Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued) vs. Paddle

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
Paddle
Score 5.9 out of 10
N/A
London-based Paddle offers an ecommerce and subscription management solution for software companies seeking a streamlined demonstration of their services and centralized management of their different service levels and cloud-based offerings.N/A
Pricing
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)Paddle
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Custom
custom pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)Paddle
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)Paddle
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)Paddle
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
Paddle
-
Ratings
API7.911 Ratings00 Ratings
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
Paddle
5.5
6 Ratings
33% below category average
Product catalog & listings00 Ratings7.14 Ratings
Product management00 Ratings7.35 Ratings
Bulk product upload00 Ratings5.93 Ratings
Branding00 Ratings6.95 Ratings
Mobile storefront00 Ratings5.95 Ratings
Product variations00 Ratings2.64 Ratings
Website integration00 Ratings8.36 Ratings
Visual customization00 Ratings4.84 Ratings
CMS00 Ratings1.03 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
Paddle
7.4
6 Ratings
2% below category average
Abandoned cart recovery00 Ratings7.65 Ratings
Checkout user experience00 Ratings7.36 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
Paddle
7.2
5 Ratings
14% below category average
eCommerce security00 Ratings7.25 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
Paddle
6.0
5 Ratings
22% below category average
Promotions & discounts00 Ratings9.05 Ratings
Personalized recommendations00 Ratings4.33 Ratings
SEO00 Ratings4.82 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
Paddle
5.4
6 Ratings
36% below category average
Multi-site management00 Ratings4.53 Ratings
Order processing00 Ratings7.66 Ratings
Inventory management00 Ratings6.44 Ratings
Shipping00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Custom functionality00 Ratings7.53 Ratings
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Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)Paddle
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Score 9.8 out of 10
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Score 8.9 out of 10
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Image Relay
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IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)Paddle
Likelihood to Recommend
6.0
(21 ratings)
5.9
(6 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.4
(10 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.7
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.6
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 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)Paddle
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
Paddle
I wouldn't recommend them to anybody because their support is getting worse and worse and their business processes require you to contact support whether you want to or not. You will be forced to contact support and then wait for days to get any meaningful response that's not a copy/pasted sentence from FAQ.
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
Paddle
  • Super easy to implement SDKs across supported platforms that support modern interface paradigms.
  • Real team members that provide backend support for merchant issues. We had issues addressed quickly and taken seriously whenever we needed anything.
  • Help with navigating VAT transparently. We never worried that we were messing up in this complicated area of international sales.
  • Great first line customer support reduces the need for an extensive customer support organization on our end. They dealt with all purchase related issues as well as lightweight technical issues (e.g pointing users to FAQs, update links, etc.).
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
Paddle
  • Analytics could support more flexible analysis of reported data and better custom events.
  • More customization of the drop in purchase UI on the web without the need for a full custom site integration.
  • Sometimes communication from their front line support staff has gone to the wrong address.
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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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Paddle
No answers on this topic
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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Paddle
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
Discontinued Products
very few issues with availability
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Paddle
No answers on this topic
Performance
Discontinued Products
Very few issues
Read full review
Paddle
No answers on this topic
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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Paddle
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Discontinued Products
bcgurus.com kiyuco
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Paddle
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Discontinued Products
Pretty easy to do
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Paddle
No answers on this topic
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.
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Paddle
We tried using Stripe before Paddle, but it was a pain integrating it and it lacked the licensing. Paddle allows us just to add a payment button and don’t ever think about payment methods, we don’t have to make a separate button for card payments and another one for PayPal. Paddle does all this in their checkout process.
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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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Paddle
No answers on this topic
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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Paddle
  • We wanted to grow faster, which was possible once we integrate recurring payment gateway. And we've got Paddle to do that.
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ScreenShots

Paddle Screenshots

Screenshot of Padddle Payment Gateway