Freedom is a cloud-based content management system from Accrisoft Corporation.Accrisoft Freedom specializes in membership and events management, social media, online marketing and e-commerce. Freedom is notable for its highly customizable databases, providing full control over HTML layout and complex filter and search capabilities.
$100
per month
Adobe Experience Manager
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Adobe Experience Manager is a combined web content management system and digital asset management system. The combined applications of Adobe Experience Manager Sites and Adobe Experience Manager Assets is offered by the vendor as an end-to-end solution for managing and delivering marketing content.
The only thing I believe Accrisoft Freedom is not as well suited is for large e-commerce sites. Accrisoft Freedom actually has an E-commerce module and can do products and online sales, however if this is the majority of what your business does (or your clients' businesses), I would recommend an E-commerce focused CMS. For almost all other circumstances I can think of though, I would recommend Accrisoft Freedom - ma and pa shops on up to a corporation.
When it comes to maintaining and managing content and multiple web pages, it’s a fantastic tool that’s relatively easy to use. It is very intuitive and has a lot of great features for beginners, and can be customized for robust features. It may not be best suited for small companies with very simple websites, given the cost.
Hosting and maintenance is taken care of. Due to it being proprietary software, everything is built to work together.
Simple to use. Basic functionality for websites is built in without having to dig through thousands of potential options.
Development is straightforward...no backend languages required. So if someone wants a unique layout for a portfolio, it's very simple to add a new content type and build the new layout using basic html and css.
Their preview setup for reviewing page changes prior to pushing them live is not good. You basically have to push things live to see how they will look, then go back and tweak it, while the changes in progress are live on the site. They need a sandbox, or a better preview feature within the backend so you dont have to keep pushing changes live to test out functionality.
Integration with outside tools is non existent. Instead of trying to force people to use their modules or features it would make much more sense to more easily integrate with leading tools in niche spaces.
The UI is pretty old. It could use a big refresh. Things like drag and drop builders and functionality should be standard these days. This is also a plus for non tech savvy users as it keeps their page structures to what works without letting people tinker. But if you want to tinker and be a higher end user Freedom isn't the best bet.
The new Touch UI interface could use a lot of improvement. Many of it is smaller detail items/features, but when using the system extensively it can become cumbersome.
There is a bit of a learning curve because of the depth of what Adobe Experience Manager can do. Even basic editing and page creation, while relatively simple at the most basic level, is not as intuitive and easy to use as other systems like Wordpress.
Development can be complicated. Although I've not personally done much in terms of dev work, my experience and what I've heard from my colleagues indicates that there are some complexities that make it not as easy to develop in as other systems.
The source edit option within the rich text editor does not include syntax coloring for the code, or even a different serif/monospaced font. It is the same sans serif font as the regular rich text, which makes it hard to read.
We had and still have a fantastic experience using Adobe CQ. Lots of flexibility, great integration with other Adobe products we already use and a powerful technology make it a great fit for our corporate environment. Also as the community grows, it makes it easier to network with other developers and users to get new ideas on how to continue to get the best out of the software.
AEM provided me with a better experience in terms of deliveries, feedback, and progress tracking. It not only increases engagement but also provides us with various analytics of traffic visits, and the asset management is superb overall. By adding the minor details of assets, we can easily search them in the main search bar set on top of assets.
When it comes to availability, adobe experience manager is the best with little to no downtime at least during business hours. Considering the enterprise scale and critical business solutions built on experience manager, availability was our primary requirement during CMS evaluation and adobe fits best on this parameter. If there's a planned upgrade, adobe would make sure they do it in non-business hours.
Page load time is important to me for search engine optimization reasons. I cannot say I have been particularly impressed by Adobe Experience Manager in this area so far. When using tools like Google's PageSpeed Insights, the reports received on our AEM pages have suggested there is a lot of room for improvement, especially when assessing mobile performance.
This rating is based on personal experience only. I believe majority of people would say their support is top notch & 10/10. The only reason I am personally am giving it lower is because I consider my self a much more advanced user of Freedom than their typical Solution Provider developers. Because I am advanced, I troubleshoot my own issues pretty in-depth before I even contact Accrisoft support. Therefore sometimes I feel it takes longer to get the researched & specific answer I need vs. a simple support question would.
Adobe Experience Manager, in all its capacity, is a great alternative to any other CMS you are using. It helps in rapid development and makes life easier for maintaining the website for multi-language sites. Technical know-how is eliminated at content authoring. Better documentation in terms of live examples with videos would be appreciated.
Depending on your individual needs, It is really quite simple to create an authoring experience for a website that looks really good. I have been part of many implementations and many teams and have seen many projects that were super successful and others that were not implemented well. AEM has room for a lot of flexibility in the implementation process compared to other CMS like SharePoint
In all honesty, we have been moving away from Accrisoft Freedom due to its lack of customizability. We as an agency generally prefer open source solutions since our client base primarily consists of those looking for a more custom solution that can be built off of in the future. While yes, these tend to need more care and attention, they have benefited us more.
I think AEM is specific to the client's needs and is not necessarily comparable to all other platforms. However, when compared feature to feature I think AEM many times is a leader in the industry. While WordPress has progressed in the WYSIWYG interface it is not there still today and this is truly where AEM shines against all of the other CMS platforms.
Instead of being directly involved in the tool purchase, I am involved in analysis or what we can use to maximize the tool. Small organizations may find it expensive. However, if the team or organization focuses more on your ROI or the features you will get, then it will definitely be worth it. Pricing is based on a number of factors, including team size or the use of the tool. The user can select the pricing option that best fits their needs based on the number of form submissions they make or the number of pages they wish to publish on their global/multisite sites.
The professional services team within adobe is one of the best in terms of technical and solutioning knowledge. However, considering the billing charges of adobe professional services team, it is always recommended to involve them during platform initial setup or when a complex solution is to be built with platform customizations.
This was the first CMS we had at our company so hard to say positive or negative impact.
Prior to this CMS there was a static site that html files had to be ftp to a company to have the site updated. So from that standpoint it made updating the site much less expensive.
Compared to a tool like Wordpress this is much more secure and easier to manage, but since we outsource that portion of it to the company that built the site we dont realize those gains.
