Articles

Uniform Article

Uniform’s Enterprise Visual Workspace Unifies Content, Data, AI and Technology in a Single Cloud for Marketers

matt-garrepy

The Hero’s Journey to Composable: A Conversation with Uniform’s Mark Demeny

<p><a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/uniform-raises-28m-in-series-a-funding-round-for-composable-dxp/">Uniform</a> continues to drive innovation in the digital experience composition platform (DXCP) space.</p>
<p>As a leading provider in the emerging category, the company just announced a series of enhancements to its <a href="https://uniform.dev/canvas">Uniform Canvas</a> and <a href="https://uniform.dev/mesh">Uniform Mesh</a> products. The new features round out Uniform's DXCP as the most robust visual workspace, empowering digital teams to deliver winning multichannel experiences.</p>
<p>The new product releases also complete Uniform's original promise of headless technologies. Now, brands can visually weave multiple API-powered technologies together to create high-performance digital experiences quickly and with greater agility. </p>
<p style="font-weight:400">According to Uniform's press release, the new functionality will allow marketers to create web and app experiences faster and more flexibly. The enhanced features will also give developers broader scope for building lightning-fast experiences with innovative technology.</p>
<p style="font-weight:400">Below are some of the technical highlights and enhancements of Canvas and Mesh.</p>
<h2><strong>Putting power back in the hands of marketers </strong></h2>
<p style="font-weight:400">Canvas comes equipped with two new enhancements: Uniform Dynamic Pages and Uniform Redirect Manager. These powerful additions to the visual experience builder will offer marketers and merchandisers greater control over product-based experiences.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Dynamic Pages: </strong>Enables business users to efficiently adapt and iterate across thousands of webpages, such as product detail pages, to build visual experiences at scale without developer support. No-code templates and custom page creation drive seamless content updates, consistent branding, and improves speed to market.</li>
<li><strong>Redirect Manager: </strong>Simplifies URL management through the creation of vanity URLs, activation of fast redirects using a modern content delivery network (CDN), and reliable page access. A visual tool helps business users quickly identify browser errors, improving accuracy and ensuring a smooth customer experience.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Freedom to innovate with best-of-breed tools</strong></h2>
<p style="font-weight:400">Mesh’s enhanced features underpin Uniform's DXCP capabilities by removing silos, eliminating weeks of manual coding, and freeing developers to work with their tools of choice. Features will allow users to: </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Utilize any data source:</strong> Build and reuse front-end components to boost implementation speed and flexibility.</li>
<li><strong>Leverage no-code connections to any API: </strong>This includes headless services, legacy platforms, and single-use data sources, along with pre-built connectors for key services.</li>
<li><strong>Use Edgehancers</strong> <strong>to</strong> <strong>enable cutting-edge performance: </strong>Automatically push content to a CDN’s edge to enhance page speed, user experience, and SEO performance – all without any custom code.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Accelerate time to market</strong></h2>
<p style="font-weight:400">Uniform is also launching a <strong>Component Starter Kit</strong> – an open-source and fully customizable collection of front-end components to streamline ideation for testing and production. Users can easily add these to a component development system like <a href="https://storybook.js.org/">Storybook</a> and connect to content sources using Mesh.</p>
<p style="font-weight:400">“The excitement surrounding the new release comes from its ability to empower digital teams and tackle the challenges marketers encounter when delivering high-performing digital experiences,” said <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/is-the-birth-of-dxc-the-death-of-dxp-a-conversation-with-darren-guarnaccia-president-at-uniform/">Darren Guarnaccia</a>, president, Uniform. “These latest capabilities elevate the visual workspace, enabling true enterprise scalability and seamlessly blends content, data, and technology at remarkable speeds. With enhancements to Canvas, Mesh, and the introduction of the Component Starter Kit, we’re fulfilling the promise of what headless tools initially aimed to achieve. The envisioned future is one where marketers can focus on storytelling and audience engagement, free from the constraints of traditional platforms and processes.”</p>
<h2><strong>About Uniform</strong></h2>
<p style="font-weight:400">Uniform DXCP speeds up time to value for composable experience architecture, lowers development costs, and makes it easy for business users to build digital experiences. A composable orchestration layer for legacy and modern headless systems or any API in Uniform DXCP eliminates the need for complex custom integration code. Instead, available for marketers, merchandisers, and other business users are no-code tools to build digital experiences with content from any source—without submitting developer tickets. Furthermore, Uniform DXCP’s high-performance personalization capability, delivered at the edge, raises conversion and CX for all channels.</p>


Uniform Adds New Visual Editing and Integration Features to Enhance DXCP

cms-critic-staff

WP Engine - #1 Wordpress

Build and manage amazing WordPress, WooCommerce, and headless sites on the #1 WordPress platform.

A Smarter Way to WordPress

#ffffff

<p>This week, <a href="https://uniform.dev/" target="_blank">Uniform</a> launched a new <a href="https://uniform.dev/resources/composable-cms-evaluation-guide" target="_blank">Composable CMS Evaluation Guide</a>, geared to help brands evaluate, compare, and better understand the options for leading headless CMS solutions.</p>
<p>Uniform, a digital experience composition platform (DXCP), composed the evaluation guide with the help of an experienced team of marketers and developers who have worked with many headless CMS vendors when integrating their software through Uniform.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230605005064/en/Uniform-Releases-Composable-CMS-Evaluation-Guide-To-Educate-and-Ease-Headless-Integration" target="_blank">news release</a> announcing the evaluation guide, Uniform noted a rapidly growing interest in composable tech stacks to avoid vendor lock-in while acknowledging the complexity of going headless.</p>
<p>“Over the last several years, the CMS marketplace has expanded exponentially, so has the architecture, making it harder for brands to track the differences between solutions and to know what to look for when evaluating solutions,” said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mdemeny/" target="_blank">Mark Demeny</a>, Uniform's head of product strategy. “Our guide describes the modern functional and nonfunctional criteria for evaluating headless CMS and walks planning teams through each step of the process.”</p>
<h2><strong>What’s in the guide?</strong></h2>
<p>Uniform helps to simplify the process of implementing a composable CMS by helping define the fundamentals, benefits, and differences between a composable and a traditional system. The guide also helps teams determine their CMS goals and compare the options available that align with those goals.</p>
<p>The guide is broken down into five sections designed to assist in the decision to go composable:</p>
<ul>
<li>Introduction: explaining the basics</li>
<li>Background analysis and planning</li>
<li>Advice for meeting strategic goals</li>
<li>Vendor evaluation</li>
<li>Considerations for composable stacks</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Uniform acts as a bridge to safer integrations</strong></h2>
<p>As a digital experience composition platform, Uniform helps companies bridge the gap between legacy systems and integrated composable solutions. It offers greater flexibility to companies currently locked into a monolithic system.</p>
<p>Uniform is also on a mission to eliminate glue code that presents issues when implementing new software. It recently launched a <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/uniform-launches-component-starter-kit-with-latest-product-release/">Component Starter Kit</a> that helps marketers and content creators to use RESTful API integrations to connect content from a headless CMS or commerce system with no glue code or developer tickets.</p>
<p>The new Composable CMS Evaluation Guide follows Uniform's <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/uniform-releases-comprehensive-cms-comparison-guide/">CMS Comparison guide</a>, launched early this spring. Both guides promise to help ease decision-making for those considering a new CMS, eliminating some guesswork through detailed explanations.</p>
<p>To download the Composable CMS Evaluation Guide, <a href="https://uniform.dev/resources/composable-cms-evaluation-guide" target="_blank">click here</a>.</p>
<h2><strong>About Uniform</strong></h2>
<p>Uniform DXCP speeds up time to value for composable-experience architecture, lowers development costs, and makes it easy for business users to build digital experiences. A composable orchestration layer for legacy systems and headless APIs in Uniform DXCP eliminates the need for complex custom integration code, which delivers no business value. Instead, available for marketers, merchandisers, and other business users are no-code tools with which to build digital experiences with content from any source—without submitting developer tickets. Furthermore, Uniform DXCP’s high-performance personalization capability, delivered at the edge, raises conversion and CX for all channels.</p>
<p>Learn more at <a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Funiform.dev%2F&amp;esheet=53412657&amp;newsitemid=20230605005064&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=uniform.dev&amp;index=6&amp;md5=8de62c9041bb971931f2dbe29e50fdb0" target="_blank">uniform.dev</a> and follow us on <a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fcompany%2Funiformdev%2F&amp;esheet=53412657&amp;newsitemid=20230605005064&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=LinkedIn&amp;index=7&amp;md5=f7401f00f4c02f49db054ae471cf62c3" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FUniformDev&amp;esheet=53412657&amp;newsitemid=20230605005064&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=Twitter&amp;index=8&amp;md5=2040781de4ed11c82eeb1d52b6ea38c1" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.</p>


