TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Channelscaler

    Score9 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    Channelscaler is the product resulting from the combing of Allbound and Channel Mechanics. It is a cloud-based channel sales and marketing platform that allows organizations to give real-time access to sales enablement, marketing tools and resources in one mobile-friendly place.N/A

    Plone

    Score10 out of 10
    N/APlone is a free and open source content management system built on top of the Zope application server. Plone can be used for any kind of website, including blogs, internet sites, webshops, and internal websites.N/A
    Pricing
    ChannelscalerPlone
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    ChannelscalerPlone
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    ChannelscalerPlone
    Considered Both Products
    Channelscaler
    No answer on this topic
    Plone
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    16 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    15 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    16 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    14 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    93%
    Implementation went as expected
    13 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    ChannelscalerPlone
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Channelscaler and Plone
    Feature
    Channelscaler
    -
    Ratings
    Plone
    10.0
    5 Ratings
    19% above category average
    Role-based user permissions00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Channelscaler and Plone
    Feature
    Channelscaler
    -
    Ratings
    Plone
    10.0
    5 Ratings
    25% above category average
    API00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Channelscaler and Plone
    Feature
    Channelscaler
    -
    Ratings
    Plone
    9.4
    6 Ratings
    18% above category average
    WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings10.06 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    Admin section00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    Page templates00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    Library of website themes00 Ratings5.05 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    Publishing workflow00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    Form generator00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Channelscaler and Plone
    Feature
    Channelscaler
    -
    Ratings
    Plone
    9.4
    5 Ratings
    22% above category average
    Content taxonomy00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    SEO support00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
    Bulk management00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions00 Ratings8.05 Ratings
    Community / comment management00 Ratings9.05 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    ChannelscalerPlone
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    Umbraco CMS
    Score7 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    Square Online
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    ChannelscalerPlone
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (16 ratings)
    10.0
    (13 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (11 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (4 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    ChannelscalerPlone
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Channelscaler
    Allbound is a sleek solution that neatly organizes data. Clearly presents useful instructional content. The slowness of the CRM connection is a problem. When it comes to reaching out to our worldwide network of channel partners, we turn on Allbound to streamline our communication and sales enablement efforts. Our reseller partners may use this central hub to register new deals, stay up to speed on product changes, and have access to all relevant product information.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Plone
    The larger your organization, the more appropriate Plone will be. This is not to say that Plone is a worse choice for small websites, only that the minimum investment for a Plone site is certainly higher than for other platforms. If you already use Plone for your site and are looking for a redesign or an overhaul, I would only advise switching to a different platform such as WordPress or Drupal if your organization is downsizing. For any other situation, Plone is the natural choice for your growth.
    Read full review
    Pros
    Channelscaler
    • Content Management including sales & marketing resources, calendar items, distributor and partner communications, and news for partners
    • Deal registration and MDF management--providing an easy to use system for partners and Cambum administrators to enter and review requests.
    • Increasing partner engagement--providing an easy way to update the portal frequently keeps our partners coming back to see the latest and greatest resources and benefits
    Read full review
    Plone
    • Plone is a folder-based system, organising content in a similar way desktop-users are doing for the last two decades. No need to teach non-tech customers some relational-database like paradigm for content management.
    • Plone is secure. It is the most secure CMS you can get your hands on.
    • Plone is flexible, and makes fast development easy.
    Read full review
    Cons
    Channelscaler
    • The fact that you can't make payouts to partners within the platform itself is super frustrating and that would be a huge improvement.
    • The ability to track clicks, page views, etc is not available like on other partner platforms like Tune, Impact, and Cake. It would be awesome to see that tracking data for the content being shared.
    • Having more integrations with platforms like Zuora which we use for payments would be great.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Plone
