Compare E-Commerce models.
Our scoring process is applied and objectively evaluated according to strengths and weaknesses.
Compare vendors based on the five dimensions of the Composable Agility Score. Freely choose the solutions you want to compare to get an easy overview of their capabilities. You can adjust your selection at any time or click on any solution to read a more detailed explanation of their CA Score.
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How easy is it to quickly and scalably build the individual solutions you need for your business using the application? See also: Best of Breed versus Best of Suite.
How well can a cloud application be broken down into its individual parts and used? The best solutions can be combined based on specific customer requirements.
How well can this application be connected and controlled via standardized applications? A functional API interface is able to interact with any other software.
How natively can this application be operated in the cloud (updates, backup, porting)? An ideal cloud solution is available everywhere, accessible at any time, highly secure, flexible and agile.
How independent can the application be from the end user’s interface (desktop, mobile, on the go…)? A functional solution is able to operate with any frontend.
Akeneo was founded in 2013 as an open-source PIM. Today, Akeneo is headquartered in Nantes, France, with offices worldwide including the USA, UK, Spain, Germany, Italy, and Australia. Akeneo employs over 250 members of staff and provides services to over 550 customers, including Shop.com, Midland Scientific, and Fossil.
Since its inception, Akeneo has been recognized on several occasions for a variety of accolades, including being named on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA list for 2017, and being recognized as a leader in product information management applications on an IDC Marketscape report in 2019.
Since its inception, Akeneo has been recognized on several occasions for a variety of accolades, including being named on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA list for 2017, and being recognized as a leader in product information management applications on an IDC Marketscape report in 2019.
Intershop’s commerce platform is suited to B2B, B2C and B2X business models alike with its omnichannel commerce solutions. Intershop serves more than 300 large and medium-sized companies worldwide, with Deutsche Telekom, Staples, HP, and BMW among their customers. The majority of Intershop’s customers are based in Europe, but they also serve companies in the USA and Asia Pacific region (mainly Australia).
Headquartered in Boston, USA, Salsify has grown from strength to strength since its inception in 2012. Securing a Series F funding round in April 2022, Salsify’s total funding to date amounts to $452.6 million. Overall Salsify has had 12 investors, including Permira and TPG.
Focusing largely on allowing their customers to gain success on the “digital shelf”, Forrester’s Q2 2021 PIM Wave named Salsify a leader and a “visionary and fast mover in the PIM space and commerce.”
Focusing largely on allowing their customers to gain success on the “digital shelf”, Forrester’s Q2 2021 PIM Wave named Salsify a leader and a “visionary and fast mover in the PIM space and commerce.”
Formerly known as Gladson, over the years, Chicago-based Syndigo has bolstered its positioning in the PIM landscape through various acquisitions. These included acquiring Edgenet, Kwikee, and, in one of the more recent incorporations, Riversand, which has equipped Syndigo with even more powerful product data and content management solutions.
Syndigo was a new entrant in the 2021 Forrester Wave. Syndigo operates globally and serves more than 1,750 retailers and distributors along with over 12,000 manufacturers. Their clients operate in a wide variety of markets, including health and beauty, automtovie, apparel, groceries, and home improvements.
Syndigo was a new entrant in the 2021 Forrester Wave. Syndigo operates globally and serves more than 1,750 retailers and distributors along with over 12,000 manufacturers. Their clients operate in a wide variety of markets, including health and beauty, automtovie, apparel, groceries, and home improvements.
8.3
7.9Composability
6.4Head-
less
less
9.8Cloud
Native
Native
8.5API
8.7Modu-
larity
larity
5.0
5.7Composability
7Head-
less
less
5Cloud
Native
Native
4.4API
3Modu-
larity
larity
8.1
6.9Composability
6.8Head-
less
less
9.8Cloud
Native
Native
8.5API
8.5Modu-
larity
larity
7.5
7.5Composability
6.5Head-
less
less
9.8Cloud
Native
Native
5.3API
8.4Modu-
larity
larity
Modularity
8.7
3
8.5
8.4
Although Akeneo’s own website speaks little of microservices specifically, the Akeneo App Store allows customers to directly plug into third-party applications. Customers can access over 150 extensions and “connectors” to enhance their Akeneo PIM.
