WoodWing
Long-time InDesign tool maker and publishing platform has transitioned to digital but recent corporate sale and realignment may bode changes ahead
- For digital, the firm licenses a 'headless' content management system (CMS) and separate digital asset management (DAM) module
- WoodWing is best suited to digital-first publishers that still maintain a vested interest in multiple print publications and need to rationalise the cost of print
- Customers include Der Spiegel (Germany), DPG (Belgium/The Netherlands), Hearst Magazines (US) and BuzzFeed (for asset management)
Likely fit
WoodWing is most suitable for large publishers with revenue streams from a large number of print publications and can help reduce costs and optimise digital-to-print workflows. Woodwing is less suited to small- and medium-sized publishers when there are no adequate integrator or in-house resources to create and maintain a digital front end.
At a glance
Primary customer fit
Mid-sized chain of news organisations
Secondary fit
Large news organisation
Most active geographies
EMEA, North America
Official support hours
24h
Officially supported languages for user interface
CZ, DE, EN, ES, FR, IT, JP, KO, NL, PL, PT, RU, CN, TW, FI
Third-party language support available?
No
Licence model
Subscription based on number of monthly active users (SaaS)
Scope summary
Emphasis on digital-first content production with print integration; offers no front-end experience or revenue generation functionality
Tech base
PHP, SOLR
Cloud model
SaaS or self-hosted
Headquarters
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Head count
200
What customers report
- Modern editorial interface optimised for news production
- Good functionality to share and repurpose content across multiple publications
- Capable DAM with good rights management
- Well suited to rationalising workflows to print in multiple publications
- Large media licensees have experienced performance issues in various parts of the platform and it is presently difficult to resolve these via cloud deployments
- The vendor seems slow to take on board customer feedback — 'it sometimes feels they're not really listening to us' — and then act upon it
- Automation of print workflows works well for simpler designs (such as local newspapers) but less suited to complicated publications like magazines
Background
WoodWing was founded in 2000 in Zaandam, The Netherlands, with offices in the US and Malaysia, and claims customers (with support by local partners) in more than 60 countries. The company originally focused on plug-ins and tools around Adobe InDesign. This evolved over the years into a complete digital publishing system, including helping media companies publish to the iPad (later to Apple News); the company still offers outsourced publishing services in Malaysia.
The key products are:
- WoodWing Studio (the editorial environment)
- WoodWing Assets (a DAM)
WoodWing Studio can organise content in 'Dossiers', which can include articles and images but also background documents like Word files. WoodWing Studio offers a componentised editorial interface, where articles are constructed of blocks of text, images and other content (e.g. quotes).
Note that WoodWing doesn't offer a digital front end. So customers typically employ another CMS (such as WordPress or Drupal, both reviewed elsewhere in this report) or build their own to feed websites. Print is supported through integration with InDesign. However, WoodWing now focuses on a digital-first workflow, where print is secondary and optimised for cost and efficiency.
Existing customers tend to mostly run the software on-premise, though WoodWing has been making efforts to shift to cloud and a SaaS model. WoodWing offers perpetual licences based on the number of concurrent users and subscriptions based on concurrent or monthly active users but does not divulge cost indications.
Taken together, this platform best supports mid-sized (or larger) chains that remain heavily print-centric and are willing to invest in a more custom web-publishing operation.
Note that WoodWing's founders sold the company in 2020 to Main Capital Partners, a 'private equity firm focused on building healthy software groups'. While it's too early to tell what influence this will have on the direction of WoodWing, the firm has since then acquired a document management company and a knowledge management company (Xtendis and Scienta), which may indicate a shift in the company's focus.
Package scope (as reported by vendor)
| Core platform - i.e., bundled in product (yes/no/beta) | Add-On (yes/custom/3rd party) | |
|---|---|---|
|
Content lifecycle: author / classify / edit / approve / publish / re-purpose / archive / dispose
|
Yes
|
|
|
Basic digital / voice / media asset management
|
Yes
|
|
|
Support print publishing
|
Yes
|
|
|
Simple social media re-publishing
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Optional modules: forms / polls / social widgets / etc
|
Custom
|
|
|
Connector library (OOTB connectors, APIs, etc.)
|
Yes
|
|
|
Bundled CDN (with DDOS protection)
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
User registration
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Subscription management and fulfillment - digital
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Subscription or membership
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Personalisation
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Ad management - digital
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Ad management - print
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Content management
|
Yes
|
|
|
Research
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Content management
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Video management / OVP
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Audio management / podcasting
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Data journalism and visualisation
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Classifieds
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Commenting / community features/
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Newsletter production and management
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Notifications and alerts
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
A/B testing
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
SEO
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Multi-title management with variable inheritance
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
Complex layout and subsite / subsection cloning
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
AR- / VR- enhanced services
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Audience segmentation
|
Yes
|
|
|
Online user / partner forums
|
Yes
|
|
|
Regular user group meetings
|
Yes
|
|