ActiveCollab vs. Zoho CRM

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ActiveCollab
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Active Collab is a project management solution built around features such as task management, collaboration, time tracking, and invoicing.
$8
per member/per month
Zoho CRM
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Zoho CRM is a simple, very low-cost CRM option for the smaller end of the SMB segment. The product has several useful integrations with other products, including QuickBooks, and Google Apps and Google Docs. The product also has an integrated project management module.
$14
per month
Pricing
ActiveCollabZoho CRM
Editions & Modules
ActiveCollab Project Management
$8
per member/per month
Self-Hosted Plan
$999.00
license
Standard
$14.00
Per User/Per Month
Professional
$23.00
Per User/Per Month
Enterprise
$40.00
Per User/Per Month
Ultimate
$52.00
Per User/Per Month
Plus
$57.00
Per User/Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ActiveCollabZoho CRM
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup Fee$6.25 per member, per month, annual billing$14 /user/month
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ActiveCollabZoho CRM
Considered Both Products
ActiveCollab
Chose ActiveCollab
ActiveCollab is 100% better than any of the other tools we have used. We had previously spent thousands of dollars trying out different software that was comparable, but this has been one of the best decisions we have made as a company. It's also the cheapest ongoing option, …
Zoho CRM

No answer on this topic

Features
ActiveCollabZoho CRM
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
3.6
13 Ratings
73% below category average
Zoho CRM
-
Ratings
Task Management5.112 Ratings00 Ratings
Resource Management1.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts3.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Scheduling1.011 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow Automation7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Team Collaboration6.113 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology7.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Document Management3.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Email integration4.09 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Access1.110 Ratings00 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking2.09 Ratings00 Ratings
Change request and Case Management1.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management2.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Professional Services Automation
Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
5.7
8 Ratings
30% below category average
Zoho CRM
-
Ratings
Quotes/estimates6.97 Ratings00 Ratings
Invoicing6.96 Ratings00 Ratings
Project & financial reporting1.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with accounting software7.94 Ratings00 Ratings
Sales Force Automation
Comparison of Sales Force Automation features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
-
Ratings
Zoho CRM
8.4
287 Ratings
7% above category average
Customer data management / contact management00 Ratings8.5278 Ratings
Workflow management00 Ratings8.2265 Ratings
Territory management00 Ratings8.6195 Ratings
Opportunity management00 Ratings8.6252 Ratings
Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)00 Ratings8.6247 Ratings
Contract management00 Ratings8.6202 Ratings
Quote & order management00 Ratings8.0202 Ratings
Interaction tracking00 Ratings8.0248 Ratings
Channel / partner relationship management00 Ratings8.3191 Ratings
Customer Service & Support
Comparison of Customer Service & Support features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
-
Ratings
Zoho CRM
8.2
220 Ratings
6% above category average
Case management00 Ratings8.3212 Ratings
Call center management00 Ratings7.8171 Ratings
Help desk management00 Ratings8.4188 Ratings
Marketing Automation
Comparison of Marketing Automation features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
-
Ratings
Zoho CRM
8.4
265 Ratings
8% above category average
Lead management00 Ratings8.5260 Ratings
Email marketing00 Ratings8.4218 Ratings
CRM Project Management
Comparison of CRM Project Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
-
Ratings
Zoho CRM
8.4
262 Ratings
9% above category average
Task management00 Ratings8.5247 Ratings
Billing and invoicing management00 Ratings8.2179 Ratings
Reporting00 Ratings8.4241 Ratings
CRM Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of CRM Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
-
Ratings
Zoho CRM
8.4
257 Ratings
9% above category average
Forecasting00 Ratings8.3215 Ratings
Pipeline visualization00 Ratings8.3234 Ratings
Customizable reports00 Ratings8.5248 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
-
Ratings
Zoho CRM
8.2
276 Ratings
7% above category average
Custom fields00 Ratings8.3274 Ratings
Custom objects00 Ratings8.1221 Ratings
Scripting environment00 Ratings8.0177 Ratings
API for custom integration00 Ratings8.3202 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
-
Ratings
Zoho CRM
8.3
265 Ratings
1% below category average
Single sign-on capability00 Ratings8.3230 Ratings
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.3260 Ratings
Social CRM
Comparison of Social CRM features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
-
Ratings
Zoho CRM
8.2
164 Ratings
10% above category average
Social data00 Ratings8.2163 Ratings
Social engagement00 Ratings8.1156 Ratings
Integrations with 3rd-party Software
Comparison of Integrations with 3rd-party Software features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
-
Ratings
Zoho CRM
8.5
209 Ratings
13% above category average
Marketing automation00 Ratings8.7206 Ratings
Compensation management00 Ratings8.4137 Ratings
Platform
Comparison of Platform features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
-
Ratings
Zoho CRM
8.5
229 Ratings
11% above category average
Mobile access00 Ratings8.5229 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ActiveCollabZoho CRM
Small Businesses
Stackby
Stackby
Score 8.9 out of 10
Salesmate
Salesmate
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
InEight
InEight
Score 8.4 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
InEight
InEight
Score 8.4 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
ActiveCollabZoho CRM
Likelihood to Recommend
1.6
(13 ratings)
8.5
(310 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
7.6
(42 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
7.8
(172 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(7 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.5
(8 ratings)
Support Rating
7.1
(3 ratings)
6.2
(69 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
5.6
(8 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
5.5
(16 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
5.1
(114 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(21 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.1
(5 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
5.8
(6 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
8.3
(7 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.8
(13 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.8
(13 ratings)
User Testimonials
ActiveCollabZoho CRM
Likelihood to Recommend
ActiveCollab
Scenarios where ActiveCollab works well 1) ActiveCollab works well for small teams specifically T&M teams.Its invoicing feature is unique & can make your life easy. 2) It is very easy to use & posses good range of filters like on the task list, we can drag/drop tasks, Filter by assignee's,
tasks lists, due dates, or completed tasks. 3) It has some simple but awesome features like when you're in
the middle of writing something i.e a comment on story and get interrupted,
it retains what you wrote. 4) It allows you to tag team members in threads of comments to grab their attention, its really needed when teams are distributed. Thus helping team members to collaborate easily & stay on same page. 5) It integrates pretty well with other web apps like quickbooks , Slack, Trello, HubSpot, Zapier etc Scenarios where ActiveCollab did not work well 1) Tasks can not have multiple assignee's here so if two members are working on same task it did not allow you to reflect that. 2) Sorting capability is not their under invoicing 3) It did not work well for larger teams 4) Search option is not very detailed & you may end up wasting lot of time searching one particular bug or issue.












