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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Freedom CMS

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AFreedom 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

    Drupal

    Score7.1 out of 10
    N/ADrupal is a free, open-source content management system written in PHP that competes primarily with Joomla and Plone. The standard release of Drupal, known as Drupal core, contains basic features such as account and menu management, RSS feeds, page layout customization, and system administration.N/A
    Pricing
    Freedom CMSDrupal
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Freedom CMSDrupal
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Freedom CMSDrupal
    Considered Both Products
    Accrisoft
    No answer on this topic
    Open Source
    Chose Drupal
    Between these products, as a developer I would most likely go with Drupal unless I had a very specific reason to go with something else. To put it simply, Drupal is capable of anything that these other products can do. It may take a little longer to configure it in some cases, …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    76%
    Would buy again
    13 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    88%
    Delivers good value for the price
    14 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    76%
    Happy with the feature set
    13 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    12 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    87%
    Implementation went as expected
    13 Answers
    Features
    Freedom CMSDrupal
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Accrisoft Freedom and Drupal
    Feature
    Accrisoft Freedom
    8.9
    2 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Drupal
    8.2
    74 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Role-based user permissions8.92 Ratings8.274 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Accrisoft Freedom and Drupal
    Feature
    Accrisoft Freedom
    7.6
    3 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Drupal
    6.5
    78 Ratings
    19% below category average
    WYSIWYG editor7.73 Ratings6.371 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness8.63 Ratings8.275 Ratings
    Admin section8.03 Ratings6.978 Ratings
    Page templates8.33 Ratings5.677 Ratings
    Library of website themes4.32 Ratings5.568 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design7.22 Ratings6.572 Ratings
    Publishing workflow8.82 Ratings6.776 Ratings
    Form generator7.83 Ratings6.672 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Accrisoft Freedom and Drupal
    Feature
    Accrisoft Freedom
    7.8
    3 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Drupal
    6.6
    77 Ratings
    13% below category average
    Content taxonomy8.33 Ratings6.971 Ratings
    SEO support7.83 Ratings6.472 Ratings
    Bulk management7.42 Ratings6.467 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions7.72 Ratings6.670 Ratings
    Community / comment management8.02 Ratings6.869 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Accrisoft Freedom and Drupal
    Feature
    Accrisoft Freedom
    -
    Ratings
    Drupal
    7.8
    69 Ratings
    0% below category average
    API00 Ratings7.364 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language00 Ratings8.260 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Freedom CMSDrupal
    Small Businesses
    Umbraco CMS
    Score6.9 out of 10
    Umbraco CMS
    Score6.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Square Online
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Square Online
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Freedom CMSDrupal
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.2
    (4 ratings)
    6.8
    (87 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    1.0
    (19 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.9
    (20 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.7
    (3 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.9
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    1.0
    (5 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.0
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.1
    (4 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Freedom CMSDrupal
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Accrisoft
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    If you want to set up a basic Not For Profit (NFP) Membership system and content base, Word Press is easier than Drupal. However, if you have specific needs that require a fair bit of customisation then Drupal is the best CRM available. If the webmaster is confident with PHP and SQL, Drupal allows a lot of creativity.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Accrisoft
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    • Drag and drop functionality is easy to use
    • Easy to switch between straight text and HTML content
    • Ability to easily have multiple environments so that pages can be built in b/c-stage before they are approved and published
    • Solid user experience where it's clear how to navigate the platform
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Accrisoft
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    • This is not an easy CMS to work with if you don't have a good understanding of website development. It isn't "plug-and-play" like Wordpress or Shopify.
    • Over time, doing major updates to the system can be taxing, especially if you aren't well-versed enough in doing system updates in line with your "child" theme and code.
    • The CMS can become somewhat cumbersome with server resources if not carefully optimized while you build and customize it to your liking.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Accrisoft
    We switched to WordPress; it was out of my control.
    Read full review
    Open Source
    The time and money invested into this platform were too great to discontinue it at this point. I'm sure it will be in use for a while. We have also spent time training many employees how to use it. All of these things add up to quite an investment in the product. Lastly, it basically fulfills what we need our intranet site to do.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Accrisoft
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    As a team, we found Drupal to be highly customizable and flexible, allowing our development team to go to great lengths to develop desired functionalities. It can be used as a solution for all types of web projects. It comes with a robust admin interface that provides greater flexibility once the user gets acquainted with the system.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Accrisoft
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    Drupal itself does not tend to have bugs that cause sporadic outages. When deployed on a well-configured LAMP stack, deployment and maintenance problems are minimal, and in general no exotic tuning or configuration is required. For highest uptime, putting a caching proxy like Varnish in front of Drupal (or a CDN that supports dynamic applications).
    Read full review
    Performance
    Accrisoft
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    Drupal page loads can be slow, as a great many database calls may be required to generate a page. It is highly recommended to use caching systems, both built-in and external to lessen such database loads and improve performance. I haven't had any problems with behind-the-scenes integrations with external systems.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Accrisoft
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Open Source
    As noted earlier, the support of the community can be rather variable, with some modules attracting more attraction and action in their issue queues, but overall, the development community for Drupal is second to none. It probably the single greatest aspect of being involved in this open-source project.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Accrisoft
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    I was part of the team that conducted the training. Our training was fine, but we could have been better informed on Drupal before we started providing it. If we did not have answers to tough questions, we had more technical staff we could consult with. We did provide hands-on practice time for the learners, which I would always recommend. That is where the best learning occurred.
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Accrisoft
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    The on-line training was not as ideal as the face-to-face training. It was done remotely and only allowed for the trainers to present information to the learners and demonstrate the platform online. There was not a good way to allow for the learners to practice, ask questions and have them answered all in the same session.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Accrisoft
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    Plan ahead as much you can. You really need to know how to build what you want with the modules available to you, or that you might need to code yourself, in order to make the best use of Drupal. I recommend you analyze the most technically difficult workflows and other aspects of your implementation, and try building some test versions of those first. Get feedback from stakeholders early and often, because you can easily find yourself in a situation where your implementation does 90% of what you want, but, due to something you didn't plan for, foresee, or know about, there's no feasible way to get past the last 10%
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Accrisoft
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    Drupal can be more complex to learn, but it offers a much wider range of applications. Drupal’s front and backend can be customized from design to functionality to allow for a wide range of uses. If someone wants to create something more complex than a simple site or blog, Drupal can be an amazing asset to have at hand.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Accrisoft
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    Drupal is well known to be scalable, although it requires solid knowledge of MySQL best practices, caching mechanisms, and other server-level best practices. I have never personally dealt with an especially large site, so I can speak well to the issues associated with Drupal scaling.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Accrisoft
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    • Given the endless possibilities that Drupal can have, we tend to have great support going on when we get a website launched
    • It has become much much faster and easier for us to launch a new project due to reusability
    • Configuration management in Drupal helps greatly with CI/CD, saves us costs
    Read full review
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