Ion, by Rock Content vs. WordPress

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Ion, by Rock Content
Score 8.0 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Ion is an enterprise-grade content experience platform that empowers modern marketers and designers to create no-code interactive content experiences integrated with their CRM or marketing automation tools. Ion helps enterprises to build brand awareness and increase conversions and lead generation enriching their contact database with declared, high intent data. Ion helps brands launch quizzes, ROI calculators, assessments, interactive infographics, and other interactive formats in…N/A
WordPress
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Wordpress is an open-source publishing platform popular with bloggers, and a content management system, known for its simplicity and modifiability. Websites may host their own blogging communities, controlling and moderating content from a single dashboard.N/A
Pricing
Ion, by Rock ContentWordPress
Editions & Modules
Managed Services + SaaS
Custom
per year
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Ion, by Rock ContentWordPress
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup Fee$5,500 per customerNo setup fee
Additional Detailsion’s Build Anything SaaS platform provides organizations with an entirely new and agile interactive content marketing capability. It enables non-technical marketers and designers to create, test and measure an unlimited number of all types of interactive content marketing experiences. It includes unlimited seats, experiences, tests, customization, phone and email support, analytics and more.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Ion, by Rock ContentWordPress
Considered Both Products
Ion, by Rock Content
Chose Ion, by Rock Content
WordPress is the only other CMS that I have worked with extensively and the two platforms do very different things. LiveBall is definitely the best one for paid marketing because of the testing tools and conversion tracking. It is not really a competition when discussing these …
Chose Ion, by Rock Content
iON is great for launching smaller sites/landing pages and getting them built very fast for your client. WordPress seems to be more robust and complex, being able to create larger sites (taking much more time), but each to their own has their own specific things to use them for.
Chose Ion, by Rock Content
I have not used many other products like Ion. I've built landing pages on Wix, Squarespace and WordPress. Ion takes a lot longer to learn than those other website building programs, however ion offers more in the way of interactive elements and weaving coding into the page …
Chose Ion, by Rock Content
ion is a comparable product to WordPress in some aspects of user experience and versatility. We've integrated elements of ion with Salesforce, which has given certain groups more flexibility in their day-to-day tasks. There are pros and cons when comparing Ion to Drupal, and …
Chose Ion, by Rock Content
The closest tool I can compare ion to is WordPress. To me, ion is easier to use, with more interactive features.
Chose Ion, by Rock Content
It works well for A/B testing and data collection. Additionally, our Salesforce integration is critical for our team. With Ion Interactive, we are able to reliably retain all lead information, and pass it into Salesforce. This includes UTM information as well as proprietary ID …
Chose Ion, by Rock Content
Honestly these are different products. Other web platforms, are built to create a website. However this is meant for rapid content creation of landing pages. A user lands on the page, does a desired action (fills out a form, clicks a button, etc) and then they are done. Also …
Chose Ion, by Rock Content
There are obviously other platforms out there that do more or less in different capacities. Platforms like Marketo are more user-friendly in places and have more marketing automation functionality, but fewer features and functionality for landing page creation. Whereas …
Chose Ion, by Rock Content
The ion platform is easy to use and quick to create websites. Using ion allows us to not need developer resources to create the websites. It is cost effective. The decision to use ion was made prior to my arrival at the company.
Chose Ion, by Rock Content
ion is a more high-end solution than other products I've used in the past. While other solutions might be more friendly to non-web devs, the advanced settings and ability to create in ion is what helps it stand apart. The help and documentation is also really good for ion and …
Chose Ion, by Rock Content
Used more for email automation. Liveball has more flexibility when it comes to building pages.