Read full review
Zoho
Interfacing with our target clients at the correct minute is crucial in today's society. Another valuable include is its capacity to coordinated with other programs. It helps me in keeping track of the every day work emails I send to my colleagues or get. Zoho CRM makes it straightforward to consequence or send out information agreeing to our needs. Zoho makes a difference keep in mind individuals by means of e-mail and pop-ups, which dispenses with the issue of overlooking follow-ups and reminders. This not as it were helps within the organization of this incredible instrument but moreover within the execution of data.
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Pros
ActiveCollab
  • Great for project and task assignments, project workflow and communications.
  • Solid web-based platform that doesn't require software downloads, also includes great mobile platform.
  • Great reporting tools for managing billing, estimating, project workflow and other essential project details.
  • Allows for both the agency and its clients to interact on a single platform using role-specific permissions.
Read full review
Zoho
  • Hooks into our website and can import data from forms.
  • Has great automation tools built in.
  • Reporting features are great.
  • Easy to learn, makes it easy for us to onboard new users onto it.
  • Fairly customizable. We have fine tuned it to work the way we need it to.
Read full review
Cons
ActiveCollab
  • It isn't possible to set members of staff as part time, so if someone is unavailable on certain days you must manually enter them as OOO every single day that they are not in, that other teammates work. Hours also can't be edited individually - everyone is treated as working the same hours in a day, rendering capacity planner useless for flexi working teams
  • Subtasks cannot be assigned their own hours and deadlines, meaning the To Do list view can't be seen in actual date order and capacity planner does not reflect all time allocated to an individual's schedule unless every task is set up as a separate task rather than subtask
  • There is no way to see all tasks of a certain type across multiple campaigns (e.g all copywriting tasks vs all technical tasks) - support team suggested exporting data and making spreadsheets
  • Kanban view isn't available for people's own task lists ('board' view here shows a list)
  • Not possible to have one task be assigned to more than one person
  • Notifications are not sent when tasks are updated, so you have to leave comments and tag people each time
Read full review
Zoho
  • Need some way to switch a field type without losing the pre-existing data.
  • The settings controls should be broken out differently - I don't like that I can't keep some users from exporting all contact records (i.e., the entire Contacts module) because if the export function is turned off, the export function of Reports for those same modules is also blocked.
  • Frustrating that only 3 custom lookup fields are allowed per module in our license.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
Zoho
i have already renewed my subscription twice. I am in the 3rd Year now. I have been using it for a while and have been recommending to my friends as well.. have attended ZOHOLICs the annual program of zoho and it gave me new insights of managing the crm solutoin.
Read full review
Usability
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
Zoho
The methodology of the 'out of the box' user interface is fairly easy to learn. In some cases however, the interface is not consistent throughout the software. Upgrades to the interface has certainly improved some of this--- but now we are seeing the same kinds of inconsistencies across Zoho apps, particularly those more recently added to their platform. This issue is not major in that everybody on staff seems able to learn how to work the programs--- it's just annoying and less than efficient when inconsistent user interfaces or inconsistent terms are used in the programs and/or the requisite documentation.
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Reliability and Availability
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
Zoho
In my many years using Zoho, I think there were only 1 or 2 days when there was something happening and I was not able to log in. Sure, it wasn't fun and we all panicked a bit, but right after that, all was well and work-life continued. Being cloud based, I'm never worried about losing my iPhone, iPad or Laptop as I know I can log in anywhere on any device and workflow won't stop.
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Performance
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
Zoho
I don't recall every having any issues with a page not loading due to it being a Zoho issue. Anytime I've had any issues with something being wonky, I clear cache and that has always solved the problem. Or a simply computer reboot and we're back, hard at work. Look, I don't expect any product to delivery 100%, 100% of the time but if I had any consistent ongoing issues, I would have left many years ago. I still keep my eyes open to what is new but after a quick evaluation, I know Zoho will long be my home.
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Support Rating
ActiveCollab
We have not required support for ActiveCollab as it works pretty seamlessly. We didn't have any issues with using the platform or with any billing issues. The self-service aspect of the platform is robust and easy to navigate so we have not encountered any errors that required assistance from the support team.
