The Self-Hosted Alternative to Adobe AEM Forms & LiveCycle

Enterprise Web Forms and PDF Generation Without the DXP Complexity or Cloud Lock-In

Organizations in government, banking, insurance, and healthcare have long relied on Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Forms (formerly Adobe LiveCycle) to process complex applications and generate official PDF documents. But today, many organizations face steep licensing increases, forced migrations to Adobe-managed cloud services, deprecated XFA formats, and the overhead of maintaining a massive Digital Experience Platform (DXP) just to power their forms.

Orbeon Forms is a self-hosted, enterprise-grade web forms platform built specifically to handle the entire lifecycle of large enterprise form libraries—without the complexity, lock-in, or unpredictable cost of the Adobe ecosystem.

Why Organizations Are Moving Off AEM Forms

Logos of Swiss Social Security, City of Brussels, City of Bristol, Government of South Tyrol

  1. Escape the DXP & CMS Overhead: Forms are transactional applications, not brochureware web pages. Running AEM Forms requires licensing, hosting, and maintaining Adobe’s heavyweight OSGi, Oak/CRX, and Sling stack, along with specialized and scarce AEM developers. Orbeon Forms focuses exclusively on doing one thing exceptionally well: complex web forms and PDF generation. It deploys as a standard Java web application (WAR) or Docker container on Apache Tomcat and standard relational databases (PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server).
  2. 100% Data Sovereignty (On-Premises or Private Cloud): As Adobe pushes customers toward AEM as a Cloud Service, keeping sensitive citizen, patient, and financial records within sovereign boundaries becomes a compliance challenge. Orbeon Forms is 100% self-hosted on your own infrastructure—including air-gapped networks and sovereign government clouds (such as AWS GovCloud or Azure Government). Orbeon never has access to your forms or collected data, and includes built-in field-level encryption and automated GDPR data purging.
  3. Transparent, Predictable Pricing: Enterprise software shouldn’t involve opaque negotiated contracts, per-submission penalties, or unexpected renewal hikes. Orbeon Forms offers straightforward, publicly available flat subscription pricing per deployment, at a fraction of the total cost of ownership of AEM Forms.
  4. Retire Legacy XFA Without Losing Official PDFs: Modern web browsers no longer open Adobe XFA dynamic PDFs, and converting them to proprietary AEM Adaptive Forms creates another layer of vendor lock-in. Orbeon Forms modernizes legacy forms into responsive, WCAG-accessible HTML5 web wizards for users while continuing to generate your exact, pixel-perfect PDF Document of Record for downstream systems.

Keep Your Existing CMS—Even AEM Sites

You don’t need to throw away your existing web presence to replace AEM Forms. Many organizations love—or are required to keep—Adobe Experience Manager Sites (or Liferay, Drupal, WordPress, or custom React and Angular portals) for their public web content, but want to eliminate the cost and complexity of AEM Forms.

With Orbeon Forms’ embedding APIs, you can embed Orbeon forms directly into pages hosted on AEM Sites or any other portal. Users enjoy a seamless experience within your existing website design and navigation, while form authoring, business logic, validation, PDF generation, and data persistence run cleanly on Orbeon Forms behind the scenes.

The Migration Blueprint: How to Move from AEM Forms to Orbeon Forms

Migrating dozens or hundreds of forms from Adobe LiveCycle or AEM Forms does not require a risky, multi-year “big bang” rewrite. Organizations transition smoothly with a phased, low-risk approach:

  1. Triage Your Form Catalog: Group your forms into purely transactional digital web forms versus forms requiring an official PDF Document of Record (such as regulatory filings, permits, or tax documents).
  2. Liberate Templates from AEM Designer (.xdp ➔ AcroForm PDF): If your templates are currently maintained as .xdp files in AEM Forms Designer, export or save them once as standard AcroForm PDFs. Attach them directly in Orbeon Form Builder and retire the Windows-only Designer desktop tool for good.
  3. Fast-Track Web Form Creation with AI & Form Builder: Instead of recreating hundreds of form controls, labels, and grid layouts by hand, point an AI agent at your existing PDF using the Form Builder MCP. The agent reads the PDF and builds a complete web wizard in Orbeon Form Builder in minutes—generating sections, typed controls, calculation formulas, and automatic field-to-PDF mappings (see how PDF-to-web-form conversion works).
  4. Deploy Incrementally via Embedding: Using Orbeon Forms’ JavaScript or web-component embedding, publish forms one by one into your existing web portal without disrupting users or changing your public URL structures.
  5. Connect Directly to Enterprise Infrastructure: Integrate form submissions directly with your relational databases (PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL), identity providers (SAML 2.0, OIDC, LDAP), and backend REST services—without writing custom OSGi bundles.

Side-by-Side Comparison: Orbeon Forms vs. Adobe AEM Forms

Capability Orbeon Forms Adobe AEM Forms (formerly LiveCycle)
Primary Focus Self-hosted, lightweight enterprise web forms & PDF platform Add-on module to the heavyweight Adobe Experience Manager CMS/DXP suite
Visual Form Authoring Browser-based Form Builder designed for both business users and technical authors (localized in 11 languages) AEM Adaptive Forms editor tied to AEM repository and component architecture
PDF Generation Built-in automatic PDF generation plus pixel-perfect mapping to existing AcroForm PDF templates Document Services / Output module (often requires separate licensing and complex setup)
Complex Validations & Logic Declarative W3C XForms & XPath formulas for multi-page wizards, repeating grids, and server-verified rules Rule editor and custom JavaScript/OSGi services
Accessibility Out-of-the-box WCAG 2.1 AA and Section 508 compliance Requires careful custom theme and component configuration
Multilingual Forms Built-in multi-language authoring in a single form definition; Form Runner localized in 18 languages (including RTL) Managed via separate AEM translation workflows and multi-site copies
Deployment Footprint Single WAR file or Docker image; runs on standard Apache Tomcat and relational databases Heavyweight AEM author/publish cluster or Adobe-managed cloud service
Data Sovereignty 100% self-hosted on-premises or in your own cloud; field-level encryption & GDPR data purging built in Increasingly pushed toward Adobe-hosted AEM as a Cloud Service
Open-Source Foundation Open-source Community Edition on GitHub with commercial Professional Edition (PE) 100% proprietary closed-source stack
Pricing Model Public, transparent flat subscription per deployment (see pricing) Custom enterprise quote; high licensing and implementation costs

Proven in Government, Finance, and Healthcare

Orbeon Forms powers mission-critical data collection for government agencies and enterprises around the world, including Swiss Social Security (AHV-IV), the City of Brussels, the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), and tax preparation platforms handling over 300 complex screens. Many of our customers have relied on Orbeon Forms for over 15 years.

Plan Your AEM Forms Migration

  • Request an AEM Migration Assessment: Contact us with a sample form or PDF from your catalog. We will review your requirements, demonstrate how it runs in Orbeon Forms, and discuss a migration strategy.
  • Try Orbeon Forms: Explore our online interactive demos or run Orbeon Forms PE locally in seconds using Docker.
  • Review Pricing: See our transparent subscription options.