Chose Ion, by Rock Content
After a few conference calls and one online presentation from ion Interactive, we realized that we had found our company's match for online content creation. The ion platform has everything we need (and more) so there is no need to work with other resources. This makes it easy, …
WordPress
Chose WordPress
It's similar as in a WYSIWYG editor, however, it has its vast differences in the way you build and edit content and the themes/plugins you can use.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Ion, by Rock ContentWordPress
Content Creation
Comparison of Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Ion, by Rock Content
7.5
105 Ratings
7% below category average
WordPress
-
Ratings
Ideation10.099 Ratings00 Ratings
Content collaboration5.094 Ratings00 Ratings
Content Publishing
Comparison of Content Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Ion, by Rock Content
8.7
120 Ratings
7% above category average
WordPress
-
Ratings
Content hub10.0104 Ratings00 Ratings
Forms / Gated content10.0107 Ratings00 Ratings
Embedded CTAs10.0108 Ratings00 Ratings
Content distribution8.093 Ratings00 Ratings
Content promotion8.086 Ratings00 Ratings
Content automation6.090 Ratings00 Ratings
Content Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Content Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Ion, by Rock Content
8.5
118 Ratings
9% above category average
WordPress
-
Ratings
Audience profiling and targeting6.091 Ratings00 Ratings
Closed-loop tracking and reporting8.095 Ratings00 Ratings
Content performance analytics10.0116 Ratings00 Ratings
Campaign optimization dashboard10.0107 Ratings00 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Ion, by Rock Content
-
Ratings
WordPress
8.2
127 Ratings
2% above category average
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.2127 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Ion, by Rock Content
-
Ratings
WordPress
6.4
104 Ratings
18% below category average
API00 Ratings6.394 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language00 Ratings6.679 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Ion, by Rock Content
-
Ratings
WordPress
8.0
133 Ratings
5% above category average
WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings8.3120 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness00 Ratings7.3121 Ratings
Admin section00 Ratings8.6131 Ratings
Page templates00 Ratings8.3128 Ratings
Library of website themes00 Ratings8.5130 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design00 Ratings8.6129 Ratings
Publishing workflow00 Ratings8.5125 Ratings
Form generator00 Ratings6.3104 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Ion, by Rock Content
-
Ratings
WordPress
7.9
131 Ratings
7% above category average
Content taxonomy00 Ratings6.9113 Ratings
SEO support00 Ratings8.2118 Ratings
Bulk management00 Ratings7.5100 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions00 Ratings8.5121 Ratings
Community / comment management00 Ratings8.5120 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Ion, by Rock ContentWordPress
Small Businesses
Vyond
Vyond
Score 8.7 out of 10
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Vyond
Vyond
Score 8.7 out of 10
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Vyond
Vyond
Score 8.7 out of 10
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Ion, by Rock ContentWordPress
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(135 ratings)
8.9
(169 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(22 ratings)
9.4
(36 ratings)
Usability
7.4
(17 ratings)
9.6
(16 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.5
(3 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.6
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(18 ratings)
10.0
(10 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(6 ratings)
9.0
(9 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Ion, by Rock ContentWordPress
Likelihood to Recommend
Rock Content
If you want to choose a quick start template and fill in the fields with your content, Ion will be fantastic for you. We've done this with whitepapers and quizzes and it's been great and extremely easy to use. If you have an exact idea of what you want, and a background in web development, you may get frustrated. Ion has some quirks that make it tricky to fully customize - everyone once in a while I really just want to go into the HTML and make some changes, but can't. If you are looking to reuse a piece of content for specific targeting (industry or account-specific), Ion is great. The dynamic substitutions are great and very helpful.
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Automattic
If your business relies heavily on content creation, and particularly on blog posts, then WordPress is really the best option you have. But if you don't have a blog, you only need static pages, or you want to build an eCommerce site, then you might want to explore other alternatives.
Read full review
Pros
Rock Content
  • Quick Starts make it so easy to get started.
  • Real-time updates are awesome and save a ton of wasteful process.
  • The combination of user friendliness for simple things and the flexibility to do more complex things is great.
  • Chat support is excellent and deeper-dive support has been super helpful.
  • The ability to use these tools in the cloud or embedded has given us tactic flexibility.
Read full review
Automattic
  • WordPress is incredibly easy to set up and get running with little to no technical knowledge. Most web hosts will do it for you, since it's so easy.
  • With thousands of themes available for free and for low cost, WordPress can accommodate any design you can imagine.
  • The community behind WordPress is generous, and there are loads of educational opportunities both online and in person to learn and connect with other users.