Uniform Publishes Composable CMS Evaluation Guide for Navigating Headless Integration

mk-patterson

<p>This week, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/uniform-raises-28m-in-series-a-funding-round-for-composable-dxp/">Uniform</a> – a digital experience composition platform (DXCP) – announced its latest product release, which promises to help simplify <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-free-headless-cms-platforms/">headless</a> architecture for the modern user. This includes a new <a href="https://components.uniform.app/" target="_blank">Component Starter Kit</a> that complements its Mesh layer and additional enhancements to its Edgehancers. </p>
<p>Uniform has been evangelizing the benefits of slaying the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/is-the-birth-of-dxc-the-death-of-dxp-a-conversation-with-darren-guarnaccia-president-at-uniform/">“glue code monster”</a> through a clever marketing campaign. With its newest release, they’re endeavoring to create easier processes for connecting data from any source to any front-end component – without the painful rigors of producing and managing integration code. </p>
<h2><strong>Does headless mean harder? </strong></h2>
<p>When companies are operating a headless system – or even considering a new one – they might hit a few roadblocks. One of the most common examples is managing multiple content silos that must be coded into one central CMS. If the systems are difficult to integrate, content teams must rely on developers throughout the process and for future changes.</p>
<p>Uniform believes this is the opposite of “composable,” where developers and marketers find themselves limited by systems and processes that aren’t agile or easy to maintain. This has made the headless journey harder.</p>
<h2><strong>Composable is key</strong></h2>
<p>Uniform tackles these issues head-on, promising to reduce or eliminate glue code from the equation. With its newest feature release, the DXCP is aiming to deliver a “new headless paradigm,” outlined by Uniform co-founder <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lars-birkholm-petersen/" target="_blank">Lars Birkholm Petersen</a> in a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/evolution-headless-from-glue-code-composable-lars-birkholm-petersen%3FtrackingId=AelqHfr4TSKkqU0RPHDyXw%253D%253D/?trackingId=AelqHfr4TSKkqU0RPHDyXw%3D%3D" target="_blank">blog post</a> announcing the launch this week.</p>
<p>As he noted, the new headless paradigm includes these core tenants:</p>
<ul>
<li>Make solutions composable instead of composed</li>
<li>Optimize workflows and aim for the shortest time to market</li>
<li>Connect data and content across technologies</li>
<li>Enable marketers and merchants to do their jobs independently, freeing developers from having to maintain glue code</li>
<li>Give brands an unfair competitive advantage to launch new initiatives faster</li>
<li>Boost agencies’ competitiveness through the elimination of custom code</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Open source Component Starter Kit</strong></h2>
<p>Uniform’s Component Starter Kit gives users the flexibility to create dynamic web experiences quickly and easily. The open source Kit is built on a TNT stack – <a href="https://www.typescriptlang.org/" target="_blank">TypeScript</a>, <a href="https://nextjs.org/" target="_blank">Next.js</a>, and <a href="https://tailwindcss.com/" target="_blank">TailwindCSS</a> – making it extremely adaptable to build with.</p>
<p>With the Component Starter Kit, users can easily clone, run locally, and customize based on their specific needs. By leveraging lightweight React components, it also helps keep Core Web Vitals in the green. And because the whole library is open source and based on TailwindCSS and <a href="https://daisyui.com/" target="_blank">DaisyUI</a>, it makes it easy for users to adapt their brand style.</p>
<p>With these component tools, marketers and content creators can use RESTful API integrations to connect content from a headless CMS or commerce system with no glue code or developer tickets.</p>
<p><a href="https://components.uniform.app/" target="_blank">Browse components and learn more</a> about the Component Starter Kits from Uniform.</p>
<h2><strong>Mesh and Edgehancers</strong></h2>
<p>Uniform’s Mesh – its API integration layer – connects data or content sources with the user’s preferred design system in just a few clicks and zero coding. Marketers can enjoy total flexibility in how they build and connect their content without wasting precious developer time and resources.</p>
<p>When connecting to sources or on-premise APIs as a step for creating digital experiences, performance can be a bottleneck. With Uniform’s latest release of Edgehancers, users can cache data from any API on its global distributed edge, which makes sites run lightning fast – rendering in under 50 milliseconds – while supporting surgical cache invalidation from the underlying technologies.</p>
<h2><strong>Composable, not coded</strong></h2>
<p>With this latest launch, Uniform has gone above and beyond to save users from the hassle of integrating software. These new capabilities empower content creators and developers to focus on what’s important – so going headless doesn’t have to be harder.</p>
<p>“With the launch of these new capabilities, Uniform is taking how brands and agencies build digital experiences to the next level,” said Petersen. “With orchestration at each layer of the digital experience composition platform (DXCP), it’s easy to get the job done in minutes instead of days.”</p>
<p>The frightening glue code monster may be on his way out, but what’s coming next might be scary, scary good.</p>
<h2><b>About Uniform</b></h2>
<p>Uniform's digital experience composition (DXC) solution turns headless and legacy stacks into a seamless end-to-end digital delivery pipeline. Uniform transforms the approach to digital delivery by empowering developers, content creators, and marketers to easily create and deliver amazing experiences while allowing the tech stack to evolve with your brand. Several top brands use Uniform to power their digital experiences, including Cobham Satcom, Cirque du Soleil, Life Extension, Sunweb and Trimble. Learn more at uniform.dev and follow on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/uniformdev/" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/UniformDev" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.</p>


