A day in the life of an Optimizely OMVP - What's New in Optimizely CMS: A Comprehensive Recap of 2025 Updates

Hello and welcome to another instalment of a day in the life of an Optimizely OMVP. On the back of the presentation I gave in the October 2025 happy hour (recording link tbc) I thought I would provide a comprehensive recap of the 2025 updates for both Optimizely PaaS and SaaS.

The Optimizely platform has seen significant enhancements throughout 2025, bringing powerful new features and improvements to both PaaS (Platform as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service) deployments. Whether you're running CMS 12 on PaaS or leveraging the cloud-native SaaS offering, there's plenty to be excited about. Let's dive into the key updates that are reshaping how teams build, manage, and deliver digital experiences.

PaaS Enhancements: Power and Flexibility for Self-Hosted Deployments

For organizations running Optimizely CMS 12 on PaaS, 2025 has brought a wealth of improvements focused on reliability, developer experience, and performance.

Opal Chat for CMS 12

Opal has now been integrated into the PaaS offering available as a NuGet package installation. The pre-requisites for this are that your site is running DXP and is Opti ID enabled. (Optimizely Opal Chat for CMS 12 – Support Help Center)

Front-End Hosting

A significant new capability is the addition of front-end hosting in DXP, allowing teams to host modern JavaScript frameworks and static site generators directly within the Optimizely ecosystem. This simplifies deployment architectures and can reduce infrastructure complexity. (Host a frontend with Optimizely)

Introducing CMS Platform Plus

For mission-critical applications, Optimizely has introduced CMS Platform Plus, an optional paid tier for CMS 12 PaaS and Commerce Connect 14. This premium offering is designed for businesses that demand the highest levels of availability, security, and performance—think banks, hospitals, or e-commerce operations where any service interruption is unacceptable. Platform Plus provides enterprise-grade SLAs and additional support for organizations that can't afford downtime. (CMS Platform Plus)

Enhanced Reliability and Communication

There is the addition of limited retries for undeliverable notifications. This enhancement helps ensure that system notifications reach their intended destinations, even when temporary network issues occur. The platform has also seen significant improvements to import/export functionality, making content migration and backup operations more robust.

Content API Advancements

The Content Management API now supports the ContentAreaItem property, allowing developers to GET, CREATE, UPDATE, and PATCH ContentAreaItem properties directly through the API. This enhancement provides more granular control over content areas and enables more sophisticated programmatic content management scenarios.

Forms Innovation

Optimizely Forms has gained support for PreventFieldCollision, addressing a common pain point where different content types using the same field name with different data types would cause conflicts. This feature provides better data integrity and reduces the likelihood of unexpected errors in form processing.

Editor Experience Upgrades

Content editors will appreciate the upgrade to TinyMCE version 7, bringing the latest features and improvements from this popular rich text editor. The platform also integrates Optimizely Opal Chat, an AI-powered assistant that helps editors research, brainstorm, and refine content directly within the CMS interface.

CMS and CMP Integration

Various enhancements to the CMS and Customer Managed Platform (CMP) integration provide better synchronization and data flow between these systems, enabling more cohesive omnichannel experiences.

Performance and Security

On the infrastructure side, DXP now supports the HTTP/3 protocol, bringing improved performance, reduced latency, and better connection reliability. There's also a fix for an issue where the MaxMindGeolocationProvider wasn't properly resolving IP addresses to geolocation results, improving the reliability of personalization features.

SaaS Enhancements: Cloud-Native Innovation

The SaaS version of Optimizely CMS has also seen substantial improvements, with a strong focus on user experience, AI integration, and workflow efficiency.

User Interface Refinements

The platform has received numerous UI enhancements focused on easing navigation and improving pagination across the CMS. One notable change is the renaming of "Blocks" to "Shared Blocks" in the user interface, providing clearer terminology that better reflects their reusable nature. These shared blocks can now also be used as sections within experiences, offering more flexibility in page composition.

The Visual Builder has gained preview highlighting, making it easier to see which elements you're editing in real-time. Multiple interactions have been added to streamline common tasks and reduce the number of clicks required for routine operations.

Content Manager: A New Way to Work

A major addition is the Content Manager, which displays pages, assets, and media in a table structure. This new view provides a more data-centric approach to content management, making it easier to sort, filter, and bulk-manage content items. You can even create new pages (experiences) directly from the Content Manager, streamlining content creation workflows.

AI-Powered Translation

Content globalization just got easier with automatic translation using Google Translate AI. This integration allows editors to quickly translate content into multiple languages, accelerating the localization process and reducing the time to market for international campaigns.

Opal Chat: Your AI Content Assistant

Like its PaaS counterpart, the SaaS version includes Optimizely Opal Chat, which is now generally available. This AI assistant helps content creators research topics, brainstorm ideas, and edit content more efficiently. It's integrated directly into the editing workflow, providing contextual assistance when and where you need it.

Visual Builder Forms

Creating forms is now easier than ever with the ability to build one-step forms using Visual Builder. This no-code approach allows marketers to create lead capture forms, contact forms, and other interactive elements without developer assistance.

Modern Editor Experience

The SaaS platform has also upgraded to TinyMCE version 7, ensuring editors have access to the latest rich text editing capabilities. Additionally, the ability to configure preview URLs in the Edit UI gives teams more control over how content is previewed before publication.

Infrastructure and Integration

Front-end hosting is available in the SaaS offering as well, and the synchronization with Optimizely Graph has been improved to sync directly, reducing latency and improving data consistency across the platform. (Host a frontend with Optimizely)

Looking Ahead

The 2025 updates to Optimizely CMS demonstrate a clear commitment to innovation across three key areas: AI-assisted workflows, improved developer experience, and enhanced editor productivity. Whether you're on PaaS or SaaS, these improvements make it easier to build, manage, and deliver exceptional digital experiences.

For teams considering their options, the introduction of CMS Platform Plus provides a clear path for enterprise organizations with stringent uptime requirements, while the SaaS offering continues to evolve with cloud-native features that reduce operational overhead.

As always, Optimizely provides comprehensive release notes and documentation for all these features. You can explore the full details through their support portal and developer documentation sites.

To stay up to date with the latest Optimizely CMS releases, visit the Optimizely Roadmap and Releases page or review the detailed release notes in the Support Help Center.