In this fast-paced, data-driven digital world, the success of any business is heavily dependent on how well they manage their product data.
If you have been searching for a product information management (PIM) tool for your business, you may have probably heard of Pimcore and Salsify – two most popular PIM solutions in the market. Choosing a PIM that suits your business requirements is quite tricky.
There are many factors to be considered, and it is time-consuming to search for everything on your own. In this post, we will compare two widely known PIM systems: Pimcore and Salsify, making easy for you to take the right decision.
What is PIM and Why is it an Important Part of Your Business?
Before we dive into Pimcore Vs. Salsify comparison, let’s discuss what is a PIM in general and why it is crucial for a business to implement in their tech ecosystem.
Product Information Management (PIM) is a tool that allows you to efficiently store, manage and enrich product information. PIM tool consolidates all relevant product information into a centralized hub, and provides a single source of truth to view all product data.
PIM gathers data from all the connected systems, such as ERP, CRM and BI systems, and prepare the product information for export to various output channels.
Since PIM offers a single source of truth for all product information, product managers, marketers and sales agents can quickly access and retrieve the latest information. This enhances customer service and sales efforts.
Business can also integrate PIM into their e-commerce platforms to automate data syndication and data distribution, eliminating data silos and manual data entry errors. This further ensures that customers have access to consistent and accurate product information, regardless of the channel they use.
What is Pimcore?
Pimcore is an open-source digital experience platform that is increasingly used for aggregating, managing and enriching product information in order to deliver consistent, updated and personalized shopping experiences. Pimcore offers several data management and experience management platforms, such as:
Data management platforms:
- Product Information Management (PIM)
- Digital Asset Management (DAM)
- Master Data Management (MDM)
- Customer Data Platform (CDP)
Experience management platforms:
- Digital Experience Platform (DXP)
- Digital Commerce Platform
Each one offers a plethora of features and capable of working as a standalone platform or all can be integrated as a single platform to create efficient workflows and strategies for personalization.
Once implemented, Pimcore offers a single trusted view of all product information, digital assets, customer data and much more. It harmonizes and centralizes all the data, and eliminates data silos, which significantly improve customer experience and operational efficiency.
What is Salsify?
Salsify is a SaaS (Software as a Service) platform that provides total control over the product data management through their enterprise-level products and features, ensuring the product information is efficiently utilized across all company operations.
With Salsify, businesses can quickly adapt to changing customer needs and market trends, allowing them to stay agile and competitive. Salsify offers a number of notable systems, such as:
- Product Information Management
- Digital Asset Management
- Product Experience Management
- Supplier Experience Management
- Marketplace Commerce
- Social Commerce
- Global Data Synchronization Network
One interesting fact about Salsify is, it can create more than one source of truth. Meaning, you can create different data sets and separate sources of truth for each distribution channel. This can be helpful when you are dealing with various distribution channels and each has its own product data requirements.
Pimcore Vs. Salsify: Features
Pimcore is an open source, consolidate and API-driven platform, offering several standalone systems, including PIM, DAM and MDM. Salsify, on the other hand, is perceived as one of the most extensive platforms that offer a range of functionalities, numerous APIs and rapid deployment.
Both Pimcore and Salsify are powerful platforms that offer plenty of features to make product management a breeze. Some common features are:
- Access controls
- Audit trails
- Collaboration tools
- Content management system
- Content creation features
- Data quality control
- Data modeling
- Digital asset management
- Inventory management
- Master record management
- Multichannel marketing enablement
- Product lifecycle management
- Pricing management
And, the list goes on. Both Pimcore and Salsify allow its users to improve data quality, manage workflows and create a supportive environment through seamless collaboration and transparency.
However, Pimcore is a more holistic platform with an even longer list of features, which are exclusive to Pimcore.
