Choosing the right community platform can be a daunting task. To simplify the process, we’ve analyzed popular platforms like Bettermode, Khoros, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Higher Logic, Zendesk, Vanilla, InSided, and Influitive.
Our extensive research, based on 20 sources and expert opinions, provides valuable insights and data. These findings empower you to make informed decisions that align with your community’s needs.
Our research covers mapping, scoring, rating, ranking, vendor sentiment analysis, and more. By offering a comprehensive analysis, we support community enthusiasts in optimizing community growth and ROI. Trust our insights to unlock your community’s full potential.
Bettermode is an all-in-one customer community platform that helps businesses streamline the customer experience, build stronger customer relationships, and improve retention. The platform offers a unified set of engagement tools, including holistic analytics, robust customization options, a rich app ecosystem, and embed tools.
With Bettermode, businesses can speed up community building using templates for spaces such as discussions, Q&A, events, groups, and help center.
Khoros (Lithium) is an all-encompassing community platform that provides businesses with a wide range of tools and features for building and managing thriving online communities. With its robust functionality, Khoros empowers companies to foster customer engagement, gather valuable feedback, and drive customer satisfaction through meaningful community interactions.
As a leading customer relationship management (CRM) platform, Salesforce goes beyond traditional CRM capabilities by offering powerful community-building features & functionalities. Businesses can leverage Salesforce to create branded online communities that facilitate seamless connections and boost engagement among customers, partners, and employees. Salesforce communities strengthen customer relationships and fuel business growth by providing a collaborative space for knowledge sharing, support, and networking.
Designed specifically for professional associations and organizations, HigherLogic is a comprehensive community engagement platform revolutionizing member communication and collaboration. It equips users with advanced tools to create advanced online communities, host engaging discussions, share valuable resources, and organize impactful events. By fostering robust networking, continuous learning, and member engagement, HigherLogic empowers organizations to cultivate thriving communities that drive professional growth and deliver exceptional value to members.
Vanilla stands out as a user-friendly community forum software enabling businesses to create and manage online discussion boards and customer support communities effortlessly. With its intuitive interface and customizable features, Vanilla provides a versatile platform for customers to seek support, exchange ideas, and share valuable feedback. With powerful moderation tools, analytics, and seamless integrations, Vanilla empowers organizations to build dynamic online communities that strengthen customer relationships and enhance brand loyalty.
With a strong focus on customer support, self-service, and knowledge sharing, inSided offers a comprehensive customer community platform for businesses to create branded online communities. These communities serve as valuable spaces where customers can ask questions, find answers, and interact with one another. With its robust features, such as community analytics, content management, and gamification, inSided enables organizations to drive engagement, improve customer satisfaction, and encourage repeat purchases.
Influitive is an innovative advocacy and community engagement platform that enables businesses to effectively mobilize their customers and advocates. By leveraging Influitive, brands can build and nurture communities of superusers who promote products, provide valuable feedback, and share their positive experiences. Through its sophisticated advocacy program management tools, rewards system, and content creation capabilities, Influitive empowers organizations to harness the power of their customer advocates and turn them into a formidable force for driving growth and brand advocacy.
Renowned for its customer service and engagement solutions, Zendesk extends its capabilities to include robust community-building functionalities. With Zendesk, businesses can establish online communities where customers can interact, seek help, find answers, and collaborate effectively. These communities act as self-service support channels, enabling customers to help one another and access a rich knowledge base of articles. Seamlessly integrated with other Zendesk products, Zendesk communities provide a unified and seamless customer experience, enhancing satisfaction and loyalty.
Platform Mapping
Comparative Parameters/ Vendors (OOTB) | Parameter Descriptions |
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Pricing & Packaging |
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Product/ Platform Name | Bettermode platform (Formerly Tribe) | Khoros Community | Experience Cloud (Formerly Commiunity Cloud) | Gather Community Forum Software (Part of Zendesk for Service Suite) | Community | Online Community Platform | Vanilla Forums | Influitive Platform | ||
Packaging (Standalone/ Packaged with other products or a base platform) | Yes, Zendesk offers Community Forums as a module of Zendesk Suite in Professional & Enterprise Tiers. You need to pay for entire Zendesk Suite which has multiple modules and communities can’t be purchased seperately. | Standalone | Standalone | Packaged with Salesforce CRM | Packaged with Zendesk Service Suite and offered only in Suite Professional, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus Plans | Standalone | Standalone | Standalone | Packaged with its Customer Advocacy Platform | |
Pricing – Annual ( 1 Million Users) | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | |
Minimum Annual Pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing | |
Pricing Tiers | Advanced plan + Enterprise plan (Custom pricing) | Custom Plans + with modules and the language packs | Customer Community: $2/login or $5/member per month billed annually Customer Community Plus: $6/login or $15/member per month billed annually | Enterprise Service Suite Pricing: Professional: $99/ Agent/ Month billed Annually; $125/ Agent/ Month billed Monthly Enterprise: $150/ Agent/ Month billed Annually; $199/ Agent/ Month billed Monthly Enterprise Plus: Custom Pricing | Three Tiered Pricing: Essentials, Plus, Enterprise $9,000 – $150,000 per year (based on no. of visitors) | Three Tiered Pricing: Professional, Business, Enterprise Traffic Based Pricing Estimates: 0 to 1m: $10.8k – $35k 1m to 2m: $35k – $75k 2m to 3m: $75k – $100k 3m to 10m: $100k – $150k 10m+: negotiated | Four Tiered Pricing: Essential, Corporate, Enterprise, Enterprise Plus Starting at $690 per month on 250K monthly page views for Essential Tier (based on no. of pageviews/ visitors) | Two Tiered Pricing: Customer Advocacy & Digital Community Feature based pricing starting at $1,499/month for Customer Advocacy Package | ||
