Cascade CMS (formerly Cascade Server) by Hannon Hill is a content management system, with built-in tools to help users eliminate stale content, increase digital outreach, and promote end-user adoption and accountability. Cascade CMS is designed for decentralized web teams in most major industries, including higher education, government, healthcare, and technology.
Included is Clive, an engagement and real-time personalization tool for collecting information and using it to craft personalized…
N/A
Webflow
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Webflow is a Website Experience Platform for modern marketing teams, used to visually build, manage, and optimize websites that offer both the consumer experience teams expect and enterprise-grade performance and scale.
$18
per month
Pricing
Cascade CMS
Webflow
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Basic
$18
per month
CMS
$29
per month
Ecommerce - Standard
$42
per month
Business
$49
per month
Ecommerce - Plus
$84
per month
Ecommerce - Advanced
$235
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cascade CMS
Webflow
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
Optional
No setup fee
Additional Details
—
Up to a 22% discount available for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cascade CMS
Webflow
Features
Cascade CMS
Webflow
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Cascade CMS
8.0
19 Ratings
3% below category average
Webflow
7.8
16 Ratings
5% below category average
Role-based user permissions
8.019 Ratings
7.816 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Cascade CMS
7.1
13 Ratings
9% below category average
Webflow
8.2
13 Ratings
6% above category average
API
7.012 Ratings
8.113 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language
7.37 Ratings
8.311 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Cascade CMS
7.1
19 Ratings
9% below category average
Webflow
8.1
19 Ratings
4% above category average
WYSIWYG editor
6.119 Ratings
8.119 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness
6.018 Ratings
8.518 Ratings
Admin section
8.019 Ratings
6.919 Ratings
Page templates
9.017 Ratings
8.418 Ratings
Library of website themes
5.52 Ratings
8.315 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design
7.015 Ratings
9.519 Ratings
Publishing workflow
9.019 Ratings
8.418 Ratings
Form generator
6.47 Ratings
7.015 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Cascade Server is well suited with it's WYSIWYG editor being better than most editors that I have used in other systems. In context, editing makes adding content easy compared to the last CMS I used where you had to wing it and view the page outside of the CMS to see if it was correct. The ability mix HTML, CSS, and the Script of your choice anywhere and with ease.
The scenarios were Cascade Server is less appropriate would be in the use of compilers or programs like Visual studio. You need to go out of Cascade Server and go to other environments to perform tasks and then copy the result to Cascade Server. You can write directly in Cascade Server, but it's easier to do in and editor that is specific to a function.
Since the purpose in my case is to build a small professional looking site to present project outcomes and other research, I can create custom fields and design experimentations. Webflow builds sites that are super professional, with many amazing templates that don't look cheap. Additionally, I can test responsive layouts. Apart from this, I used 1-2 static pages to illustrate key findings for example what a multilingual site could look like with screenshots without needing CMS in free version, which are all the valuable skills to acquire. Compared to WordPress, Webflow is expensive with limited free features, although it has really cool additional features that will make the site I build stand out.
Saves time- because I don't have to do double entry of content.
It saves money. I like that it is an all-in-one system, so I don't have to host elsewhere.
Flexibility - Webflow provides me with a lot of flexibility in my webpage design, allowing me to adjust pages as needed, depending on the content types.
Cascade CMS is not an out-of-the-box pre-built system that you can install, turn on and expect to be serving sites and pages on day one. It's not a blogging system like WordPress, or a drag-and-drop system like SquareSpace (both of which I've used for their own purposes). You need to have someone tasked with management and system administration – and if you implement the on-premise self-hosted version, you ought to have several people. We have the university's IT shop handling infrastructure (server hardware, containers, clustering, operating systems, load-balancing, DNS, database servers, NAS/SAN drives), our Web & Design team managing Cascade CMS (system settings, sites, templates, permissions) and managers coordinating each respective academic unit (A&S, business, education, law, marine science).
Brand recognition is still behind WordPress, which can make it a challenging sell for clients looking to play it safe in their CMS decision.
The CMS is ideal for smaller datasets, but higher content sites introduce some minor challenges.
Alignment between designers and developers is key prior to implementation. The flexibility of the platform requires careful planning to avoid over-engineering.
Changing systems would require too much effort. Our institution is using Cascade Server, WordPress and Drupal but we only serve 2200 students so we have 1 too many content management systems. Reflecting on current technical resources we would like to drop down to 2. This effort hasn't moved forward because of the extensive work required to migrate content and train users in a new system.
Cascade CMS is completely usable on mobile devices, we can train our content editors in a single 2-hour session, and we support 1,000 users with a very small team.
There is a level of complexity for the system administrators, site managers and web programmers who implement templates and content types. But the complexity is neither arbitrary nor inconsistent – and once learned provides a powerful environment within which we can develop robust sites that are beautiful and powerful, yet easy for our content editors to manage.
Webflow is very easy for a beginner to get started with and achieve good results, but to achieve an expert level of understanding requires experience and some web development knowledge. HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript knowledge aren't required to use Webflow, but an expert will know BEM class naming patterns, be able to create reusable elements and design systems, and add 3rd party integrations that require custom code.
In my experience, their customer service is an absolute joke, I tried reaching out to them they took forever. I had to keep following up with them as if they never received it in the first place. It’s a new platform, so guidance is needed. Tried the university they offer, in my opinion, it is completely useless, I would just completely move on from this website.
In my opinion, it is horrible, the rendering takes forever. I have the newest MacBook and the platform will still lag and slow down on me. I’m not a developer, I am a designer which makes it worst because I am using the features they are providing not extra coding features. In my opinion, it is a horrible platform really, stay away.
They have always regarded any question or problem we encountered as very important. We have never felt that they ignore or downplay any issue and not once has anything been left unresolved. They also hold an annual conference where users are invited to attend and share their experiences and wisdom with the entire Cascade community. And with the care and support the provide, we all feel a part of that community.
I haven't had to engage them from a support perspective; however, there is a considerable user community for tips/ideas/troubleshooting and the like. I believe the Pro plan supports additional resources but we didn't find that the cost justified the outcome. Overall the need for support has been relatively minor.
The key to any CMS implementation is PLAN, PLAN, PLAN. Proper planning with Cascade can increase your satisfaction exponentially once the site migration/creation is complete. When all is said and done, your implementation can make your site run like a Yugo or Maserati. Be smart and deliberate in your decisions. Drive the Maserati. It is already paid for.
We selected Cascade server seven years ago, and the CMS environment at the time was clearly different than it is today. We decided to go with a vendor solution rather than a free solution because the long term cost in hosting a free solution is not, in fact, free; we've found Cascade to have been an excellent choice for us.
A lot more design control and easier to create a custom site, and then also to scale that site going forward. There's a lot about WordPress I miss, though, when it comes to managing a blog—user permissions, SEO control, edit HTML version of posts.
I feel it doesn’t perform the way it’s supposed to and it doesn’t have any beneficial factors to it. In my opinion, there is no reason to use a platform like this when Wix and Shopify, and WordPress exist. I believe Webflow is a platform that shouldn’t exist and it’s only popular because of the hype it received. I tried it and hate it completely.
Initially, ROI was positive - because we completely redesigned the website when we implemented Cascade.
Over time, the inability to keep up with the latest interactive tools has reduced visitors time on site.
Also over time, the difficulty of use has led to less buy-in by backend users, leading to outdated pages, little timely information, and lower visitors.
