Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued) vs. Drupal

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Adobe Business Catalyst was a cloud-hosted system for building and managing web content and online stores with a built-in CRM framework in addition to sales, service, and marketing features including eCommerce and Email Marketing tools. It has been end of life (EOL) since 2020.
$10
per month
Drupal
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Drupal 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
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)Drupal
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)Drupal
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
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)Drupal
Considered Both Products
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
Chose Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
Adobe Business Catalyst has Web Apps which makes all the difference between them and competitors. Without that, BC would be behind many of the other CMS systems out there. Being a hosted system without any maintenance needs also puts it ahead of others. LightCMS is easier for …
Chose Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
I would say that all things considered Adobe Business Catalyst is an excellent product. It does have some short-comings, but it is fantastic all around. It has a nice way of tying everything in your digital presence together nicely. If you do not have a ton of money to spend on …
Chose Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
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 …
Chose Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
Adobe Business Catalyst is our favorite web content management system - it has everything built in and, being in the cloud, never needs manual updating like the open source stuff out there. It's contact database isn't as robust as SalesForce or Sugar, but it works and is …
Chose Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
Business Catalyst outperforms other CMS systems out there. Because it's a hosted content management system maintained by Adobe we have to spend less time worrying about server setup, maintenance, and security and more time building better websites. We also don't have to worry …
Drupal

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)Drupal
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
6.6
14 Ratings
15% below category average
Drupal
9.5
62 Ratings
21% above category average
API7.911 Ratings9.158 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language00 Ratings10.053 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
Drupal
10.0
65 Ratings
22% above category average
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings10.065 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
Drupal
9.4
68 Ratings
21% above category average
WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings9.161 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness00 Ratings9.166 Ratings
Admin section00 Ratings9.568 Ratings
Page templates00 Ratings9.567 Ratings
Library of website themes00 Ratings8.658 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design00 Ratings10.063 Ratings
Publishing workflow00 Ratings9.167 Ratings
Form generator00 Ratings10.063 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
Drupal
9.5
67 Ratings
26% above category average
Content taxonomy00 Ratings10.063 Ratings
SEO support00 Ratings10.062 Ratings
Bulk management00 Ratings10.059 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions00 Ratings8.661 Ratings
Community / comment management00 Ratings9.161 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)Drupal
Small Businesses
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)Drupal
Likelihood to Recommend
6.0
(21 ratings)
10.0
(77 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.4
(10 ratings)
8.2
(18 ratings)
Usability
9.7
(4 ratings)
10.0
(9 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(4 ratings)
9.7
(3 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(1 ratings)
8.9
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(5 ratings)
5.0
(4 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
8.6
(2 ratings)
6.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.6
(3 ratings)
5.1
(4 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(2 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)Drupal
Likelihood to Recommend
Discontinued Products
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.
Read full review
Drupal.org
Well, I'm definitely biased, I've been working with Drupal for 12+ years, and I can say it's appropriate for any size/scale of a project, whether it's a small catalog website or a huge corporation. If I want to dial it down to a specific use case, Drupal is best what most customers/clients that have high-security standards, and need to have extensive editorial experience and control over their website's architecture. Due to its core design, Drupal can connect with each part of its own and any external third-party resources quite easily. For a less-suited scenario, I might say that if you don't have enough budget to get proper work done, sometimes just using WordPress with a pre-designed theme might sound better to you, but if you have the budget and the time, always go with Drupal
Read full review
Pros
Discontinued Products
  • 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.
Read full review
Drupal.org
  • Content Types... these are amazing. Whereas a more simplistic CMS like Wordpress will basically allow you to make posts and build pages, Drupal 8 gives you the ability to define different types of content that behave differently, and are served up differently in different areas of the website.
  • Extensibility... it scales, ohhhh does it scale. They've really figured out server-side caching, and it makes all the difference. Once a page has been cached, it's available instantly to all users worldwide; and when coupled with AWS, global redundancy and localization mean that no matter where you're accessing the site, it always loads fast and crisp.
  • Workflows... you have the ability to define very specific roles and/or user-based editorial workflows, allowing for as many touchpoints and reviews between content creation and publication as you'll require.
Read full review
Cons
Discontinued Products
  • 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.
Read full review
Drupal.org
  • Security and new release notifications are a hassle as they happen too often
  • Allowing them to write PHP modules is a big advantage, but sometimes integrating them is a small challenge due to the version the developer is working on.
  • Steep learning curve, but worth it
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Likelihood to Renew
Discontinued Products
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.
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Drupal.org
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
Discontinued Products
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.
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Drupal.org
It's a great CMS platform and there are a ton of plugins to add some serious functionality, but the security updates are too complex to implement and considering the complexity of the platform, security updates are a must. I don't want my site breached because they make it too difficult to keep it up to date.
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Reliability and Availability
Discontinued Products
very few issues with availability
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Drupal.org
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
Discontinued Products
Very few issues
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Drupal.org
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.
Read full review
Support Rating
Discontinued Products
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.
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Drupal.org
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.
Read full review
In-Person Training
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Drupal.org
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.
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Online Training
Discontinued Products
bcgurus.com kiyuco
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Drupal.org
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.
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Implementation Rating
Discontinued Products
Pretty easy to do
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Drupal.org
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%
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Alternatives Considered
Discontinued Products
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.
Read full review
Drupal.org
Drupal is community-backed making it more accessible and growing at a faster rate than Sitefinity which is a proprietary product built on .NET. Drupal is PHP-based using some but not all Symphony codebase. Updates for Drupal are frequent and so are feature adds.
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Scalability
Discontinued Products
It's easy to build small sites or large sites and there is lots of templating.
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Drupal.org
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.
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Return on Investment
Discontinued Products
  • 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.
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Drupal.org
  • Drupal has allowed us to build up a library of code and base sites we can reuse to save time which has increased our efficiency and thus had a positive financial impact.
  • Drupal has allowed us to take on projects we otherwise would not have been able to, having a further impact.
  • Drupal has allowed us to build great solutions for our clients which give them an excellent ROI.
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