Because it was originally built on a monolithic architecture, Intershop scores relatively low for modularity/microservices. Intershop has made some efforts in recent years to increase its microservices offering, particularly by breaking down the monolithic platform into discrete services. However, this course of action has not yet been fully realized.
In 2016, Salsify announced on their blog they were moving towards a Microservices architecture. Although they now speak of this very little on their own site and documentation, Salsify’s platform is created as a set of microservices. In 2018, Salsify co-founder and CMO Rob Gonzales wrote of how the company had broken up its original monolithic platform and converted it into containerized microservices. New features were then built as separate projects.
Syndigo’s acquisitions over past years have added to their microservices capabilities. Specifically, Syndigo’s acquisition of Riversand has assisted in Syndigo customers accessing microservices. In this way, Syndigo is approaching Mciroservices in a stable manner, similar to other vendors in the PIM landscape.
API
8.5
4.4
8.5
5.3
Akeneo adopts and API-first approach. Akeneo’s website states that, as well as being high-performing, their containerized architecture follows industry standards and best practices. Akeneo offers extensive documentation on-site to guide customers through using APIs. As with their microservices, Akeneo’s App Store relies on APIs to connect to available extensions, and allows companies and clients to provide their own extensions via API. Both REST and Events APIs are utilized.
Although Intershop offers a variety of APIs on the frontend, there are few for the backend. Intershop cannot be considered API first. In some respects, it could be said that they only offer fairly standard APIs on top of legacy monolithic business capabilities. No orchestration layer exists on the platform. That being said, the documentation for the APIs that are offered is reasonably thorough.
Salsify’s website offers a comprehensive API (Salsify Supplier Experience Management API Documentation) and webhook guide (Salsify Product Experience Management Developer Hub). Salsify supports both REST & GraphQL APIs. Salsify’s in-house team works directly with retailers to guide the creations of APIs. Some of the API integrations Salsify offers includes Accenture, Adobe, and Walmart.
Syndigo’s API connections have improved greatly in recent years, with the vendor offering various exposed RESTful APIs which enable efficient connections and data management. Syndigo’s APIs utilize HTTPs requests, JSON structure, and queries using Postman application.
Cloud Native
9.8
5
9.8
9.8
Not all of Akeneo’s products are cloud native, with the vendor’s standard PIM hosted on-premises. Akeneo’s Enterprise Edition may be either PaaS or SaaS, but their Growth Edition is only available as a SaaS platform. Akeneo’s cloud offering is multi-tenant and utilizes the Google Cloud platform.
Since 2016, Intershop has maintained a strategic partnership with Microsoft. In 2018, it began to pursue a cloud-first approach, and Intershop is now an integral player in the Microsoft Azure Cloud Solution portfolio. In late 2021, Intershop launched Intershop N, a cloud-based asset which marked the completion of the company’s technical cloud transformation initiative. Intershop’s digital commerce platform is available as a single-tenant hosted or multi-tenant SaaS / PaaS offering. Although Intershop has made many efforts towards a cloud-based approach in recent years, Intershop’s products are still not seamless and require implementation effort. Intershop is not versionless.
Salsify is a completely cloud-based SaaS platform, compliant with SOC 2 Type 2, meaning customers can host all of their product data and information on the cloud and not on their own internal servers. New or updated functionalities are updated quickly with no downtime. Salsify has been a multi-tenant solution since its inception and offers no single-tenant option. Salsify’s utilization of cloud services provides adequate scalability for companies experiencing growth.
As a multi-platform SaaS solution, Syndigo offers excellent cloud native capabilities. Their cloud native offering has expanded in recent years to include further capabilities via cloud, partly due to partnerships with companies such as Predica, Nexer, and Riversand.
Composability
7.9
5.7
6.9
7.5
Although Akeneo does not directly mention composability in their offering, it is clear through their implementation of several features, such as their App Store and scalability offered through their SaaS models, that a level of composability can be achieved. Their offering of many other pre-built integrations with vendors in a range of fields further adds to the ability to customize Akeneo’s platform.