Implementation Pricing | Please contact the vendor for correct pricing as Integrations are chargeable | Design, customization, data migration, training: $30k to $150k+ | $40K to $200K+ as charged by implementation partners depending on customer requirements | $5k to $30k | $5k to $30k | |||||
License Type | Per Month | Multi-Year | Month per Month Billed Annually | Month per Month Billed Monthly and Annually | Month per Month Billed Annually | Month per Month Billed Annually | Month per Month Billed Monthly and Annually | Month per Month Billed Annually | ||
Minimum Commitment | It differs from customer to customer but its definitely more than 1 year so I am making it “>1 Year”. The minimum commitment for Salesforce is 1 Year and that of Zendesk is 1 Month as it offers month per month plans with monthly billing | 1 Month | >1 Year | 1 Year | 1 Month | 1 Year | 1 Year | 1 Month | 1 Year | |
Trial | Previously offered but now has ceased the trial | |||||||||
Trial (No. of Days) | 14 days | 30 days | 30 days | 14 days | ||||||
Freemium | Freemium refers to a product package which is life time free for the customers with certain basic features and monthly usage limits | Offers Openhub to try some of the features of Influitive Platform | ||||||||
Deployment |
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Cloud | ||||||||||
Saas | ||||||||||
Web-based | ||||||||||
On-Premise | Vanilla offers on-premise community deployment unlike other vendors included in the comparison | |||||||||
Mobile-iOS & Android | If the community is responsive to iOS & android or not | |||||||||
Usual Set-up Time | Few hours to weeks | > 1 Month | Existing Salesforce Org: 1 Week – 3 Months No Existing Salesforce Org: 1 Month – 6 Months | Few Hours to Weeks (In case of existing Zendesk Service Suite) | Few Hours to Weeks (Community-enriched websites with unique domains can be set up in under 30 minutes. Additional time required for CRM integration, custom design, user permission configuration, automated workflow) | 1-2 months | Few Hours to Weeks | > 2 Weeks | ||
General Community Features |
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Set-up community access permissions | ||||||||||
Flexible community structure with categories and groups | ||||||||||
Basic community functionalities | Basic community features checks if the community is missing any general features required to run a community like question answering, discussions, groups, commenting, voting / liking and responding to topics, social integration, content resources etc. | |||||||||
Private messages | ||||||||||
Subscriptions / notifications | Subscription is the ability to subscribe to a topic or category in order to receive notifications on new replies. Community notifications are recieved through mails. | |||||||||
Rich media / wide variety of supported file types | Not OOTB | Direct media upload not supported/ Only third party media embedding through URL | Supports image file formats but direct video upload not supported/ Only third party videos embedding through URL | |||||||
Live, Federated Search | Done | Not OOTB | ||||||||
Search with automatic suggestions for the best content | Not OOTB | |||||||||
Customizable layouts and branding (colors, buttons, images and icons) | ||||||||||
Multi-language Support | Don’t have much clarity on this. This is with consideration to what they mention in their marketing collaterals and datasheets and if they openly market themselves as multi language supporting platforms/ communities. | |||||||||
No. of Languages Supported | Links to what languages in the cells | 10 | 38 | 30+ | 40+ | 1 | 1 | Partially support 44 languages through translations but full support is only in english | 9 | |
Case Management | Case management refers to customer support case/ ticket creation directly from community in the support software like Zendesk. Certain vendors offer this capability OOTB wherein agents can transition a community post to a ticket in ticketing software to continue the conversation. | Not extensive | ||||||||
Directories | Directories here refer to the community member directories which makes it easy for community members to search and see who else is in the community and connect with people who share their interests. | |||||||||
Groups (Public, Private, Secret) | Public & Private Groups Only | Public & Private Groups Only | Public & Private Groups Only | |||||||
Group Hubs | ||||||||||
Knowledge Base | Add-on | |||||||||
@Mentions | ||||||||||
Polls | ||||||||||
Surveys | Yes Khoros has value analytics which can be considered as an alternative to surveys however it doesn’t has the flexibility like that of surveys and also has some issues as reported by Khoros users. Still something is better than nothing so mentioning this in note | Third party integration | Value Analytics as an alternative to surveys | Add-on (Salesforce Surveys and Feedback Management) | ||||||
Personalizations | ||||||||||
Drag & Drop Customization | Dragging-and-dropping is a common user interaction which makes a platform intuitive for better UX. As per this feature admins can drag and drop various page elements like text/buttons, images etc to create an ideal community page setup as per their preference. It also enables to drop files directly into the file uploader of community | |||||||||
Automated community tour for newcomers | ||||||||||
Automation rules | Automation Rules are versatile tools that can be configured to trigger just about any action you need. In many ways, they work as “virtual community assistants” that allow you to automate tedious and time-consuming actions that likely need to be performed across your site on a daily, weekly, and/or monthly basis. Ultimately, they enable Community Managers to spend their time and energy focusing on their most important responsibility: Increasing member engagement. Some of the tasks which can be automated include Sending targeted emails, Adding users to community, Adding Demographics to user profiles, Adding users to different groups etc | |||||||||
Event Management | Add-on | |||||||||
