Acora or Kentico? Two strong platforms for residential colleges

Purpose-built simplicity or enterprise DXP capability. We help you choose based on what your college actually needs.

Laptop and smartphone screens displaying the St John's College Website, alumni portal and student engagement app

 

 

DDSN Interactive builds, hosts and supports education platforms on both Acora and Kentico. Trinity College at the University of Melbourne runs on Kentico; St John's College at the University of Queensland and New College at UNSW run on Acora. So this isn't a sales page trying to convince you of one platform over the other, it's the comparison we walk through with every college choosing a CMS.

The right answer depends on what you want your platform to do, and who you want holding it up.

 

The Short Version

Acora College

A digital experience platform, made in Australia and purpose-built implementation by DDSN for residential colleges. The website, application portal, student engagement app (including meals management), alumni portal and email marketing arrive as ready modules on one platform, hosted on DDSN's security-hardened Australian infrastructure. New features built for one college roll out to all colleges at the next update, so development costs are shared across the community.

Tablet and smartphone screens displaying the St John's College Student engagement portal

Xperience by Kentico

A global commercial digital experience platform used by educational institutions worldwide. Content management pairs with built-in marketing automation, audience segmentation and AI-driven personalisation, delivered as single-tenant SaaS on Microsoft Azure — your choice of data-centre region, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II certified. College-specific functions such as admissions workflows or meals management are built to your specification or connected via API rather than switched on as modules.

4 device sized screens displaying the Gordon TAFE website with course listing

Acora vs Kentico side by side

Acora College and Xperience by Kentico compared for residential colleges
Criteria Acora College Xperience by Kentico
What it is Digital experience platform built and supported by DDSN in Australia, purpose-built for residential colleges. Global commercial digital experience platform (DXP) from Kentico, used across education, government and business worldwide. DDSN is one of the top gold Kentico partners in Australia.
Built for Australian residential colleges — admissions, student life, alumni and college operations on one platform. Organisations of many kinds; strong education fit through flexible architecture, personalisation and integration. DDSN has a solid implementation in use by Australian Colleges and TAFE.
Content management Multi-site management with unlimited content, sites, and staff and student users. Distributed authoring with role-based permissions. Centralised content hub with omnichannel publishing — one place to manage content for websites, apps and other channels, with workflow and brand consistency built in.
College modules

Application portal with custom forms and workflow, tour and enquiry management,
Student portal with contracts, maintenance requests, incident reports, push notifications and role-specific content.
Alumni portal with alumni directory, mentor matching, jobs board and donations

 Built to your specification or integrated with your existing student management, admissions and alumni systems via API. More flexibility; delivered as project work rather than ready modules.
Student mobile app Progressive web app designed for student engagement in college. Native iOS and Android as well as web app: news, events, meals opt-in/opt-out, meal credits and cafe tokens maintenance requests, incident reports, push notifications and role-specific content. Mobile-responsive by default; native or headless apps delivered through Kentico's API-first architecture as a custom build.
Marketing and communications Email marketing automation with unlimited subscribers, lists and sends. Lead generation, landing pages and social media integration included. Mature built-in marketing automation: audience segmentation, AI-powered personalisation, campaign management and lead scoring for students, parents and alumni.
Personalisation and AI Role-based logins and personalised content by audience (students, staff, alumni, applicants). AI-driven personalisation and segmentation as a core product capability, with an active product roadmap investing in AI features.
Analytics Advanced usage reporting beyond Google Analytics: search keywords, heatmaps, session recording, multi-site roll-ups, conversion and campaign reports. Unified analytics dashboard connecting content, campaigns and audience behaviour for data-driven decisions on engagement and enrolment.
Integration and SSO Open integration APIs at no additional cost. SSO options include SAML, Active Directory and custom providers. Optional tailored SuiteCRM, or connect your existing CRM or student management database. API-first platform. Integrates with LMS, virtual classrooms, CRM and student management systems; SSO via standard identity providers.
Hosting and data residency DDSN's Australian hosting: all core infrastructure inside Australian jurisdiction, security-hardened, third-party penetration tested and constantly monitored, with dev, staging and live environments included. Single-tenant SaaS on Microsoft Azure with complete data isolation, geo-redundant backups and your choice of Azure data-centre region — including Australia. DDSN-managed private cloud hosting is also available.
Security and compliance Externally audited, penetration-tested platform with continuous monitoring, managed upgrades and no ad hoc upgrade project fees. Hosted by DDSN in an Australian ISO 27001 certified data centre. Hosted by DDSN or you can choose Kentico's ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II certified SaaS, GDPR-ready, with multi-factor authentication and Azure Key Vault securing credentials.
Cost model Acora subscription with hosting level selected based on your needs. Features developed for one college roll out to all at the next update. Product licence (SaaS or self-hosted) plus implementation. You pay for exactly what you scope; the platform scales with you.
Support and training Local help desk and telephone support from DDSN, unlimited platform training online or in person, and pre-booked hours usable for support, consultancy, content, design or development. DDSN implementation, hypercare and continuous improvement support. Local help desk and telephone support from DDSN backed by Kentico's global product support, documentation and partner network.

