Adobe InDesign vs. Windward Core

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe InDesign
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Adobe InDesign supports creating digital and print documents such as flyers, stationary, posters, and other types of media, with rich graphics, images, and more. Adobe InDesign is available standalone or as part of the Adobe Creative Suite collection of media management and creation products.
$31.49
per month
Windward Core
Score 9.1 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Windward’s low-code document generation solution embeds into any application, enabling users to populate data-smart documents within the familiar landscape of Microsoft Office. It's a solution from PDFTron since the April 2021 acquisition.
$190
per month
Pricing
Adobe InDesignWindward Core
Editions & Modules
Monthly Plan
$31.49
per month
Annual Plan, Prepaid
$239.88 ($19.99)
per year (per month)
Annual Plan, Paid Monthly
$251.88 ($20.99)
per year (per month)
Windward Hub Standard
$19.00
Per User, Per Month (10 user minimum)*
Windward Hub Premium
$49.00
Per User, Per Month (10 user minimum)*
Windward Core Pro
$547.00
per month*
Windward Core Flex
$605.00
per month*
Windward Hub Enterprise
Custom Pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe InDesignWindward Core
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details*Pay annually: 15% discount 10% discount for quarterly payment of Windward Core.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe InDesignWindward Core
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Adobe InDesignWindward Core
Small Businesses
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
Score 9.6 out of 10
Jotform
Jotform
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Canva
Canva
Score 9.2 out of 10
Responsive
Responsive
Score 6.4 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

Responsive
Responsive
Score 6.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Adobe InDesignWindward Core
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(95 ratings)
9.1
(25 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(5 ratings)
9.1
(16 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
5.0
(64 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe InDesignWindward Core
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe
Adobe InDesign is very well suited to image-heavy publications, such as children's books, cookbooks and coffee table books. It gives you almost complete control how to arrange these elements, and to be able to tweak them with precision. The software is an absolute necessity if one is developing interactive eBooks, especially for the Apple iTunes store. Unless coded by hand, I am not aware of any other tools to handle this. It is a powerful toolset, and can take on most anything publishing related that you throw at it. I personally have found that it doesn't do too well with reflowable eBooks (like for Kindle Amazon), but it retains that capability.
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Apryse
Great for Technical Users. It's great for people a bit more on the technical side. It allows developers to quickly create and modify reporting templates without having to modify source code or make updates to a repository. Potentially Difficult for Non-Technical Users. Making substantial changes to the data portions of reporting can be a bit difficult for non-technical users. While Windward's tools for this are great, it still requires an understanding of the database schema which not all users will have.
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Pros
Adobe
  • Customization - With Adobe InDesign, as well as many other applications in the Adobe Creative Suite, I can fully customize my workspaces and save different workspaces. This makes it easy to navigate through my project and have the panels and tools I need easily accessible and configured based on my project needs.
  • Styles - Adobe InDesign has character styles, object styles, and tables styles. This speeds up my workflows and allows me to easily apply the same format across multiple elements. This is super helpful, especially when working with length documents.
  • File compatibility - I can easily export my files into so many different file types.
  • The Book feature - This feature is really helpful when creating books or very long documents with multiple sections.
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Apryse
  • Native Office output -- not nested tables and/or horrible RTF like other tools generate.
  • Ease of use -- once the data sources are set up, creating tables is as simple as drag and drop (okay, maybe not exactly that simple, but you can certainly create a table of data using drag and drop, then format it and manipulate it as needed).
  • Responsive developers and support -- when I've had questions, they've been addressed VERY quickly and professionally.
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Cons
Adobe
  • Ordering the pages with dragging is a bit counter-intuitive
  • The "Links" section needs improvement - it might be very beneficial to have the links displayed (and saved) in the "links" sections for dragging and reusing without having to re-insert
  • I think the relinking option works well - Would it be possible to the automatic relink to work even if file was renamed? A prompt will be [shown] to the user to help them approve or disapprove of this action.
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Apryse
  • It is hard to pick out the tags if they are mixed in with a block of text.
  • Using report variables in select statements causes the selection list of available fields to not show anything.
  • The color themes do not match the office selection and it feels very disconnected.
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Likelihood to Renew
Adobe
I've had great experiences with the product and plan to continue to use it. It has been my go-to product for designing and creating materials. I have had great luck with it and have been able to create all of the needed marketing materials that have been requested for our company.
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Apryse
No answers on this topic
Usability
Adobe
If you know what you are doing it is an amazingly granular and powerful application. You can control pretty much any aspect of the design and layout of your documents and make changes globally and rapidly. But, if you don't know what you are doing...you will be staring at your screen in bewilderment for a long time. You can learn it, but be ready for a hefty time investment.
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Apryse
For the most part, the Windward report designer is intuitive for our users; but there are a few areas where it is less intuitive. In these cases, our users need to search Windwards support wiki site, or even contact their support technicians. This can also be due to the short time we've had Windward and our lack of knowledge.
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Reliability and Availability
Adobe
I've needed Adobe InDesign team very little which is a bonus in and of itself.
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Apryse
No answers on this topic
Performance
Adobe
One of the advantages of Adobe InDesign is it is faster and less glitchy than Microsoft Word.
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Apryse
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Adobe
Adobe support is ok but not great. Chat support often doesn't initially understand the question at-hand and it takes awhile to get to the right agent. Phone support has long wait times, and though I've had more luck there, it does take quite a time investment if you are looking for help. However, Adobe does have some online learning solutions available as well as a knowledgebase for frequently asked questions. If you're looking to learn how to use the platform, there are lots of resources which can typically be found in a few Google searches. If you have a technical issue with the system, that's going to be a bit more of a time investment as far as getting a tech's assistance to resolve the problem.
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Apryse
Support is something they take pride in. Once an issue is raised, they are quick to respond and provide details on a fix. No complaints on support here.
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In-Person Training
Adobe
Attending Adobe MAX each year is extremely valuable.
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Apryse
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Adobe
The online training works well and is not wholly necessary as it is user-friendly and you can learn by doing.
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Apryse
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Adobe
Implementation was smooth and easy.
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Apryse
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Adobe
Microsoft products do not match the aesthetic tools that [Adobe] InDesign offers, cannot support the customizable options available for export, and do not produce documents with as high a degree of accessibility. That said, they do have their place in collaboration in a team- I'd consider Office to be the first step and [Adobe] InDesign to be the final product.
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Apryse
We evaluated several other products to integrate with our new software, but Windward Studios was an obvious standout above the majority. Other applications required some level of software development knowledge and experience to create templates and a much steeper learning curve. After consideration of ease of use, as well as a cost-comparison between different products, Windward Studios was the most suitable product to meet our needs.
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Scalability
Adobe
Working in a cloud environment makes it easy to scale and share resources.
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Apryse
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Adobe
  • Adobe InDesign has allowed us to tackle more projects in the same amount of time because of how well it integrates into our group's workflow.
  • For awhile, we struggled only with a slowdown in digital guides. Because, as I mentioned earlier, there is not a clear way to combine individual documents into one document quickly, some editors were forced to spend a long time transferring each page into the final document that would be used with Publish Online. We have since found a workaround that does not include using Publish Online.
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Apryse
  • As a fully integrated solution, the ROI is impacted when a client gets stickier with our solution because they see the benefit of Windward.
  • Support has been fantastic for our development team so that as we integrate the solutions we have a clear and clean design.
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ScreenShots

Windward Core Screenshots

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