any brand assessing its current technology stack is immediately pressured to make the right choice. Between increased customer expectations for personalized and relevant experiences, slashed budgets forcing teams to do more with less, and a growing need to match the business needs of today and tomorrow’s future requirements, there is little wiggle room to get it wrong.

The emergence of composability has also given businesses more to consider when selecting a modern digital experience platform that fits their needs. Should we go completely headless? Opt for a traditional   platform? Or go with a hybrid approach?

Enterprises considering a new DXP have a number of options that await them, but which one should they choose? It all depends on the architecture you have and the architecture you want.

What Does Composable Mean?

The composable term has gained traction over the years. It represents a modular approach to software development where an application is broken down into smaller pieces that can be removed, swapped for, or combined with other applications or services. This enables faster development, responsiveness, and deployment of new features or bug fixes.

When applied to the DXP space, composability enables organizations to move away from legacy monolithic approaches that combine multiple features and functionality into one piece of software and instead select different best-of-breed tools to create a modern technology stack. These solutions are also cloud-native, enabling businesses to leverage the benefits of the cloud for hosting, storage and automatic updates provided by the vendor.

Amidst the growth of composability and composable architecture, DXP vendors have interpreted the concept differently. These different interpretations are often seen in brand marketing and positioning, which can leave businesses considering a composable approach confused about what’s different. The solution is to look at the architecture.

Learn More: What is a Composable DXP?

DXP Architecture Options

Any business considering a DXP today will already use one of three different architectural options: traditional, composable/pure headless, or hybrid. However, when it comes time to buy, they will be greeted with either hybrid or pure composable options. What do all of these architectures mean?

Traditional Architecture

The traditional DXP architecture, sometimes called legacy or monolithic architecture, refers to an all-in-one suite concept where businesses receive a CMS and almost every feature they might want from a marketing technology stack in one platform.

This could be content management and ecommerce, personalization, and analytics features rolled into one. It could also mean content management, analytics, and digital asset management available in one platform. Ultimately, it depends on the unique offerings of the particular vendor.

These implementations are often not seen as composable as there is minimal composability, if any, available. Moving away from this traditional approach toward modern approaches that offer more flexibility and freedom has been one of the biggest catalysts for vendors and businesses alike to adopt composability.

Examples include Sitecore XP or XM and traditional Adobe and Optimizely implementations. Traditionally implemented solutions from other vendors such as OpenText, HCL, and Oracle would also fall under this category.

Many of these vendors, in particular Sitecore, Adobe, and Optimizely, have also embraced composability to now provide a hybrid architecture option for customers. However, the traditional DXP architecture remains available for customers who want to maintain more architectural control, such as those in highly-regulated industries who need to deploy software on-premises.

Composable or Pure Headless Architecture

The terms’ composable’ and ‘composable DXP’ were first used in the content management space by headless CMS vendors and are generally what businesses will come across when they seek out a composable solution.

In a composable DXP architecture, the headless CMS sits at the center of the technology stack. While the headless CMS manages content and orchestrates digital experiences, it integrates with other tools in a typical martech stack. Businesses can take a best-of-breed approach and select the ideal commerce platform, analytics tool, personalization engine, or any other system for their needs.

Vendors that position themselves as composable DXPs often have a marketplace or partnerships with other software systems, providing custom connections that make integrating the different tools within the stack smoother. The promise of these composable solutions is no more vendor lock-in and increased freedom of choice and adaptability.

Examples of solutions that would fall under this category include Contentful, Contentstack, Magnolia, and Kontent.ai.

Hybrid Architecture

A hybrid DXP architecture refers to a modern composable approach adopted by many traditional DXP vendors, which involves using composable products from the same vendor. This suite DXP or integrated DXP architecture allows businesses to break up the conventional monolith but still leverage the benefits of a sophisticated vendor and embrace composability.

Rather than purchasing a traditional suite, which often includes additional features the business won’t be taking full advantage of and comes at a higher cost, they can get the robust content management capabilities they want and select any other features they might require later on whether that be a commerce solution, customer data platform or another product that the DXP vendor offers.

Vendors such as Sitecore, Adobe, and Optimizely are prime examples of this hybrid DXP architecture. These vendors have also added new products that combine the multiple features found in an all-in-one suite with a system deployed in the cloud.

Companies get the benefits of cloud-native products, such as regular updates, faster integrations, and the full-featured capabilities of content management, search, personalization, customer data management, and analytics. Sitecore’s XM Cloud Plus and Optimizely’s Optimizely One are examples of this latest type of offering. 

Why Adopt a Hybrid DXP Architecture

There are several reasons to adopt a hybrid DXP architecture, both due to the benefits of a hybrid architecture and the potential drawbacks of a pure composable architecture. 

