Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued) vs. Salesforce CMS

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.

If you have a large customer base and a large amount of data on each of your customers, it is really strong in creating personalized content that your salespeople can use in their pitch meetings—and then setting up workflows for automated for lifecycle journey creations to automatically go out to customers.

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

• Easy to use, just like Salesforce's other products. Many users can sit down and figure it out in no time, and with a little training become power users.
• Fast and secure - Salesforce is a leader in the cloud world so you get consistently fast results and security that is top notch in the industry.
• Accessible from anywhere - if you use cloud CMS already this is a no-brainer, but for those that do in-house CMS still, this is a major difference. Mobile access from anywhere on the planet without a VPN is something you just can't do without the cloud.

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

• Organizations that are new to Salesforce need to be prepared for report building and other configurations. Customization is a great feature, but it can be overwhelming if not impossible for a brand new user.
• Salesforce Trailhead is robust but can be confusing and overwhelming.
• I'm currently comfortable with only using Salesforce CMS or any iteration on a desktop.

Incentivized

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.

It will be too difficult to change to a different software. We are fully integrated, and if things are not working well, it would be way worse to try to move to a different platform.

Incentivized

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

Strengths: - Intuitive for Salesforce Users – If you’re already working within the Salesforce ecosystem, the Salesforce CMS is easy to navigate, with a clean UI, drag-and-drop content management, and reusable assets for quick updates. - Seamless Integration – Since it connects natively with Experience Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and CRM, it allows for efficient multi-channel content distribution without needing extra third-party tools. - AI-Powered Personalization – The ability to deliver dynamic content based on user profiles and engagement data is a huge plus, making content delivery more relevant and impactful. Challenges: - Learning Curve for New Users – If you're not already familiar with Salesforce, the interface can feel overwhelming, requiring training to fully leverage all features. - Limited Customization & Workflow Automation – While it works well for structured content, advanced approval workflows and deep editorial customization are limited compared to enterprise CMS platforms like Adobe Experience Manager. - Media & Design Limitations – Salesforce CMS is not as robust for managing rich media-heavy content, which can be frustrating for teams needing more flexibility in multimedia presentation.

Incentivized

very few issues with availability

Incentivized

Seen very least outages and it would took more time hardley not more than 10 mins that to with prior advance notice

Incentivized

Very few issues

Incentivized

Its very quick and not facing any issus in loading if we have good internet bandwidth then it works very well and doesnt gives any 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.

I've never really had to contact support. It's at the point where we have people in the organization that are our specific go-to inhouse support teams for Salesforce. Again, that goes back to what I said about there being a point where just too much is added to Salesforce that you have to hire someone to be the go-to person of Salesforce. There is only so much their support team can do for you. I wouldn't expect Salesforce Support to have any sort of understanding of the weird issues I deal with!

Incentivized

Since I attended training from one of our senior resource in organizations I didn't face any issues

Incentivized

bcgurus.com kiyuco

Incentivized

N/A. I wasn't present for vendor-provided training.

Incentivized

Pretty easy to do

Incentivized

I joined post the installtion so not aware much of it but as per feedback its not that hard to setup

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

Salesforce CMS is way better with both optimization and reporting both of which Sonar Scheduling lacked. Our ability to skill technician or prioritize was lacking with Sonar. The API was very delayed with Sonar so changes on the Gantt had a delay that would throw off other team members. Sonar was cheaper but Salesforce CMS is way more capable.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

We've never run into issues no matter how many concurrent users!

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 has a smooth integration with Salesforce CMS application which can make it a positive for enhanced performance.
• It may require extensive training for new joiners and that can become costly for the organization.
• It also has automation features that reduce the distribution time by a significant number.

Incentivized