Microsites | Microsites give the community leaders and organization staff the ability to create and manage independent websites for the communities. Microsites can be tailored to their members, and admins can control everything from content to the design, layout, and site navigation. Its a offered as a module by Higher Logic | Not extensive | Add-on | |||||||
Nested Communities/ Forums | Many associations and businesses have multi-tiered structures: leadership hierarchies, committees and sub-committees, and products under product lines. With Nested Communities you can structure your the communities to reflect whatever “layer” approach is used by your organization. The Nested Communities lets you “”nest”” multiple sub-tiers of sub-communities (nested communities) under your main community and there can be an unlimited number of nested communities on each sub-tier. | |||||||||
Mobile App | ||||||||||
Content & Ideation Features |
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Users can create questions and answer those of others | ||||||||||
Organize and link questions to specific categories | ||||||||||
Various notification options for new questions and replies | ||||||||||
Show relevant content in one feed | Add-on through RSS Feed Widget | |||||||||
Allow users and moderators to mark replies as “answers” | ||||||||||
Easily create FAQs from popular questions and articles | ||||||||||
Create discussions between and amongst users | ||||||||||
Organize and link discussions to specific categories | Discussions are generally super set of questions. While the questions are usually posted by users and seek answers, discussions does not necessarily start with questions on community. Those can be started by admins/ users seeking suggestions, for general suggestions etc but can/ cannot contain questions. While in Zendesk documentation they mentioned that they do offer organizing and linking discussions to different categories but they havent mentioned the same for questions so it has been marked false above | |||||||||
Split/ Merge Discussions | Once a community becomes quite active, as a moderator, you might run into scenarios where you need to merge two discussions or create a new discussion from a comment which might not belong. The Split/Merge functionality within the communities makes it very simple. | Partial (Khoros offers splitting & merging of two discussions but not in the same way as Vanilla which offers merging of multiple discussions along with splitting) | ||||||||
Various notification options for discussion follows, replies and reactions | When any user follows, replies or react to any discussions some communities give the options to admin/ moderators to recieve the different types of notifications which may be Personalized Digest-a daily email summarizing all the user interactions relevant to your preferred discussions, Real-Time Discussion Emails which are the immediate notifications or both. The notifications can be further customized just for follows or replies or reactions or all the three based on the admin preferance | |||||||||
Highlight discussions and create sticky topics for vital info | Ability to highlight discussions by making it sticky on a category page, also includes the feature of highlighting the best answers in discussions | |||||||||
WYSIWYG Editor | WYSIWYG is an acronym for “What You See Is What You Get”. WYSIWYG is a content editing tool. In WYSIWYG editors the edited content whether text or graphics, appears in a form close to a final product. So instead of manually writing source code, you deal with a convenient rich text editor in which you manipulate design elements. WYSIWYG editor allows you to see precisely how it will look like. WYSIWYG HTML editor is an extremely useful tool to give your clients ability for editing and updating their website without bothering coders. | |||||||||
Emojis | Emoji is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversation. Emoji is a way to express yourself in graphical form in your community. | Through Third Parties & Extentions | Through Third Parties & Extentions | Through Third Parties & Extentions | ||||||
Create blog posts + articles | Through Knowledge Add-on | Through Knowledge Management Module | Add-On through Knowledgebase | |||||||
Users can comment on blog posts + articles | ||||||||||
Real-Time Comment Preview & Edits | ||||||||||
Identify and Surface Similar Posts | Offers an Add-on Widget | |||||||||
Enable easy social sharing buttons | Not OOTB (Through App) | Not OOTB | Not OOTB | |||||||
Dedicated ideation area and features | Salesforce Community supports Ideation through “Free Ideas Component for Experience Cloud” which though is being developed by a 3rd party is available for free and has no extra charge on Appexchange. I was a bit skeptical which is the reason I had mentioned the sub parameters of ideation like voting, custom idea status etc. as not OOTB but kept the main ideation parameter as true as its free. However since its not an OOTB offering from Salesforce I am changing the initial answer to “Not OOTB” Apart from this Salesforce also offers dedicated Idea Creation and Sharing through Service Cloud | Not OOTB | ||||||||
Ask users to submit ideas | Not OOTB | |||||||||
Allow users to vote on ideas | Not OOTB | |||||||||
Indicate custom idea status | Ability to set custom labels for ideas indicating the status of an idea. For instance you can update the status of ideas to stimulate discussion and indicate when you’ve committed to a great idea. Or, to manage expectations and indicate to your members that an idea won’t be picked up right now. | Not OOTB | ||||||||
Show top ideas by votes, views, replies and more | Not OOTB | |||||||||
Community/ Content Syndication | Community Syndication is a unique capability of a community platform that allows brands to easily isolate different community conversations based on a variety of characteristics, and embed them as interactive content in any digital channel. Community Syndication helps with content syndication, giving you the ability to place valuable user-generated content exactly where it needs to be on your website. | |||||||||
Product Reviews | ||||||||||
Document Collaboration | ||||||||||
Document Previews | ||||||||||
Document Sharing | ||||||||||
Document Uploads | ||||||||||
Security & Authentication Features |
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Compliance with key standards and certifications | Key standards and certifications refers to all the major security certifications which ensure customers that their data is handled in a manner that meets their data protection and compliance requirements and to provide them full transparency. These include HIPAA, SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3, PIMS, ISO 27001, GDPR, PCI DSS and TRUSTe Privacy Certificates to name a few | Limited | Limited | Limited | Limited | |||||
Local compliances | Local Compliances refers to region/ country specific security certifications like CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) for Canada, Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) for Australia etc | |||||||||
Vendor undergoes regular audits | ||||||||||
Register and login directly or via SSO | OOTB ability to register and login from within the community application or using SSO | Not OOTB | Add-on | |||||||
Encryption | To ensure that all sensitive customer data in encrypted both in transit and at rest using industry standards, TLS 1.2 protocols, AES-256 encryptions, SHA2 hashes. Vendor must periodically evaluate encryption standards and update the algorithms in use as necessary | AES-256 | AES-256 as Add-on | AES-256 | AES-256 | Add-on | ||||
SAML2.0, oAuth2, OpenID SSO standards | ||||||||||
Link with CRM logins | Ability to automatically register on the forum using CRM or SSO. Ability to connect with a CRM application during login and registration | Not extensive | Not OOTB | |||||||
Moderation & User Management Features |
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Global moderation | ||||||||||
Flexible topic views | ||||||||||
Moderator assignment for different categories or topics | ||||||||||
Civil Tongue (Swear Word) | Civil Tongue or Swear words is a feature that allows you to enter a list of forbidden words and have them replaced with text of your choice. It differs from spam detection as in spam detection the words in dictionary are blocked but in Civil tongue the spam words are replaced with some other words of admin’s choice. | |||||||||
Avatars | ||||||||||
Basic spam detection based on sentiment and vocabulary | Not OOTB | |||||||||
Advanced spam detection based on machine learning and NLP | ||||||||||
Spam correction | ||||||||||
Multi-language spam detection | ||||||||||
Ban Spammers | ||||||||||
Flood Control | Flood control refers to limiting the number of posts or messages a member can send in a set period of time. | Not OOTB but can be done by Khoros team as the part of support services | Through Rate Rules | Through Rate Limiting | Through Rate Limiting | |||||
User Card | ||||||||||
Collaborate with an unlimited no. of agents | ||||||||||
Browsing-data | ||||||||||
Activity | ||||||||||
Gamification & Engagement Features |
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Create user ranks and roles | ||||||||||
Automatic ranking or custom options | ||||||||||
User Activity Leaderboards | ||||||||||
Custom icons and badges | ||||||||||
Full notification capabilities for ranks and roles | ||||||||||
Display ranks and badges on user profiles / avatars | ||||||||||
Display relevant help content across your entire platform | Add-on through In-App Embeddables | |||||||||
Curate company- and/or user-generated content automatically | Automatic content curation ensures showing the best authentic user/ company generated content on the community in the least amount of time | Add-on | ||||||||
Enable community access within your own app or back-end environment | Add-on through In-App Embeddables | |||||||||
Analytics |
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Analyze posts and other content | ||||||||||
Canned Reports | ||||||||||
Customizable Reports | ||||||||||
Key stats and trends | ||||||||||
In-depth reporting | Add-on and offered in Data Services Package | |||||||||
Integrate with 3rd party reporting | ||||||||||
User-friendly dashboards | ||||||||||
Monitor content generation | Refers to monitoring the content generated on community in frequency, number, by specific user etc. along with some insights on which content is performing the best for the benefit of other departments like Marketing, Product Development, Customer Service, etc | |||||||||
Assess customer sentiment | Customer Sentiment Analytics is a general overview of the overall customer sentiment by tracking the number of community posts having a positive reaction vs the number of posts having a bad reaction | |||||||||
Contribute to customer health scores | Whether the analytics features indirectly/ directly contributes in improving the customer’s community health score which are dependent on community visits, posts, topics, replies, new ideas, and more | |||||||||
Member growth and retention statistics | ||||||||||
User engagement metrics | User Engagement metrics measure how active the community is. Some of the common user engagement metrics include Logins versus unique logins, Daily, Weekly and/or Monthly Active Users, Average Session Length, Unique community contributors, Top & average pageviews, Average number of active members, Average number of responses per post etc | |||||||||
Support metrics | Not OOTB | |||||||||
Marketing engagement metrics | Tracks impact of community on marketing and sales objectives, Eg. increase in no. of brand advocates, inbound calls generated by community, correlation between user engagement and annual revenue spend etc | Not OOTB | ||||||||
Analytics Data Export | ||||||||||
Out of the Box Integrations |
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Salesforce | Free App | |||||||||
MS Dynamics | ||||||||||
SAP | ||||||||||
Gainsight | Free App | |||||||||
Google Analytics | ||||||||||
Alteryx | ||||||||||
Adobe Analytics (Omniture) | ||||||||||
Power BI | ||||||||||
Tableau | ||||||||||
Zendesk | ||||||||||
Zapier | Free App | |||||||||
JIRA | Free App | |||||||||
Slack | Free App | |||||||||
Github | ||||||||||
WordPress | Free App | |||||||||
Hubspot | Free App | |||||||||
Adobe Marketo | ||||||||||
Social Media Platforms | ||||||||||
Federated Search Platforms | None except Zendesk & Salesforce | |||||||||
Customizable embeddable widgets | ||||||||||
REST API | ||||||||||
Mobile SDKs | ||||||||||
Webhooks | Whereas the REST Platform API provides the ability to read or write data into the community sometimes you need to be notified of events that occur such as when a new member joins. WebHooks provide an event notification service that will call a URL of your choice to alert you that an activity has occurred. It is your application’s responsibility to then call back to the community learn more about the activity or take action on the event. | |||||||||
Organic Search Engine Optimization |
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Effective community ranking and content recognition by Google | ||||||||||
