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
WordPress
Score8.7 out of 10
N/A
Wordpress is an open-source publishing platform popular with bloggers, and a content management system, known for its simplicity and modifiability. Websites may host their own blogging communities, controlling and moderating content from a single dashboard.
$3
per month 6 GB storage
Pricing
Cascade CMS
WordPress
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Personal
$4
per month 6 GB storage
Premium
$8
per month 13 GB storage
Business
$25
per month 50 GB storage
Commerce
$45
per month 50 GB storage
Enterprise
Contact for pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cascade CMS
WordPress
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
Optional
No setup fee
Additional Details
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Pricing for Business and Commerce plans vary on number of GB.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cascade CMS
WordPress
Considered Both Products
Hannon Hill
Verified User
Chose Cascade CMS
Because the (bad) Cascade decision was made quickly by a small team, we have a larger team and a longer timeline, with a growing list of functionality that we expect a replacement system to have. We've been looking into a number of other products to replace Cascade. Highest on …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Associate Director of Web Communications in Marketing at Union College, Communications & Marketing (Higher Education, 501-1000 employees)
Chose Cascade CMS
In my limited experience with WordPress, I found it difficult to retrofit to use as a content managements system for a website. It's a great blogging solution and could easily be used to manage an organization's press releases.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Associate Director of Web Communications in Marketing at Union College (Higher Education, 501-1000 employees)
Chose Cascade CMS
WordPress was never evaluated when we decided on Cascade around 2008. We looked for an enterprise level system that would have vendor support and had more developer resources at the time. Our resources have diminished so having plugin solutions like WordPress would solve many …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Director of University Web Communication in Marketing at University of Hartford (Higher Education, 501-1000 employees)
Chose Cascade CMS
Our latest round of CMS evaluations we looked at OmniUpdate, Drupal, and Wordpress as possible CMS choices. It quickly became apparent that all of the upper tier products seemed capable of managing strong websites, but upon a deeper investigation of our needs Cascade rose to …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Web & New Media Specialist at Cleveland State Community College (Higher Education, 201-500 employees)
Chose Cascade CMS
Cascade CMS focuses on managing content and gives you the tools to display this content any way that is needed. While it may lack some features/extensions found in other popular platforms, the user management, workflow and template engine are the best you can get.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Cascade CMS
The version of Sitecore that I use right now doesn't have a UI showing the assembled web page. That suits my current company's needs, but for most people, they want to see their changes within the tool as they make them, visible within their web page. Cascade Server does that …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
IT and Communications Analyst in Social Media at School of Information Studies, Syracuse University (Information Technology and Services, 11-50 employees)
Chose Cascade CMS
It wasn't my personal choice to go for Cascade Server for my organization. But as I already said, Cascade Server is good for managing parent child websites which are uniform in design. I guess the level up to which uniformity can be maintained and traffic can be handled by …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Director of Marketing Analytics and Strategy in Marketing at Philadelphia University (Higher Education, 501-1000 employees)
Chose Cascade CMS
We knew we didn't have the department size (i.e., human resources) or time to work with open source products like Drupal and Joomla, and while we still use WordPress for offshoot blogs by some departments and programs, we needed a more robust CMS that would centralize design …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Web Developer in Information Technology at St. Norbert College (Higher Education, 201-500 employees)
Chose Cascade CMS
We selected Cascade Server because it manages users more easily. It also requires less coding skills than MS SharePoint does. Drupal on the other hand is freeware so your user support for Drupal is what you would get for not paying for something. Cascade Server dumbs it down …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Marketing Manager in Marketing at HCC Medical Insurance Services (Insurance, 51-200 employees)
Chose Cascade CMS
The most striking advantage of Cascade Server is the push vs pull technology. Being able to reduce the constant hits to the server and database for every page delivery makes better use of physical resources and allows us to server our pages quicker.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Webmaster User Support Specialist in Information Technology at Indiana University (Higher Education, 10,001+ employees)
Chose Cascade CMS
I have used WordPress and Drupal. They have completely different needs compared to Cascade Server. Cascade Server allows me, as a back end support staff member, to ensure thousands of people's sites are operating correctly and efficiently all with the click of a button. I …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Director of Marketing Analytics and Strategy in Marketing at Philadelphia University (Higher Education, 501-1000 employees)
Chose WordPress
With Drupal and Joomla as the only open source blogging products we considered (those many years ago when the web was in its relative infancy), WordPress was the clear winner as a turnkey solution with relative ease of use.
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Wordpress is a great solution for a website of nearly any type. It may not be as suitable if a fully custom solution or app is needed, and it does have some limitations when it comes to connecting it to external products (especially if the product doesn't have any support from a native system), and it does require a lot of testing. Multiple plugins in one install are common but also increase the risk of conflicts, and when those do occur, it can be exceptionally time-consuming and tedious to identify what is causing the issue. As third parties create many plugins, you're also at risk with each potential security breach, which needs to be kept in mind. I would be cautious to use WordPress to store any sort of sensitive PPI. That said, it's a wonderful, easily customizable solution for many, many different types of websites and can allow even inexperienced client users with low-tech knowledge to update basics.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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).
WordPress breaks often so you need to have someone who understands how to troubleshoot, which can take time and money.
Some plugins are easier to customize than others, for example, some don't require any coding knowledge while others do. This can limit your project if you are not a coder.
WordPress can be easily hacked, so you also need someone who can ensure your sites are secure.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
The complications we have and the lack of support. Every plugin has a differente team of support in charge and make one plugin work with the other one always affects the website performance. It's a thousand times better to have only one provider with all functionalities included unless you are an expert web developer or have a team dedicated to it
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
Extremely easy to use and train users. It took very little time to get everyone trained and onboarded to start using WordPress. Anytime we had any issues, we were able to find an article or video to help out or we were able to contact support. The menu options are well laid out so it is easy to find what you are looking for.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Anyone can visit WordPress.org and download a fully functional copy of WordPress free of charge. Additionally, WordPress is offered to users as open-source software, which means that anyone can customize the code to create new applications and make these available to other WordPress users.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Mostly, any performance issues have to do with using too many plugins and these can sometimes slow down the overall performance of your site. It is very tempting to start adding lots of plugins to your WordPress site, however, as there are thousands of great plugins to choose from and so many of them help you do amazing things on your site. If you begin to notice performance issues with your WordPress site (e.g. pages being slow to load), there are ways to optimize the performance of your site, but this requires learning the process. WordPress users can learn how to optimize their WordPress sites by downloading the WPTrainMe WordPress training plugin (WPTrainMe.com) and going through the detailed step-by-step WordPress optimization tutorials.
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 give this rating, which I believe to be a great rating for a community based support system that's surrounding it. Most platforms and products have their own, and as WordPress does have their own team that help here and there, a lot of it's handled by community involvement with dedicated users who are experts with the system who love to help people.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Varies by the person providing training. High marks as it's incredibly easy to find experienced individuals in your community to provide training on any aspect of WordPress from content marketing, SEO, plugin development, theme design, etc. Less than 10 though as the training is community based and expectations for a session you find may fall short.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
WordPress is not a great solution if you have: 1) A larger site with performance / availability requirements. 2) Multiple types of content you want to share - each with its own underlying data structure. 3) Multiple sites you need to manage. For very small sites where these needs are not paramount, WordPress is a decent solution
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 de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
WordPress isn't as pretty or easy to use as certain competitors like Jimdo, Squarespace or HubSpot, but it makes up for it with its affordability, familiarity and the ability to find quality outside help easily. The same can't be said for certain competitors, as you might need to find an expert and it could get costly.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
WordPress is completely scalable. You can get started immediately with a very simple "out-of-the box" WordPress installation and then add whatever functionality you need as and when you need it, and continue expanding. Often we will create various WordPress sites on the same domain to handle different aspects of our strategy (e.g. one site for the sales pages, product information and/or a marketing blog, another for delivering products securely through a private membership site, and another for running an affiliate program or other application), and then ties all of these sites together using a common theme and links on each of the site's menus. Additionally, WordPress offers a multisite function that allows organizations and institutions to manage networks of sites managed by separate individual site owners, but centrally administered by the parent organization. You can also expand WordPress into a social networking or community site, forums, etc. The same scalability applies to web design. You can start with a simple design and then scale things up to display sites with amazing visual features, including animations and video effects, sliding images and animated product image galleries, elements that appear and fade from visitor browsers, etc. The scaling possibilities of WordPress are truly endless.
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