    • Not everything is configurable or editable by Plone, and when you need to adjust or add custom pieces in, you need to deal with Zope. Zope has an ugly, confusing and difficult UI and structure as a backend.
    • Using 3rd party products is difficult to do - there are a few different ways to get them installed, all of which take a bit of luck to get right.
    • Building custom products for Plone is not fun. You've got to deal with an archaic framework to tie in that is not well documented (there is documentation about many things, but not great documentation and there are a lot of holes in the documentation).
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Channelscaler
    Allbound is so easy to use as an administrator and provides human support and a resource for its customers to learn about the features and tools available. Our partners consistently provide feedback to us about how much they absolutely love our partner portal, which Allbound provides the structure and functionality to allow us to over amazing things to thousands of partner globally. Almost every person who provides feedback says some iteration of "this is the best partner portal i've ever used."
    Read full review
    Plone
    We have critical systems running on Plone so will need it in the future.
    Free to use since its Open source, so we don't have to worry about licence costs.
    We know how to use and develop Plone and it has no limits.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Channelscaler
    It is by far the easiest system to administrator that I have either had experience doing or demoed from other vendors. No coding skills needed. Simple interfaces for everything. And the Allbound University and live support are great!
    Read full review
    Plone
    Compared to the amount of Plone sites, users and customizations we have in our organization, the amount of support requests and training needed is really small.
    The new user interface in Plone 6 is even better, it is super fast, has lots of different blocks for enhancing the page, has flexible layout system and is easy to extend with more features.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Channelscaler
    No answers on this topic
    Plone
    Our Plone sites are very robust. We have critical systems on Plone and we have been running sites on Plone for over 20 years with very little unexpected downtime.
    Read full review
    Performance
    Channelscaler
    No answers on this topic
    Plone
    Plone is very intensive in its operations, and if not configured well it can be slow. However it is designed and built with speed in mind and with proper use of coding, templates and caching can perform extremely well under high loads. It is capable of scaling to very high load availability environments with no specific coding requirements.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Channelscaler
    Allbound has a support team that is easy to contact right through the PRM interface. Additionally, we have a dedicated account manager and development team who are super responsive and helpful. Allbound has a ticketing system for support as well, which keeps you up to date on status of your support requests.
    Read full review
    Plone
    There are not too many Plone companies in the world. But the ones who are, are high level professionals
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Channelscaler
    No answers on this topic
    Plone
    I have been participating Plone training and the trainers have always been professional. Materials were good and the instructions clear
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Channelscaler
    No answers on this topic
    Plone
    Well organized, professional training with good materials and instructions
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Channelscaler
    Regular meetings, lots of UAT, quick responses, and adherence to our timeline made implementation a breeze -- even though we had some really complex processes we needed to support.
    Read full review
    Plone
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Channelscaler
    They are different in the sense that Allbound allows you to loop in different parners to a degree that HubSpot doesn't outside smaller extensions and portals. More visbility into interactions with HubSpot, but it's truly built for marketing vs a sales forward/partnership management tool.Extensions from Allbound into Google could be helpful
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Plone
    Drupal: Plone is cheaper, so with Drupal is more complex to reach the required ROI. However, Drupal has a lower learning curve WordPress: For our necessities it has a more expensive learning curve than plone. Joomla, is easier to use. However, it have some issues on security and web content where Plone is much better
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Channelscaler
    No answers on this topic
    Plone
    Plone has no limits. We have massive sites and can run them just fine
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Channelscaler
    • The sharing of knowledge has a positive effect on the partners who benefit from it.
    • Our smaller partners are now able to conduct their own campaigns with the help of our Campaigns in a Box, freeing us to concentrate on our larger clients.
    • Our latest products can all be better explained with the aid of our learning tracks.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Plone
    • The impact Plone has had at the University of Oshkosh is as follows: this software allows student workers to learn about IT departments and CMS's in a user-friendly way. It gives many students great jobs that look great on their resumes.
    • Since there are great training manuals for Plone, there is increased employee efficient in the workplace. Training doesn't take long, and if there's ever a question, the Plone manual is a great tool to refer to.
    • If an employee using Plone quits, its easy to find someone to replace them with quick training and great resources.
    Read full review
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