Google Search Console integration for optimal crawling results | Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) is a free platform for anyone with a website to monitor how Google views their site and optimize its organic presence. That includes viewing your referring domains, mobile site performance, rich search results, and highest-traffic queries and pages. The service provides users with actionable reports, learning resources designed to get their content on Google Search, as well as the options to receive a diagnosis on every detail of the site such as analyzing the site’s traffic, providing 12-16 months of data, and monitoring spam issues. Moreover, every month the user can also use the Search Console status page which also allows users to examine the health of their site. | |||||||||
Support Open Graph metadata for community pages to provide automated crawling context to Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and Microsoft | ||||||||||
Community page structure and semantics optimized for search | ||||||||||
Custom (sub) domain support | ||||||||||
Services |
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Implementation | ||||||||||
Consulting | ||||||||||
Training & Education | ||||||||||
Support | ||||||||||
Migration | ||||||||||
Additional Customization Services | If the vendor has a dedicated team for offering community customization services or the customers are largely dependent on partners or third parties for them. | |||||||||
Learning Academy | Learning Academy refers to if the vendor is offering a dedicated customer/ partner/ developer education program wherein there are product related courses, exams and industry valid certifications | |||||||||
Free Updates | Refers to if the vendor charges extra for new features and community upgrades. While most of the vendors do not charge extra for the new features which they release, but there are some instances wherein extra charge is levied on some premium new features | |||||||||
Customer Success, Support & Training |
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Support Levels | Standard | Standard & Premium | Standard, Premier, Signature | Standard and Premier | Standard and Premier | Professional, Business and Enterprise | Standard and Premier | Standard | ||
CSM & Solution Engineer | ||||||||||
Live Chat | ||||||||||
Knowledgebase | ||||||||||
Ticketing & Email | ||||||||||
FAQ/ Self Service Support | ||||||||||
Phone Support | ||||||||||
Onsite Training | ||||||||||
Technical Health Reviews | ||||||||||
Developer Support | ||||||||||
24*7 Support | ||||||||||
Tutorials | ||||||||||
Webinars |
Comparative Parameters | Maximum Scores |
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Pricing & Packaging |
70 | 51 | 30 | 32 | 38 | 37 | 44 | 60 | 33 |
Packaging | 10 | 10 | 10 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 5 |
Standalone | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | |||
Packaged with other Products | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | |||||
Overall Pricing | 20 | 20 | 6.67 | 6.67 | 6.67 | 13.33 | 13.33 | 20 | 13.33 |
Low | 20 | 20 | 20 | ||||||
Medium | 13.33 | 13.33 | 13.33 | 13.33 | |||||
High | 6.67 | 6.67 | 6.67 | 6.67 | |||||
Pricing Flexibility | 10 | 3.33 | 10 | 3.33 | 6.66 | 6.66 | 6.66 | 10 | 3.33 |
More than 3 Tiered | 10 | 10 | 10 | ||||||
3 Tiered | 6.66 | 6.66 | 6.66 | 6.66 | |||||
2 Tiered | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | |||||
Licensing | 10 | 10 | 3.33 | 6.66 | 10 | 6.66 | 6.66 | 10 | 6.66 |
Month per Month Billed Monthly | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | |||||
Month per Month Billed Annually | 6.66 | 6.66 | 6.66 | 6.66 | 6.66 | ||||
Multi-Year | 3.33 | 3.33 | |||||||
Trial | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
Yes | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||||
No | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||
Trial (No. of days) | 5 | 2.5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 |
1 Month | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||||||
2 Weeks | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | ||||||
Freemium | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 5 |
Yes | 10 | 10 | 5 | ||||||
No | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
Deployment |
40 | 35 | 28 | 28 | 35 | 35 | 18 | 40 | 30 |
Deployment Type | 30 | 25 | 25 | 25 | 25 | 25 | 15 | 30 | 25 |
Cloud | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Saas | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Web-based | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
On-Premise | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
Mobile-iOS | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
Mobile-Android | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
Usual Set-up Time | 10 | 10 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 10 | 10 | 2.5 | 10 | 5 |
< 1 Week | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | ||||
1-2 Weeks | 7.5 | ||||||||
2 Weeks – 1 Month | 5 | 5 | |||||||
> 1 Month | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | |||||
General Community Features |
135 | 110 | 100 | 98 | 78 | 98 | 98 | 100 | 93 |
Set-up community access permissions | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Flexible community structure with categories and groups | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Basic community functionalities | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Private messages | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Subscriptions / notifications | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Rich media / wide variety of supported file types | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 5 |
Live, Federated Search | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Search with automatic suggestions for the best content | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
Customizable layouts and branding (colors, buttons, images and icons) | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Multi-language Support | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
No. of Languages Supported | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2.5 | 2.5 |
Case Management | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
Directories | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Groups (Public, Private, Secret) | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 5 | 5 | 3.33 |
Group Hubs | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Knowledge Base | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 2.5 | 5 |
@Mentions | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Polls | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Surveys | 5 | 5 | 5 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
Personalizations | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Drag & Drop Customization | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Automated community tour for newcomers | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
