IBM Digital Commerce vs. Laravel PHP Framework vs. Salesforce Agentforce Commerce

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
IBM Digital Commerce is an e-commerce platform that is designed to deliver omni-channel shopping experiences, including mobile, social, and in-store. In June 2019, IBM Digital Commerce was acquired by HCL Technologies.N/A
Laravel PHP Framework
Score 9.8 out of 10
N/A
Laravel is a free, open source web application PHP framework.N/A
Agentforce Commerce
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Salesforce Agentforce Commerce (formerly Commerce Cloud, and Demandware before that) is a cloud-based eCommerce solution for enterprises with merchandising tools, such as sorting, filtering, and image zooming, allowing customers to browse products.
$4
per month
Pricing
IBM Digital CommerceLaravel PHP FrameworkSalesforce Agentforce Commerce
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Digital CommerceLaravel PHP FrameworkAgentforce Commerce
Free Trial
NoNoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsB2B Commerce: Starter - $4 price/order Growth - $6 price/order Plus - $8 price/order B2C Commerce: Starter - 1% Gross Merchandise Value Growth - 2% Gross Merchandise Value Plus - 3% Gross Merchandise Value B2B2C Commerce: 1% Gross Merchandise Value
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM Digital CommerceLaravel PHP FrameworkSalesforce Agentforce Commerce
Considered Multiple Products
IBM Digital Commerce
Chose IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce was a lot more customizable and had a good engine for us to make enhancements. We were not locked down to certain integrations and we were able to utilize a lot of the features outside of the box vs using a prescribed set of features and functionality that …
Laravel PHP Framework

No answer on this topic

Agentforce Commerce

No answer on this topic

Features
IBM Digital CommerceLaravel PHP FrameworkSalesforce Agentforce Commerce
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
IBM Digital Commerce
7.6
3 Ratings
2% below category average
Laravel PHP Framework
-
Ratings
Salesforce Agentforce Commerce
8.7
44 Ratings
11% above category average
Product catalog & listings8.03 Ratings00 Ratings9.139 Ratings
Product management8.03 Ratings00 Ratings9.239 Ratings
Bulk product upload8.03 Ratings00 Ratings7.938 Ratings
Branding8.03 Ratings00 Ratings8.839 Ratings
Mobile storefront8.03 Ratings00 Ratings8.935 Ratings
Product variations8.03 Ratings00 Ratings9.041 Ratings
Website integration8.03 Ratings00 Ratings8.339 Ratings
Visual customization8.03 Ratings00 Ratings7.840 Ratings
CMS4.02 Ratings00 Ratings9.237 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
IBM Digital Commerce
6.0
3 Ratings
24% below category average
Laravel PHP Framework
-
Ratings
Salesforce Agentforce Commerce
8.7
34 Ratings
13% above category average
Abandoned cart recovery6.02 Ratings00 Ratings8.528 Ratings
Checkout user experience6.03 Ratings00 Ratings8.934 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
IBM Digital Commerce
6.0
3 Ratings
33% below category average
Laravel PHP Framework
-
Ratings
Salesforce Agentforce Commerce
9.1
33 Ratings
9% above category average
eCommerce security6.03 Ratings00 Ratings9.133 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
IBM Digital Commerce
7.0
3 Ratings
9% below category average
Laravel PHP Framework
-
Ratings
Salesforce Agentforce Commerce
8.1
38 Ratings
5% above category average
Promotions & discounts7.03 Ratings00 Ratings8.536 Ratings
Personalized recommendations7.03 Ratings00 Ratings7.938 Ratings
SEO7.03 Ratings00 Ratings7.933 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
IBM Digital Commerce
6.2
3 Ratings
26% below category average
Laravel PHP Framework
-
Ratings
Salesforce Agentforce Commerce
9.0
41 Ratings
12% above category average
Multi-site management8.03 Ratings00 Ratings9.035 Ratings
Order processing5.03 Ratings00 Ratings8.738 Ratings
Inventory management6.03 Ratings00 Ratings9.037 Ratings
Shipping6.03 Ratings00 Ratings9.330 Ratings
Custom functionality6.03 Ratings00 Ratings9.138 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM Digital CommerceLaravel PHP FrameworkSalesforce Agentforce Commerce
Small Businesses
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 out of 10
CodeIgniter
CodeIgniter
Score 10.0 out of 10
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus
Score 8.9 out of 10
Symfony
Symfony
Score 10.0 out of 10
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus
Score 8.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Kentico Xperience
Kentico Xperience
Score 7.0 out of 10