Read full review
Cons
Rock Content
  • Ion University, while stacked with a wealth of information, is difficult to navigate from a troubleshooting perspective. The tutorial videos are all very helpful, but they are also very long. Sometimes I would want to search for how to address a particular issue I was struggling with and it would be a two-minute segment buried in a 45-minute video.
  • Again, getting back the self-guidance side of things. I think a lot of the tutorials are set up in a way that makes sense to Ion, but not as much to the end user.
  • I think the controls admins use when creating new users could be a bit more straightforward.
Read full review
Automattic
  • WordPress breaks often so you need to have someone who understands how to troubleshoot, which can take time and money.
  • Some plugins are easier to customize than others, for example, some don't require any coding knowledge while others do. This can limit your project if you are not a coder.
  • WordPress can be easily hacked, so you also need someone who can ensure your sites are secure.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Rock Content
We use it for every landing page and we plan on only doing more dynamic content creation. We dont see that option coming in-house any time ever in the future. ION has a very robust platform for us to work with that really allows us to do more for our customers in regards to having the one-to-one conversation.
Read full review
Automattic
My rating is based on the knowledge I have of the community that WordPress has had built around it for years now. It's as solid as it comes when you talk about community involvement and expansion. There's no other CMS out there that can match-up with it, hands down.
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Usability
Rock Content
Usability is straightforward, with extensive documentation and tutorials provided to ensure landing pages are built to specifications and can be optimized for performance. Built-in platform funnels give insight into customer dropoff, success/failures, and conversions (at a glance). Setting up a landing page can be done quickly and easily, with numerous integrations (CRMs like SalesForce, for instance) supported
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Automattic
It's a sophisticated but easy to use piece of software. Many of the content addition pieces are familiar from other pieces of software so there isn't a huge learning curve. And for new areas, there is a lot of info on WordPress.org as well as other WordPress help sites.
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Reliability and Availability
Rock Content
No answers on this topic
Automattic
Anyone can visit WordPress.org and download a fully functional copy of WordPress free of charge. Additionally, WordPress is offered to users as open-source software, which means that anyone can customize the code to create new applications and make these available to other WordPress users.
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Performance
Rock Content
Sometimes the editor can be a little slow.
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Automattic
Mostly, any performance issues have to do with using too many plugins and these can sometimes slow down the overall performance of your site. It is very tempting to start adding lots of plugins to your WordPress site, however, as there are thousands of great plugins to choose from and so many of them help you do amazing things on your site. If you begin to notice performance issues with your WordPress site (e.g. pages being slow to load), there are ways to optimize the performance of your site, but this requires learning the process. WordPress users can learn how to optimize their WordPress sites by downloading the WPTrainMe WordPress training plugin (WPTrainMe.com) and going through the detailed step-by-step WordPress optimization tutorials.
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Support Rating
Rock Content
The ION support team is amazing. There has not been a single issue they they could not solve for me. If there is a feature or request that they do not have, they have even, on occasion, created custom scripts for our team. *Update 6/5/17 - ION has continued to delight on multiple occasions. I appreciate their attention to detail and ability to solve whatever issue I have. After 3+ years of use and support, ION still has my full endorsement.
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Automattic
WordPress itself only has community service so your experience will depend on where you turn. Online, through forums and community boards, support is rudimentary but effective. You can easily turn to your local community and find exceptional individuals who know and use WordPress regularly for more advanced, inexpensive, support. I'm rating this less than 10 because of the lack of any formal support provided by a company.
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In-Person Training
Rock Content
No answers on this topic
Automattic
Varies by the person providing training. High marks as it's incredibly easy to find experienced individuals in your community to provide training on any aspect of WordPress from content marketing, SEO, plugin development, theme design, etc. Less than 10 though as the training is community based and expectations for a session you find may fall short.
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Online Training
Rock Content
They offer a great amount of online training, videos, articles, etc. There is usually an answer available if you run into an issue. I would recommend taking advantage of the online training they offer. I wish I would have done it sooner.
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Automattic
It is very easy to find online resources to learn how to do just about anything with WordPress.
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Implementation Rating
Rock Content
There were a lot of things we learned about the tool once we really got in and got our hands dirty. Being hands-on was essential for our team to be able to utilize ION in the most effective manner.