Automation rules | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
Event Management | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 2.5 |
Microsites | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 |
Nested Communities/ Forums | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
Mobile App | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
Content & Ideation Features |
145 | 110 | 108 | 80 | 50 | 115 | 100 | 110 | 85 |
Users can create questions and answer those of others | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Organize and link questions to specific categories | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
Various notification options for new questions and replies | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Show relevant content in one feed | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 |
Allow users and moderators to mark replies as “answers” | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Easily create FAQs from popular questions and articles | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Create discussions between and amongst users | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Organize and link discussions to specific categories | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Split/ Merge Discussions | 5 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
Various notification options for discussion follows, replies and reactions | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Highlight discussions and create sticky topics for vital info | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
WYSIWYG Editor | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Emojis | 5 | 5 | 5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Create blog posts + articles | 5 | 5 | 5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 5 | 5 | 2.5 | 5 |
Users can comment on blog posts + articles | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Real-Time Comment Preview & Edits | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
Identify and Surface Similar Posts | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 2.5 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
Enable easy social sharing buttons | 5 | 0 | 5 | 2.5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
Dedicated ideation area and features | 5 | 5 | 5 | 2.5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Ask users to submit ideas | 5 | 5 | 5 | 2.5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Allow users to vote on ideas | 5 | 5 | 5 | 2.5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Indicate custom idea status | 5 | 5 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
Show top ideas by votes, views, replies and more | 5 | 5 | 5 | 2.5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Community/ Content Syndication | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Product Reviews | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Document Collaboration | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Document Previews | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Document Sharing | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Document Uploads | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Security & Authetication Features |
80 | 75 | 70 | 65 | 70 | 40 | 60 | 65 | 45 |
Compliance with key standards and certifications | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
Local compliances | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 |
Vendor undergoes regular audits | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
Register and login directly or via SSO | 10 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 5 |
Encryption | 10 | 10 | 10 | 5 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 5 | 0 |
SAML2.0, oAuth2, OpenID SSO standards | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
Link with CRM logins | 10 | 5 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
Moderation & User Management Features |
75 | 70 | 65 | 45 | 60 | 35 | 50 | 60 | 35 |
Global moderation | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Flexible topic views | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Moderator assignment for different categories or topics | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Civil Tongue (Swear Word) | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
Avatars | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
Basic spam detection based on sentiment and vocabulary | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
Advanced spam detection based on machine learning and NLP | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Spam correction | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Multi-language spam detection | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Ban Spammers | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
Flood Control | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
User Card | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
Collaborate with an unlimited no. of agents | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Browsing-data | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Activity | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Gamification & Engagement Features |
45 | 40 | 42.5 | 15 | 25 | 25 | 40 | 40 | 15 |
Create user ranks and roles | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
Automatic ranking or custom options | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
User Activity Leaderboards | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Custom icons and badges | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Full notification capabilities for ranks and roles | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
Display ranks and badges on user profiles / avatars | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Display relevant help content across your entire platform | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 |
Curate company- and/or user-generated content automatically | 5 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
Enable community access within your own app or back-end environment | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 2.5 | 5 | 0 |
Analytics |
90 | 60 | 55 | 70 | 60 | 80 | 80 | 70 | 70 |
Analyze posts and other content | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Canned Reports | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Customizable Reports | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Key stats and trends | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
In-depth reporting | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 5 |
Integrate with 3rd party reporting | 10 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
