Digital experience without the suite

MarTech has been growing at an incredible pace over the last years. According to McKinsey, the martech market was worth $131 billion in 2023 and is projected to increase to $215 billion by 2027—almost doubling in size in just under five years.

New apps continue to be released for highly niche use-cases in a vast range of industries from healthcare to finance. From an estimated of approximately 350 tools in 2012 to around 15.000 in 2025.At this point, there’s an app for nearly every possibility marketers can imagine. There’s even many micro-solutions built for less tech-savvy users with no-code or low-code tooling.

As the MarTech space continues to boom, it's worth noting that new technologies and specialized tools aren't just sprouting up - they're sticking around.

Why? Well, we think we've got a pretty good idea.

In the past, companies usually turned towards well-established vendors for all-in-one software solutions. Brands were confident these vendors could provide high-quality, seamless platforms for managing their marketing efforts. That was before the explosion of IoT, numerous digital touchpoints, and AI-driven personalization. Companies now need a platform that can adapt to increasing customer demands, organizational change and innovation. Being able to test new ideas, tools and technologies fast is becoming an important success factor.

For many companies, suites are limiting and unable to adapt to changing digital demands fast enough. The traditional suite solution is broken, and that’s why companies are moving towards self-integrated DX platforms. With the rise of cloud computing and SaaS, it’s a vastly different MarTech landscape, and companies are looking beyond suite solutions to provide innovative digital experiences. And it's now easier than ever to create a best of breed digital experience platform using a multitude of apps that fit specific business needs.

The typical DXP suite solution includes CMS capabilities, and other products or add-ons provided by the vendor to choose from like marketing analytics, digital asset management, or eCommerce.

However, this "one-stop-shop" model presents significant drawbacks. A core issue is that these bundled tools are fundamentally designed to address a broad spectrum of common use-cases across various industries and business sizes. Consequently, they often lack the depth, specificity, or customization required to perfectly align with the unique needs, workflows, or industry-specific regulations of a particular organization. They are generic by design, and this generalization can lead to compromises in capability.

Furthermore, the quality and technological relevance of the suite's components can be highly inconsistent. Vendors frequently expand their suite capabilities through mergers and acquisitions. When a product is acquired and bolted onto a larger platform, it may not be an industry-leading solution in its category, nor may it be tightly or elegantly integrated with the core CMS. This can result in a fragmented user experience, challenging maintenance, and a reliance on tools that are simply "good enough" rather than best-in-class. Essentially, by attempting to cover all possible needs, the DXP suite risks becoming a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. This approach often compels businesses to adopt tools they don't fully need or that fail to outperform specialized, best-of-breed alternatives.

With most suite solutions, it's difficult to continue using existing apps because the suite is meant to be an all-in-one platform and lacks straightforward integration with external systems. Replacing already established solutions or tools means a repeated investment and is very likely to create unnecessary friction. Using APIs, however, companies can integrate any existing apps they want when implementing their own best of breed DXP technology approach.

Some integrated suites offer convenience, but more often than not companies will sacrifice on flexibility and adaptability. Of course, suites may promise a seamless interface and less reliance on IT for integrating additional tooling, but in reality, the majority of DXP implementations require customization to meet an organization's needs anyway. Therefore, Companies are losing trust in suite vendors to provide a fully-functional DXP that can adapt to rapidly changing digital innovations. Brands know best what their customers demand, so they’re starting to create their own DXPs.

There's an increasing trend for brands to pick and choose which apps fit into their digital experience platforms themselves. One of the ways they’re doing this is by opting for an open source DXP that provides the flexibility to innovate without being locked into a specific vendor. It's unlikely that a vendor will have a suite of products that's the best at everything. That's why so many highly niche MarTech apps are being developed, and why companies are building best-of-breed digital experience platforms themselves.

When companies hand-pick the specific software that fits their needs, they can build a digital experience platform made up of individual components that are tailored to their business. These apps can be smaller and focused on what they do best. And if a particular app no longer meets the company's needs, it's easier to replace it. Suite solutions can't offer that level of flexibility and adaptability.

Many suite solutions also have a licensing structure that fails to take into account which integrated products you actually use. Companies end up paying for the entire set of tools, regardless of what they need. With best of breed, you're able to avoid paying for unused features because you are able to choose what you integrate into your DXP.

Keep in mind that suite vendors have to attract a broader audience and are therefore potentially unable to focus on the needs of specific use cases or industries. Additionally, they are usually on the slow side of adapting to new trends and technology changes. The best tools are built by vendors that are highly focused on a particular service or use case, and leave the overall MarTech stack up to the individual company.

Companies need a platform that's flexible enough for them to change out specific tools or services whenever they need to, without facing massive migration challenges from data silos to licensing. Many niche-focused apps are lightweight, so there’s a faster time to market when integrating it with a DXP. Large suite solutions, with vendor lock-in so prevalent, can't provide the level of adaptability necessary to meet the demands of a company's specific customers. Businesses, therefore, need the flexibility to update their MarTech constantly or face falling behind the latest digital trends. With best of breed, companies remain futureproof.

Magnolia CMS helps brands build their own digital experience platform with its focus on flexibility and DXP integrations. The CMS is open-source, with a DX architecture that's highly flexible. It also has robust APIs and a wide range of pre-built connectors for integrating with core digital systems ranging from commerce to DAM and analytics. Magnolia is ready to power an innovative DXP platform now into the future.