Evoq Content vs. Image Relay vs. MarcomCentral

If you just need to implement a website that is dynamic but not real big in Data Processing almost anyone can do so with very limited knowledge as long as you know how to use a Word Processor and your Browser. If you don't have experience with setting up a Server to run a website there are Companies like PowerDNN, Rackspace and WinHost that can help and I recommend them in that order if you are using DNN. If you need a more sophisticated e-commerce website and don't have much experience with Servers, SQL Server etc. then you should find a consultant to help you install and setup not just the DNN Platform but also select the proper Modules to accomplish what you want to do. If you need a highly customized website that is very data intensive and you are not experienced then be sure to save yourself the time and money by finding a qualified Consultant to help you. The beauty of DNN is that it can handle as simple or as complicated of an Application as you need depending on what your needs are and how far you want to take it.

Image Relay is intelligently designed for any marketer, especially if your products require a library of images and video and especially if you feel like your team could use some quality onboarding to make sure everything is set up right and to make sure your team is equipped to use the software effectively. Specifically speaking, since we have so many products and we're building a bigger direct relationship with customers, it was important that we have an easy way to store and access assets that can represent those products and resonate with potential customers. Image Relay also made it really easy to group assets for sharing with influencers and other marketing partners. Dropbox and Google Drive may have their place and their functionalities that set them apart, so it's important to not look at Image Relay like one of those older document services storage spaces — though those companies could learn a lot from how Image Relay helps marketers enrich their assets and store them smartly.

Incentivized

Pros: I like that we can easily add products and how simple it is for our static products. It's easy to add users, products and cost centers. The approval process for products is easy and intuitive. It's a localized resource that our users can use. Cons: The back end of the product is fairly slow. It takes a long time to add products because of how slow it is at times. The reporting for the portal could be better. I know the Business Intelligence feature was created to solve reporting. Also sometimes we experience difficulty with customizable products. I feel like there's more options to build this out more based on the users needs. Overall: It's a localized place where users can find collateral and promotional items.

Incentivized

• DNN is a feature-rich, open-source project with a flexible license. This let us use it without licensing costs for custom solutions or as-is with no custom code just plug-in modules.
• DNN is written in Microsoft .NET C#. This allows our developers and our customers to use their existing skill set to install and maintain the solution.
• DNN is made for Windows platform, allowing us and our customers to deploy solutions to existing Windows servers or in some cases hosted platforms.
• DNN integrates with Windows authentication allowing us to deploy intranet solutions and use single sign-on for improved user experience and security.

• Enables us to organize a large number of files in an easy-to-use format
• Keeps our files safe. Much of the work we do is private until our partners approve of our marketing going public so file security is critical to our operation.
• Image Relay makes it easy for our team to track and access a wide range of files - especially photos and contracts.

Incentivized

• The best part of MarcomCentral is its flexibility to solve many unique problems for our customers. It gives us the ability to build solutions that truly allow our customers to operate more efficiently.
• The best admin feature that I use all day, every day, is the Bulk Operations feature. This allows me to manage entire portals through spreadsheets allowing me to create and manage massive amounts of products, users, and images very efficiently.
• The reporting feature is second to none as well. Our most successful customers are paying close attention to the ordering history of their products. This allows them to fight obsolescence and focus on the products that their teams or customers are truly using.

Incentivized

• It can be a bit heavy-handed when it comes to styling. It's sometimes necessary to spend a little extra time to overcome styling issues.
• Up until version 8 of the core DNN platform, implementing single page applications (SPAs) required extra efforts.
• It is very difficult to split a site across multiple servers for load balancing

Incentivized

• The AI tagging terms are too generic to really be helpful to us.
• When we did our initial upload the system couldn't pull in old dates, so everything has a date of the day it was uploaded. It will be a while before searching by "most recent" works properly.

Incentivized

• The uploading process is a bit clunky
• Overall user experience from an admin side could be refreshed to be more modern and easier to use

Incentivized

Even though DNN is a good CMS, I have worked with other CMSs which are far more robust at this point, and would not be overly inclined to select DNN unless cost of the product is the most important factor along with staying on .NET. DNN is a whole package so unless the client has a requirement of including authentication, authorization for users, eCommerce, sticking to something simple is a better option.

I believe once all of our staff see how efficient Image Relay is in managing our digital assets, there will be no question that the cost vs. value will mandate continued use moving forward. It literally will pay for itself in saved staff time, I believe.

Incentivized

Evoq proved to be a solid backbone for our property-management portal, handling ≈300 active rental listings without performance hiccups. The page-builder made it straightforward to craft listing templates that surface photo galleries, floor-plan PDFs, and embedded map pins, while role-based workflows let leasing agents edit unit details (price, availability, pet policy) without touching global site settings—a big win for operational control.