User-friendly dashboards | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Monitor content generation | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Assess customer sentiment | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
Contribute to customer health scores | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Member growth and retention statistics | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
User engagement metrics | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Support metrics | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Marketing engagement metrics | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Analytics Data Export | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 10 |
Out of the box Integrations |
145 | 85 | 100 | 50 | 78 | 40 | 80 | 70 | 55 |
Salesforce | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 2.5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
MS Dynamics | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
SAP | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Gainsight | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
Google Analytics | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Alteryx | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Adobe Analytics (Omniture) | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Power BI | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Tableau | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Zendesk | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
Zapier | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
JIRA | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
Slack | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
Github | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
WordPress | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
Hubspot | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
Adobe Marketo | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
Social Media Platforms | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
Federated Search Platforms | 10 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
Customizable embeddable widgets | 10 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 0 |
REST API | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
Mobile SDKs | 10 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Webhooks | 10 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
Organic Search Engine Optimization |
25 | 25 | 20 | 25 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 25 | 20 |
Effective community ranking and content recognition by Google | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Google Search Console integration for optimal crawling results | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Support Open Graph metadata for community pages to provide automated crawling context to Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and Microsoft | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
Community page structure and semantics optimized for search | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Custom (sub) domain support | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
Services |
80 | 80 | 80 | 60 | 70 | 60 | 70 | 50 | 60 |
Implementation | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
Consulting | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 10 |
Training & Education | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
Support | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
Migration | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 0 |
Additional Customization Services | 10 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
Learning Academy | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
Free Updates | 10 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 |
Customer Success, Suppport & Training |
70 | 55 | 65 | 65 | 65 | 55 | 55 | 55 | 35 |
Multiple Support Levels | 10 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 0 |
CSM & Solution Engineer | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Live Chat | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Knowledgebase | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Ticketing & Email | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
FAQ/ Self Service Support | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Phone Support | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Onsite Training | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Technical Health Reviews | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Developer Support | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
24*7 Support | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
Tutorials | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Webinars | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Total Score | 1000 | 796 | 763 | 632 | 644 | 635 | 709 | 745 | 577 |
Categories | Category Winner |
---|
Pricing & Packaging | 73% | 43% | 45% | 55% | 52% | 63% | 86% | 48% | Vanilla Forums |
Deployment | 88% | 69% | 69% | 88% | 88% | 44% | 100% | 75% | Vanilla Forums |
General Community Features | 81% | 74% | 72% | 58% | 73% | 72% | 74% | 69% | Bettermode |
Content & Ideation Features | 76% | 74% | 55% | 34% | 79% | 69% | 76% | 59% | Higher Logic |
Security & Authetication Features | 94% | 88% | 81% | 88% | 50% | 75% | 81% | 56% | Bettermode |
Moderation & User Management Features | 93% | 87% | 60% | 80% | 47% | 67% | 80% | 47% | Bettermode |
Gamification & Engagement Features | 89% | 94% | 33% | 56% | 56% | 89% | 89% | 33% | Khoros |
Analytics | 67% | 61% | 78% | 67% | 89% | 89% | 78% | 78% | inSided, Higher Logic |
Out of the box Integrations | 59% | 69% | 34% | 53% | 28% | 55% | 48% | 38% | Khoros |
Organic Search Engine Optimization | 100% | 80% | 100% | 60% | 60% | 60% | 100% | 80% | Bettermode, Salesforce & Vanilla Forums |
Services | 100% | 100% | 75% | 88% | 75% | 88% | 63% | 75% | Bettermode, Khoros |
Customer Success, Suppport & Training | 79% | 93% | 93% | 93% | 79% | 79% | 79% | 50% | Zendesk, Salesforce & Khoros |
Overall Vendor % Rating | 79.6% | 76.3% | 63.2% | 64.4% | 63.5% | 70.9% | 74.5% | 57.7% | |
Leader In (No. of Categories) | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
Vendor | G2 | Capterra | TrustRadius | Gartner Peer Insights | ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Overall Rating (Out of 5) | No. of Reviews | Positive Themes | Negative Themes | Overall Rating (Out of 5) | No. of Reviews | Positive Themes | Negative Themes | Overall Rating (Out of 10) | No. of Reviews | Positive Themes | Negative Themes | Overall Rating (Out of 5) | No. of Reviews | Positive Themes | Negative Themes |
