Understanding Reasons to Upgrade
Last update: March 23, 2025
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- Release Information
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A high-level breakdown of key features for customers considering upgrading to the latest version of Adobe Experience Manager 6.
Key Features for Upgrading to AEM 6.5
Foundation improvements
Adobe Experience Manager 6.5 continues to enhance the system’s stability, performance and supportability via:
- Java 11 support (while maintaining Java 8 support).
Website creation and Management
AEM Sites introduces a number of features designed to accelerate the creation and build-out of websites:
- SPA Editor support allows SPA (single-page applications) to be completely authored in AEM, supporting a rich, Marketer-friendly authoring experience.
+_ JavaScript SDK’s, a SPA Project Start Kit and supporting build tools, allow front-end developers to develop SPA Editor-compatible single page-applications independently of AEM. - Core Components adds a multitude of new components, a Component Library as well as a variety of enhancements to existing Core Components.
- Further Translations enhancements streamline translation of AEM Sites.
Fluid experiences
AEM continues to embrace Fluid Experiences with new and improved tooling that facilitates the use of content outside of AEM.
- Content Fragments support Version Comparison/Diff and Annotations.
- AEM’s Assets HTTP API supports exposing Content Fragments directly in the DAM as JSON.
Experience Fragments support Fulltext Search and AEM Dispatcher Cache Invalidation for referencing Pages.
Asset management
AEM Assets continues building on its rich set of Asset management capabilities to improve using, managing and understanding the DAM. AEM 6.5 continues to improve the integration between Adobe Creative Cloud and creative workflows.
- Adobe Asset Link connects creatives directly to AEM Assets from Adobe Creative Cloud tools.
- Adobe Stock integration allows direct access to Adobe Stock imagery directly from the AEM Assets experience, creating a seamless content discovery experience.
- AEM Desktop App releases version 2.0 and re-envisioning itself while improving performance and stability.
- Connected Assets supports discrete AEM Sites instances to seamlessly access and use assets from a different AEM Assets instance.
- Updated video support in Dynamic Media, including 360 Video and Custom Video Thumbnails.
Content intelligence
AEM continues to build its integration with smart technologies, leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve all experiences.
- Adobe Asset Link adds Visual Similarity Search, allowing for similar images to be easily discovered and used within Adobe Creative Cloud tools.
Integrations
AEM grows its ability to integrate with other Adobe services:
- Experience Fragments deepens their integration with Adobe Target by supporting Export as JSON to Adobe Target and the ability to delete Experience Fragment-based offers from Adobe Target.
AMS Cloud Manager
Cloud Manager, an exclusive to Adobe Managed Services (AMS) customers, offers the following features:
- Cloud Manager supports extends AEM deployment support from AEM Sites to AEM Assets, including automated performance testing of asset processing.
- Auto-scaling of the AEM Publish tier at pre-defined thresholds, ensure an optimal end-user experience.
- Non-production pipelines allow development teams to leverage Cloud Manager to continuously check code-quality and deploy to lower environments (Development and QA).
- CI/CD Pipeline APIs allow customers to programmatically engage with Cloud Manager, deepening integration possibilities with on-premise development infrastructure.
Foundation Features
Below is a matrix of key foundation features offered by AEM. Some of these features were introduced in earlier versions incremental enhancements added in each release.
✔+ significant enhancements to the feature in this version.
✔SP denotes the feature is available via a Service Pack or Feature Pack.
Foundation Feature
5.6.x
6.0
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
Java 11 Support: AEM supports Java 11 (as well as Java 8).
✔
Oak Content Repository: Provides far greater performance and scalability then predecessor Jackrabbit 2.
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔+
oak-run.jar Index Support: Improved re/indexing, statistics collection, and consistency checking of Oak indexes.
✔
✔+
Custom Search Indexes: Ability to add custom index definitions to optimize query performance and search relevancy.
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔+
TarMK or MongoMK repository storage:
Options to use simple, performant file-based storage of TarMK (next-generation version of TarPM)
or scale horizontally with a MongoDB backed repository with MongoMK.
Options to use simple, performant file-based storage of TarMK (next-generation version of TarPM)
or scale horizontally with a MongoDB backed repository with MongoMK.
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
MongoMK performance and stability: Continued enhancements have been made to MongoMK since it's introduction with AEM 6.0.
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
Amazon S3 DataStore: Leverage expandable cloud storage solution to store binary assets.
✔
✔+
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
Touch UI Feature Parity: Continued enhancements to authoring UI for speed with increased productivity and feature parity with Classic UI.