Intershop offers an all-in-one suite containing all the basic components required for an end-to-end commerce solution. However, this does not allow full composability as it does not offer the possibility to mix and match components entirely at will. Users can, of course, choose the functionalities they would like to work with. However, they cannot remove unused functionalities from their system. Intershop’s strongest composable aspect is the out-of-the-box set up for new instances or sites.
Offering several customizable options, Salsify is, to a degree, a composable platform. Salisfy themselves, however, do not refer to themselves as composable, nor refer to many of their features as composable, specifically.
Syndigo offers a strong ecosystem and various software partners. This has been corroborated in various reports from analyst groups such as Forrester. However Syndigo would benefit from partnering with a broader set of retailers and building out more “close the loop” analytics. Syndigo is still catching up to peers in areas such as governance and support and integrations.
Syndigo customer’s can utilize its integrated Content Experience Hub, which allows them to publish sydicate, manages, and audit content across the world’s largest trading network of brands and recipients.
Headless
6.4
7
6.8
6.5
Akeneo offers connections with vendors in other industries, such as Salesforce Commerce Cloud or Spryker, to create headless user experiences.
Intershop scores highest for headless, largely due to the fact that they meet modern industry standards in their headless approach. Intershop provides out-of-the-box solutions that are decoupled from their platform, including an Angular-based Progressive Web Application (PWA). They also offer strong multichannel or omnichannel solutions.
In December 2020, Salsify launched its Commerce Experience Management (CommerceXM) platform. CommerceXM allows customers to optimize a growing number of digital touchpoints, including IoT devices, messenger apps, and voice enabled assistants.
Syndigo offers headless integrations, but only through third-party partnerships, including commerce platforms such as Spryker.
Bottomline
8.3
5.0
8.1
7.5
Akeneo scores high overall, particularly for it’s API first and cloud native approaches. Their microservices are also expanding and improving, which, overall, adds to their ability to offer composability. Customers should adequately assess which Edition of Akeneo’s products they need to ensure they receive the features they most require.
Intershop is a well-known provider, particularly in the European market. As well as offering many out-of-the-box e-commerce functionalities, Intershop offers strong headless integrations and omnichannel capabilities. However, since Intershop was originally built as a monolithic platform, it should be clear that some modern architecture and principals, such as microservices, are lacking. Additionally, Intershop is not API first.
Having previously been a monolithic platform broken down into microservices and modules, Salsify offers much flexibility to customers. In addition, Salsify’s extensive API documentation and integrations allow customers to utilize a vast number of connections, including those which contribute to Salsify’s headless offering. With no downtime for upgrades and no hardware integrations to use their platform, Salsify could be described as cloud native, with this also offering exceptional advantages to companies looking to scale.
Syndigo’s acquisition of various companies and providers has, over the years, expanded their offering. They score particularly well in terms of being cloud native. Other benchmark criteria, such as offering microservices, have improved over time. Some of their more recent acquisitions may improve their services further.
FAQ
What is Intershop?
Intershop is a robust and innovative e-commerce platform, tailored to the needs of complex business processes and major organisations. As a leading supplier of innovative e-commerce solutions, Intershop offers powerful software and an extensive service pack to support multichannel sales.
What does Intershop do/offer?
Intershop allows businesses to sell online, mobile, in store, via call center, or any other digital sales channel. Its Web Content Management system allows business users to visually create product- and/or content-driven landing pages.
Who uses Intershop?
Intershop’s target markets cover both the B2C and B2B markets and include retail, wholesale, manufacturers, distributors, telecommunications, high-tech, automotive, pharmaceutical and others.
Is Intershop headless?
Intershop is an API-based commerce platform with a decoupled front end. Intershop provides APIs, and a progressive web app based on Angular.
Is Intershop free?
Intershop is not an open source solution and therefore not available for free. Intershop offers different subscription plans, from affordable to more expensive with increasing amount of features and services.
