Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued) vs. Divi

The service provision is good the accounts customer service is poor so I would struggle to give BC a better than average review, if only they could offer customers a better accounts service then the value would be much higher.

Divi has cornered the market on a simple, straightforward WordPress theme that gives some major integrations and functions! Now that I've worked within it for years, I have a much better understanding of how robust a system it is. It takes some practice to get accustomed to but once you "get" it, it is so fun to use. I've shown so many small business owners how to use Divi and I feel that it is much easier to learn than other themes with functions that are controlled by coding or shortcodes. I could play in Divi all day, and some days I do, depending on which projects I am working on at the time

Incentivized

• The Web Apps element of Business Catalyst is unique among hosted CMS systems. It helps us solve unique challenges without involving heavy-duty programmers.
• As a Hosted CMS, it has a lot of great features without a ton of cost or liability being taken on which is important to us.
• BC has a growing developer community and has made significant upgrades over the past few years, which don't end up costing us more, and would be very expensive or time consuming in a traditional CMS
• Our client's like that it is from "Adobe" and that it has Dreamweaver integration. This provides them with a level of comfort that helps us sell the project.

Incentivized

• Front end builder easy to design
• Exportable and importable layouts and templates
• Integration with wordpress and many plugins
• Individual template builder to apply to certain post types
• Add on cloud to store and sync your own designs, code snippets
• Can create your own api licenses for different websites

Incentivized

• I love web apps but it can be time consuming to get the bulk import file just right the first time
• Support is good, but the effort to research can be massive for unusual issues
• Metadata on blog posts and pages can require lots of content editing at a slow pace

Incentivized

• Some advanced features need to be complemented with other paid plugins (e.g., attachments in contact forms)
• Certain Divi elements cannot be nested within other Divi elements (e.g., including an element within an accordion)
• Customizing the header is powerful, but making the most of it is more challenging than the rest of Divi's options

Actually with Business Catalyst there is no renewal; once you are a partner, you are a partner for as long as you like. It is an investment in your business not simply a product you purchase...and as an investment in partnership with Adobe, both are committed to each other's success.

Overall it is a "plug and play" interface. The majority of the work is done in other software interfaces. Managing billing, user roles and custom reports are all that you need to manage in the actual BC user interface. For my business this is an incredible benefit as I have to leave my preferred software less.

Incentivized

Divi is overall a great tool to use - I think I would need to spend a little more time to dig into the tool to provide more long term feedback.

Incentivized

very few issues with availability

Incentivized

Very few issues

Incentivized

The support provided by Adobe is excellent. Though the knowledge base, forums, blogs and online chat questions most all answers can be found. In the event that you are unable to find an answer or you have a unique situation simply post a question to the forums. These forums are regularly monitored by Adobe and its users.

bcgurus.com kiyuco

Incentivized

Pretty easy to do

Incentivized

I would say that all things considered Adobe Business Catalyst is an excellent product. It does have some short-comings, but it is fantastic all around. It has a nice way of tying everything in your digital presence together nicely. If you do not have a ton of money to spend on a company website, and want things like e-mail marketing, analytics, a reliable web-site, then this is probably a very real option that should be considered. If you want a website that can grow with your company, this is also a great possibility. For smaller companies with less technical resources, I don't know if you could ask for a much better all in one solution. If you want something that can be completely customized, then there are better options out there, but they will be more expensive and require more technical knowledge to use well.

Incentivized

Divi is a far better-looking and easier-to-learn system than Elements. While Elements has flexible columns and more compatibility with third-party systems (Crockoblock), it has a far steeper learning curve. Divi had a better pricing model and was easier to use to work at speed. We also felt it was far more client-friendly for self-editing.

Incentivized

It's easy to build small sites or large sites and there is lots of templating.

Incentivized

• Surprisingly enough and despite having a second, less expensive hosting solution, a majority of our clients prefer to use the Adobe Business Catalyst solution. We are then able to enjoy the commissions that are returned as we sign up new customers for annual contracts.
• Being able to store and utilize data that comes from web form submissions has been very helpful in customer retention since we became a partner in 2011. Since that time, we have only lost two clients. That's 3 times better than our other hosting solution.
• Our largest negative impact has come from having only one choice in SSLs. For example, we had a great client in a local and growing bank. We spent 2 months getting the web site built to their specifications and we were very clear on the SSL situation. However, once the site went live, problems arose. In the past they had submitted their site to search engines with their secure URL and that was all that was indexed. Then when their customers searched for their site and clicked on the secure URL, it either showed that the site could not be found OR it said that they were entering to a site with an unverified SSL. People would then call the bank and complain. We then had to quickly move their site to another solution costing us days of re-development time and resources.

Incentivized

• It's hard to quantify, but it's allowed me to create the face of my website, which currently receives tens of thousands of visits each month. This is largely thanks to Divi.
• It has allowed me to quickly design my own sales and product pages, without having to rely on third-party platforms.
• Divi's lock-in has made it difficult for me to explore other visual builders that might also be interesting for my website.
• Es difícil de cuantificar, pero me ha permitido crear la cara visible de mi web, que en este momento recibe decenas de miles de visitas cada mes. En gran parte es gracias a Divi.
• Me ha permitido diseñar en poco tiempo mis propias páginas de venta y de producto, sin necesidad de depender de espacios de terceros.
• El lock-in de Divi me ha hecho difícil explorar otros constructores visuales que también podrían ser interesantes para mi web.

Incentivized