No answers on this topic

IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM Digital CommerceLaravel PHP FrameworkSalesforce Agentforce Commerce
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(5 ratings)
7.7
(17 ratings)
8.5
(55 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(2 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
7.8
(11 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(11 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM Digital CommerceLaravel PHP FrameworkSalesforce Agentforce Commerce
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
I think WebSphere Commerce is well suited for customers looking to sell products online that need robustness and scalability as a priority. It provides a complete order cycle out of the box, or you can integrate with your existing order fulfillment. Online shopping models like digital subscriptions or a marketplace are not well suited as it requires a lot of customization
Read full review
Open Source
I would say that Laravel is not a suitable framework for high-frequency, high-volume, real-time interaction or processing millions of records in batch operations. It shines for standard database web applications (CRUD, Admin Panels, etc.) and is a fantastic multi-developer framework.
Read full review
Salesforce
Global Sites; larger commerce organizations but not too large where the % rev-share would affect its feasibility in a feature comparison. Salesforce is rock solid in infrastructure and rarely has outages or issues; it scaled appropriately for holiday peak and was able to accomplish anything we put our minds to as long as we staffed development appropriately. The latter, however, is not to be overlooked. Developers are necessary and expensive.
Read full review
Pros
IBM
  • Websphere commerce provides efficient contract based pricing. Contract based pricing greatly helps in handling prices for different business
  • Catalog filtering is one other strength of websphere commerce, as it helps to filter the show only those products that the customer is entitled to
  • Extended site model is one other strength of WCS as it greatly helps in having multiple e-commerce sites for different demographics, for branding etc
Read full review
Open Source
  • Laravel utilizes the best possible PHP standards and coding practices.
  • Laravel uses many widely-accepted community libraries and builds upon them, rather than re-inventing everything.
  • Laravel has many components available from the community and is extremely easy to build custom components for, either with custom code or by integrating existing third-party PHP libraries.
  • Laravel is flexible enough to power pretty much any kind of application I can imagine.
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Traffic - When we have sales, our traffic will increase exponentially and their cloud can handle the huge uptick in traffic we receive without overloading our servers.
  • Site updates - it continually monitors in the background for any upgrades or updates needed so we don't have to go in and do it ourselves. A real time saver!
  • Integration - outside plugins and add-ons are easy to install with Salesforce commerce cloud as it allows a seamless integration of extra plug ins onto our site.
Read full review
Cons
IBM
  • The e-Marketing spots contain content associated with marketing activities to target customer segment - needs some improvement. The algorithm to set up the priority of each of the Web Activity with in eMarketing spot is little bit confusing.
  • The catalog load can be simplified.
  • WebSphere Commerce is a huge application - someone needs to spend at least 5-6 years to learn about the whole application.
Read full review
Open Source
  • Laravel is updated regularly, which is great. However, in order to get the latest features, use the newest 3rd party libraries, have the most current security updates, and ensure that the newest features of PHP are usable, you have to continuously upgrade your Laravel application. This costs time and money, obviously, and if you don't stay on top of the updates you will quickly fall behind. This is the case with any open source software, but it needs to be considered for any team considering using Laravel or any other software.
  • Because of the size of the Laravel community, there are a LOT of 3rd party libraries. Some of these are great, some are less than great. Sometimes it's difficult to evaluate the quality of a library, making it difficult to trust many libraries. Developers need to be cautious and thoughtful when considering using new software.
  • Because of the rapid development of the Laravel framework, the size of the community, and the simplicity of being able to publish content online - it is very easy to find documentation, tutorials, or other "advice" that is not up to date, or that has outdated information.
Read full review
Salesforce
  • The UX within the Business Manager portion of Demandware, the primary interface for marketers, is generally a confusing, inconsistent mess. Particularly infuriating are the lack of consistency for search and sort behavior within the tool.
  • A number of useful features, such as the ability to set schedules or tie features to unique customer segments, have seemingly arbitrary limitations imposed.
  • Demandware's idea of leveraging the community to be a learning resource and a sounding board for new ideas and features is a nice theory, but in practice it doesn't work for businesses with a lot of customization. I'm left with the impression that individual support is not a priority.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
IBM
The scalability and various configurations of the product allows for a wide range of e-commerce site features. It provides a storefront to begin with so it helps with speeding up development.
Read full review
Open Source
