Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager) vs. Fuze

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Call Manager is a unified call control center from Cisco that supports enterprise collaboration functions across the spectrum of IP telephony, video & web conferencing, and messaging. Features include call forwarding, call back, call transfer, ad hoc conferencing, and call park.N/A
Fuze
Score 7.6 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Fuze is a cloud-based unified communications platform that includes IP PBX voice service, video conferencing, and collaboration tools such as content sharing and instant messaging capabilities. It also integrates with a wide range of popular CTI, CRM, and click-to-call solutions.
$15
per month
Pricing
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)Fuze
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
US Outbound
$0.02
Per Minute
Fuze Meetings
$15
Per User/Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)Fuze
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeRequired
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)Fuze
Considered Both Products
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)

No answer on this topic

Fuze
Chose Fuze
Fuze is on par with its feature set of any cloud pbx provider I have seen.
Chose Fuze
Although Avaya offers some cloud-based solutions, they didn't have the features we were looking for in the price-range we were willing to pay. ShoreTel has great features and great pricing, but we would be heavily reliant on hardware at each location or a higher level of …
Chose Fuze
Cisco is a much better product for reliability and support, however, it requires far more resources in-house to support the platform. Fuze, however, requires very few internal resources to support a large number of employees.
Chose Fuze
CallManager requires servers, Voice routers, independent PBX providers, SIP providers and admins who know how to manage all of that. Fuze alleviates the need for Cisco VOIP and telecommunications experts and simplifies and consolidates every site onto a single hosted platform …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)Fuze
Cloud PBX
Comparison of Cloud PBX features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
7.5
40 Ratings
9% below category average
Fuze
5.9
111 Ratings
33% below category average
Hosted PBX9.919 Ratings5.578 Ratings
Multi-level Interactive Voice Response (IVR)6.029 Ratings6.373 Ratings
User templates8.238 Ratings5.360 Ratings
Call reports5.337 Ratings6.592 Ratings
Directory of employee names8.138 Ratings6.0107 Ratings
Call Management
Comparison of Call Management features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
7.4
43 Ratings
13% below category average
Fuze
6.8
107 Ratings
21% below category average
Answering rules7.841 Ratings7.199 Ratings
Call recording5.626 Ratings6.489 Ratings
Call park8.037 Ratings7.273 Ratings
Call screening7.534 Ratings00 Ratings
Message alerts7.838 Ratings6.693 Ratings
VoIP system collaboration
Comparison of VoIP system collaboration features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
7.8
39 Ratings
6% below category average
Fuze
7.4
91 Ratings
11% below category average
Video conferencing9.329 Ratings7.377 Ratings
Audio conferencing8.839 Ratings7.590 Ratings
Video screen sharing6.215 Ratings00 Ratings
Instant messaging6.718 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile apps
Comparison of Mobile apps features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
8.8
23 Ratings
6% above category average
Fuze
8.1
103 Ratings
3% below category average
Mobile app for iOS8.423 Ratings8.194 Ratings
Mobile app for Android9.121 Ratings8.177 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)Fuze
Small Businesses
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 9.5 out of 10
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 9.5 out of 10
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
Score 9.1 out of 10
Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)Fuze
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(44 ratings)
8.0
(116 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.7
(20 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(4 ratings)
7.1
(12 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(3 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(14 ratings)
7.4
(88 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(111 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(3 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.8
(3 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(3 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)Fuze
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
The Cisco Unified Communications Manager platform would be most suited for the below scenarios. 1. An organization with very restricted policies and compliance where can't move to cloud-based solutions for data security. They can install the CUCM on-premises. 2. An organization that is still on a legacy phone system could adopt CUCM to save costs and have better services.
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Fuze
Fuze has way more capability than we need for our small office so it might be best suited for large installations, call centers, and complex environments. Our office is small and our needs [are] minimal, so when we need support we are challenged to understand the support person due to our lack of technical sophistication. We sometimes feel like we should switch to a solution more geared for consumers or SOHO. Nevertheless, Fuze provides reliable service at [a] reasonable cost that meets our needs, and because support is rarely needed we are happy with them most of the time, i.e. when support isn't needed.
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Pros
Cisco
  • This solution is extremely stable and has been running in our environment for several years without (unscheduled) downtime.
  • The ability to have voicemails automatically sent as an email message is extremely helpful in helping us to keep in touch while away from the desk.
  • The Call Manager provides us very granular settings to route our calls as we want.
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Fuze
  • Support Team - the best I have ever worked with. They help 24/7 on any issue I could come across. Usually it is an item I could fix myself and they fix it and show me how to fix the same issue if I have it in the future.
  • Contact Center - We do Commercial Collections involving Sales and Collections. We have 50 people on the phone at one time. Contact Center lets a Manager listen live and gives help if the rep needs help selling or collecting.
  • Pandemic 2020 - without Fuze we would have been unable to work for 3 months. They saved our "rears" since we already had all their services up and running for years.
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Cons
Cisco
  • Administration web page is little bit hard to understand at the beginning specially if you are not familiar with naming convention and GU Interfaces.
  • Call Detail Record interface is fine but would be desirable to include more options that fit organization needs in terms of reporting purposes.
  • Self Care Portal interface could be more useful to the end user if it includes options to manage some features without administrators involving.
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Fuze
  • Desktop application stability and compatibility with certain hardware.
  • Better installation - Per-user and per-computer installs sometimes compete with one another and/or upgrades fail to install.
  • [The] desktop app is not best for touchscreen-enabled devices due to lack of ability to scroll through messages using a finger or stylus.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
We have been using this product for 20+ years and will continue too. This is a great product and new features are always coming out.
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Fuze
Fuze is a solid application that is a great asset to the business for our sales staff to make daily calls to clients and candidates. Managers can monitor call data and times to keep up to date with team performance, as well as monitor calls for users on their team. The Fuze/MS Teams integration is an exciting prospect that would be very beneficial to us as a business, for seamless integration between the 2 platforms.
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Usability
Cisco
Although it's very easy to use, once you understand the concepts of IP telephony, as I said before, I think Cisco could have improved the management interface of the platform, adding modern technologies and the design language of the other platforms like DNA Center, etc. This interface hasn't had a substantial improvement for about 10 years
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Fuze
Fuze was built with the end-user in mind. It was built to have a common interface on mobile and desktop. Fuze Web is new, and it also has the exact same interface as the desktop and mobile, and they are still working on the ability to make phone calls from the browser itself, currently it can do meetings just fine. Everything about Fuze was built with the end-user in mind.
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Reliability and Availability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Fuze
We've had a few outages over the past year. More than other vendors I've used. They usually have outages fixed within an hour. The downside is they do not provide root cause of outages. If they do at takes them at least a month to get it to you
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Performance
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Fuze
Since Fuze runs across multiple devices and platforms they really strived to make a lightweight interface that is optimized for phone calls, chat, and collaboration. The web client loads fast, the chat is always up-to-date, phone calls arrive on-time. The desktop client is the most feature rich and basically it just adds desktop sharing functionality as well as VoIP for calling, and the mobile client doesn't consume a lot of battery, and it stays running to get phone calls, chats, and can do meetings over Wifi, Cellular Data, or Cellular voice.
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Support Rating
Cisco
CUCM is supported by most third-party vendors for related products, so it makes finding solutions to specific needs easy. Also Cisco TAC is very knowledgeable, and we have never run into a problem they have not been able to resolve. Usually they are resolved without the need to escalate tickers either.
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Fuze
Our experience with Fuze support has been overall very positive. Their technicians seem to be well trained and able to handle a variety of requests and issues without unnecessary delays or extensive troubleshooting. Fuze allows enough customer access to avoid the need to call support for every little issue but is ready to assist when issues are beyond our capabilities to resolve.
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In-Person Training
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Fuze
At many of our sites with more than 50 users, Fuze sent someone onsite to train. This worked surprisingly well, as the trainer allowed the users to set the pace and answered TONS of questions. Fuze has a very streamlined training process, their staff is very professional, very knowledgeable and very engaging.
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Online Training
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Fuze
Fuze has vast amounts of training videos and guides on how to use its products and services. There are literally endless-hours of training and I often point end-users to a particular video which addresses the specific needs of the user, for example: how to check voicemail. Or, how to share your desktop, etc.
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Implementation Rating
Cisco
This was the first phone system we implemented that could span multiple locations. We were very satisfied once fully implemented
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Fuze
Personally, I didn't have any trouble getting started with Fuze. It was installed on my computer on my first day and I was good to go! Little to no hiccups. I was not with the company when they first adapted Fuze so I can not speak to the implementation as a whole.
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Alternatives Considered
Cisco
We have been a Cisco based shop and have looked at other cloud voice options such as MS Teams pbx, and others, but ultimately, the features, endpoints, and reliability of Cisco has been the common factor in staying with them as our voice provider. Their integrations, room systems, and hybrid design allows for us to be flexible and keep a high up time vs reliance on 100% cloud.
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Fuze
Fuze was far more expensive and more complicated to set up. Our current platform took a few days to set up with SSO. Our contact center took a bit longer but works amazingly.
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Scalability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Fuze
Fuze does have scalability limits but most of that is how many end-points they can put on a virtual PBX, or VCX as they call them, I THINK its limit is somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000, but we've not had issues with that because we have put users into various VCXs some by location, some by department or function. Either way, we have 7,000 currently deployed, and are going to end up with over 15,000 when we are done, Fuze is VERY scalable.
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • Communication and collaboration - Our offices are able to communicate both internally and externally due to this system.
  • Down time - Struggles with CUCM has caused a lot of down time due to the instability of the system.
  • High Costs - the cost of both the license and the maintenance was much higher than other systems.
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Fuze
  • We receive constant negative feedback from mangers about the system not functioning correctly. (This is mainly due to lack of support from Fuze)
  • This has had a positive impact in that the system is cheaper and we are missing less calls due to the functionality of the system.
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ScreenShots