Read full review
Zoho
We did the training and that was a huge waste of money. The information provided was basic and the instructor was sloppy (he even forgot to turn off his mic when he used the restroom - no one should ever hear what we heard). I offered up a 9 because we were able to find what we needed on your website.
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In-Person Training
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
Zoho
I attended a Zoho-Holics event in Austin, TX, several years ago, and it blew my mind. So many industries were represented using Zoho in so many different ways. It was unbelievable all that I learned from that experience, as there were features that I wasn't aware of that I immediately started using. Best of all, the trainers were patient and knowledgeable
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Online Training
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
Zoho
There is an endless supply of YouTube videos from Zoho and the many Zoho partners/consultants. Plus, Zoho has it's own library of training videos and webinars to learn from plus an entire community at the ready to answer any questions. While Zoho has been available for many years, there are constantly new training videos and webinars available for the novice and the experienced users.
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Implementation Rating
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
Zoho
When you switch CRMs, you can automatically assume everything isn’t going to match up correctly. We had used Salesforce for 10+ years and had a ton of data and customizations. It was not a clean transfer, but we were able to sort it all out. The only issue that really bothered me was Zoho support. Even simple questions couldn’t be answered over chat, and we would have some team members try for hours to find the right answer
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Alternatives Considered
ActiveCollab
ActiveCollab is easier to use and simpler in its setup. It has the right mix of features and simplicity. It's also project-oriented which is important for our workflow. Other tools are often too task-oriented, making it hard to track projects. Overall, ActiveCollab has a great mix of simplicity with good features.
Read full review
Zoho
Free user access was one reason to use it more than any other software. Also, for a mid-size organization, the Salesforce cost was a little higher, and Pipedrive was almost similar to Zoho. As we were already using Zoho, we found no urgency to switch.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
Zoho
I think Zoho CRM is priced at a reasonable amount. Simply put, you get what you pay for and Zoho does not disappoint. My organization is comfortable with what we pay and pleased with continually renewing the software. The billing frequency is just right. There are no complaints on our end
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Scalability
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
Zoho
We're still in the early stages of scaling this across departments. We have high aspirations of doing this, but it takes time to migrate to the new system and to help people get acquainted of doing their work in a different way thru Zoho.
Read full review
Professional Services
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
Zoho
In addition to being a user of Zoho CRM, we are a reseller as well. Often, at times our Partners request for on-boarding the platform configuration for them. During such requirements, we have utilized the Professional services team directly from the Zoho CRM team. Our partner feedback was quite positive, throughout.
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Return on Investment
ActiveCollab
  • Allows our team to stay organized and keep conversations on tasks.
  • The To-Do List email every morning helps me mentally prepare and know exactly what I should be doing as soon as I start work.
  • Powerful and useful integrations save lots of time (Google Drive, Slack, Dropbox, Zapier and more!).
Read full review
Zoho
  • because we are new to the CRM world, we wanted a product that was reasonably priced, yet had the features we were looking for
  • we have found a much higher customer engagement rate and ROI
  • we used to "lose" customers in our makeshift process. Now, all customers are being attended to.
Read full review
ScreenShots

ActiveCollab Screenshots

Screenshot of the dashboard with an overview of projects.Screenshot of multiple task views currently showing a Kanban view of the tasklists and tasks.Screenshot of Overview of all recent activity.Screenshot of Calendar view with task dependencies.Screenshot of Permission settings (owner, member, client, client+).Screenshot of List of available Add-ons.

Zoho CRM Screenshots

Screenshot of Deals - Cash in on all opportunities. Close more deals. Great sales management is all about prioritizing, tracking, and monitoring the deals in your pipeline. Zoho CRM gives you everything you need to manage deals across territories and sales structures.Screenshot of Activities - Keep track of all the tasks, meetings, calls, events, or activity records. Neatly organize the numerous records along with the activities associated to them such as follow-up, pre sales and post sales activities, phone conversations etc.