For the management side, the platform’s extensibility let us plug in a third-party rent-payment widget and an automated maintenance-ticket form with minimal custom code. Evoq’s built-in analytics have already highlighted which neighborhoods and bedroom counts drive the most traffic, guiding our marketing spend.

Two caveats:


Search & filter logic – Out-of-the-box search was too shallow for renters who expect Zillow-style filtering. We had to commission a custom module for filter chips (price range, amenities, walk score), which added time and cost.
Mobile image optimization – High-resolution gallery images affected load times on 4G; a CDN or Evoq’s Digital Asset Optimizer add-on is advisable.



Overall, Evoq delivers reliable content governance and enough flexibility to support both consumer-facing listings and back-office property-management workflows, provided you budget for advanced search customization and image delivery tuning.

Image Relay is very straightforward. The experience and interface mimic things were all used to using so it makes it very easy to learn and use. They didn't try to reinvent the wheel by making a fancy tool, they just made something that works and does exactly what you need it to do. They also have an awesome team that is quick to help and answer any questions along the way.

Incentivized

I don't see how it could get any better unless they moved their staff into our offices. You have available to you any type of Support you need or want, both paid and free from thousands of developers and consultants all over the world. You might even find some on Mars if you look hard enough.Also, with all of the available resources available from your Browser you can literally find the answer to any question you have in a matter of minutes.

Amazing. We are having a quick call once a week to be sure we are right on track. They answer all our questions right away and if they are missing something they will just find the answer and get back to us as fast as possible. There is no need to look elsewhere!

Incentivized

Evoq proved to be a solid backbone for our property-management portal, handling ≈300 active rental listings without performance hiccups. The page-builder made it straightforward to craft listing templates that surface photo galleries, floor-plan PDFs, and embedded map pins, while role-based workflows let leasing agents edit unit details (price, availability, pet policy) without touching global site settings—a big win for operational control.

For the management side, the platform’s extensibility let us plug in a third-party rent-payment widget and an automated maintenance-ticket form with minimal custom code. Evoq’s built-in analytics have already highlighted which neighborhoods and bedroom counts drive the most traffic, guiding our marketing spend.

Two caveats:


Search & filter logic – Out-of-the-box search was too shallow for renters who expect Zillow-style filtering. We had to commission a custom module for filter chips (price range, amenities, walk score), which added time and cost.
Mobile image optimization – High-resolution gallery images affected load times on 4G; a CDN or Evoq’s Digital Asset Optimizer add-on is advisable.



Overall, Evoq delivers reliable content governance and enough flexibility to support both consumer-facing listings and back-office property-management workflows, provided you budget for advanced search customization and image delivery tuning.

The Image Relay team was very helpful in guiding us through the process. Excellent customer service and guidance.

Incentivized

Drupal is a highly expensive tool and is not offering anything extraordinary at a high price. If I keep its pricing in account then there should be some extraordinary features but unfortunately, there isn’t anything special about it; rather it was slow in its working. All these things actually forced us to move to Evoq that is just perfect in its working. Its working speed, interface, and UX are so simple that none of our team members find it tough to utilize. It has so many features like content scheduling and rich text edit. It allows easy editing of the text as well, and one can directly add text according to need.

Incentivized

We were using our in-house storage NAS system and Backup on DVD and hard drive. The issue is that we lost a lot of data by it either crashing or becoming unreadable. And it's very difficult to organize and share data. To share data we were using WeTransfer, but the issue is that the link expired in 7 days.

Incentivized

We chose this program to test it out and decided to keep it. It helped in many ways and improved the quality of our marketing and digital marketing work essentially. We noticed not only that our ads and content became better, but we also noticed that our know-how improved by adding valuable insights to our news.

Incentivized

• DNN have given us the ability to have basic sites for clients up and running in a very short time. This makes the client happy.
• DNN has taken the trivial, simple tasks of changing text on a page or an image on a page and put it into the hands of the client. They do not have to pay us to do it and that also frees up more time for us to spend on development.

• Image Relay has only offered positive impacts for me. The search function is great when used properly — our photographers can input tons of metadata that is later used to find certain teams or players within the website.
• I don't mind having duplicates in the system as long as they are in places they need to be, but Image Relay does tell you when you've uploaded something multiple times which could be helpful to others.

Incentivized

• Fully robust tool to help manage our internal assets, ability to customize digital assets or send them to print, a way to share assets across the entire enterprise in simple, easy user interface.
• Marcom's print-on-demand functionality is fantastic. There are so many possibilities that we are just beginning to explore. There are some integration hiccups but mostly on our end, and Marcom has worked to help us through those as best as they can. Also, they have been very open in discussing improvements that we are looking for and keeping us up to date on the progress of those updates within their own development schedule. The depth of this software is extensive and their customer support personnel are always very friendly and helpful.
• Very customizable and a lot of things you can accomplish in Marcom Central. They are always willing to help us work out any need we come up with and make it work in the system.

Incentivized