Uniform Launches Component Starter Kit with Latest Product Release

<h5><strong><em>TL;DR</em></strong><em> – Recently, there was an epic but friendly debate in the Boye &amp; Company CMS Experts Slack channel about the confusion surrounding DXC as a category. We asked the three main voices in the conversation – Rasmus Skjoldan</em><em>, Andrew Kumar, and Sana Remekie –</em><em> to discuss their thoughts on Zoom. Matt McQueeny helped moderate the conversation.</em></h5>
<hr />
<p>Of the great mysteries that scientists, philosophers, and theologians grapple with, one question is often overlooked:</p>
<p>What, exactly, is professional wrestling?</p>
<p>I’m not referring to school leagues or Olympic competitions – I’m talking about the <a href="https://www.wwe.com/" target="_blank">WWE</a> and its brand of <em>sportstainment</em>. And I don’t mean to be glib or insulting with any comparisons; heck, I’ve been to a live wrestling event many moons ago, and it was kinda fun (particularly the people watching). </p>
<p>But really, <em>what is it?</em> Is this a legitimate sport replete with feats of athleticism? Or is it truly just performance art following a well-oiled script? If you ask <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulk_Hogan" target="_blank">Hulk Hogan</a>, the iconic figurehead of the modern experience, he might say, <em>"Well, let me tell you something, brother…"</em> and launch into a dissertation about sport versus stage. </p>
<p>As humans, we’re classically conditioned to put things in boxes so they’re easier to understand. Sometimes, that’s not so simple. This has long been the case in the software industry, where confusion often precedes clarity when new ideas takes the mat – like <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/blog/2023/1/whats-the-real-story-about-digital-experience-composition" target="_blank">Digital Experience Composition (DXC)</a>. </p>
<p>A short while ago, members of <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/groups/cms-experts" target="_blank">Boye &amp; Company’s CMS Experts</a>, a peer group focused on content management, were treated to a sort of WWE-styled “Smackdown” in the community’s Slack channel. In truth, it was a friendly exchange of ideas, with no bodyslams or half-nelsons to report (those are wrestling moves, BTW).</p>
<p>Still, it was spirited. And for several days, this epic “Slackdown” generated significant interest from across the DXP and DXC spectrum. It all started with a simple, poignant question from <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rasmusskjoldan/" target="_blank">Rasmus Skjoldan</a>, Chief Evangelist at <a href="https://www.magnolia-cms.com/?mgcid=19746730468&amp;utm_campaign=&amp;utm_content=&amp;utm_campaign=brand-protect-jf_us_2023&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_source=google&amp;utm_content=19746730468&amp;utm_term=magnolia%20cms&amp;gad=1&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjw0ZiiBhBKEiwA4PT9z53dpcpsB0M2J-tIRhHdpnwYRHUwbjghkhAGI6_Azq8wWtHBU4ic8xoC4N0QAvD_BwE" target="_blank">Magnolia</a>, a leading DXP:</p>
<p><strong><em>“I feel like some of the Digital Experience Composition positioning going on isn’t super helpful to customers, to be very blunt about it. What’s genuinely in it for them?”</em></strong></p>
<p>This drew several DXC defenders to the ring, but the most vocal participants were <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewkumarxyz/" target="_blank">Andrew Kumar</a><em>,</em> VP of Customer Solutions at <a href="https://uniform.dev/" target="_blank">Uniform</a>, and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sana-remekie/" target="_blank">Sana Remekie</a>, CEO of <a href="https://conscia.ai/" target="_blank">Conscia.ai</a>. It was entertaining to watch these adroit leaders wrestle with a red-hot topic, but it was incredibly informative for the fans in the stands – so much so that I partnered with <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/critics/matthew-mcqueeny/">Matt McQueeny</a> at <a href="https://konabos.com/" target="_blank">Konabos</a> to take the show on the road.</p>
<p>A few days later, we invited Rasmus, Sana, and Andrew to join us for an informal follow-up on Zoom to wrestle down some answers.</p>
<p><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/04/dxc_boye_debate_debrief_720.png" alt="Zoom photo of Matt Garrepy, Matt McQueeny, Rasmus Skoldjan, Andrew Kumar, and Sana Remekie" /></p>
<h2><strong>In this corner… DXP</strong></h2>
<p><a href="https://www.forrester.com/analyst-bio/joe-cicman/BIO14164" target="_blank">Joe Cicman</a>, an analyst at Forrester, has been on a quest to decipher the Digital Experience Platform. As he noted <a href="https://www.forrester.com/blogs/dxp-you-keep-using-that-term-i-dont-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means/" target="_blank">in a recent blog</a>, DXP is still misunderstood from a compositional perspective. The definition can be nebulous based on whether it’s delivered by a single vendor or assembled by an enterprise – or, in some cases, both.  </p>
<p>I like Joe's observation in the same post: “Every day I asked myself, ‘How is it possible for one vendor to create one product that works across multiple industries and grows in scope as a company’s digital remit grows?’ After talking to the vendors, turns out … it’s<em> not </em>possible.”</p>
<p>That might be the vein Rasmus tapped: <em>confusion is everywhere</em>. While DXC is emerging, DXPs continue to evolve in their own space. As he pondered in Slack, would it not be better to reenergize, modernize, or even reinvent the more established DXP label and category than trying to teach customers about another new acronym?</p>
<p>Add this to the confusion: Magnolia was included in an early DXC report by <a href="https://www.gartner.com/analyst/56850" target="_blank">Mike Lowndes of Gartner</a> as a vendor in this emerging field. So how does this color Magnolia’s positioning?</p>
<p>“When I speak to our composable die-hard customers, they are much more passionate about getting projects done, getting rid of the worst legacy apps, and reaching business goals than they are in the vendor/analyst-centric views on what’s in or out of categories,” Rasmus said. “Magnolia is seen as a DXC by some – which is fine, of course. We definitely cover that space with our own twist. To me, it just feels more like a use case than a real software category.”</p>
<p>That might be true. But vendors and buyers still refer to those MQ reports with biblical reverence.</p>
<p>Gathered in our cozy Zoom room, Matt McQueeny asked Rasmus why he felt compelled to engage with the community around these opinions.</p>
<p>“I'm very focused on looking at all this from the customer's perspective,” he said. “Every time I see a proposal for a category change, I'm just always asking myself, 'okay, who's actually behind this and who's to benefit from it?' Even for DXP, I sometimes have question marks around whether that really helps customers. So I felt that introducing new variations would be a significant sort of – not a disruption – but more <em>confusion</em>. And that's what I’m quite passionately against because I want to keep the focus on what has real value for customers.”</p>
<h2><strong>DXC enters the ring</strong></h2>
<p>TLAs (three-lettered acronyms) might be the bane of our technology existence. When I was consulting at IBM GTS, we were unpacking a catchy new triptych every week from across the cybersecurity theater. Heck, even “IBM” is an acronym... it's a bit like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inception" target="_blank"><em>Inception</em></a> with TLAs. </p>
<p>I asked Sana Remekie about her take on this acronym acrimony – and how she perceived Rasmus’ call to quell the challenges by refocusing on the established DXP category.</p>
<p>“There's lots of three-letter acronyms popping up all over the place,” she said. “I think the movement towards composability and having that best-of-breed architecture is real. Customers are asking for a choice in terms of all the packaged and business capabilities that they need to build their overall architecture, and there's agreement across Gartner and Forrester on that. They may call it different things, but everybody’s starting to agree that we should give customers the ability to create and assemble their own solutions.”</p>
<p>So how does this momentum towards composability and DXC impact the more traditional definition of DXP – particularly as an established category? </p>
<p>“Some folks are saying very clearly that a single DXP – what they call a <em>monolithic</em> <em>DXP</em> – should no longer be a thing at all,” she added. “Customers should be able to create their own DXPs by picking best-of-breed applications from across the ecosystem. With this phenomenon, we're now giving choices to the customer and power to the SIs to make those choices <em>for</em> the customer. Sometimes it's an IT team within the organization making those choices with, hopefully, the business in mind. And sometimes they say, ‘alright, Deloitte, Accenture, Valtech, go make that choice for me – go directly to those vendors and put together a solution that is composable.’ That happens a lot as well.”</p>
<h2><strong>Finding the right place to “poke the DXP bear”</strong></h2>
<p>As the wrestling match commenced, we turned to Andrew Kumar for more insight on what ignited the debate on Slack. He took us on a brief trip in the wayback machine to his days at <a href="https://www.telus.com/en" target="_blank">Telus</a>, where the company assembled what we now call a composable or <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/the-future-is-composable-a-conversation-with-new-mach-alliance-president-casper-rasmussen/">MACH</a> architecture. </p>
<p>“There weren’t these sexy marketing terms that exist today,” he said. “But in 2016, we [already] had this concept, and we created our own internal site builder on top of Contentful – and that's now part of DXC.”</p>
<p>Andrew also talked about the importance of the different roles and responsibilities that DXC needs to support and the tendency to lump the audience of potential users under a generic “business user” mantle. This might be a limiting descriptor, as the pool could include a wide range of team members from marketing, content ops, merchandisers, UX designers, product managers, or even data analysts.</p>
<p>Clearly, there’s room to improve the positioning and messaging around the DXC terminology – to find the right TLA, so to speak. And this confusion makes sense when we’re still in the early growth phases.</p>
<p>“Adoption and demand are still very, very nascent, but it's starting to get <em>viral</em>,” he said. “Despite being so nascent, it is disrupting and really ‘poking the bear’ on the big players in DXP. It's really shaping and adding maturity to headless and MACH – and these kinds of technical terms are now growing in maturity.”</p>
<p><em>Poking the bear</em> sounds dangerous, but that’s what market challengers do. TLAs aside, Andrew went on to say that he would not recommend a “rip and replace” from DXP to DXC, but to take incremental steps towards composable.</p>
<p>“There are some bridges in place,” he said. “Uniform has one that can help Sitecore and AEM customers start to make those leaps. But there’s still a place for a DXP.”</p>
<h2><strong>What’s old is new</strong></h2>
<p>By this point in the match, we had wrestled multiple messages from our participants. Without question, DXC is the shiny new object blazing trails. At the same time, DXPs are evolving their posture to remain marketable. Andrew noted, “They’re decoupling and decomposing themselves, playing ball with others and having that multi-manufacturer style where you can build with OEM parts from all over the place.”</p>
<p>Pivoting back to Rasmus in the DXP corner, we inquired about his response to Andrew regarding the long history of APIs connecting different platforms – and how there are even use cases of Contentful feeding into Magnolia.</p>
<p>“I can totally back up that it's not really anything new,” he remarked to Andrew. “Magnolia has been producing a solution that is fundamentally a composable DXP for a very long time, since 2013 or 2014. We've had clients compose platforms out of multiple best-of-breed applications they put together in a joined platform for a long time.”</p>
<p>While Rasmus reinforced his criticism of a new TLA being injected into the ecosystem, he did express his support for how the narrative was being projected.</p>
<p>“If I look at some of the stuff I felt Uniform did super well, it was just a very clean story they came out with,” he said. “I totally love that. And it felt like a really novel spin that they would be the glue between all these different applications and allow the marketer the freedom to assemble, curate, and aggregate all their content and put together experiences based on many different services. I do see really good stuff about DXC. It's just not a category – and I don't think it will become a category.”</p>
<p>OK, so if it’s not destined to be officially blessed, where do we go from here? As Andrew pointed out, the roadmap might rest with user behavior.</p>
<p>“In some enterprises, there could be 60 times more technical folks that don't write code, but they're still making meaningful contributions to digital experiences. That is a huge user base. And that's where the DXC is really going to make its mark, and really going to – and this is probably an unpopular opinion – start to take over the DXP. It's serving so many more users in a more democratic low code, no code interesting way. It's empowering to that user base.”</p>
<h2><strong>A DXC by any other name is a… DXCP? DXO? EDP?</strong></h2>
<p>While pondering the future of a DXC category, Andrew quickly pointed out one basic flaw with the acronym: <a href="https://dxc.com/us/en" target="_blank">DXC Technology</a> is the name of a well-established global agency (which happens to sponsor <a href="https://dxc.com/us/en/manutd" target="_blank">Manchester United</a>). To that end, he feels “DXCP” might be a more suitable mantle – which Uniform has already been using across its communications.</p>
<p>He also talked about the long shadow cast by large competitors and the importance of establishing authority as a new category. “It’s really a challenge for new players to enter [the DXP market]. There's just so much <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/adobe-experience-cloud-adds-new-headless-cms-capabilities-updates-to-commerce-integration/">Adobe</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/optimizely-partners-with-google-cloud-to-take-experimentation-to-the-next-level/">Optimizely</a>, or <a href="https://www.magnolia-cms.com/" target="_blank">Magnolia</a> dominance. They've been around for so long. There’s no space for new entrants without a large insurmountable challenge.”</p>
<p>Sana also shared her perspective on the DXC category conundrum, which echoed my recent conversations with other vendors under the DXC umbrella. While <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/occtoo-dives-deep-to-unify-data-and-kill-integrations-a-conversation-with-ceo-niclas-mollin/">Niclas Mollin at Occtoo</a> is positioning around the <em>Experience Data Platform</em>, Sana is building a beachhead for Conscia as <em>Digital Experience Orchestration</em>.</p>
<p>“Conscia's not a DXC, even though we're playing in the space,” she explained. “There's a lot of confusion, so we said, you know what? We don't want to call ourselves a DXC because that would mean that we're tied too closely to a specific front end. So we’re going to act as the central piece of the composable ecosystem, which connects all the dots from the back end to the front end and is agnostic of both – and we’re able to orchestrate API's and experiences.”</p>
<h2><strong>And the winner is…</strong></h2>
<p>Er… not clear. We’re still wrestling with the answers, and the analysts have yet to canonize anything. But if we can smell what <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwayne_Johnson" target="_blank">The Rock</a> is cookin', we might be in for more confusion as DXC continues to find its footing. </p>
<p>What’s abundantly clear to us, however, is that DXC is building real momentum, and DXP continues to drive demand. With the advent of AI and other innovations, the DXP market is still predicted to grow to over <a href="https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/digital-experience-platform-market" target="_blank">$30 billion by 2030</a>. While our guests shared strong opinions about DXC's future as a category and the underlying challenges, each seemed committed to demonstrable value over category woes.</p>
<p>At the end of our session, Matt McQueeny noted that we ended up where we always end up: with a clear mandate to focus on the business and the customer. </p>
<p>The best part of this conversation was each participant's undeniable respect and reverence for one another, despite their competitive position or conflicting ideologies. Collectively, this industry powers millions of websites, apps, and experiences. Yet, the top minds shaping its trajectory represent a tightly-knit community of shared innovation – and we had three of the best participating in this forum.</p>
<p>We'll give Andrew Kumar the final word: “It’s definitely a fun time to be in this space. It can be confusing, but there's a lot of innovation and disruption happening – and it's ultimately for the business and end customer's benefit.”</p>
<p>I can hear Hulk Hogan saying, <em>“Amen, brother…”</em></p>
<hr />
<p><em><strong>Big thanks to: </strong></em></p>
<ul>
<li><em><strong>Rasmus Skjoldan. Andrew Kumar, and Sana Remekie for participating</strong></em></li>
<li><em><strong>Matt McQueeny for helping to moderate, facilitate, and transcribe this session</strong></em></li>
<li><em><strong>Janus Boye for creating a community to host these kinds of debates</strong></em></li>
</ul>


Wrestling with Category Confusion in the DXC "Slackdown"

<p><em>“I get by with a little help from my friends...”</em></p>
<p>When The Beatles recorded this classic tune, they probably didn’t realize it would one day land on Rolling Stone’s list of <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rolling-stone-500-top-beatles-songs/" target="_blank">500 Greatest Songs of All Time</a>. Then again, maybe they did. They were, after all, The Beatles.</p>
<p>We all need a little help sometimes. Case in point: if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the specter of evaluating content management systems, your friends at <a href="https://uniform.dev/" target="_blank">Uniform</a> are providing a little help to get by.</p>
<p>That help comes at just the right time. With so many CMSes flooding the market – from monolithic to headless, open source to composable – finding the right solution can feel a little helter-skelter. Using Uniform's <a href="https://uniform.dev/resources/cms-comparison-guide" target="_blank">CMS Comparison Guide</a>, you can get a vendor-neutral breakdown of some leading CMSes and tips for picking the best tool for your job.</p>
<h2><strong>Navigating the noise with Uniform</strong></h2>
<p>Uniform is a new breed of digital experience composition platform (DXCP) that works with many of the world’s leading CMSes as part of a composable architecture. It gives developers and business teams the tools they need to do their best work and deliver faster than ever.</p>
<p>Uniform works as a value-add for many companies because its product can tap both emerging technologies and legacy systems through what they call an “experience layer.” For developers, this means greater flexibility and less time creating “glue code” between services. For marketing teams, this layer provides a consistent experience in accessing data from multiple sources or previewing content prior to publishing.</p>
<p>No stack would be complete without CMS. Because these platforms play a central role in content development and delivery, it makes sense that Uniform would have insight into the different types of CMSes available – and how to choose the right one for your goals. </p>
<h2><strong>What’s in the CMS Comparison Guide?</strong></h2>
<p>The in-depth comparison guide catalogs the details of 15 leading CMS vendors, including three monoliths and 12 headless and composable CMSes. Along with side-by-side comparisons, the guide details the strengths and weaknesses of each vendor across features such as content modeling, integration, workflow, and more.</p>
<p>The real "meat" of the guide is the granular comparison table, which organizes the attributes for each system into a large grid. This allows you to scan every vendor's abilities – from delivery APIs to CDN capabilities – with relative ease. </p>
<p>“The CMS field is getting increasingly crowded, making it difficult for brands across industries to identify a partner and know where to start,” said <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/is-the-birth-of-dxc-the-death-of-dxp-a-conversation-with-darren-guarnaccia-president-at-uniform/">Darren Guarnaccia</a>, president, Uniform. “Our guide helps you cut through the noise, as our team has decades of experience working with and for CMS providers. Our platform further assists companies by preventing them from getting locked into a single vendor, fueling more innovation, and eliminating content management pain points.”</p>
<p>Cutting through noise and eliminating pain points? Sounds like the kind of help we could all use from our friends.</p>
<p>If you're ready to avoid a hard day's night, <a href="https://uniform.dev/resources/cms-comparison-guide" target="_blank">download Uniform's CMS Comparison Guide</a>.</p>
<h2><strong>About Uniform</strong></h2>
<p>Uniform DXCP speeds up time to value for composable-experience architecture, lowers development costs, and makes it easy for business users to build digital experiences. A composable orchestration layer for legacy systems and headless APIs in Uniform DXCP eliminates the need for complex custom integration code, which delivers no business value. Instead, available for marketers, merchandisers, and other business users are no-code tools to build digital experiences with content from any source – without submitting developer tickets. Furthermore, Uniform DXCP’s high-performance personalization capability, delivered at the edge, raises conversion and CX for all channels.</p>
<p>Learn more at <a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Funiform.dev%2F&amp;esheet=53363599&amp;newsitemid=20230320005058&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=uniform.dev&amp;index=11&amp;md5=44f6949a6ad8549958a74a274dbc71fa" target="_blank">uniform.dev</a> and follow them on <a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fcompany%2Funiformdev%2F&amp;esheet=53363599&amp;newsitemid=20230320005058&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=LinkedIn&amp;index=12&amp;md5=c100ec7e79a11df76897aa4ce2fb0f43" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FUniformDev&amp;esheet=53363599&amp;newsitemid=20230320005058&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=Twitter&amp;index=13&amp;md5=02b5c59cd07ca0555ebf05eff75f2814" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.</p>


