Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Bloomfire
Score 8.4 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Bloomfire provides knowledge engagement, aiming to deliver an experience that connects teams and individuals with the information they need to excel at their jobs. Their cloud-based knowledge engagement platform aims to give people one centralized, searchable place to engage with shared knowledge and grow their organization's collective intelligence.
$25
per month
Lua
Score 1.0 out of 10
N/A
Lua is a mobile-first enterprise communication solution. It powers messaging that is built for business: instant, secure, and keeps everyone accountable. Some key features include: Real-time Secure Messaging, Two-touch Conference Calling, and an Analytics Dashboard.
$0
Per User per Month
Socialcast (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Socialcast was an enterprise social networking and collaboration platform acquired by VMware in 2011. The platform allowed an organization's employees to share information and documents with co-workers in real time through a Facebook- or Twitter-like news feed. VMware announced its end of availability (EOA) effective May 2018.
$250
per month
Pricing
BloomfireLuaSocialcast (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
Basic
$25.00
per month
Lua
Per User per Month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BloomfireLuaSocialcast (discontinued)
Free Trial
NoYesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYesNo
Entry-level Setup Fee$25 $2,500 No setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BloomfireLuaSocialcast (discontinued)
Features
BloomfireLuaSocialcast (discontinued)
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
Bloomfire
-
Ratings
Lua
7.0
1 Ratings
13% below category average
Socialcast (discontinued)
7.5
4 Ratings
7% below category average
Chat00 Ratings7.01 Ratings8.74 Ratings
Notifications00 Ratings7.01 Ratings8.24 Ratings
Discussions00 Ratings00 Ratings8.14 Ratings
Surveys00 Ratings00 Ratings8.73 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase00 Ratings00 Ratings6.14 Ratings
Integrates with GoToMeeting00 Ratings00 Ratings5.01 Ratings
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts00 Ratings00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
Integrates with Outlook00 Ratings00 Ratings7.92 Ratings
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Bloomfire
-
Ratings
Lua
-
Ratings
Socialcast (discontinued)
6.3
4 Ratings
21% below category average
Task Management00 Ratings00 Ratings7.74 Ratings
Gantt Charts00 Ratings00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Scheduling00 Ratings00 Ratings6.33 Ratings
Workflow Automation00 Ratings00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Mobile Access00 Ratings00 Ratings3.83 Ratings
Search00 Ratings00 Ratings8.04 Ratings
Visual planning tools00 Ratings00 Ratings3.43 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Bloomfire
-
Ratings
Lua
-
Ratings
Socialcast (discontinued)
5.7
4 Ratings
34% below category average
Versioning00 Ratings00 Ratings2.12 Ratings
Video files00 Ratings00 Ratings7.23 Ratings
Audio files00 Ratings00 Ratings7.23 Ratings
Document collaboration00 Ratings00 Ratings6.74 Ratings
Access control00 Ratings00 Ratings7.23 Ratings
Advanced security features00 Ratings00 Ratings5.83 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive00 Ratings00 Ratings5.02 Ratings
Device sync00 Ratings00 Ratings4.02 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BloomfireLuaSocialcast (discontinued)
Small Businesses
Front
Front
Score 9.1 out of 10
Stackby
Stackby
Score 8.9 out of 10
Stackby
Stackby
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Score 9.8 out of 10
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Score 9.8 out of 10
Enterprises
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
HCL Connections
HCL Connections
Score 9.0 out of 10
HCL Connections
HCL Connections
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BloomfireLuaSocialcast (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(174 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
7.7
(6 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(14 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(15 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
BloomfireLuaSocialcast (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
Bloomfire
Ad testing:
  • PTS: needed to bring a new senior marketing team member up to speed on how we got to our current TV campaign
  • Solution: Series featuring consumer insights, why specific spokesperson, agency brief, the entire creative process - scrips, animatics, rough cuts, feedback, and testing at each step. Including the actual creative from each step.
  • Total time to build: 1 hour
Concept testing:
  • PTS: things get lost, findable but version control
  • Solution: everything in one placeConcepts, testing, IHUTs, verbatims, videos with transcripts. Reduces the possibility of missing something, helps with any builds (reuse), but gives us a the chance to dig deeper. Example: search on terms like "indulgent", or "crispy" or "share" much faster
  • Total time to build: 1 hour
Read full review
Lua
I wouldn't recommend Lua because they were recently acquired by another company and will be shutting down. It was unfortunate that we were only given 2 months notice right after signing up for another 1-year term.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
Socialcast has been a great tool for FactSet. I would recommend it to any firm looking for an easy-to-use tool to centralize communication and collaborate on a global scale.
Read full review
Pros
Bloomfire
  • Quickly reach out to whatever employee segment you want to reach by posting a topic and it will send a notification to everyone in that group with a link to the posting.
  • Bloomfire saves all of the previous posts so in your free time you can go to the site, and explore the various range of topics others have posted. The information on there will only be as good as the person posting it, but it will be people within your company and industry posting it. So it will always be helpful.
  • Bloomfire is a place to be noticed by your peers. Have a great topic you want to express, my company allows all to post there as long as we keep it professional. So you can share your ideas or experiences in a safe and productive manner. But we do have some fun on there too!
Read full review
Lua
  • It is easy to communicate in real-time.
  • Easy to set up different groups.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • Socialcast has an exceptional user experience. With very few idiosyncrasies, it works well on every platform I've tried.
  • The platform has such a high level of ease of use, it becomes somewhat addicting.
  • Social analytics are superb.
  • The platform is highly intuitive and requires zero training or coaching in order for network members to become productive with it.
  • It's extremely reliable. Only once in 4 years, was the product not available, and that was only for about a half-hour. In that half-hour, we realized how dependent we were on it. (Very.)
  • The multi-device and deployment options are excellent. On-premise, Private Cloud, and Multi-tenant SaaS all available.
  • The mobile apps for iPhone, tablets, and Android render well with a beautiful UI/UX. The desktop AIR app is equally highly usable.
Read full review
Cons
Bloomfire
  • I would recommend adding a feature to combine different posts/series by job title (so in addition to the Revenue Ops category, there could be a structured walkthrough for Revenue Manager).
  • Live Q+A sessions for group onboarding initiatives.
  • Ability to label bookmarks by priority/job type.
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Lua
  • The application for iPad is not optimized.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • The software is a little bit pricey because it is charged by user/month and depending on the deployment method.
  • For companies with a lot of workers the price can increase significantly.
  • The mobile app usability and notifications are poor. Need to be improved.
  • If there were more administrative features available the product would be improved
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Likelihood to Renew
Bloomfire
Most likely we will renew, our team needs a refresher on possible opportunities to advance our usage and learning of opportunities to move this answer to a 10, can't live without it.
Read full review
Lua
No answers on this topic
Discontinued Products
Beyond the value FactSet derives from using the platform, Socialcast (the firm) has been a good partner to FactSet. We've experienced very little downtime with the service and they have been responsive and fair with enhancement requests and questions
Read full review
Usability
Bloomfire
Bloomfire is an easy-to-use platform for posting information and asking questions of my peers. It also has a user-friendly search capability. Yet like any other CMS, the secret to success rests in such items as the ability to use metadata to tag content or posts, and Bloomfire provides a wide range of options to make posting content and subsequently searching for it.
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Lua
No answers on this topic
Discontinued Products
The UX is its best feature
Read full review
Support Rating
Bloomfire
I have not needed to pose questions to the support team yet, as it is a very simple piece of software to use, however, its help documents and the bot ready to answer questions let me know I am in good hands. The help center could load a little quicker, but that's my only complaint.
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Lua
They are closing operations, so there's no support to rate
Read full review
Discontinued Products
Excellent support; of course not perfect. :-)
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Bloomfire
No answers on this topic
Lua
No answers on this topic
Discontinued Products
Not applicable, as it is a SaaS platform with minimal implementation
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Bloomfire
I like Bloomfire because it is more concise with the work I do whereas Google search engine would provide broader information. It has just been so user-friendly, and easier to use [than] I could have imagined. I would use this program over any other that I have tried in the past.
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Lua
We chose Lua because of their price point and feature set compared to other tools.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
Socialcast is great for collaboration & light project management, but anything complex doesn't work well.