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Automattic
WordPress is not a great solution if you have: 1) A larger site with performance / availability requirements. 2) Multiple types of content you want to share - each with its own underlying data structure. 3) Multiple sites you need to manage. For very small sites where these needs are not paramount, WordPress is a decent solution
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Alternatives Considered
Rock Content
I was not the decision maker to choose this over Uberflip, but the UI is much more appealing to me. It's incredibly easy to use, clean, and from a backend standpoint, it requires little to no tech savvy'ness. Our team has really enjoyed using it and has required no training what-so-ever.
Read full review
Automattic
We have considered and operated within Shopify and Squarespace. Both serve their purpose for niche clients, but we do recommend WordPress as being the superior option. We find that WordPress is easier to use and offers maximum scalability while the others are more challenging to design, code, configure and launch.
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Scalability
Rock Content
Separate client portfolios enable scalability, however, some elements are still grouped for all accounts so it's difficult to scale for an ad agency with multiple clients. Would prefer totally separate sections of the platform for all clients with each element housed separately.
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Automattic
WordPress is completely scalable. You can get started immediately with a very simple "out-of-the box" WordPress installation and then add whatever functionality you need as and when you need it, and continue expanding. Often we will create various WordPress sites on the same domain to handle different aspects of our strategy (e.g. one site for the sales pages, product information and/or a marketing blog, another for delivering products securely through a private membership site, and another for running an affiliate program or other application), and then ties all of these sites together using a common theme and links on each of the site's menus. Additionally, WordPress offers a multisite function that allows organizations and institutions to manage networks of sites managed by separate individual site owners, but centrally administered by the parent organization. You can also expand WordPress into a social networking or community site, forums, etc. The same scalability applies to web design. You can start with a simple design and then scale things up to display sites with amazing visual features, including animations and video effects, sliding images and animated product image galleries, elements that appear and fade from visitor browsers, etc. The scaling possibilities of WordPress are truly endless.
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Return on Investment
Rock Content
  • Though we have not had the service long enough to see any measurable outcomes, we've been able to create interactive web content faster than ever before
  • The speed with which we can build interactive pages and re-use assets has been critical as projects we've done with Ion have made their way around and more and more internal clients have said "me too" for their own projects
  • It is very pricey at $28K for the base annual subscription (dropping to $24k after the first year), so depending on your budgetary situation, that may make no sense for your team--but we had contract money set aside for a company to build us a microsite for around the amount, so we just used it for Ion instead and will now be building the microsite ourselves using it
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Automattic
  • WordPress helps us reduce website management costs because we can oversee updates in-house.
  • WordPress is easy to use, reducing the amount of time we spend on website management.
  • The ease of use enables us to offer website management for clients, helping us grow our capabilities/business.
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ScreenShots

Ion, by Rock Content Screenshots

Screenshot of ion empowers your other marketing technologies to deliver higher fidelity, data-driven scoring, targeting, segmentation and personalization.Screenshot of The types of interactive experiences the ion platform can create is near-endless. These are the most common types used by our customers: Assessments, Calculators, eBooks, Interactive Infographics, Interactive White Papers, Landing Pages, Lookbooks, Quizzes, Resource Library, Solution Finder.Screenshot of See what our customers are saying about our platform and services!Screenshot of Starting at $2,000 per month, you get an unlimited, scalable interactive content platform with our full feature set. Including: Unlimited experiences, unlimited use of Quick Starts, Unlimited Seats/Users, Unlimited A/B/n Testing, Unlimited Sell-Side Experiences, Unlimited Phone, email & chat support, unlimited analytics... PLUS a FREE custom-branded theme that can be applied to all of your experiences.Screenshot of You have the option to start from a template or entirely from scratch. Our Quick Start template library includes more than 100 fully tested, responsive and flexible interactive experiences you can brand, customize and launch.Screenshot of ion is the only interactive content platform that provides the scalable foundation to grow from one interactive experience to one thousand interactive experiences. With ion, interactive content development complexity, long timelines, high costs and maintenance problems are replaced with freedom and agility.