Uniform Releases Comprehensive CMS Comparison Guide

Uniform logo against a blue background featuring logos of various CMS platforms

Is the Birth of DXC the Death of DXP? A Conversation with Darren Guarnaccia, President at Uniform

<p>When acclaimed country singer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Nelson" target="_blank">Willie Nelson</a> penned his biopic song <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Road_Again_(Willie_Nelson_song)" target="_blank">"On the Road Again,"</a> he wasn't crooning about the Composable Revolution.</p>
<p>Or was he? </p>
<p>In his epic ode to a musical odyssey, Nelson proclaimed his love for "making music with his friends." And what is a band, if not a collection of musical microservices... an orchestra of orchestrated instruments playing in harmony? </p>
<p>Speaking of taking the band on the road, <a href="https://uniform.dev/about-us">Uniform</a> will be rocking and rolling this spring as it launches its first-ever <a href="https://uniform.dev/composable-roadshow" target="_blank">Composable Roadshow.</a> The event will debut in London on March 14th and move to New York on March 21st, with plans to expand to more cities.</p>
<p>The Composable Roadshow will feature discussions on the state of the market related to composable architectures and their growing impact. It will also provide opportunities for guests to learn about implementing composable through expert speakers, panelists, and session leaders.</p>
<p>The roadshow series, held in partnership with <a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/dm/mm-gtm/?utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_source=google&amp;utm_campaign=dig_amer_all_all_acq_core_brand_oa_2023_q1_sem-brand-alpha&amp;utm_content=Big+Commerce+%3E+Exact&amp;utm_term=big%20commerce&amp;lqid=engine:google|campaignid:933821213|adid:635224001507|gclid:Cj0KCQiA6fafBhC1ARIsAIJjL8nF-R32uSS1bgg7J8crzhBzNbjCL6jf8R8tITSRvLJHEowjfnnmHSMaAkg-EALw_wcB&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQiA6fafBhC1ARIsAIJjL8nF-R32uSS1bgg7J8crzhBzNbjCL6jf8R8tITSRvLJHEowjfnnmHSMaAkg-EALw_wcB" target="_blank">BigCommerce</a>, <a href="https://www.contentful.com/" target="_blank">Contentful</a>, <a href="https://www.codeandtheory.com/" target="_blank">Code and Theory</a>, and <a href="https://www.kinandcarta.com/en-us/" target="_blank">Kin + Carta</a>, will help to promote composable accessibility and deliver real-life use cases from companies and agencies that are successfully on the road to composable. </p>
<h2><strong>Leading the Way for DXC</strong></h2>
<p>Without question, Uniform has been one of the leading innovators in the burgeoning <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/8-cms-trends-to-watch-in-2023-from-mach-to-metaverse/">Digital Experience Composition (DXC)</a> space. While still a nascent category (<a href="https://www.boye-co.com/blog/2023/1/whats-the-real-story-about-digital-experience-composition" target="_blank">Gartner coined the TLA</a> but has yet to officially bless it), composable and MACH have stolen the air from the digital experience room – and created a groundswell of interest and activity across the market.</p>
<p>Along with the excitement and intrigue, confusion has emerged with the rise of DXC. Enterprises are struggling to understand the role and value of DXC platforms in the composable stack and even where it fits. Uniform and its contemporaries are working diligently to educate and illuminate the market about the benefits of DXC. The effort is paying off as vendors report growing demand and the presence of DXC in RFPs.</p>
<p>The Composable Roadshow is yet another experience channel for elevating awareness. The traveling series is designed to appeal to marketers, customers, and partners – all focused on unlocking the value that composable aims to solve. </p>
<h2><strong>A Uniform that fits in a composable world</strong></h2>
<p>Unlike a traditional digital experience platform, the architecture behind Uniform DXC allows legacy programs to implement composable or <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-headless-commerce-platforms/">headless</a> systems without a complete overhaul. This helps when juggling the labor and costs of re-platforming on an entirely new system and allows enterprises to scale faster when deploying composable components bit by bit. It also eliminates the "glue code" synonymous with connecting systems by streamlining everything with APIs. </p>
<p>Uniform also wants to give power back to marketers at a time when headless has reigned supreme for developers. In the race to omnichannel, marketers and UX have often taken a backseat to functional considerations – and Uniform's strategy is chiefly focused on bringing marketers back to the fold. </p>
<p>Earlier this year, Uniform participated in the heralded <a href="https://kontent.ai/events-and-webinars/mach-haus-new-york/" target="_blank">MACH Haus New York</a>, a live event presented by the <a href="https://machalliance.org/insights/staying-focused-why-we-re-expanding-the-mach-alliance-advisory-board">MACH Alliance</a> during the <a href="https://nrfbigshow.nrf.com/" target="_blank">National Retail Federation 2023</a>. Uniform joined the MACH Alliance in 2021, making them an earlier adopter to the MACH member community. </p>
<p>During MACH Haus, Uniform participated in several panels, including a tantalizing segment entitled "The Death of DXP: Stepping Off the Monolith Bit by Bit" that featured <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dguarnaccia/" target="_blank">Uniform President Darren Guarnaccia</a>. The session focused on the benefits of composability within your tech stack and the challenges of maintaining the monoliths. </p>
<p>Uniform is continuing to take suggestions for additional roadshow destinations, and you can contact the company with your suggestions <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeVTLYBrPpSDV9FqHDaAzs5PwNup2r2pNVM7KWN1bSUMowScg/viewform" target="_blank">here</a>. We'll continue to monitor and post updates as news is released.</p>
<p>In the meantime, crank some Willie, read more about composable, and <a href="https://uniform.dev/composable-roadshow#book-for-free-now" target="_blank">reserve</a> your tickets. This is one show you won't want to miss. </p>
<h2>About Uniform</h2>
<p>Uniform digital experience composition (DXC) platform speeds up time to value for composable-experience architecture, lowers development costs, and makes it easy for business users to build digital experiences. A composable orchestration layer for legacy systems and headless APIs in Uniform DXCP eliminates the need for custom integration code, which delivers no business value. Instead, available for marketers, merchandisers, and other business users are no-code tools to build digital experiences with content from any source—without submitting tickets for developer assistance. Furthermore, Uniform DXCP’s high-performance personalization capability, delivered at the edge, raises conversion and CX for all channels.</p>


