Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued) vs. Elementor

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.

Wanted to create a website quickly and get it running within a week's time. The step-by-step guide on installing Elementor and creating the basic webpage was easy and time-efficient. Some of the advanced features can be time-consuming, but they are definitely worth it once you start creating professional sites. It fits in from basic to advanced sites; I don't think there could be any scenarios where it can be inappropriate.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Block code is very easy to work with.
• They don't have support, per se, but they have a whole big group of users on Facebook who are great at helping each other out.
• They have some templates you can use to just get going if you're in a particular industry that would probably work well with a template!
• The price is really not bad for how much you get.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Occasional plugin conflicts
• Occasional differences in appearance between the editor and live page.
• Flexbox building has a deeper learning curve than the previous sections/columns builder. In-editor guidance would be helpful here.
• Some options/widgets available in other builders aren't in Elementor, which means additional plugins are sometimes needed.

Incentivized

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.

Elementor is critical to our ongoing success and providing our clients with world-class websites

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

1. Very intuitive user interface with very well organized options for basic and advanced design features 2. Integrates very well with wordpress and a variety of plugins 3. Vast collection of Elementor themes available in the market for the small to mid sized businesses who would still prefer desired internal control over tactical/relatively less complex website changes and thus reduce dependency /Expensive annual web design contracts

Incentivized

very few issues with availability

Incentivized

Very few issues

Incentivized

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.

There support is slow and at times can be frustrating and this is why many prefer to air out their frustrations within the Facebook group community. I tend to give up as when I'm working on something and something goes wrong I need the help straight away. I do not have the patience to wait anymore.

Incentivized

bcgurus.com kiyuco

Incentivized

Pretty easy to do

Incentivized

The business team has to stick to its core competencies - Our key turning point occured when we delegated webpage design challenges to a tech. firm with specific mandates (including a certain degree of internal control). Once the initial go-live was completed, the agency trained us on internalizing ad-hoc and tactical change work

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Elementor is a bit of a different platform than, say, easyTithe, Robly, and Apptivo, but it is comparable to Shopify. I feel like Elementor and WooCommerce are a lot easier to use than Shopify, and it doesn't come with such high fees. For our business, it was no choice! Elementor fits great for our needs!

Incentivized

It's easy to build small sites or large sites and there is lots of templating.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Elementor has made it possible for our non-profit to stand out in the non-profit space in which we operate. Our website was highly flexible and looked great, which provided confidence to our donors.
• Elementor has never been a weak spot in the security of our website. We've had several attempted attacks against our website and yet everything was remained locked down.
• We have only used the free version of Elementor, so it has kept our costs low and allowed us to have a professional looking website, but being able to put more money towards our charitable cause rather than IT.

Incentivized