Brightspot CMS - Private Offer Only

What do you like best about the product?

I like that Brightspot allows our entire editorial team to post their updates to our website. I also appreciate the headless mode it provides, which lets our developers ingest data from it. It's great that we can customize it to suit our needs.

What do you dislike about the product?

The upgrade process is challenging. For infrastructure management, we've had a couple of issues with stability. Setting up Brightspot's infrastructure hasn't been so easy and requires some knowledge from our team, especially given our customizations.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

I use Brightspot for content management, enabling our editorial team to update the website and providing a headless mode for developers to ingest data.

What do you like best about the product?

Their support staff has been excellent, providing both creative and technical help, along with training and guidance for my team in learning the CMS. Another deciding factor in choosing them as a vendor was that they could both design and host our company’s websites.

What do you dislike about the product?

There have been a few instances where we’ve needed to put together a statement of work (SOW) to build custom features within the CMS for front-end display, as well as to ensure certain modules function the way we intended.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Being able to create shared pages and modules across sites reduces the time it takes to update content that appears in multiple places. Before Brightspot, the CMS we used was very cumbersome and made even simple edits feel like a chore. Brightspot’s user interface is much more streamlined; using modules to structure webpages keeps things organized, and the live preview makes it easier to create, review, and edit content as you go.

What do you like best about the product?

New 5.0 UI/UX is refreshing to look at. Integrations and initial setup was easy. CMS is stable. Everything works out of box and functions well.

What do you dislike about the product?

CMS can be slow. Separate environments cannot share a database of sites & settings which makes copying site setup a pain.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

They host our content. This allows us to create all our sites.

What do you like best about the product?

I like the modular way they let users build individual digital experiences. The CMS is easy to use, and the low-code approach makes it straightforward to create enhancements.

What do you dislike about the product?

It’s very difficult for me to identify any dislikes.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Being able to leverage their modern CMS solution has helped increase the time-to-value for publishing for my customer, making it easier to get content out faster and see results sooner.

What do you like best about the product?

I like the custom workflows you can build for content approvals. I also like that you can copy pages and articles to work from when creating new content. You can also create tables within an article to show data.

What do you dislike about the product?

I find the UI a little clunky. To edit content on a page or article, you have to go through a lot of clicking to get into the actual text editing portion. Updating images/replacing imagery can be tricky as it requires a few different steps.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

We chose Brightspot for a more modern CMS than we had previously.

What do you like best about the product?

I've been using module systems to create websites for a very long time. I enjoy the ease of use for each module. For the most part, stylizations and general RTE editing can all be found in the same place. This makes it easy for me to use, but also teaching others to use it.

What do you dislike about the product?

I'm frustrated when I run into simple bugs that interupt modules from working like they should. I understand this is likely caused because of the custom work we've had you do, but we often don't find these issues until after the 90 day window for fixing things. Then we're stuck having to pay again for a fix that should have been part of the original work. I hope that makes sense.

Long story short, we have a long list of silly bugs we've had to learn to deal with because we need to save our budget for more improtant things. The list of bugs we wish we didn't have to deal with includes:
* Promo text stylization not working
* Custom text on event buttons not being editable
* Promo Card description text not changing to white when selecting our brand blue color for the card

There are more and they aren't major problems, but looking at them altogether it's not very fun.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

The best problem Brightspot is solving for is helping us be prepared for the future. The technology will change the landscape of what websites need to do and how they serve user needs. It's vital for us to have a patner that is looking ahead and can help us work today for that future.

I also really like the working relationship we have with Ben Randall. We see him as a vital part of our team. I don't know what we would do without this kind of working relationship. He allows us to be candid in our feedback and he is very knowledgeable in pointing us in better directions where needed.

What do you like best about the product?

It's extensible and makes content relationships intuitive. For example, we run a lot of demand generation programs that utilizes form creation, sponsorship, tracking and 3rd party integrations. Brightspot powers this with an intuitive user experience.

What do you dislike about the product?

It demands more custom development when compared to other open CMS which have wider support for plugins and addons.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Brightspot is a foundational platform for the business to publish news, data, information and research, drive audience development and deliver the content and services to our subscribers. Whether you're a journalist or a marketer, Brightspot is platform used to deliver the end product to our audience.

What do you like best about the product?

Several things that I like with Brightspot is the automated workflow engine, because it makes my work easy. I can set up a complex chain of command approval, and it ensures everything follows the proper channel and gets the required approvals before publishing. This makes the workflow efficient by showing me the step-by-step process, so I don't miss anyone's sign-off. Another thing I appreciate is the out-of-the-box social integration, which made the initial rollout very smooth. We were able to link our corporate LinkedIn and Twitter accounts in minutes, allowing our social team to start drafting and scheduling external posts directly from the CMS on the first day of implementation.

What do you dislike about the product?

I have some dislikes, and one of them is the initial learning curve for the "Dari" team framework, which is the underlying data modeling layer. It's quite steep for our back-end developers. I would love to see more low-code ways to modify the task schema without needing to dive deep into the Java-based back-end architecture for every edit that I want to change.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

I use Brightspot to distribute critical updates and policy documents globally, solving manual distribution issues. Its automated workflow engine streamlines approvals, ensuring compliance without missing steps.

What do you like best about the product?

What I like the most is the Brightspot toolkit, especially the browser extension. It allows me to audit SEO and accessibility directly on the live site without needing to switch back to the admin dashboard, which saves me time and speeds up my workflow. I also enjoy the new AB testing dashboard because I can run content experiments on our homepage headlines and see results in real-time without requiring any developer assistance. Additionally, the Brightspot tours feature was essential for our nontechnical staff during the rollout. It provided self-guided, role-based workflows that significantly cut down our total onboarding time.

What do you dislike about the product?

The initial content modeling piece is quite a heavy lift and requires a very clear plan for your data architecture before you even begin the install. If you don't have technical leads to help map how your content types relate to each other, the sheer flexibility of the system can feel a bit overwhelming and it's easy to overcomplicate it.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

I use Brightspot as a centralized newsroom and asset library, solving outdated branding issues by ensuring all departments use approved, updated media. It locks brand elements and pushes updates globally, maintaining consistent visual identity across microsites.

What do you like best about the product?

What I love about Brightspot is they are perfect platform for managing our channel publishing strategy, especially for distributing content across web properties, mobile apps, and social media feeds simultaneously. It serves as a single source of truth that fits our business front end display without needing to reformat content for each device screen. I also appreciate the real-time collaboration editing, allowing multiple writers and editors to work on the same piece of content without being physically together, which simplifies my day by showing exactly who is making changes in real time. This feature has eliminated the need for checking revisions through external documents. Additionally, the article processing time is shortened, making it easier and faster to approve articles. The integration process was surprisingly seamless, and the Brightspot team provided a clear framework for mapping our historical data, which allowed us to migrate thousands of legacy articles into the new environment in about seven days.

What do you dislike about the product?

While the platform is incredibly flexible, the data modeling can be quite complex to wrap your head around at first. I'd like to see more interactive visual tutorials for setting up custom content tabs, as the current technical documentation can be a bit dense for those who aren't familiar with GraphQL.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

I use Brightspot to manage our publishing strategy, solving content fragmentation by unifying our systems, which eases cross-referencing. The real-time collaboration simplifies editing, speeds up processing, and removes the need for external document revisions.