LightCMS (discontinued) vs. Ontraport

LightCMS is perfect for 90% of websites out there. It has all the basic modules like calendars, photo galleries, news/blog, or forms building built in. Small businesses to mid-sized businesses are perfect for LightCMS. We use other solutions when the requierments for the website include a lot of third party integrations or custom modules. As a hosted CMS it has the same limitations as others with server-side development.

Here are some cases where Ontraport is well suited : - When writing emails, you can easily access to preview, manage the changes and go back to what you did before - When using automations, if there's an error, you can go back to a previous version of it. There are also some super tools that allows to see where a clients is on an automation without having to go through the all automation. It is less appropriate when you are several colleague that are addressing an issue on an email/automation as it doesn't allows you to be multiple person on the item.

Incentivized

Independently Invited by TrustRadius

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info

• LightCMS provides all the major functionality 90% of sites need. It keeps out of its own way by making these solutions intuitive and simple and not trying to solve every problem for everyone which would over-complicate the tool-set.
• This is the easiest to use CMS we have ever seen. I tell my client's that if they can make a Facebook post, they can manage their website, and it's true. Their UI is so easy and keeps getting easier to use. Untrained users get it in minutes and are able to manage their sites without our help.
• LightCMS's code is simple and light-weight. Sites are fast and the CMS doesnt get in the way of performance.
• You can do almost anything you want (except server-side programming) with LightCMS. So, we can create any design we want and it works great with Light CMS's tokens and editable regions concept (which is also simple to implement.)
• Constantly upgraded and fixed, the product is 1000x better after 10 years of working with it, but is still simple and not bloated.

• Dashboards for our daily stats.
• The email follows up and broadcasts are simple and easy.
• Sales and marketing can now see the impact they have working together. Nobody can point finger anymore.
• They have the best customer support. I can't tell you how many times they have walked me through the problems that I created.
• Amazing email inboxing.

Incentivized

Independently Invited by TrustRadius

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info

• While keeping it simple is LightCMS's thing, some of the elements/modules could use deeper options or control for advanced users.
• Some content, such as calendars, cannot have data exported/imported easily.
• Support was amazing 10 years ago. We openly talked about how awesome they were... it isn't as good as it once was, but is still way above almost every support of other CMS systems we have used.

• Wish they had more options for their forms. Would really like to use multi-step forms.
• A lot of times their forms load slowly on the website. Would like to see them speed up their services.
• Their broadcasting options are legacy. There are better options out there for sending broadcast messages.

Incentivized

Independently Invited by TrustRadius

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info

My client was already using Ontraport and had a decent investment in the tool. As soon as we turn around the revenue situation with my client's products, we will be ditching OAP immediately, despite the significant re-implementation cost we are going to face moving to a new system. I am part of a high-end, professional marketing group, and the overwhelming sentiment with these other professionals is that one should run away from this as fast as humanly possible. I thought their words were just ungrounded opinion, and I deeply regret that I did not heed them more closely before sinking still more time and effort into OAP.

The software is just easy to use. The UI is fairly intuitive. The help system is pretty good. I find it is pretty quick to get my work completed and if I don't document my things well, I can always figure out how I did something when I need to make changes. When I have a problem the tech support is easy to deal with and when things need to get escalated they are resolved quickly.

Most of the time OP runs fine. But I've had to submit more support tickets this year do to messages, seq.'s or rules not running correctly. Also experienced slow response times moving in and around OP.

The techs are reasonably savvy, highly courteous and want to do right by their customers. Unfortunately, the product they are supporting is so deeply flawed that there's only so much they can do when your legitimate business requirements are simply not supported.

I went to their Ontrapalooza event, and it opened my mind as to how the software can be used.

If you know your business, ONTRAPORT is easy

We have looked at hundrends of CMS's and LightCMS is a perfect entry-level system for most of our small to mid sized clients. LightCMS's feature set is less complex than almost every other system and the actual interface is miles ahead of most other CMS systems. It's simply thought out better. It lacks sensibility and an API as well as other advanced features many more expensive or more DIY systems have, but the simplicity makes up for it.

Task management was the main thing that separated ONTRAPORT for me. Keeping things accountable. As well, I felt the campaign builder was slicker, and that the contact management was more robust. Custom fields are very customizable.

With the new lower priced options, it's now easier for newer businesses to start with a more basic version and upgrade as they need more features.

• While I always think the price could be cheaper, LightCMS is incredibly inexpensive if you consider the costs of hosting, support, and upgrading is all included.
• As part of their partner program, we are able to control client accounts from our master account, making moving between clients easier and supporting them faster which ultimately makes our labor costs better.

• We are providing better customer service as a direct result of Ontraport. We can track where all of our customers are, what pages/sites/modules they are visiting with ease and tailor our communication accordingly.
• Our marketing funnel has become vastly improved, meaning that our ROI for marketing has gone up. Sales this April are double what they were last year.
• Our team works better together because we all have a better idea of what the other needs and when. The tasks that we can assign in Ontraport mean nothing gets missed, creating a better customer and employee experience.