10.11.2020

The Finnish market situation on content management systems and ecommerce platforms is very interesting and various platform solutions are utilized in a surprisingly versatile way. We explored the options used in more detail and updated our directory of the most popular systems and platforms used in Finland. The directory is divided into three categories:

  1. Market leaders
  2. Strong challengers
  3. Other solutions

To support our evaluation, we conducted several data reviews, in which we investigated the implementation technologies of the websites using various tools.

Check out our evaluations on the market situation: Market data about Finland

More comprehensive evaluations are available in Finnish: Kaikki datakatsauksemme

Reflecting on an earlier version of the directory, it can be said that the products listed at that time as commonly used content management systems and e-commerce platforms have maintained their strong position. Correspondingly, there have been some changes on the challenger side.

Comprehensive directory of options (in Finnish): Julkaisujärjestelmät ja verkkokauppa-alustat Suomessa

Market leaders

We divided our directory into three categories, the first of which deals with market leaders. These are content management systems and e-commerce platforms that have been used in various implementations and have established their position in Finland. The products have several local implementation partners, and as a result, dozens of domestic technical and consulting experts are available to customers.

The market leaders in Finland are:

  • Drupal: A popular open source solution that is suitable especially for content-driven websites. Recently, Drupal has also started to be utilized in the so called headless scenarios, where Drupal is responsible only for content management and the visible front-end layer of the website is built completely customized.
  • Episerver: The most popular commercially licensed content management system in Finland and in the Nordics. The user experience of using editor tools is pleasant especially for people in marketing and communications.
  • Liferay: A widely used solution in the public sector that is at its best as a platform for online services and extranet scenarios – not so much as a CMS for websites. Both a commercial Liferay DXP version and an open source version are available.
  • Magento (Adobe Commerce Cloud): The most popular ecommerce platform in Finland, with many consumer web shops in particular using Magento. Also, a lot of money has been invested in product development of B2B features recently. With the Adobe acquisition, the commercial version is evolving at a rapid pace, but the open source version is also still available.
  • WordPress: Measured by the number of installations, the world’s most commonly used content management system is also the most popular CMS in Finland. The open source product is widely used in various industries in both the private and public sectors. The ecommerce extension WooCommerce is also a very popular option for consumer web shops.

All of these products have a strong customer base in Finland and are suitable solutions for many situations. As organizations prepare their web renewal projects, regardless of industry, one or more of the above platforms is basically always an option to consider.

The future seems bright especially for open source solutions. Correspondingly, the commercially licensed Episerver and Magento are aiming for larger and larger customers. Because of this direction, it can be expected that new customers will no longer be acquired as often as before in the Finnish market. As a result, popularity may decline slightly in the longer term, which in turn opens up opportunities for new challengers.

Future outlooks for Episerver and Magento have been evaluated in the following articles in more detail:

Strong challengers

The second category in our directory represents solutions that are the most significant challengers for market leaders. The popularity of these is either growing in Finland or these are solutions that are well-established options in certain scenarios.

The strongest challengers in the Finnish market are:

  • HubSpot: A product has become known as a marketing automation tool that includes also CMS capabilities. Typically, however, HubSpot is still utilized alongside some other content management system.
  • Joomla!: As a true “wild card” of our directory, the popularity of Joomla! surprised even experienced consultants. Based on our data reviews, Joomla! is still used, especially as a platform for municipal websites. However, it is hard to see that Joomla! could compete in the future against WordPress and Drupal.
  • Customized solution: Although our directory deals with content management systems and ecommerce platforms, customized solutions cannot be completely ignored. The development of interfaces and architectures has enabled increasingly diverse contexts for customized implementations. However, total customization rarely makes sense. In fact, customized implementations often combine different ready-made products and their capabilities.
  • SAP Commerce Cloud (SAP Hybris): The number one platform option for complex B2B e-commerce scenarios, with numerous solutions implemented for various industries worldwide. The product, which has become known as Hybris, is now being branded as SAP Commerce Cloud.
  • Shopify: The strongest challenger to WooCommerce when it comes to lighter consumer web shops. In basic scenarios, Shopify is quick and easy to bring into use. A bit more sophisticated version of the product, Shopify Plus, that is better suited to B2B needs is also available.

As the market leaders adapt to a wide range of scenarios, these challengers offer solutions for much more specific needs. These options are very useful when selected for right purposes. Don’t shoot a fly with a cannon, but correspondingly, with too light choices more complex scenarios may not succeed at all.

Other solutions

The third category in our directory represents a very wide range of options. These are content management systems and ecommerce platforms that are used to some extent in Finland, but have not been able to establish a steady market share or wide partner field. This category includes both products that are very capable by international standards and completely domestic products. The existence of the latter depends entirely on a single company. For some products, the future looks promising, while some solutions are at the end of their life cycle.

Of these other solutions, a few are worth mentioning. These have the potential to become strong challengers in the coming years:

  • Contentful: Customized websites have grown in popularity and Contentful has become the most popular API-driven content management solution that provides content through interfaces for website (software developers) to use.
  • Salesforce Commerce Cloud: The global giant has invested in Finland and their ecommerce solution is seriously challenging Magento (and partly also SAP). Of the other big players, e.g. IBM and Oracle seem to be out of the Finnish Market (for different reasons).
  • Sitefinity: A commercially licensed .NET-based product with the potential to increase market share, especially if Episerver and other similar products price themselves out of the small and midsize markets.

In addition, domestic ecommerce products and companies have a lot of commercial potential in the smaller sector. The state of emergency caused by Corona virus has shown that there is a huge demand for online shopping. For many smaller players, a relatively light solution is enough to showcase their products and receive orders online.

In this market, domestic players will naturally have to compete with the internationally recognized WooCommerce and Shopify, but for example Magento is pricing itself entirely as a solution for larger companies. So, there is some space in the market and the advantage of domestic players over international players is genuine caring for each customer.

Comprehensive directory of content management systems and ecommerce platforms used in Finland (in Finnish):

Read the original article (in Finnish):

Further reading:

Subscribe to our newsletter. Twice a year we send a summary of our latest blog posts to our subscribers. The easiest way to stay up to date, but not get spammed every month!