Unlock Sitecore’s Potential: Introducing Sitecore Marketplace Custom Apps

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What is the Sitecore Marketplace?

The Sitecore Marketplace is your trusted hub for managing and discovering curated, ready-to-use extensions that enhance your Sitecore digital experience platform. Seamlessly integrate with preferred third-party services, extend platform capabilities, and maximize your investment. Build apps using provided SDKs to create both standard and custom solutions tailored to your business needs.

As a developer, either on the customer or partner side, you build Marketplace applications and authorize Sitecore organizations to install them.

As a Cloud Portal organization admin or owner, you manage (for example, install) the Marketplace apps that are available in your organization, so all team members can use them.

As the Sitecore product user, such as a marketer or content author, you can use Marketplace apps to enhance your daily work with new capabilities tailored to your needs.

What are Marketplace Custom Apps?

We divide Marketplace apps into Custom Apps (available now) and Public Apps (coming soon):

Marketplace Custom Apps are modular, plug-and-play solutions built using Sitecore’s Marketplace SDKs and APIs. They’re designed to integrate into Sitecore environments enriching dashboards, pages, and workflows with tailored functionality. From shoppable images powered by AI to dashboard widgets that surface Google Analytics data, these apps unlock new possibilities for personalization, automation and extensibility.

The process of building custom and public app is the same. It only differs in the way they are registered in the Developer studio later on.

Using the Apps

Marketplace Apps extend the out of the box functionality in several places called extension points. Example of appearance in XM Cloud Page Builder:

The different Extension Points

Currently there are 5 extension points available. 1 in the Cloud Portal and 4 in XM Cloud. These extension points empower developers to create apps that feel native to Sitecore, while offering flexibility in how and where users engage with them.

More extension points across other Sitecore products are planned.

Let us know about your feedback: https://forms.office.com/e/cEndu1JLQc

1. Standalone - Cloud Portal Homepage

Your app can be launched directly from the Cloud Portal homepage, opening in a new tab. This can be used for general information like health checks, environment overarching information or activities like information transfers.

2. Full Screen – XMC – Portfolio (Sites)

Triggered from the top bar navigation in XM Cloud Portfolio (Sites), this extension point is ideal for apps that deal with that particular environment context. These integrations might cover cross-site analytics and data analysis, or centralized redirect and workflow management spanning multiple sites.

3. Pages Context Panel – XMC Page Builder

Apps registered for the page context panel appear in a left-side panel within the Page Builder, perfect for page-contextual tools like translation, page related analytics or SEO helpers.

These apps can be expanded to get a better overview.

4. Custom Field – XMC Page Builder

Enhance content templates (content models) with custom field types e.g. icon pickers, data sources, or input options. In XM Cloud Page Builder those can appear with the page related content on the left panel or within a component context on the right side. This is ideal for personalization and content enrichment.

As custom fields belong to the data templates (content modeling) they can also appear in context of a component on the right side.

Adding a custom field requires also adding a field to the data template (content model) of type "Marketplace Types -> Plugin". Read more: https://doc.sitecore.com/mp/en/developers/marketplace/enable-a-custom-field-in-the-xm-cloud-page-builder.html

5. Dashboard Widgets – XMC Dashboard

Add widgets to the dashboard in XM Cloud, such as Google Analytics or SEO data integrations, turning it into a central hub for insights. This extension point is ideal for displaying site-wide performance metrics e.g. from a third-party analytics provider. For example, a chart for visualizing bounce rates, channels, a list of popular pages, and more.

Marketplace SDK

Client package

When building a Marketplace app, one of the first things you’d install (pre-installed in starter kit) is the Marketplace SDK Client package. This isn’t just a utility—it’s the backbone of how your app securely communicates with Sitecore.

What it does

The Client Package enables secure, bidirectional communication between your Marketplace app (the client) and Sitecore (the host). Your app runs inside a sandboxed iframe, and thanks to the browser’s postMessage API, it can safely exchange data with Sitecore—without compromising security or performance.

This package empowers your app to:

• Make Queries: Retrieve one-off data or subscribe to live updates. You can access the host’s state, environment, and app context.
• Make Mutations: Trigger state changes or perform HTTP requests directly in Sitecore.
• Interact with Sitecore APIs: Execute actions based on the resource access granted during installation.