- Activity tracking
- Activity dashboard
- Asset lifecycle management
- Built-in database
- Configuration management
- Channel management
- Customizable templates and forms
- Customizable categories
- Customizable dashboard
- Data migration
- Data connectors
There are over 20 features that are exclusive to Pimcore. Unlike Salsify, which is out-of-the-box solution, Pimcore is more like a framework that can be greatly customized to make any kind of solution possible.
Pimcore Vs. Salsify: PIM
Pimcore deploys a decoupled, headless PIM solution that includes Pimcore Datahub, either to implement standard Pimcore APIs to access all data or configure GraphQL interfaces for instant access to product information.
On the other hand, Salsify comes out-of-the-box with a number of syndication options, enabling faster time to market and seamless delivery of data to output channels. It is a great solution for businesses that are ready to move quickly into product information management and syndication.
Pimcore Vs. Salsify: DAM
Pimcore offers solid digital asset management (DAM) tool that centralizes all media assets and creates a consolidated repository for storing images, videos, graphics, documents and more. Pimcore’s DAM can consolidate, integrate and manage any amount and any type of digital assets.
Salsify’s DAM empowers different departments in your organization by giving them access to the approved digital assets in one centralized location. From there, teams can utilize, transform or distribute data as needed.
Pimcore Vs. Salsify: Syndication
Pimcore enables delivery of high-performance product experiences by allowing you to take full control of your product data syndication. It equips you with all the tools you need to execute product data channel strategies. Pimcore offers powerful data integration, standardization, customization, optimization, content tailoring and product data syndication to over 2,500 sales and marketing channels.
Salsify offers a unique solution by combining PIM and syndication capabilities in a single platform. This empowers the businesses with the ability to efficiently create and manage every necessary version of the content in parallel, while ensuring its consistency and accuracy. Once the content is ready, it will be distributed to social commerce platforms, retailers and other customer touchpoints.
Pimcore Vs. Salsify: Integrations
Pimcore’s can be seamlessly integrated into your existing tech ecosystems and combines all your data sources together. Its API-driven architecture allows for easy integration with enterprise systems, such as ERP, BI and CRM, third-party applications and digital platforms.
Salsify comes with strong connectors that deliver required information to the right channel. Moreover, it offers detailed guides and other resources to allow a fast-learning curve for integrations.
Pimcore Vs. Salsify: Support
Pimcore lets you leverage the full potential of data and experience management platforms by offering excellent and timely support and service, which are categorized into three categories: Pimcore services, partner services and self service.
Salsify offers comprehensive support regarding product information and experience management services. Salsify’s knowledgeable and experienced team quickly responds to any issues that you may encounter, and deploy proactive approach to accelerate digital transformation.
Pimcore Vs. Salsify: Pricing
Pimcore is available in three editions: Community, enterprise and cloud. Community edition is absolutely free of cost, offering all the basic features you need to manage data.
Enterprise edition starts about €699 per month that offers all of the enterprise-only features, allowing you to have more control over your data. Cloud edition is available as SaaS and you need to request for a custom quote.
On the other hand, Salsify is not so eager to transparently display their prices. There is no pricing information mentioned on the website. You have to contact them to get custom pricing based on your requirements. However, user reviews from platforms like Capterra and GetApp say Salsify costs around $35,000 per year.
Pimcore Vs. Salsify: Which PIM to Choose?
Both Pimcore and Salsify are strong PIM solutions that offer plenty of features to help organizations manage their product data efficiently. However, when compared side by side, we have a clear winner here.
Pimcore is much more versatile platform that offers countless data management possibilities with virtually no limitations. Even when we take price into account along with the development cost, a Pimcore solution will still cost you less than Salsify.
Pimcore is a preferred choice over Salsify in many ways. It offers a wider range of features, prompt support, customizable framework, and even provide a free version to all its users. As a Pimcore development company, we have grown fond of Pimcore and we couldn’t resist to offer a comprehensive Pimcore solution.
If you wish to know more about how Pimcore can complement your business or how to implement Pimcore in your existing business ecosystem, we are here to help. Get in touch with one of our Pimcore experts today.