✔
✔
✔
✔
Omnisearch: Quickly search and navigate AEM.
✔
✔
✔
✔
Operations Dashboard: Perform maintenance, monitor server health and analyze performance from within AEM.
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔+
✔
HTL Template Language: A modern templating engine that separates presentation from logic. Significantly reduces component development time. Incremental features added with each release.
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
Sling Models: A flexible framework for modeling JCR resources into business objects and logic. Incremental features added with each release.
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔+
✔
Cloud Manager: Exclusive to Adobe Managed Services (AMS) customers, Cloud Manager accelerates development and deployment via a state of the art CI/CD pipeline.
✔
✔+
Security Features
Below is a matrix of key security features offered by AEM. Some of these features were introduced in earlier versions incremental enhancements added in each release.
✔ denotes that significant enhancements to the feature in this version.
✔+ denotes the feature is available via a Service Pack or Feature Pack.
Security Feature
5.6.x
6.0
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
Key Store Management
Global trust store, certificates, and keys all managed within the repository.
Global trust store, certificates, and keys all managed within the repository.
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
Improved SAML authentication support Improved SAML redirect, optimized group info, and key encryption issues resolved.
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
OSGi Encryption support for plain-text passwords Passwords and other sensitive values can be saved in encrypted form and automatically decrypted.
✔
✔
✔
CUG enhancements Closed-User Group implementation has been re-written to address performance and scalability issues.
✔
✔+
✔
Encapsulated Token Support
No longer necessary for "sticky" sessions to support horizontal authentication across publish instances.
No longer necessary for "sticky" sessions to support horizontal authentication across publish instances.
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
Adobe IMS Authentication Support Exclusive to Adobe Managed Services (AMS), centrally manage access to AEM Author instances via Adobe IMS (Identity Management System).
✔
✔
Sites Features
Below is a matrix of key Sites features offered by AEM. Some of these features were introduced in earlier versions incremental enhancements added in each release.
✔+ significant enhancements to the feature in this version.
✔SP denotes the feature is available via a Service Pack or Feature Pack.
Sites Feature
5.6.x
6.0
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
Touch Optimized Page Authoring: Allows editors to leverage tablets and computers with touch screens.
✔
✔+
✔
✔
✔
✔
Responsive Site Authoring: The layout mode allows editors to resize components based on device widths for responsive sites.
✔
✔
✔+
✔
✔
Core Components: Accelerate site development. Available on GitHub for frequent release schedule and flexibility.
✔
✔+
✔+
SPA Editor: Create authorable, enaging web experiences using Single-Page Application (SPA) frameworks built on React.
✔+
✔+
✔+
Style System: Increase AEM component re-use by defining their visual appearance using the in-context style system.
✔SP
✔
✔
Multi-Site Manager (MSM): Manage multiple websites that share common content (i.e multi-lingual, multiple brands).
✔
✔
✔
✔+
✔
✔
✔
Content Translation: Plug and play framework integrates with industry leading 3rd party translation services.
✔
✔+
✔
✔+
✔+
Launches: Develop content for a future release without disrupting day-to-day authoring.
✔
✔
✔
✔+
✔
✔
✔
Content Fragments: Create and curate editorial content de-coupled from the presentation for easy reuse.
✔
✔+
✔+
✔+
Experience Fragments: Create reusable experiences and variations optimized for desktop, mobile, and social channels.
✔
✔+
✔+
Content Services: Export content from AEM as JSON for consumption across devices and applications.
✔SP
✔
✔
Adobe Analytics Integration and Content Insights: Easy integration of Adobe Analytics and DTM. Display performance info within Author environment.
✔
✔
✔
✔+
✔
✔
Adobe Target Integration: Step-by-step wizard to create targeted experiences, create reusable offer libraries.
✔
✔+
✔
✔
✔
Adobe Campaign Integration: Easy integration with next-generation email campaign solution.
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
Tags in Adobe Experience Platform Integration: Integrate with Adobe's next-generation tag management cloud service.
✔
✔
Screens: Manage experiences for digital signage and kiosks.
✔
✔
✔+
✔+
eCommerce: Deliver branded, personalized shopping experiences across web, mobile, and social touchpoints.
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔+
✔+
Communities: Forums, threaded comments, event calendars, and many other features allow deep engagement with site visitors.
✔
✔
✔+
✔
✔
✔
✔+
Assets features
Below is a matrix of key Assets features offered by AEM. Some of these features were introduced in earlier versions incremental enhancements added in each release.
✔ denotes that significant enhancements to the feature in this version.
