Adobe Business Catalyst is an all-in-one cloud-hosted system for building and managing web content and online stores. It has a built-in CRM framework in addition to sales, service, and marketing features including eCommerce and Email Marketing tools. It is scheduled to be shutdown in 2021.
$10
per month
Divi
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
More than just a WordPress theme, Divi is a website building platform that replaces the standard WordPress post editor with a new visual editor. The vendor states it can be enjoyed by design professionals and newcomers alike, and is designed to give users the ability to create spectacular designs with ease and efficiency.
The service provision is good the accounts customer service is poor so I would struggle to give BC a better than average review, if only they could offer customers a better accounts service then the value would be much higher.
Divi has cornered the market on a simple, straightforward WordPress theme that gives some major integrations and functions! Now that I've worked within it for years, I have a much better understanding of how robust a system it is. It takes some practice to get accustomed to but once you "get" it, it is so fun to use. I've shown so many small business owners how to use Divi and I feel that it is much easier to learn than other themes with functions that are controlled by coding or shortcodes. I could play in Divi all day, and some days I do, depending on which projects I am working on at the time
Probably one of the easiest e-commerce platforms to work in, it does take setup, but compared to a lot of other e-commerce solutions, this is probably the best one that I have seen that can be designed and implemented custom.
Their template system works very well and allows you to create and re-use templates across Adobe Business Catalyst.
Their pre-built modules are great, giving people a great way to use common web elements without having to use a plug-in or find some solution, it is simply built in and generally works exactly as you would expect.
Adobe Business Catalyst is more of an all-around solution, providing elements that most smaller companies would have a hard time figuring out, since it includes the ability to build websites, send and track e-mails, analytics. It really is a powerful tool that would typically require a fair amount of coding knowledge and expertise but with the system already built, it can be easily modified and edited by those with limited or no coding knowledge at all.
Multi Client Management: The dashboard for managing multiple clients as a reseller is a little difficult to get to. There is also no very easy way for me to manage multiple clients at once. I have to log into and out of individual client accounts to do billing or management.
Lack of Server support: There are certain server protocols and languages that are not supported using BC. For example I cannot build a custom php database and upload to BC. I am required to use their tools.
The load time of the builder could be faster. On some websites it takes a long time to load, and may crash the page. (I believe they've said they're working on this stability issue.)
Warnings on updates if they're difficult for some sites to run. I have one website that has crashed more than once from Divi's theme updates. I always back it up before the update so I restore the site, but this is still a bit of an inconvenience.
Integrated (or more clearly marked) tutorials within the builder. I migrate site maintenance and ownership to clients after the site is complete and some could use refreshers within the builder on what happens where i.e. the difference between a section, row, module.
Actually with Business Catalyst there is no renewal; once you are a partner, you are a partner for as long as you like. It is an investment in your business not simply a product you purchase...and as an investment in partnership with Adobe, both are committed to each other's success.
Overall it is a "plug and play" interface. The majority of the work is done in other software interfaces. Managing billing, user roles and custom reports are all that you need to manage in the actual BC user interface. For my business this is an incredible benefit as I have to leave my preferred software less.
The support provided by Adobe is excellent. Though the knowledge base, forums, blogs and online chat questions most all answers can be found. In the event that you are unable to find an answer or you have a unique situation simply post a question to the forums. These forums are regularly monitored by Adobe and its users.
As far as the CMS for BC goes, there is none out there that compares. In the past we have utilized Joomla, Wordpress, Mambo, Drupal, Concrete 5 and others. None of them were as easy to use and train on that Adobe's Business Catalyst. Our alternative to BC is WordPress when our clients want a less expensive solution. For the most part that works OK but we have had issues with plugin incompatibility among other issues. We lost at least two clients because of similar issues. The other great part about BC's solution is that we can still work with our favorite site creation tool - Dreamweaver. The whole process continues to be more and more simplified with added features to the system. No other solution (that we've found) offers such an easy way to create custom web sites that are easily editable by our clients.
Divi price is superior and the infinite sites feature got me. Thrive was good for me at some point, but they got stuck in their layout options. Even i liked the Thrive form builder, in general Divi gave me more options to build my websites and build my landing pages. If they work on their interaction with other apps like Mailchimp or Hubspot, for example, or make the tool even more intuitive, i would give them 10 in everything.
As someone who uses it on behalf of other clients, our ROI with BC is definitely positive. We needed a mid-range CMS without huge licensing costs to satisfy mid-range clients who have some dynamic needs but doesn't need the expense or liability of enterprise level products. Without it we would have lost possible customers or taken bigger hits on projects because of the costs involved with satisfying their mid-level needs
Our clients are all usually very positive about the BC platform and are able to use it themselves which lessens our Support time/cost.
To use the Web App element,. which we do on almost every site, you need to pay for the highest plan. This brings along with it many features most of our clients would never use. A more basic plan with that Web App capability would be a big improvement on our costs.
Positive - I purchased the lifetime license and have used it on 20+ sites over three years. I purchased it in June 2018 after using it under the one-year license and am so glad that I upgraded. It is a very good deal for my business since I no longer have to think about this cost and it is such a fantastic product.
Positive - I have had prospects specifically ask for Divi because they know it is so user-friendly and reliable. That also speaks to the quality of the product.
Negative - the Divi Marketplace is where I go for some specialty features to download for specific client requests. I'm not for all the "bells and whistles" that some websites have but there are some that I feel should be included in Divi core that simply aren't, like mega menus. Because of that I've had to make a few additional purchases since buying the license.
