What Is the Difference Between Sitecore XM and XP?

Verified October 17, 2026 against Sitecore's and Microsoft's own documentation.

Sitecore in Plain Words, the series:

1. Sitecore in Plain Words: XM or XP, Where Does It Run, and Who Runs What?
2. What Is the Difference Between Sitecore XM and XP?
3. Where Can Sitecore Run? Six Hosting Models, Layer by Layer
4. Who Looks After What in Each Sitecore Hosting Model?
5. Why Does Sitecore Need More Than One Server, and What Is Headless?
6. Will Your Sitecore Version Lose Support, and Should You Upgrade or Migrate?

XM is the website engine, XP adds memory about visitors

XM (Experience Manager) is Sitecore's content management part: your team writes, approves and publishes pages. XP (Experience Platform) is all of XM plus a visitor database and marketing tools. If you only publish content, XM does the job; XP matters when you want stored visitor history to drive targeting, reports and automated journeys.

The publishing house: CM and CD

Think of XM as a publishing house: write, approve, print. Editors work on the CM (Content Management) server; the public site is served by CD (Content Delivery) servers, and you add more CD servers when traffic grows.¹

The records room next door: xConnect and xDB

XP adds a customer records room next door: xConnect is the secure doorway to xDB, the visitor database, and background roles turn visits into reports and automated journeys.¹²

Do you need XP?

Rule of thumb (our opinion, not Sitecore's): if nobody will use stored visitor history to target content or run campaigns, XP is extra servers you pay to run. The glossary in Part 1 explains every role name in the diagram.

References