Kentico Xperience vs. Yesware

Kentico is a robust and flexible CMS platform that is great for managing multiple websites and multiple environments (dev, stage, and production for instance). It makes content management very easy and makes it easy to keep the environments synced with the same content. However, the Kentico CMS does require a bit more technical understanding to get it set up properly and requires a bit more effort and support than, say, free open-source options.

Incentivized

It works for my company and my problems. If you need a Sales CRM you can go for higher-end products that will give you what Yesware gives along with other stuff. Wherein we had specific problems we wanted to solve. -We needed a solution for a smaller team within our bigger sales team. -We needed a solution to be easy to use point and click and did not require any setup. -We needed to have a better solution to YAMM.

Incentivized

• I love the intuitive top and left navigation within the content management platform. I can easily find what section, sub-section, and page I'm looking to edit
• For creating content, the WYSIWYG editor is so intuitive; it feels like you're working on an MS Word doc!
• The tab for adding metadata in simple fields takes away the headache of having to hunt and peck through code to add H1 tag, page description etc.
• The image library is easy to edit and manage

Incentivized

• Tracking open rates, link click rates, and reply rates. This allows us to compare different templates in order to see which allows for the most interactions and meetings set directly from email engagement.
• Seeing exactly when someone opens an email and whether it is in their normal location. Also if they are opening on a mobile device versus a computer to be able to organize the set up of the email in a more beneficial way.
• Being able to save Templates for Mail Merges to avoid the duplication of effort that other mass email systems utilize.

Incentivized

• Kentico needs to invest in more enterprise class environment management utilities -- example: global CDN support via the CMS is sorely lacking. There are work-arounds, but it should be more elegant.
• The Kentico staging module could be improved to support the concept of bundled releases. Current staging module functionality is good, but could be improved.
• Kentico ecommerce support is a touch immature. While content management is superb, Kentico lags in this area when compared to many open source ecommerce engines.
• Kentico is lacking MVC support. 99% of the time this isn't an issue for the end-user or business user, but can be a hurdle for technology teams depending on the team's makeup.

Incentivized

• The ability to unwrap iframe embeds on email (e.g. if I send a Vimeo link over email, have that video thumbnail show and link out to a video)
• Removing recipients from a campaign. If my ruleset is to remove a contact from a sequence after he/she replies, sometimes a person will reply from another email and Yesware doesn't recognize it. (e.g. if I add jeff@amazon.com to my campaign and jeff.bezos@amazon.com replies to my thread, Yesware will still send an email to jeff@amazon.com unless he is manually removed)

Incentivized

We are locked into Kentico for the long haul. It provides us with an easy and flexible solution for a very non technical company to create a site and have the features they want, especially with the inclusion of EMS into our license. Now we have a true platform to build and grow our solutions.

I like the product, but due to the limitations I don't love it. I'm curious to revisit other options, particularly in lieu of Yesware's recent price increases (although I'm on a legacy plan). Some of my challenges to be browser related (I'm on an older computer) -- I'll have to see how things go when I receive my new computer. If the glitches (especially with regard to tracking accuracy and send later feature) go away, I'd be much more inclined to renew

It seriously is one of the best interfaces I have ever used. I also love the fact that I can use UI personalization to secure any functionality by user or role that I don't want that role to have access to. The best part is the customization of the UI, I can add in any button, tab, or menu item I want through it, no code required.

Incentivized

Yesware is easy to setup and get connected in existing systems. We were able to get started sending the day we puchased our subscription because of the addon for Gmail and easy connection to our CRM. It's also very easy to use in the day to day, kicking off campaigns and seeing their status to as about as easy as it gets. I have not concerns about usability

Incentivized

Their support staff is friendly, knowledgeable, and will work with you until your issue is fixed. This could take a few phone calls back and forth, but they are very diligent in helping you.

Incentivized

Because it deserves this rating. The features and functionality provided are great. Our Sales team is very satisfied with this software as it integrates very well with our other software like Outlook, Salesforce, etc. Yesware provides great follow up with customers, which is essential for sales. Meeting scheduling is also flawless.

Incentivized

The system provides many opportunities to integrate and enhance the platform and makes it easy to do so.

I've used Sitecore, Ektron, Joomla!, WordPress, and SharePoint (if you want to count that as a competitor for CMS). Kentico 8 blows them all out of the water. Nothing is more intuitive in the way that content is created, the way the site is setup, and how efficient rollouts can be with Content Staging.

Incentivized

All of these tools do what Yesware does, and more; but Yesware does the follow-up email portion best, in my experience. It is reasonably priced and is regularly adding new functionality to make it a sticky license for us to have. Yesware does not have predictive analytics or a particularly strong dialer solution, but it does provide team-wide and template efficacy tracking, and a basic dialer.

Incentivized

• Kentico has enabled faster speed to market for SMEs. They are empowered to enter content them selves while still having that content go through editorial review to ensure tone of voice and brand are maintained.
• Deploying Kentico has freed up web developer resources from manual content entry enabling them to build more useful solutions to support the business efforts
• Tapping into the Kentico event pipelne allows us to trigger external system events when product content is published.

• I think net positive ROI from generating meetings that lead to closed deals. Ultimately very difficult to quantify the ROI since it is essentially automating a lot of the manual prospecting done by BDRs/AEs - so ROI is likely higher than just that quantifiable number around deals closed.

Incentivized