Using it as an email notification curator works nice for us.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Bloomfire
  • Feedback from users in being able to perform transactions for members has greatly improved.
  • There has been an increase in engagement of material presented in posts by learners in training classes.
  • Reps and agents say they feel confident they can easily locate information if ever there is a need on the front line.
Read full review
Lua
  • It has been great for communication and broadcasts, its a shame that they are closing down.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • Definitely more organized project management and team collaboration.
  • Efficiency in carrying out tasks.
  • Creates a spirit of collaboration and friendliness among colleagues.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Bloomfire Screenshots

Screenshot of You are provided with a variety of options to brand your Bloomfire community, such as customizing its colors, displaying your organization’s logo, and building a custom Promo Bar. This creates an aesthetic that truly reflects your company’s culture.Screenshot of Bloomfire features an AI-powered search that makes sharing and searching for information a lot easier. It deep indexes every word in each piece of content, regardless of whether it’s a PDF, slide deck, video, or any other file type. The platform also creates tags for your content automatically. And if a video is uploaded, Bloomfire automatically transcribes it, making the spoken words searchable and allowing users to jump to the exact part of a video where certain keywords appear.

All of those features result in an easy and smart searching experience. There’s no need to navigate through folders or guess file names. All you need to do is perform a search like you would with Google. When searching, you can further narrow down your results based on categories such as author and content type.Screenshot of Bloomfire's AI enables you to search and find the video you are looking for based on its audio contents.Screenshot of Use Bloomfire while you work seamlessly across your favorite apps.

Lua Screenshots

Screenshot of A Group Conversation With Files and Photos (iPhone)Screenshot of A Dedicated Tab for All Your Ongoing Conversations Broadcasts (Android)Screenshot of An Interactive Directory Organized by Departments, Roles, and Custom Groups (iPhone)Screenshot of Two-touch Conference Calling, No Dial-ins, No Passcodes (iPhone)Screenshot of A Dedicated Repository for All Attachments (Android)Screenshot of Communication Analytics Dashboard (Web)