Evoq Content vs. TargetBay

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.

If you want to use email to market to your customer base and you don't want to handle the weekly chore of creating and sending the emails, then TargetBay and in particular, Danielle is the way to go. If you are not interested in email marketing or you can take care of that in-house, then there may be better choices to handle your reviews. It is rare today to find a company as responsive and easy to work with as TargetBay.

• 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.

• TargetBay has amazing chat support.
• TargetBay has a great onboarding process.
• TargetBay is very affordable compared to other programs that offer similar solutions.

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

• There is always room for improvement, however, I find Target Bay to be cost effective.

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.

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.

TargetBay, while it is a great tool and more than pays for itself, is not the most user-friendly and/or easy to use. Even our very tech-savvy employees have struggled through figuring out some of the work flows. While TargetBay's technical support team on chat is amazing, they are not always available and documentation on "how-to" user and or do XYZ on their platform needs improvement.

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.

If I could rate their chat support separately than their phone support, I would rate their chat support at an 8 or 9. Their chat support team, when online, can usually answer most any questions quickly and clearly. If they can't find the answer right away, they always follow up with an email providing you the help/assistance you need. However, their phone support is another story. I would rate the phone support a 4. Most of the times, while not all of the time, that we've had to talk with someone on the phone, we typically are left with more questions and/or not the answer we were looking for. I think this may be partially due to the language barrier, but either way it has pushed us to want to only use that chat option for support which, unfortunately, is more time-consuming.

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.

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 have used other customer review services in the past. I did not have the level of involvement with them like I do with Danielle and TargetBay. Email marketing is a major plus. And the PPC ads have been cost-effective. I am pleased with TargetBay and the results we have been getting since working with them.

• 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.

• We have seen a positive ROI with TargetBay. Once we get through Covid-19, it will be even better.
• I know we are communicating with our customers on a regular basis, keeping Sign Art Etc in their minds as in-person events start happening again.
• Emails we send are professional and creative. Much better than I would do.
• PPC with TargetBay is better than what we see with Google Ads.