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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Google Cloud Pub/Sub

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AGoogle offers Cloud Pub/Sub, a managed message oriented middleware supporting many-to-many asynchronous messaging between applications.N/A

    iContact

    Score6.8 out of 10
    N/AiContact is an email marketing solution that was acquired by Vocus in 2012. The product is integrated with Facebook and Twitter and is aimed at SMBs with unlimited sending as a key feature.

    $14

    per month

    Pricing
    Google Cloud Pub/SubiContact
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    1500 Users
    $15.00
    per month
    2500 Users
    $25.00
    per month
    5000 Users
    $45.00
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Google Cloud Pub/SubiContact
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Google Cloud Pub/SubiContact
    Considered Both Products
    Google
    No answer on this topic
    iContact
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    8 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    8 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    8 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    5 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    8 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Google Cloud Pub/SubiContact
    Email & Online Marketing
    Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Google Cloud Pub/Sub and iContact
    Feature
    Google Cloud Pub/Sub
    -
    Ratings
    iContact
    6.6
    26 Ratings
    19% below category average
    WYSIWYG email editor00 Ratings7.024 Ratings
    Dynamic content00 Ratings7.021 Ratings
    Ability to test dynamic content00 Ratings5.021 Ratings
    Landing pages00 Ratings7.014 Ratings
    A/B testing00 Ratings5.017 Ratings
    Mobile optimization00 Ratings7.021 Ratings
    Email deliverability reporting00 Ratings7.025 Ratings
    List management00 Ratings8.025 Ratings
    Triggered drip sequences00 Ratings6.015 Ratings
    Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Google Cloud Pub/Sub and iContact
    Feature
    Google Cloud Pub/Sub
    -
    Ratings
    iContact
    8.0
    26 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Dashboards00 Ratings8.026 Ratings
    Standard reports00 Ratings8.025 Ratings
    Custom reports00 Ratings8.015 Ratings
    Pre-Send Testing
    Comparison of Pre-Send Testing features of Google Cloud Pub/Sub and iContact
    Feature
    Google Cloud Pub/Sub
    -
    Ratings
    iContact
    7.0
    1 Ratings
    15% below category average
    URL Validation00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Link Tracking00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Image Validation00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Inbox Display00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Email Accessibility Tools00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Spelling and Grammar Check00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Spam Testing00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Email Previews00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Google Cloud Pub/SubiContact
    Small Businesses
    Amazon SNS
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Mad Mimi
    Score10 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Amazon SNS
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Campaign Monitor by Marigold
    Score9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    TIBCO Rendezvous
    Score6 out of 10
    Emma by Marigold
    Score8.5 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Google Cloud Pub/SubiContact
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (8 ratings)
    8.0
    (45 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    3.4
    (19 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    8.0
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.8
    (3 ratings)
    9.9
    (9 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.5
    (2 ratings)
    Configurability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Google Cloud Pub/SubiContact
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Google
    If you want to stream high volumes of data, be it for ETL streaming or event sourcing, Google Cloud Pub/Sub is your go-to tool. It's easy to learn, easy to observe its metrics and scales with ease without additional configuration so if you have more producers of consumers, all you need to do is to deploy on k8s your solutions so that you can perform autoscaling on your pods to adjust to the data volume. The DLQ is also very transparent and easy to configure. Your code will have no logic whatsoever regarding orchestrating pubsub, you just plug and play. However, if you are not in the Google Cloud Pub/Sub environment, you might have trouble or be most likely unable to use it since I think it's a product of Google Cloud.
    Read full review
    iContact
    I would only recommend it if someone was a small business. I think they are the best suited for companies who will send out a coupon or offer here and there. The most recent updates made it more complicated to use for more complicated processes. It is easy to train someone on the program, and so quick to learn. But I would also only stick to the simpler things. I also think the colorful templates are great, and show great creativity. But again, it is hard to justify recommending the program when it isn't WYSIWYG.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Google
    • With a pub/sub architecture the consumer is decoupled in time from the publisher i.e. if the consumer goes down, it can replay any events that occurred during its downtime.
    • It also allows consumer to throttle and batch incoming data providing much needed flexibility while working with multiple types of data sources
    • A simple and easy to use UI on cloud console for setup and debugging
    • It enables event-driven architectures and asynchronous parallel processing, while improving performance, reliability and scalability
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iContact
    • Contact management. iContact is really great for entering all your contact. You are able to put them onto different lists, and let them choose which lists they would like to be a part of as well. There are many data fields provided to fill in information.