Laravel PHP Framework has continued to exceed my expectations. It supported me in the development of a high quality and stable web application that is mission critical for the organization. I cannot imagine wanting to use any other tool for web development. Documentation, unit tests, and numerous integration options make using Laravel PHP Framework a natural choice.
Read full review
Salesforce
A huge factor influencing our decision to remain on the Demandware platform is that our new parent company is standardizing all its luxury brands in the US on it. We are fortunate. However, even if we had remained an independent company, I believe we would continue on the Demandware platform for all the reasons outlined in this review. I appreciate the stability the platform has provided to our eCommerce site in the last three years as well as the continuous improvements and technological advances being rolled out that will allow us to keep the site fresh, engaging, modern and stable. I've heard many horror stories from colleagues on other platforms who struggle with the expense and complexity involved with making what should be minor and simple changes and updates to their sites.
Read full review
Usability
IBM
No answers on this topic
Open Source
As I mentioned earlier Laravel PHP Framework has lot of in built feature as well as there is vast set of packages available to add the features in your application. It has very large community who can help when you feel stuck somewhere. This is why this rating is justified.
Read full review
Salesforce
The overall ease of using the system. Consolidation in location for our team members. Mobile application for on the go research, as many of our team members are constantly traveling to job sites or to meet clients. No more duplicate calls to current customers, since we have 12 different divisions that span the company. Mostly the ability to look at the database when our team members begin cultivating a new
lead/prospect with a potential customer to see if anyone within the team has a
relationship with that person or the company they work for.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
IBM
No answers on this topic
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
We have only had one instance where the platform went down in the time we have been using it.
Read full review
Support Rating
IBM
No answers on this topic
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
They are very responsive and a support technician will be assigned quickly. Even if there is further clarification needed for the ticket, or a solution is not immediately available, you feel that someone is there and staying on top of the issue. Most common issues are resolved quickly and satisfactorily.
Read full review
In-Person Training
IBM
No answers on this topic
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
The in-person training was thorough. Trainer was pretty dry, but covered everything really well.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
IBM
No answers on this topic
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Implementation went fairly smoothly.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
IBM
IBM Digital Commerce was a lot more customizable and had a good engine for us to make enhancements. We were not locked down to certain integrations and we were able to utilize a lot of the features outside of the box vs using a prescribed set of features and functionality that other tools would force us to use
Read full review
Open Source
Supporting unit testing is bigger plus point in Laravel than any other framework. Developing with Laravel is much easier. Other frameworks have value in market, but Laravel has taken the lead in popularity among PHP developers in recent years. The large community supports you if you have problems. Using Laravel, integration became easy with third-party libraries, but it was costly too.
Read full review
Salesforce
When I think of Salesforce products, I sometimes think of them interchangeably as one big lump. It's hard not to be incredibly immersed in the ecosystem day in and day out and taking advantage of resources like Trailhead. While Microsoft Dynamics compares in quality and offerings, it doesn't offer the same engagement and resources as Salesforce in its communications, social, and marketing, which makes a difference in terms of relevance and help. Commerce Cloud comes with the support you need to succeed and the tools you need to grow. In a high demand consumer world, we need products like this to keep up and get ahead. The minute we catch up, we're behind. Salesforce helps you stay on pace and create the unique and personalized experiences customers everywhere expect.
Read full review
Return on Investment
IBM
  • For our clients in the apparel industry, the flexibility that WCS provides to scale up really helped their online business to grow tremendously.
  • Our client in the restaurant industry can't quite leverage what WCS has to offer though as it doesn't really fit their shopping model.
  • Another positive impact is that it allows our clients to streamline their commerce system in interacting with their backend.
Read full review
Open Source
  • Positive: Our delivery time for PHP application is faster than usual.
  • Positive: Developers are happy and they write better code with their usual development tools. No tool-upgrade necessary.
  • Negative: Initial delivery took 6 months extra and had to rewrite project several times.
Read full review
Salesforce
  • In my experience I see most of the retailers see better sales after moving to Demandware.
  • Site performance is really good if the application built with best practices suggested by Demandware.
  • Service integrations have some limitations in terms of quota etc but still all are inside manageable grounds.
Read full review
ScreenShots