4.6 | 89 | Bettermode is a very easy platform to use, both for Admins and users. The interface is clean and easily configurable and affordable | They have horrible support and are willing to leave clients behind, simple analytics | 4.8 | 87 | Amazing price, easy to use, fast response, domain transfer and customization | No mobile app, no built in messaging | 8.9 | 14 | Value for money, Happy with feature set, smooth implementation | Minor bugs and lack of mobile app | NA | NA | NA | NA | |
4.2 | 49 | Loaded with features and customization capabilities, Excellent customer care teams, Better localization and moderation features, Secure platform and well documented APIs, Scalability & SEO | Tricky to retrieve the data, Cumbersome engagement with Khoros Services, High Price and difficulty in Learning the Platform, Poor event management capabilities, Poor site search | 4.4 | 9 | Metrics dashboards, Configurability, Almost zero downtime, Excellent success support services, Platform Flexibility | Expensive Packaging & Services, Low RoI, Limited Community Updates, Limited Search Capabilities | 7.6 | 35 | Excellent metrics, Scalability, Uptime, Customer Support, Customization Capabilities | Non intuitive back-end, High Cost, Tough initial set up, Limited declarative personalisation tools, Clunky admin interface | 4.4 | 12 | Out of the box analytics, Wide range of APIs, Robust set of features and functions, Platform Flexibility | Minimal case management functionality, Requires special skills to skin and customize, Limited Updates and Enhancements, High minimum commitment of more than a year | |
4.1 | 143 | Customization Abilities, Wide range of templates for various use cases, Friendly Interface, Seamless CRM and other clouds Integration | Steep learning curve with definite man hours required to learn the platform, Poor RoI for SMEs, Poor OOTB Search, Lesser Security Features, Expensive Training and other Services | 4.3 | 71 | Very handy Customization Capabilities, Flexibility and Integration with other SF Offerings, Proven Product and strong brand, Easy to Setup and rollout – Drag and Drop, Easy to share files through Sharepoint and external sources through community | Steep Pricing, Not intuitive, Not very feature rich, Difficult User Moderation, Limited Reporting and Dashborads | 8.7 | 50 | Flexible hierarchical security and sharing settings, Good at organizing content, Easy Configuration, Personalization Capabilities, Pre-built templates are sleek, Holds large amounts of data | Moderation is Complex, Expensive Set-up & Cost for large number of logins, Training Time, Complex integration with non salesforce products, Below average automation and requires lot of manual efforts | 4.4 | 117 | Flexibility, extensibility, and ability to scale, Lot of plug in features available with other 3rd party tools, Customizable UI and functionalities, Easy sharing of data | Poor OOTB Search Capabilities, Knowledge base search is very slow, Complex navigation, Post deployment support can be improved, Poor Mobile Interface, Confusing Product Documentation | |
4.4 | 147 | Intuitive Software & user-friendly admin, Ease of use & navigation, Back-end Automation, Super configurable, Excellent automation rules | Limited Reporting functionality, Low on innovation, Community Bugs, Lack of modern features, No multi language support | 4.4 | 95 | Low Cost & best RoI, Good peer-to-peer support tools, Very suitable for advocacy programs, Quick implementation, Very good and responsive Support | Confusing navigation, Clunky admin interface, Lack of localization, Community Bugs, Very little customization | 6.9 | 13 | Microsites, Document libraries, Easy to use, Good technical support, Good integration capabilities | Non user friendly CMS, Outages & bugs, Admin dashboard, Limited Updates and Upgrades, Very basic reporting capabilities | NA | NA | NA | NA | |
4.3 | 78 | Reasonable Pricing, Good Customization Capabilities, Intuitive & Easy to learn, Very responsive customer success team, Large pool of add-ons and themes | Buggy Moderation, WYSIWYG editor lacking content control, No automation rules, No rich content editor, Lack of indepth analytics/reporting, No member directories | 4.4 | 62 | Actively developed and open source, Good Customization Capabilities & Support, Many handy plugins, Good Account management, Ease of Use | Limited analytics, Very average product documentation, Moderation isn’t very flexible, Non refined search results, slow at fixing bugs | 9 | 10 | Smooth transitioning & migration services, Good gamification capabilities, Great API & Customer Service, Large number of add-ons, Offers both on-prem and cloud hosting options | Limited SEO options, Creating visual themes can be difficult, Confusing Moderation, Less responsive development team | NA | NA | NA | NA | |
4.5 | 80 | Good UI for modifications, Easy to navigate, Good SEO Infrastructure, Great knowledge base, Super smooth onboarding process | Lack of a proper HTML editor, Gamification can be improved, Not many options for customization, Troublesome notification functionality, Private groups are difficult to manage | 4.1 | 7 | Flexible, Easy to use, Inclusion of customer ideas in product roadmap, Good moderation workflow, Super stable SaaS platform | Bit expensive, No development options to make front-end or back-end changes, Analytics are lacking severely, One size fits all solution | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | |
4.4 | 333 | Ready-made templates, Extensive metrics, Large library of resources, Granular and detailed reporting, Integration with SFDC, Eloqua and Marketo, Good level of personalization | Rigid and not easy to make changes in discussions, Reporting tool is a bit cumbersome, Poor mobile responsiveness, Administrator user interface is not always intuitive, Custom additions can be expensive | 4.7 | 229 | Good Onboarding and training, Decent reporting functionality, User-friendly, Good Advocacy features and reward system, Pre-built campaigns and integration with marketing automation tools, Quick to respond support team, | Plenty of bugs, Uploading content is slow and cumbersome, Limited community features, Mobile app can be improved, Doesn’t give full control to admins, Can get a bit stale for mature programs | 9.1 | 123 | Supports Mass personalization, Robust reporting features, Continuous improvement to the product based on user feedback, Excellent technical support, Drives scalable engagement | Synchronization with the SalesForce or Marketo API can be improved, Average admin panel experience, Unattractive User profile pages, Limited out-of-the-box solutions, Ability to upload files directly is a challenge | NA | NA | NA | NA | |
NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA |