Comparison between Sitecore Custom and SXA Approaches

Challenge

Sitecore supports Various development approaches:

Sitecore 9.3 – What’s new blog series

Image Credits and blog reference

If you have been using the Sitecore Custom Development approach for a long time and haven’t heard about SXA yet. I would strongly recommend you to read more about it. You might like my earlier post: Sitecore SXA Basics

Or you have already learned about SXA and currently trying to figure out:

• How can you move from the Sitecore Custom approach to SXA approach?
• What are various approaches to do something in SXA compared to the Sitecore Custom approach?

Then this post is for you.

When we started exploring SXA. We had similar questions in our mind.

For my mind mapping, I used to compare each SXA approach with the Sitecore Custom Development approach. So, my mind can visualize and understand it.

Image Credits : https://in.pinterest.com/pin/241083386281330040/

Thought to share my learnings with you!

Solution

I’ve listed down the following table, Which compares various approaches for specific requirements.

Requirement	Sitecore Custom approach	SXA approach
Multi site	Config Driven : https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/100/platform-administration-and-architecture/en/configure-multiple-managed-websites.html	Sitecore Item Driven : https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/manage-multiple-sites-with-the-sxa-site-manager.html   https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/tenants.html
Layout	Needs custom development	OOTB : https://doc.sitecore.com/users/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/layout.html
Page Design	Configured on Template’s standard value	https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/recommendations–structuring-pages.html#UUID-d7d17364-b635-606b-41df-eb2f39df385e_section-idm46212287364752_body   https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/page-designs.html
Components	Needs custom development	OOTB Various Components are already available : https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/components.html   And it also allows you to tailor it as per your needs or create your custom component   Customize OOTB Component’s views per site : https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/customize-rendering-html-per-site.html   You can also clone rendering : https://www.markvanaalst.com/blog/sxa/making-changes-to-standard-sxa-components/ Note: Has initial learning curve.
Search	Needs custom development	OOTB SXA Search Components and Services : https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/search.html
Custom Link Resolver	Config Driven : https://jammykam.wordpress.com/2015/02/03/site-specific-link-provider-for-multi-site-implementation-in-sitecore/	Sitecore Item Driven : https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/add-and-select-a-custom-link-provider.html
Workflow	Need to assign at Template Level	SXA 10.0 : https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/assign-a-data-source-workflow-action-in-sxa.html   Earlier version (Rule based and custom development) : https://www.mastertoweb.com/blog/assign-default-workflows-to-sxa-items-without-creating-new-templates/
Security	Needs custom development and configuration	https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/set-up-security-for-a-tenant-and-a-site.html
Site Cloning	Needs custom development	OOTB : https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/clone-an-sxa-site.html
Front end – Back end integration	FED and BED works in isolated manner	Creative Exchange Live : https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/working-with-creative-exchange.html   SXA 9.3 : https://www.markvanaalst.com/blog/sxa/installing-the-sitecore-sxa-cli/   Note: Has initial learning curve.
Theme	Needs custom development and mostly coming from file system	OOTB : https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/the-sxa-themes.html
Sitemap/Robots.txt	Needs custom development or Marketplace module	OOTB : https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/configure-a-sitemap.html
Error Page	Needs custom development or Marketplace module	https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/generate-a-custom-static-error-page.html
Page output as JSON	Needs custom development	OOTB : https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/use-the-sxa-layout-service-to-model-your-pages-in-json.html
Caching	Needs to do it at each component or item level	Item Driven OOTB Configurations : https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/sxa/100/sitecore-experience-accelerator/en/set-sxa-caching-options.html

You can also locate this table from following sources:

You can download PDF from here:Download

Google Doc can be located from here

Have I missed any requirements? You would like to contribute your learning to this document? Please let me know, I will give you edit rights to update Google doc.

Hope this document helps you reduce your SXA learning curve.

Happy SXA Development! 🙂