Benefits of a Hybrid DXP Architecture

Whether planning a migration from one of the legacy implementations of Adobe, Sitecore, or Optimizely to one of the modern SaaS implementations or simply migrating from another CMS, choosing a hybrid architecture has numerous benefits. 

Popularity

The vendors that offer a hybrid DXP architecture provide some of the most popular enterprise content management solutions, including Adobe Experience Manager, Sitecore XM, and Optimizely, with AEM powering 25.2% of the Fortune 500 websites. 

Maintain Investment

Businesses already using products from a hybrid DXP provider would have invested significantly in purchasing licenses, implementation, and other maintenance costs.

However, when considering the benefits of composability, they may wonder if they need to categorize that investment as a sunk cost and pivot to a headless solution instead. With a hybrid DXP it is possible to achieve the benefits of composability without needing to migrate to another DXP. 

Unified Admin Interface & Compatibility

Composability enables businesses to select different best-of-breed components. In a hybrid DXP architecture, brands can take advantage of a unified admin console in the backend and the fact that multiple tools from the same vendor will be more compatible, making integrations and data sharing much more straightforward. 

Extensive Partner Ecosystems

Brands such as Sitecore, Adobe, and Optimizely feature extensive partner ecosystems. This means businesses will have several implementation partners and ongoing support and maintenance providers to assist them. 

Sophisticated Content Management

Hybrid DXP architecture platforms can offer more sophisticated content management capabilities. These solutions have been catering to enterprise content needs for over two decades, whereas many popular headless CMS solutions have only been around for a handful of years. As such, the richness of content management is much greater in the hybrid DXP architecture solutions.

For example, these solutions offer better Content Type Inheritance, which allows the creation of a new content type from an existing one. This will enable marketers to reuse a current content type and metadata columns ten times over in a user-friendly way, facilitating complex content management. 

PageSpeed Improvements

Enterprise websites aim to increase Core Web Vitals and PageSpeed Insights to optimize speed and efficiency, improve the user experience, and generate more traffic and conversions. Improving these scores is often one of the driving factors behind adopting a headless CMS and embracing composability. However, with the proper implementation of a hybrid DXP architecture, businesses can still take advantage of these PageSpeed improvements. 

Fewer Contracts

With a hybrid DXP, businesses can adopt multiple solutions to handle content management, personalization, and other necessities but only need to manage a single vendor relationship and contract. 

Potential Drawbacks of Hybrid DXP Architecture

While the hybrid DXP architecture offers several advantages, companies considering it should be aware of the potential drawbacks.

Some Vendor Lock

A hybrid DXP offers an extensive ecosystem and numerous products that can be used to create the best digital experiences. This includes integrating products from other vendors. However, enterprises may find it challenging to switch to another primary vendor or CMS quickly and easily if they decide to in the future. 

Drawbacks of Composable or Pure Headless Architecture

For enterprises considering a composable solution, a hybrid DXP architecture can often be a better alternative to a composable or pure headless architecture. The concept of composability is popular in the software industry, but it’s not guaranteed to fix all of a company’s problems.

When companies opt for a composable architecture built around a headless CMS, they do gain more freedom, flexibility, and adaptability, but they pay for it in other ways:

Increased Admin Complexity: Each software solution requires its own admin console, permissions, and workflows to be configured individually. This could be manageable for companies with 2 or 3 different tools, but for others with seven or more, it can be a headache.

Limited Editing Interface: Many headless CMSs struggle to offer the same user-friendly content editing interface as hybrid DXPs. As a result they may need to rely on frontend developers to assist them in making changes to websites and other content changes.

More Training Complexity: Each new tool means employees must be trained on a new interface. Adjusting or having to toggle between multiple tools simultaneously can lead to decreased productivity and efficiency.

Multiple Contracts: While companies may avoid “vendor lock-in,” they must manage various implementations and contractual arrangements. 

Selecting the Right DXP For Your Business

When selecting a digital experience platform in 2024, particularly one with composable capabilities, businesses will have a wealth of options available to them. The right choice will ultimately depend on the company’s needs, the current technology stack, and available resources.

Oshyn provides the deep expertise needed to navigate the composable DXP landscape. As Sitecore, Adobe, and Optimizely partners, we are well-versed in these leading hybrid DXP solutions and can help you select the right tool for your business. However, if you’re considering a traditional DXP or a composable DXP with a headless CMS foundation, we can also make the process easier.

When the California Teachers Association Member Benefits (CTAMB) needed a solution to their expiring Sitecore contract, they opted for a composable approach using a hybrid DXP architecture. They implemented Sitecore XM Cloud and Sitecore Search to upgrade their website and boost performance by over 60%.

Contact us for further help choosing your next DXP.