In our project, we are deciding whether we can move from XP to XM Cloud (SaaS) and need to understand the Impact of this, as far as I understand that the below features are not existing by default in SaaS:
however I am not sure if Sitecore Forms and Sitecore Data Exchange are available in SaaS version or not.
Please advise.
Sitecore Forms is not available in XM Cloud yet, but Sitecore are planning to provide a XM Cloud Forms by the end of 2023. Currently you would need to use an 3rd party form provider such a Jotforms or Marketo.
I don't think Sitecore Data Exchange is available in XM Cloud either as it uses Pipelines and there are no CD servers in XM Cloud for Pipelines to run on, it's possible it would run on the CM but I imagine it's not installed and you can't install modules in XM Cloud.
Also re some of your other points:
Experience Analytics & Personalization - are A Light version of Sitecore Personalize & Sitecore CDP is included in XM Cloud which means some personalisation and basic web analytics and page performance metrics are available.
Horizon - this is replaced with Pages (which essentially was built from Horizon) and it has more features than Horizon did including a components builder.
I presented and wrote an blog post about XM Cloud here which you might find useful: https://www.flux-digital.com/blog/xm-cloud-demystified/
With total agreement with Adam's answer, here are my 2 cents -
Most of the features available in XP are served as independent services now. If your clients are extensively using it, you can advice to purchase that services. The downside is, you may not be able to retain all the data from XP.
Forms are not supported in XM Cloud. As per the Sitecore XM Cloud FAQs customers will need to ensure that they are not using Sitecore XM capabilities that will not be available with Sitecore XM Cloud. Some examples of these capabilities are custom Solr indexes and the use of Sitecore Forms. But they will be released soon.
You must refer to the Sitecore document to understand Moving to XM Cloud: What you need to know.
And when we think about automating content management, we think of Data Exchange Framework for setting up content import from external sources on a regular basis, or Sitecore PowerShell Extensions. Sitecore XM Cloud is a modern SaaS solution and therefore offers you one more way of managing and importing content via GraphQL mutations. This is also an option for the latest 10.3 XM/XP platforms bringing them a step closer to the composable world of today.
Hope this helps.