✔+ denotes the feature is available via a Service Pack or Feature Pack.
Assets Feature
5.6.x
6.0
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
Advanced Metadata Management: Metadata Templates, Metadata Schema Editor and Bulk Metadata Editing.
✔
✔
✔+
✔
✔+
✔+
Task and Workflow Management: Pre-built workflows and tasks for review and approval of digital assets leveraging AEM Projects.
✔
✔
✔
✔+
✔
✔
Scalability and Performance: Enhanced support for ingestion, upload and storage at scale.
✔
✔
✔+
Brand Portal: Cloud service SAAS solution for seamless sharing and distribution of digital assets.
✔
✔
✔
✔+
Connected Assets: AEM Sites instances can seamlessly access and use assets from a different AEM Assets instance.
✔
Asset Insights: Leverage Adobe Analytics to capture customer interaction of digital assets and view in AEM.
✔
✔+
✔
✔
Multilingual Assets: Translation support of asset metadata automatically with language roots.
✔
✔
✔
✔
Smart Tags and Moderation: Leverage Adobe Sensei to tag images automatically with useful metadata.
✔
✔+
✔
Adobe InDesign Server Integration: Generate product catalogs. Create brochures, flyers and print ads based on InDesign templates.
✔
✔
✔+
✔
✔
AEM Desktop App: Sync assets to the local desktop for editing with Creative Suite products.
✔
✔
✔+
✔
✔+
Adobe Imaging Library:
Photoshop and Acrobat PDF libraries used for high-quality file manipulation.
Photoshop and Acrobat PDF libraries used for high-quality file manipulation.
✔
✔
✔
AEM Assets Dynamic Media
✔+ significant enhancements to the feature in this version.
✔SP denotes the feature is available via a Service Pack or Feature Pack.
Dynamic Media Feature
5.6.x
6.0
6.1
6.2
6.3 +FP
6.4
6.5
Interactive Media: Create interactive banners, videos with clickable content to showcase key offers.
✔
✔
✔+
✔
Sets (Image, Spin, Mixed Media): Allow users to zoom, pan, rotate and simulate a 360-degree viewing experience.
✔
✔
✔
✔+
✔
✔
Viewers: Custom branded rich media players and presets with support for different screens/devices.
✔
✔
✔+
✔
✔+
✔
Delivery: Flexible options for linking or embedding of Dynamic Media content and delivery over HTTP/2 protocol.
✔
✔
✔+
✔+
✔
✔
Upgrade from Scene7 to Dynamic Media: Ability to migrate master assets and continue using existing S7 URLs.
✔
✔
✔
Forms Features
Below is a matrix of key AEM Forms Add-on features offered by AEM. Some of these features were introduced in earlier versions incremental enhancements added in each release.
✔+ significant enhancements to the feature in this version.
✔SP denotes the feature is available via a Service Pack or Feature Pack.
Forms Feature
5.6.x
6.0
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
Adaptive Forms Editor: Create engaging, responsive, and adaptive forms based on device and browser settings.
✔
✔+
✔+
✔+
✔+
✔
Document of Record: Create a document to ensure long-term storage of a data capture experience or print ready version.
✔
✔
✔+
✔+
✔
✔
Acrobat Sign Integration: Allow deployment of Acrobat Sign integrated forms based signing scenarios.
✔
✔+
✔
✔+
Correspondence Management: With AEM Forms, you can create, manage, and deliver personalized and interactive customer correspondences.
✔
✔
✔
✔+
✔
✔
Third-Party Data Integration: Using Data Integration, data is fetched from disparate data sources based on user inputs in a form. On form submission, the captured data is written back to the data sources.
✔
✔+
✔+
Integration with Marketing Cloud: Integration with Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target to enhance and measure customer experiences.
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
Form Manager: Single location to manage all form/document/correspondence such as enabling analytics, translation, A/B testing, reviews, and publishing.
✔
✔
✔
✔+
✔
✔
AEM Forms App: Allow for online/offline forms processing within an app on iOS, Android, or Windows.
✔
✔
✔+
✔+
✔
✔
Interactive Communications: Create rich communications such as targeted statements with interactive elements such as charts (formerly known as Adaptive Documents).
✔
✔
✔+
✔+
✔+
Workflow (J2EE) for Forms Processing: Build complex forms/document-centric workflows utilizing an intuitive IDE.
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
AEM Forms Document Security: Secure access and authorization of PDF and Office documents.
✔
✔
✔+
✔+
✔
✔
Testing Frameworks: Use the Calvin framework and Chrome plugin to support and debug adaptive forms.
✔
✔
✔
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