Save the Dates for Uniform's Composable Roadshow 2023

Uniform Composable Roadshow featured image

<p>Let's be honest: there's nothing quite like <strong>Awards Season. </strong>Just ask Moira Rose.</p>
<div style="height:auto;width:500px">
<div class="tenor-gif-embed"><a href="https://tenor.com/view/moira-rose-schitts-creek-awards-favorite-season-gif-16223893">Moira Rose Schitts Creek GIF</a>from <a href="https://tenor.com/search/moira+rose-gifs">Moira Rose GIFs</a></div>
</div>
<p></p>
<p>And it's not because of the glitz, the glamour, or even the drama (although last year's Oscars did deliver the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/23/entertainment/oscars-crisis-will-smith/index.html" target="_blank">slap heard 'round the world</a>).</p>
<p>No, we love Awards Season because it's a <em>celebration.</em> An opportunity to cheer for the things we love. From film to music, actors to performers. Heck, even our favorite technologies.</p>
<p>Each year, CMS Critic is proud to feature our <strong>People's Choice Awards</strong>: a unique, one-of-a-kind platform for celebrating our industry. Since 2012, the People's Choice Awards have provided an opportunity for <em>you</em> – our community of digital professionals and stack fanatics – to tell us which platforms you love the most.</p>
<p>The People's Choice Awards are always fun and engaging, and the results never fail to surprise us. We put the power in your hands to nominate and vote, so it reflects your community participation. No matter how you feel about the outcomes, this is a win for every platform involved and your passionate users and fans.</p>
<p>This year, we had record participation from around the globe for both the nominations and final voting, and we're thrilled to share the winners <em>you</em> selected!</p>
<h2>And the Oscar goes to...</h2>
<p>But first, a quick reminder about the contest and how it worked:</p>
<ul>
<li>In <a href="/nominate-your-favorite-platforms-for-the-2022-cms-critic-peoples-choice-awards/">December 2022</a>, we invited readers to nominate platforms across a set of categories on our website.</li>
<li>Nominations closed at the end of January.</li>
<li>The top five nominees (in the case of a few ties, the top six) were selected for voting in each category.</li>
<li>General voting began in early February and closed on February 20.</li>
<li>Participants could vote only once, and companies that offered incentives of any kind were disqualified.</li>
</ul>
<p>And that's it! Without further ado, here are the winners of the 2022 People’s Choice Award winners:</p>
<h4>Best Enterprise CMS: Contensis</h4>
<p><a href="https://www.contensis.com/" target="_blank"><img style="width:300px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/03/contensis-logo.jpg" alt="Contensis Logo" /></a></p>
<hr />
<h4>Best DXP: Adobe Experience Cloud</h4>
<p><a href="https://business.adobe.com/" target="_blank"><img style="width:300px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/02/adobe-edited.jpg" alt="Adobe Experience Cloud Logo" /></a></p>
<hr />
<h4>Best Free CMS: Joomla!</h4>
<p><a href="https://www.joomla.org/" target="_blank"><img style="width:300px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/02/joomla-edited.png" alt="Joomla! Logo" /></a></p>
<hr />
<h4>Best Flat File CMS: Statamic</h4>
<p><a href="https://statamic.com/" target="_blank"><img style="width:300px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/02/statamic-edited.jpg" alt="Statamic Logo" /></a></p>
<hr />
<h4>Best Open Source CMS: Umbraco</h4>
<p><a href="https://umbraco.com/?gclid=CjwKCAiAr4GgBhBFEiwAgwORrRdPATQsqJ5M2tqVIMIHVlkjBnO2Cl29dGTXI9dhb9_BNa9pqdulIhoCK40QAvD_BwE" target="_blank"><img style="width:120px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/02/umbraco-edited.png" alt="Umbraco Logo" /></a></p>
<hr />
<h4>Best ECM (Enterprise Content Management): Microsoft SharePoint</h4>
<p><a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/sharepoint/collaboration" target="_blank"><img style="width:300px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/02/sharepoint-edited.png" alt="Microsoft SharePoint Logo" /></a></p>
<hr />
<h4>Best E-Commerce Solution: Shopify</h4>
<p><a href="https://www.shopify.com/free-trial?term=shopify&amp;adid=565872334073&amp;campaignid=15436644439&amp;branded_enterprise=1&amp;BOID=brand&amp;gclid=CjwKCAiAr4GgBhBFEiwAgwORrQTcMx9LwHQNvRFM6fN3NdS4GIn0wcvVgK3LdPDmBWiVFRhMOA64HxoCZEQQAvD_BwE&amp;cmadid=516586854;cmadvertiserid=10730501;cmcampaignid=26990768;cmplacementid=324494812;cmcreativeid=163722649;cmsiteid=5500011" target="_blank"><img style="width:250px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/02/shopify-edited.png" alt="Shopify Logo" /></a></p>
<hr />
<h4>Best Headless Commerce Solution: commercetools</h4>
<p><a href="https://commercetools.com/resources/booklet/microservices?utm_source=Paid%20Search&amp;utm_medium=Google%20Search&amp;utm_content=microservices-bookle-CA&amp;utm_campaign=MACH&amp;utm_term=commercetools&amp;utm_campaign=MACH%20retargeting%20AMER&amp;utm_source=adwords&amp;utm_medium=ppc&amp;hsa_acc=9131799125&amp;hsa_cam=19415290532&amp;hsa_grp=145609670540&amp;hsa_ad=643141341485&amp;hsa_src=g&amp;hsa_tgt=aud-1945381266863:kwd-366236213007&amp;hsa_kw=commercetools&amp;hsa_mt=p&amp;hsa_net=adwords&amp;hsa_ver=3&amp;gclid=CjwKCAiAr4GgBhBFEiwAgwORrbE7RUL47caWM3RyFkC6b649F5PR5Z6DHNnToZTeBOWkTjGjxOL6IBoCGAMQAvD_BwE" target="_blank"><img style="width:300px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/02/commercetools-edited.png" alt="Commercetools Logo" /></a></p>
<hr />
<h4>Best Headless CMS: Contentful </h4>
<p><a href="https://www.contentful.com/" target="_blank"><img style="width:260px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/02/contentful-edited.jpg" alt="Contentful Logo" /></a></p>
<hr />
<h4>Best Website Builder: YOOtheme</h4>
<p><a href="https://yootheme.com/" target="_blank"><img style="width:250px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/02/yootheme-edited.png" alt="YOOtheme Logo" /></a></p>
<hr />
<h4>Best Static Site Generator: Next.js</h4>
<p><a href="https://nextjs.org/" target="_blank"><img style="width:200px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/02/next-js-edited.png" alt="Next.js Logo" /></a></p>
<hr />
<h4>Best Composable System: Uniform</h4>
<p><a href="https://uniform.dev/" target="_blank"><img style="width:250px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/02/uniform-edited.jpg" alt="Uniform Logo" /></a></p>
<hr />
<h4>Best Digital Experience Composition (DXC): Occtoo</h4>
<p><a href="https://www.occtoo.com/" target="_blank"><img style="width:250px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/02/occtoo-edited.png" alt="Occtoo Logo" /></a></p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Congratulations to our People's Choice Winners!</h2>
<p>There you have it, folks! Thank you again for participating in our Awards this year, and always, we welcome your feedback and your votes for next season!</p>


Let's Celebrate the Winners of the 2022 CMS Critic People’s Choice Awards

<p><a href="https://uniform.dev/" target="_blank">Uniform</a> has been anything but uniform. And that's a good thing. Since the company's inception, it has frequently challenged conventional industry thinking and elevated the conversation around composability.</p>
<p>As a certified member of the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/the-future-is-composable-a-conversation-with-new-mach-alliance-president-casper-rasmussen/">MACH Alliance</a>, Uniform has been trumpeting its vision for integrating modern composable systems with legacy monoliths, allowing customers to smooth out the rough patches with delivery and update their architectures "through evolution, not revolution."</p>
<p>Along with an array of platform products that include personalization, Uniform has been carving a new niche that has DXPs and analysts rethinking the digital experience landscape. It's the kind of bold thinking that helped the company <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/uniform-raises-28m-in-series-a-funding-round-for-composable-dxp/">raise $28 million</a> in Series A funding last December, just 15 months after breaking ground. </p>
<p>Now, Uniform is launching a new kind of industry event that focuses on digital experience composition – or DXC (add it to your list of three-lettered acronyms to remember).</p>
<p>The virtual conference, dubbed <a href="https://uniform.dev/dxc-assembly?utm_campaign=marketing&amp;utm_source=uniform-blog&amp;utm_medium=DXCA-web-banner-link-for-uniform-page" target="_blank">DXC Assembly</a>, will be held on November 15th and promises a unique mix of speakers that are leading the charge in the emerging field of digital experience composition. The conference will also feature breakout sessions, AMAs, and demos that will be announced in the coming weeks.</p>
<h2 class="text-lg sm:text-2xl font-semibold text-blue-ribbon mb-4 md:mb-8">Building the future for developers and business teams</h2>
<p>According to Uniform, DXC offers fast, robust, and highly adaptable tools that allow businesses to build lightning-fast experiences that are engaging and immersive. DXC-powered experiences are also designed to respond to changing business needs, customer behaviors, and market conditions. </p>
<p>The DXC Assembly will feature a mix of speakers and attendees from across the development and business tracks. This includes engineers, architects, and marketers that work extensively in the digital experience arena.</p>
<p>While the agenda continues to evolve, the festivities will begin at 9 AM Eastern with a keynote from <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lars-birkholm-petersen/" target="_blank">Lars Birkholm Petersen</a>, cofounder and CEO of Uniform. Immediately following, Uniform's CTO and cofounder <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexshyba/" target="_blank">Alex Shyba</a> will demonstrate how to build a composable solution by taking a project from early development and quickly delivering it to business teams. </p>
<p>In addition to the Uniform leadership, attendees will hear from a panel of speakers including <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/pierre-burgy-88671673/" target="_blank">Pierre Burgy</a> of <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/strapi-releases-v4-of-headless-cms-enhances-plugins-and-api-performance/">Strapi</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/patriciakunth/" target="_blank">Patricia Kunth</a> of Cobham Satcom, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lars-orum-andersen/" target="_blank">Lars Ørum Andersen</a> of Kruso, and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/workingmom/" target="_blank">Beth Torrie</a> of Tercera. </p>
<p>If you're interested in attending DXC Assembly, you can get a free ticket for access to all workshops, live streams, and expos <a href="https://hopin.com/events/dxc-assembly-2022" target="_blank">here</a>. </p>
<h2>About Uniform</h2>
<p>Uniform is the world's first composable DXP, built for today's performance and scalability demands. A frictionless, pre-integrated composable digital experience platform gives companies the choice to continuously adopt traditional and headless best-of-breed technologies without ever replatforming, allowing businesses to deliver omnichannel orchestration with built-in high-performance testing and personalization – regardless of how their tech stacks evolve over time. Several top brands use Uniform to power their digital experiences, including Cirque du Soleil, Life Extension, Sunweb and Trimble. Visit <u><a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3376641-1&amp;h=192194015&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fc212.net%2Fc%2Flink%2F%3Ft%3D0%26l%3Den%26o%3D3344227-1%26h%3D2537620590%26u%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Funiform.dev%252F%26a%3Duniform.dev&amp;a=uniform.dev" target="_blank">uniform.dev</a></u> for more.</p>


Uniform to Host DXC Assembly, Offers First Virtual Conference on Digital Experience Composition

Image of DXC Assembly artwork - a series of geometric shapes that form the letters "DXC" against a solid colored blue background.

Introducing the Winners of the 2021 CMS Critic's Choice Awards

Featured image of the 2021 CMS Critic Critic's Choice Awards badge with text that reads "2021 WInners"

Power your CMS on AWS

Manage your websites & apps in the most trusted cloud.

<div>
<p>It's hard to follow an act like the <a href="https://www.oscars.org/" target="_blank">Academy Awards</a>, especially after Sunday's "<a href="https://pagesix.com/2022/03/27/will-smith-chris-rock-to-work-out-slap-incident-after-oscars-2022/" target="_blank">slap heard 'round the world.</a>"</p>
<p>But hey, we'll give it a shot – and do it with decidedly less controversy and no long-winded speeches:</p>
<p><strong>Today, we're proud to announce the winners of the 2021 CMS Critic People's Choice Awards!</strong></p>
<p>From our entire editorial staff, we'd like to start with a big THANK YOU to our amazing community of CMS vendors and their incredibly passionate users. We had some, shall we say, "colorful" conversations across social media during the nomination period, and we enjoyed every opportunity to engage with our readers.</p>
<p>It was incredible to see the outpouring of love from people around the globe for their products of choice. That kind of brand loyalty seems increasingly rare. It says a lot about the people using these technologies, and the investment that CMS and DXP platforms are making to really listen to users – and bring them together. </p>
<p>Before we announce the winners, let's do a quick review of the rules so you know how we got here:</p>
<ul>
<li>First, our annual People's Choice Awards celebrate the top platforms that YOU – our readers – select. As they say, we have no dog in this race.</li>
<li>In late December of 2020, we invited everyone to nominate their favorite platforms across a set of categories on our website. </li>
<li>The top three nominees were selected and featured for general voting in each category.</li>
<li>Participants were able to vote only once, and companies that offered incentives of any kind were disqualified (there were no such shenanigans, BTW). </li>
<li>While we don't offer any golden statues, we do feature the winners on our website for posterity. And of course, you always have bragging rights. </li>
</ul>
<p class="ace-copy-paste-skip-this-tag">We had a fantastic response to the People's Choice Awards this year, and participation has been off the charts since we released the final nominee list. It's always great to see this level of community engagement, and because this is a democratized experience, you never know what to expect from voting – so be prepared for some surprises.</p>
<p class="ace-copy-paste-skip-this-tag">Enough rambling, right? Let's draw back the curtain and proudly present the winners of the 2021 CMS Critic People's Choice Awards!</p>
<p> </p>
</div>
<hr />
<p> </p>
<p><img style="max-width:600px;max-height:156px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/contentstack-logo-white-bg.webp" alt="Contentstack logo" /><br />
 </p>
<h2><span class="ace-all-bold-hthree"><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf"><b>Best Enterprise CMS: Contentstack</b></span></span></h2>
<p>This year's "Best Enterprise CMS" award goes to <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/" target="_blank">Contentstack</a>, a leader in headless and agile content management. Contentstack has huge momentum, and it's great to see emphatic support from its community of users. </p>
<p> </p>
<hr />
<p> </p>
<p><img style="max-width:600px;max-height:156px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/adobe-experience-manager-logo-1.webp" alt="Adobe Experience Manager logo" /><br />
 </p>
<h2><span class="ace-all-bold-hthree"><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf"><b>Best DXP: Adobe Experience Manager</b></span></span></h2>
<p>Given that <a href="https://www.adobe.com/cy_en/marketing/experience-manager.html" target="_blank">Adobe</a> has been the undisputed leader in <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/">Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms</a> for the fifth year in a row, winning our "Best DXP" honors wasn't a shocker. The Adobe brand is ubiquitous and recognized as a top contender across multiple technology categories. It also has a deep ecosystem of tools and partners.<br />
 </p>
<hr />
<p> <br />
<img style="max-width:400px;max-height:90px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/joomla-logo-white-bg.webp" alt="Joomla logo" width="auto" height="auto" /><br />
 </p>
<h2><span class="ace-all-bold-hthree"><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf"><b>Best Free CMS: Joomla</b></span></span></h2>
<p>Surprised that <a href="https://www.joomla.org/" target="_blank">Joomla</a> carried this category? Don't be. They've cultivated an enthusiastic fan base with a rising fervor for their favorite platform. Joomla continues to have a strong community of open source users, making it one of the top three most popular content management systems in the world - and winner of our "Best Free CMS" category.<br />
 </p>
<hr />
<p> <br />
<img style="max-width:400px;max-height:100px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/grav-logo-smallsvg.webp" alt="Grav logo" width="auto" height="auto" /><br />
 </p>
<h2><span class="ace-all-bold-hthree"><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf"><b>Best Flat File CMS: Grav</b></span></span></h2>
<p>This was a tight race with <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-flat-file-cms-platforms-for-building-simple-websites-fast/" target="_blank">Kirby</a>, but in the end, <a href="https://getgrav.org/" target="_blank">Grav</a> took top honors. A consistent winner of our People's Choice Award for "Best Flat File CMS," Grav is also featured in our <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-flat-file-cms-platforms-for-building-simple-websites-fast/">Top Flat File CMS Platforms</a> article.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr />
<p> </p>
<p><img style="max-width:400px;max-height:90px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/joomla-logo-white-bg.webp" alt="Joomla logo" width="auto" height="auto" /><br />
 </p>
<h2><span class="ace-all-bold-hthree"><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf"><b>Best Open Source CMS: Joomla</b></span></span></h2>
<p>Despite the far-casting shadow of WordPress, <a href="https://www.joomla.org/" target="_blank">Joomla</a> won big with its community – in no small part to its continued investment in innovation. In fact, 2021 saw a host of new<span> features added to the "Best Open Source CMS" platform, including the </span><a href="https://www.joomla.org/4/" target="_blank"><span>Joomla! 4.0</span></a><span> release with notable improvements. We would like to congratulate the Joomla development team on their win in two categories.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<hr />
<p> </p>
<p><img style="max-width:400px;max-height:100px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/alfresco-logo.webp" alt="Alfresco logo" width="auto" height="auto" /><br />
 </p>
<h2><span class="ace-all-bold-hthree"><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf"><b>Best ECM</b></span><b> </b><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf h-lparen"><b>(Enterprise</b></span><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf"><b> Content Management): Alfresco</b></span></span></h2>
<p><a href="https://www.alfresco.com/" target="_blank">Alfresco</a> took home the gold for the "Best Enterprise Content Management" solution, proving its continued authority in the ECM space. Alfresco has enjoyed a successful run over the last few years, including <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-acquires-alfresco-focuses-on-cloud-and-global-expansion-of-enterprise-cms/">an acquisition by competitor Hyland in 2020</a>. Despite being under the Hyland umbrella, the company still maintains its brand identity. </p>
<p> </p>
<hr />
<p> </p>
<p><img style="max-width:400px;max-height:100px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/hikashop-logo-resized.png" alt="HikaShop logo" width="auto" height="auto" /><br />
 </p>
<h2><span class="ace-all-bold-hthree"><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf"><b>Best E-Commerce Solution: Hikashop</b></span></span></h2>
<p>This was an interesting one, but the people have spoken: <a href="https://www.hikashop.com/" target="_blank">HikaShop</a>, the e-commerce solution for Joomla, was triumphant over two worthy competitors – <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-10-open-source-ecommerce-platforms/">WooCommerce</a> and PrestaShop. While the competition was tight, there were surprisingly more fans from the Joomla community throwing their support in the ring. </p>
<p> </p>
<hr />
<p> </p>
<p><img style="max-width:400px;max-height:90px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/shopify-logo-white-bg.webp" alt="Shopify logo" width="auto" height="auto" /><br />
 </p>
<h2><span class="ace-all-bold-hthree"><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf"><b>Best Headless Commerce: Shopify</b></span></span></h2>
<p><a href="https://www.shopify.com/" target="_blank">Shopify</a> has been giving Amazon a run for its money and earning loyal fans along the way. As the leading platform for building e-Commerce solutions – and doing it headlessly – Shopify has become one of the strongest and most trusted brands on the planet for creating online stores and digital commerce experiences.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr />
<p> </p>
<p><img style="max-width:600px;max-height:156px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/contentstack-logo-white-bg.webp" alt="Contentstack logo" /><br />
 </p>
<h2><span class="ace-all-bold-hthree"><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf"><b>Best Headless CMS: Contentstack</b></span></span></h2>
<p>We have to hand it to the Contentstack crowd: you really brought the rain! Congratulations on cleaning up in both the "Best Enterprise CMS" and "Best Headless CMS" categories! While most notably a headless platform, Contentstack is also one of the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-releases-study-on-adoption-of-mach-technologies-by-tech-leaders-qa-with-sonja-keerl/">founding members of the MACH Alliance</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<hr />
<p> </p>
<p><img style="max-width:200px;max-height:100px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/yootheme-logo.webp" alt="YOOTheme logo" width="auto" height="auto" /><br />
 </p>
<h2><span class="ace-all-bold-hthree"><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf"><b>Best Website Builder: YOOtheme</b></span></span></h2>
<p>Always a perennial fan favorite, the "Best Website Builder" category has evolved to include some amazing tools that are getting progressively easier to use. This year, the crown goes to <a href="https://yootheme.com/" target="_blank">YOOtheme</a> - the popular page builder for WordPress and Joomla. While other popular platforms like Webflow and Gantry were in the running, YOOtheme won out with a sizable margin. Congrats to the community of fans that made YOOtheme a winner!</p>
<p> </p>
<hr />
<p> </p>
<p><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/hugo-logo-wide.svg" alt="Hugo logo" /><br />
 </p>
<h2><span class="ace-all-bold-hthree"><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf"><b>Best Static Site Generator: Hugo</b></span></span></h2>
<p>The battle was hard-fought – and Gatsby has certainly been a fixture in our coverage over the last few years – but <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-jamstack-static-site-generators-for-2021/">Hugo</a> brought the votes... so congratulations! As a leading static site generator, Hugo has touted its incredibly fast framework for building websites. It's clear that its community of users is continuing to grow and thrive, and showing the love for their favorite JAMstack frontend generator.  </p>
<p> </p>
<hr />
<p> </p>
<p><img style="max-width:400px;max-height:100px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/uniform-logo-white-bg.webp" width="auto" height="auto" /><br />
 </p>
<h2><span class="ace-all-bold-hthree"><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf"><b>Best Composable System: Uniform</b></span></span></h2>
<p>We had a <em>battle royale</em> brewing in the newly minted "Best Composable System" category between <a href="https://uniform.dev/" target="_blank">Uniform</a>, <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/" target="_blank">Sitecore</a>, and <a href="https://www.acquia.com/" target="_blank">Acquia</a> – but there can be only one! Congratulations to Uniform for taking the throne and becoming our inaugural winner in this new and exciting segment. With big wind (and big investment dollars) at their back, Uniform is already making bold moves from a hiring and acquisition perspective, and we'll be looking for big things in 2022. <br />
 </p>
<hr />
<p> </p>
<h2><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf">And that's a wrap for the 2021 People's Choice Awards! </span></h2>
<div><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf">See that? Not a single moment of uncomfortable stage antics. That's just another benefit we have over the Oscars. </span></div>
<div> </div>
<div><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf">While the pandemic threw us all for a loop, it's great to be back to a more normal and predictable cycle with our awards program. We look forward to this event every year because it gives us an opportunity to engage with our readers and learn about what platforms are scoring high in their books. At the end of the day, it's about honoring not just the winners, but our entire CMS community. </span></div>
<div> </div>
<div><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf">There were some tight races going on in the year's competition, and a few surprises that gave us a moment to pause. But that's </span><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf">what makes the People's Choice Awards so exciting: in any given year, fans can come out of the woodwork and elevate their platform to the top echelon. </span></div>
<div> </div>
<div><strong>Tomorrow, we'll be posting our Editor's Choice Awards.</strong> You're bound to see some alignment in certain categories, and you might be in for a few surprises as well. Our editorial staff made their picks based on a wide range of factors, and we're excited to share them with you. </div>
<div> </div>
<div><span class=" author-d-1gg9uz65z1iz85zgdz68zmqkz84zo2qowz82zplz75zz86zz79zz72zmz88ziz81z6z88zjz80zz79z444bz71zz70zz68zuz75z7bz82zz70zhf">Thanks again to everyone for participating in the 2021 People’s Choice Awards. See you later this year!</span></div>


Oscar Who? We're Celebrating the Winners of the 2021 CMS Critic People’s Choice Awards 

Image of the 2021 CMS Critic People's Choice Awards logo with the Text "2021 Winners" to the right, all against a background image of fireworks.

Explore a wide range of informative articles on Uniform, insights, and industry updates. Stay informed and ahead of the curve with our diverse collection of news and posts covering the latest trends and developments in the industry

News

A Smarter Way to WordPress

Power your CMS on AWS