    • Emailing. We use the email feature at least once a month. They are always improving and adding new features, which is very helpful in presenting content in a new and exciting way to our readers. There are many options with remade templates and themes, or you can add your own.
    • Insights. It is really helpful being able to have the data to see what is working and what isn't. It is nice to be able to go back and see how things went in the past compared to now. Opens, clicks, shares, etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Google
    • Would be nice if the queue could be extended beyond 7 days.
    • We found it a bit tricky replay unacknowledged messages when needed.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iContact
    • We also would like to send transactional messages which don't require an opt-out, this is a challenge with iContact. (May be a feature with pro?)
    • The regular version of iContact doesn't support event management or logic flows for automated messaging.
    • Custom form fields have limited field type options (can't build a drop-down).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Google
    It serves all of our purposes in the most transparent way I can imagine, after seeing other message queueing providers, I can only attest to its quality.
    Read full review
    iContact
    iContact has been a quick and easy way to send any announcements and news directly to email and social media subscribers. Its tracking and reporting capabilities turn a simple email into a marketing campaign that can be used as a tool to efficiently gauge reader response and customer satisfaction, and ultimately to reach potential customers. The consistency and excellent customer service is what makes this program a pleasant experience.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Google
    It is easy to create Google Cloud Pub/Sub topics from both Web Console and CLI commands.
    Google Cloud Pub/Sub supports creation of one or more subscriptions.
    By supporting a BigQuery Pub/Sub subscription to automatically write to a BigQuery table it simplifies development by avoiding implementation of a custom micro service for writes to BigQuery.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iContact
    I rate iContact as an easy to use program due to its user friendly dashboard and user interface. Most companies of small to medium size do not have a dedicated marketer, therefore it is someone multitasking who may or may not have this kind of experience. iContact makes it relatively simple and can actually expand one's knowledge in the area of business promotion.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Google
    I have never faced a single problem in 4 years.
    Read full review
    iContact
    iContact is regularly up and running. Only once has it been unavailable for maintenance, which is to be expected and even desired for optimal performance when needed.
    Read full review
    Performance
    Google
    It's very fast, can be even better if you use protobuf.
    Read full review
    iContact
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Google
    They have decent documentation, but you need to pay for support. We weren't able to answer all our questions with the documentation and didn't have time to setup support before we needed it so I can't give it a higher rating but I think it tends to be a bit slow unless you're a GCP enterprise support customer.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iContact
    They have always been responsive to any issues or concerns that have arisen with our account. Our customer account manager participates in our monthly county-wide communicators meetings via telephone to ensure that we are getting the most from the service. He also analyzes our lists to help us weed out inactive contacts.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    iContact
    The templates are difficult to customize, and they don't render well in email platforms
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    iContact
    i wouldn't be using it if i wasn't satisfied. time is money
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Google
    Having used Amazon Web Services SNS & SQS I can say that even if the latter may offer more features, Google Cloud Pub/Sub is easier to use. On the other hand, usage of SNS & SQS as well as documentation and troubleshooting is easier with the AWS solution. Since we are not using GCP only for Pub/Sub the choice depends on other variables.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iContact
    I didn't have a say in the decision because I wasn't with the company at the time. I listed HubSpot here because I know we used it in conjunction with iContact for email automation, but HubSpot Email was only recently built-out to the point where it is today. Now, iContact and HubSpot are no longer integrated.
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Google
    You can just plug in consumers at will and it will respond, there's no need for further configuration or introducing new concepts. You have a queue, if it's slow, you plug in more consumers to process more messages: simple as that.
    Read full review
    iContact
    iContact stays the same with the number of users added or taken away. It certainly remains reliable despite increased usage, and so, can be considered scaleable in that aspect.
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Google
    • Increased Efficiency with reliable and Google managed services up all the time wit Disaster Recovery in place as well
    • Definitely Lower costs being a cloud based solution and easier to setup
    • Faster Project delivery and go to market plan for the business use cases basis this technology at the back end
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iContact
    • We have a template for webinars that we send every month. We just edit it and send. This couldn't be easier (once you know where to find it).
    • We like the breakdown of statistics in the dashboard. They're easy to read.
    • iContact isn't a comprehensive solution, so it is only one of a few products we use for marketing.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots