Cascade CMS vs. Umbraco CMS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cascade CMS
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
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
Umbraco CMS
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Umbraco is an open-source .NET Core CMS with over 700,000 active installs worldwide and with more than 200,000 active community members. It was first released on February 16th, 2005, and is still to this day an open-source project backed by a commercial company. To ensure Umbraco is always running the latest technology, the company has aligned with Microsoft's .NET release schedule to always have the Umbraco CMS…
$0
Pricing
Cascade CMSUmbraco CMS
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Umbraco Free
$0
Umbraco Cloud Starter
$45
per month
Umbraco Heartcore Mini
$49
per month
Umbraco Heartcore Starter
$239
per month
Umbraco Cloud Standard
$283
per month
Umbraco Cloud Professional
$758
per month
Umbraco Heartcore Professional
$999
per month
Umbraco Professional
$12,000
per year
Umbraco Enterprise
Flexible pricing
per year
Umbraco Cloud Enterprise
Flexible pricing
per month
Umbraco Heartcore Enterprise
Flexible pricing
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cascade CMSUmbraco CMS
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThe Umbraco CMS and all of its core features are the same across all plans. The paid on-premise plans include support, onboarding, licenses to add-on products (Umbraco Forms) as well as a discount on developer training courses. Umbraco Cloud is the CMS hosted on Azure Cloud servers with automated upgrades, unlimited hosting, and smooth deployments. All features can be found on Umbraco.com. Umbraco Heartcore is the managed Headless SaaS version of Umbraco.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cascade CMSUmbraco CMS
Top Pros

No answers on this topic

Top Cons

No answers on this topic

Features
Cascade CMSUmbraco CMS
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Cascade CMS
8.0
19 Ratings
0% below category average
Umbraco CMS
1.0
11 Ratings
156% below category average
Role-based user permissions8.019 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Cascade CMS
7.1
13 Ratings
8% below category average
Umbraco CMS
5.3
10 Ratings
37% below category average
API7.012 Ratings5.59 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language7.37 Ratings5.19 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Cascade CMS
7.1
19 Ratings
7% below category average
Umbraco CMS
1.6
11 Ratings
130% below category average
WYSIWYG editor6.119 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness6.018 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Admin section8.019 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Page templates9.017 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Library of website themes5.52 Ratings1.010 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design7.015 Ratings1.010 Ratings
Publishing workflow9.019 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Form generator6.47 Ratings5.99 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Cascade CMS
6.9
18 Ratings
6% below category average
Umbraco CMS
3.6
11 Ratings
68% below category average
Content taxonomy8.013 Ratings1.011 Ratings
SEO support7.014 Ratings1.010 Ratings
Bulk management9.014 Ratings4.98 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions6.011 Ratings5.210 Ratings
Community / comment management4.85 Ratings6.010 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cascade CMSUmbraco CMS
Small Businesses
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cascade CMSUmbraco CMS
Likelihood to Recommend
9.9
(44 ratings)
1.0
(11 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(26 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(4 ratings)
4.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
6.7
(4 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(1 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(5 ratings)
2.0
(1 ratings)
In-Person Training
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
5.0
(1 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(4 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
5.0
(1 ratings)
4.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cascade CMSUmbraco CMS
Likelihood to Recommend
Hannon Hill
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.
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Umbraco
Umbraco CMS is the perfect tool for a company that is looking to keep their website updated. The simple to use tools and templates means updating and creating new pages is easy. The WYSIWYG editor is a nice feature, however, for accessibility, there should be some more guidance on what is suitable to be used on the CMS.
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Pros
Hannon Hill
  • Cascade CMS makes no assumptions about your content. Templates control how the content gets displayed.
  • Workflows are intuitive and allow for one or more people to review content before it is published.
  • The published site is static (no database connection) which allows for faster page loads and reduced risk of attack.
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Umbraco
  • Quick to learn. For most if cases, developer needs to know Razor coding.
  • Doesn't require back-end programming.
  • Has build in users management (developers, content managers) and members management consoles (users of the site).
  • Clear admin tool (especially in version 7)
  • Fast.
  • Creating code from scratch, so it is easier to create clean code.
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Cons
Hannon Hill
  • 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).
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Umbraco
  • Speed for older sites - Umbraco content can load slowly if you have thousands of pages of content. Of course, this would not be a problem for simpler websites
  • Complexity - since the product is free out-of-the-box, it will take technical expertise to get Umbraco setup properly
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Likelihood to Renew
Hannon Hill
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.
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Umbraco
No answers on this topic
Usability
Hannon Hill
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.
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Umbraco
Many end users will be overwhelmed with the admin interface. Some common functions are buried in menus
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Reliability and Availability
Hannon Hill
Amazing customer service and VERY customizable.
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Umbraco
Occasionally, errors will appear in the admin that make it impossible to work without developer support.
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Performance
Hannon Hill
Does a great job.
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Umbraco
Working in the admin panel (adding / reviewing / editing content) is very slow. The public facing site speed is dependent on what the pages are doing and how well the code was written (whether it is optimized for speed).
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Support Rating
Hannon Hill
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.
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Umbraco
Support for Umbraco-owned paid plugins is nonexistent.
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In-Person Training
Hannon Hill
Training was helpful.
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Umbraco
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Hannon Hill
Still needed that physical help
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Umbraco
Online training is often based on older versions of the platform. So, you'll have to fill in the gaps on your own.
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Implementation Rating
Hannon Hill
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.
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Umbraco
Spend the time to wireframe the content structure prior to diving in. This helps speed the process of implementation and it serves as documentation for end users.
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Alternatives Considered
Hannon Hill
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.
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Umbraco
Umbraco's templating is far superior than WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, but it's update process is WAY behind those platforms. The release schedule of Umbraco is way to often and most releases are to fix something missed in the previous release and not an improvement or new feature of the CMS
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Scalability
Hannon Hill
I used it only a few times.
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Umbraco
Without significant development, the product does not scale well.
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Return on Investment
Hannon Hill
  • 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.
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Umbraco
  • Has helped us to create more engaging pages that push people to complete the online forms
  • We have seen more people buy from us since we launched our new look website
  • We can easily update the content without waiting for the development team to make changes
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ScreenShots

Umbraco CMS Screenshots

Screenshot of Umbraco 8 backoffice UIScreenshot of Umbraco 8 side by side multilingual editingScreenshot of Umbraco 8 Content AppsScreenshot of Umbraco Cloud project overviewScreenshot of Umbraco Cloud environment overview