 

Where Acora leads

Acora was built for colleges, so the college-shaped problems are already solved. Meals management, application workflows, alumni mentoring, tour bookings, staff reporting forms,  these arrive as working modules, not a project scope. That makes Acora the faster, more cost-effective path to a complete college platform: website, native student app, admissions and alumni engagement from one supplier, on one subscription, hosted entirely within Australian jurisdiction. Training is unlimited, upgrades are managed with no surprise project fees, and improvements funded by one college benefit every college on the platform.

Where Kentico leads

Kentico is a global product with a global product team behind it. If your college's priority is marketing sophistication — segmenting prospective students and their parents, personalising content with AI, automating nurture campaigns and measuring it all in one dashboard — Kentico's built-in tools are deeper and evolving faster. Its SaaS platform carries ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II certification, which simplifies procurement and audit conversations. And because Kentico has a large international partner ecosystem, your platform isn't tied to any one agency: a consideration some boards weigh heavily.

 

The honest trade-offs

Choosing Acora means choosing DDSN as your long-term platform partner — the strength and the dependency are the same fact. Choosing Kentico means the college-specific features Acora includes as standard become scoped builds or integrations, which adds flexibility and adds cost. Neither is the wrong answer. One buys you a college platform ready to go; the other buys you an enterprise product you can shape without limit.

 

Proven in Australian colleges

Trinity college website built with kentico

Trinity College, University of Melbourne

Kentico

Partnered with DDSN on Kentico since 2015 — three platform migrations, three student portals, and a 2024 redesign that streamlined 900+ pages while improving organic search performance. Kentico Site of the Year (Education) Honourable Mention.

Read the Latest Trinity Case Study

St John's College UQ website built with Acora

St John's College, University of Queensland

Acora

Runs the Acora College platform: website, iOS and Android student app with meals management, and an alumni portal with mentoring, jobs and events — replacing multiple legacy systems with one managed platform.

Read the Latest St John's Case Study

New College UNSW website built with Acora

New College, UNSW

Acora

Runs on the Acora College platform alongside St John's — part of the shared-development community where features built for one college roll out to all.

Read the Latest New College Case Study

 

How to choose between Acora and Kentico

If you want a complete college platform with the modules already built, local hosting and one accountable partner, Acora is the stronger fit. If your strategy centres on marketing automation, AI personalisation, enterprise certification and product portability, Kentico is the stronger fit. Either way, the delivery partner matters as much as the platform — and DDSN designs, builds, hosts and supports both, so our recommendation follows your requirements, not our licence book.

Common Questions

Yes, Kentico is use by educational institutions world wide from colleges to teacher federations. It pairs content management with segmentation and AI personalisation suited to student recruitment. Trinity College has run on Kentico with DDSn since 2015, earning a Kentico Site of the Year (Education) Honourable Mention in 2024.

St John's College at the University of Queensland and New College at UNSW run the Acora College platform — website, native student app with meals management, and alumni portal on one subscription.

Yes. Because DDSN supports both, a college can start where the fit is best today and migrate later without changing partners. Content, users and integrations are mapped and moved as a planned project, with redirects preserving your search rankings.

 

See both, side by side

We'll walk you through both platforms — face-to-face or online — against your college's actual requirements.

Work with us

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