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
Jadu CMS
Score 1.1 out of 10
N/A
Jadu is a PHP based proprietary content management system from the company of the same name. Its architecture is cross platform and runs in Windows in the .Net framework, Linux, and Solaris.
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.
Jadu CMS is not currently geared toward the academic side, but more of the business/government types of organizations. Things can be tweaked to suit your needs, but sometimes there are limitations. The programmers are very helpful in assisting with that.
If you have some in house programmers, and you can get developer training, they will be able to program their own custom widgets to use on your website. We did not have programmers but managed to create a few simple widgets.
There's also a marketplace to look for other widgets that you could use on your site.
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.
Reliability. The LAMP-powered server/software rarely has any problems and can handle hundreds of concurrent users without issue. It was developed with scalability in mind.
Ease of Use. Our users find the backend GUI very easy to use. The layout is intuitive and follows the same format throughout the entire control panel.
Powerful. Even if it doesn't do something you would like it to out of the box, the code is well formatted and easy to customize.
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.
I decided not to give it a 10 because I don't know what else is out there in terms of CMS products, and there's a bias when you've only been exposed to one product. At my current job, I used Jadu sparingly but it's easy to get reacquainted with the software and the look and feel of the CMS
For the common user, Jadu is very easy to use and to understand. For the more complex user/administrator, there's a lot of power to be harnessed in HTML editing, creating widgets, editing styles, creating workflows, and other advanced features Jadu can work up for the customer.
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.
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.
Jadu is miles behind these and many other CMSs. The others are much more up to date with their code and ease of use. The ability to customize other CMSs is much easier and the code structure actually makes sense. Jadu was selected because it had a portal out of the box.
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.
