Contentful Flexes its CMS Strengths in the Forrester Wave

This year’s analytical wave has crashed against the digital shores and its ebb has left some interesting observations, and chiefly among them is the strong showing of the muscular headless content management system Contentful.

The Forrester Wave is a quality online evaluation of a range of software, of which their analysis is driven by data. And each year it showcases its findings via criteria that stretches across 26 metrics.

One category it analyzes is content management systems.  And among the 15 systems that they researched, analyzed, and evaluated, the strongest of them all, the leader of the leaders, was Adobe. 

Following behind Adobe were Optimizely and Acquia, with all 3 being named leaders in the content management system category.

Closely following these leaders are the strong performers, and there were 7 of them, notably among them the headless CMS Contentful.

Among 7 criteria the headless CMS scored top marks in class: in terms of vision, back-end extensibility, customer analytics, metadata, partner ecosystem, delivery model, and taxonomy.

As such, Contentful has fully cemented its position as one of the best content management system cloud solutions. And one of the strongest solutions for digital-first brands and retailers. 

The Forrester Wave described Contentful as a “well-articulated vision for helping companies become digital-first, plus the capabilities to help them get there.” Technological development keeps rupturing the standards of shopping behavior and disrupting consumer habits and demands, as well as company performance and solutions.

The digital era that we’ve been living in means that the brands and retailers where we go to shop must be plugged into digital-first and mobile-first strategies, which can power multiple platforms and touchpoints. These strategies go far beyond content management systems and propel other digital solutions such as ecommerce platforms such as Salesforce B2C Commerce Cloud, which is the leading digital-first and mobile-first ecommerce platform. 

And it’s these points that are highlighted by Contentful’s very own customers. Here is what IKEA has to say about them: “I believe that Contentful’s vision for addressing the challenges of this digital-first era sets it apart from other solutions, and is the reason we’re making their content platform a central part of our digital delivery and customer experience strategy.”

[Insert headless pun]

Contentful dives an API-first approach as it facilitates content creation – as the Wave noted: “Customer references liked the headless capabilities underpinned by API management and delivery, with one reference calling the APIs ‘very strong’ on the platform.”

And tied to their solution strategy is what they call a “builder ethos” that facilitates greater teamwork, stronger collaboration, and in agile ways. 

Digital builders inside the Contentful scaffold are able to craft, launch, and scale their content fast across the multitude of stages of the customer’s digital journey. And the content construction tools are widely available, thanks to the launch of App Framework, which opens up the back-end extensibility of the platform for the creation of digital experiences. The possibilities of faster, better, and mutually beneficial content capabilities are greatly enhanced with Contentful.

A nurtured ecosystem of partners

Contentful has long been cultivating its partner environment for both tech partners and digital agencies – to a point in which now they have 350 partners around the globe. We know this point rather well, because… well, ArganoUV is a proud bronze-tier partner of Contentful.

We enjoy working with Contentful because they give us powerful tools for our architects to construct meaningful digital experiences, as well as, very importantly, the ability to scale.

So there you have it folks – the latest Forrester Wave has washed up on the digital shores. And one final thing: if you’re wondering which are the 15 best content management systems that were analyzed, here you go: Acquia, Adobe, Amplience, Automattic, Bloomreach, Contentful, Contentstack, CoreMedia, Crownpeak, Kentico, Magnolia, OpenText, Optimizely, SDL, and Sitecore.