Inspired by GraphQL and React Query, the SDK’s query/mutation API handles internal state, loading indicators, and error management—so you can focus on building, not boilerplate.

Why it matters:

This package is what makes your app feel native. It’s how your app knows where it’s running, who’s using it, and what it should do next.

Read more about the Client package

XMC package

Once your Marketplace app is wired up with the Client package, the next step is unlocking the full power of XM Cloud. That’s where the XMC package of the Marketplace SDK comes in.

This package extends the Client SDK and gives your app type-safe access to key Sitecore APIs, so you can build smarter, faster, and with confidence.

What it does

The XMC package connects your app to the following Sitecore APIs:

• Authoring and Management GraphQL API Manage Sitecore content using GraphQL queries and mutations. Ideal for apps that create, update, or retrieve content in real time.

• XM Apps REST API Use the Pages API for managing your site pages in XM Cloud.

• XM Cloud Pages REST API.XM Cloud Pages REST API.

• Experience Edge Token API Manage API keys for the Delivery API. Use this to securely access published content via Experience Edge.

• Experience Edge Admin API Administer your Edge tenant. Great for apps that monitor usage, manage configurations, or automate Edge-related tasks.

Why it matters

The XMC package turns your app into a true XM Cloud citizen—capable of reading, writing, and orchestrating content and configuration across the platform.

Read more about the XMC package:

Accelerate Development with the Marketplace Starter Kit

To help developers hit the ground running, Sitecore offers a Marketplace Starter Kit Repository. A ready-to-clone Next.js template that includes everything you need to start building a Marketplace app. It’s pre-configured with the Marketplace SDK, supports React and Next.js, and provides sample implementations for each extension point. Whether you're targeting Pages, Dashboards, or the Cloud Portal homepage, the Starter Kit simplifies setup, enforces best practices, and ensures your app feels native from day one.

Check out the Marketplace SDK

Conclusion: Why Marketplace Custom Apps Matter

Marketplace Custom Apps are more than just extensions. They’re enablers of agility, innovation at the fingertips of marketers. For developers, they offer a secure, scalable way to build modular solutions without touching the core. For organizations, they unlock tailored functionality that fits seamlessly into Sitecore’s composable architecture. And for marketers and authors, they deliver intuitive tools that enhance productivity and accelerate execution. With the Marketplace, Sitecore becomes not just a platform—but a launchpad for what’s next.

Resources:

FAQ

Does the Marketplace cover Sitecore XM Cloud only?

Currently the marketplace SDK handles Cloud Portal and XM Cloud. More integrations with other Sitecore products are planned.

Does the Marketplace cover Sitecore XM Cloud only?

What Frontend Frameworks are supported? | The Marketplace SDK supports React and Next.js apps.

What is the difference between public and custom apps?

Public apps are available for any Sitecore customer to avail of. Public apps are self served and deployed/enabled by the user. Custom-built apps or agents are private, specifically built for one customer or an identified group of specific customers. Custom Apps are deployed/enabled by the vendor. Both can be built by the customer or a partner.

Where do I host Marketplace Custom Apps?

Currently Sitecore doesn’t offer hosting for Marketplace apps, therefore teams building apps will be required to arrange/manage hosting e.g. using Vercel, Netlify, Azure, or others.

Who supports Custom Apps?

Support agreements can be individually agreed between implementer and consumer/customer. If not agreed differently, the Implementer, e.g. the Partner that implemented it, is responsible for the support.

Is there a review process for custom apps?

The quality of a custom app in terms of security, usability, accessibility has to be ensured by the implementer based on the requirements of the customer.

What tools are available for developers?

Marketplace SDK (v1) helps apps talk securely with Sitecore, making it easier to use different Sitecore APIs (like for XM Apps, Authoring, and Experience Edge) in a structured way with Sitecore handling authentication. Developers can build and test locally by connecting to an XM Cloud environment. (MCPs will be available in future)

How do I manage several Marketplace apps?

To simplify dependencies you should keep your Marketplace apps dedicated to a single topic. E.g. serving different extension points displaying Google Analytics data should be served from one app. The additional AI translation tool should be a separate app.

How can developers test apps running on their local developer machine, without other users seeing them?

You can register your local app similar to a deployed app through the Developer studio UI. Ideally you only register local running apps on non-prod environments. |

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