Salesforce Lightning Platform vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Salesforce Lightning Platform
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Salesforce Platform is designed for building and deploying scalable cloud applications with managed hardware provisioning and app stacks. It provides out-of-the-box tools and services to automate business processes, integrate with external apps, and provide responsive layouts and more.
$25
Per User Per Month
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Salesforce Sales Cloud is a platform for sales with a community of Sellers, Sales Leaders, and Sales Operations, who use the solution to grow sales and increase productivity. The AI CRM for Sales features data built right in, so that companies can sell faster, sell smarter and sell efficiently. Salesforce Sales Cloud is used for, and supports: Buyer Engagement Sales Engagement Enablement Sales AI Sales Analytics Team…
$25
per month
Pricing
Salesforce Lightning PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud
Editions & Modules
Starter
$25.00
Per User Per Month
Plus
$100.00
Per User Per Month
Starter
$25.00
Per User/Per Month
Professional
$80.00
Per User/Per Month
Enterprise
$165.00
Per User/Per Month
Unlimited
$330.00
Per user/Per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Salesforce Lightning PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Salesforce Lightning PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud
Considered Both Products
Salesforce Lightning Platform
Chose Salesforce Lightning Platform
Salesforce Lightning Platform provides a more sales-focused CRM. It allows the sales force of an organization to be able to stay organized and can pull necessary reports to get a better understanding on how the business is performing regarding sales and customer activity. …
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Chose Salesforce Sales Cloud
We chose Salesforce as the leader in this space as it handles all that we were looking for and was customizable enough that we could build what it did not have. Their lead only continues to grow over others with recent acquisitions and their never ending focus on expanding …
Chose Salesforce Sales Cloud
SharePoint: while Microsoft's flagship crm product is tried and true, it's clunky, overly complicated, and incredibly difficult to tweak and customize with any sort of efficiency
Chose Salesforce Sales Cloud
Dynamics is the only other CRM that I've used for an extended period. I found it cumbersome, and found myself getting frustrated because of how limiting it felt compared to Salesforce. I also find Salesforce to be much more user friendly. I see users pick up Salesforce with …
Chose Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesforce seemed to be a more complete system and better organized.
Features
Salesforce Lightning PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud
Platform-as-a-Service
Comparison of Platform-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
7.4
39 Ratings
8% below category average
Salesforce Sales Cloud
-
Ratings
Ease of building user interfaces5.539 Ratings00 Ratings
Scalability8.737 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform management overhead7.733 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow engine capability6.835 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform access control8.736 Ratings00 Ratings
Services-enabled integration9.036 Ratings00 Ratings
Development environment creation7.133 Ratings00 Ratings
Development environment replication6.931 Ratings00 Ratings
Issue monitoring and notification7.134 Ratings00 Ratings
Issue recovery6.631 Ratings00 Ratings
Upgrades and platform fixes7.536 Ratings00 Ratings
Sales Force Automation
Comparison of Sales Force Automation features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.2
263 Ratings
6% above category average
Customer data management / contact management00 Ratings9.0263 Ratings
Workflow management00 Ratings8.3254 Ratings
Territory management00 Ratings7.8206 Ratings
Opportunity management00 Ratings8.8255 Ratings
Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)00 Ratings8.2240 Ratings
Contract management00 Ratings7.8211 Ratings
Quote & order management00 Ratings7.9194 Ratings
Interaction tracking00 Ratings8.3225 Ratings
Channel / partner relationship management00 Ratings8.0186 Ratings
Customer Service & Support
Comparison of Customer Service & Support features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
7.8
101 Ratings
2% above category average
Case management00 Ratings8.199 Ratings
Call center management00 Ratings7.880 Ratings
Help desk management00 Ratings7.784 Ratings
Marketing Automation
Comparison of Marketing Automation features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.4
241 Ratings
9% above category average
Lead management00 Ratings8.6236 Ratings
Email marketing00 Ratings8.1203 Ratings
CRM Project Management
Comparison of CRM Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.0
244 Ratings
5% above category average
Task management00 Ratings8.2233 Ratings
Billing and invoicing management00 Ratings7.676 Ratings
Reporting00 Ratings8.3197 Ratings
CRM Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of CRM Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.2
257 Ratings
8% above category average
Forecasting00 Ratings8.0225 Ratings
Pipeline visualization00 Ratings8.2244 Ratings
Customizable reports00 Ratings8.6254 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.7
248 Ratings
13% above category average
Custom fields00 Ratings8.9246 Ratings
Custom objects00 Ratings8.7235 Ratings
Scripting environment00 Ratings8.5175 Ratings
API for custom integration00 Ratings8.6205 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.9
249 Ratings
6% above category average
Single sign-on capability00 Ratings9.0217 Ratings
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.8221 Ratings
Social CRM
Comparison of Social CRM features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.3
158 Ratings
11% above category average
Social data00 Ratings8.4156 Ratings
Social engagement00 Ratings8.2154 Ratings
Integrations with 3rd-party Software
Comparison of Integrations with 3rd-party Software features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.2
214 Ratings
10% above category average
Marketing automation00 Ratings8.2210 Ratings
Compensation management00 Ratings8.1144 Ratings
Platform
Comparison of Platform features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
7.5
228 Ratings
1% below category average
Mobile access00 Ratings7.5228 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Salesforce Lightning PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud
Small Businesses
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Score 8.6 out of 10
Salesmate
Salesmate
Score 9.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Salesforce Lightning PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
7.1
(39 ratings)
8.7
(395 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.9
(58 ratings)
Usability
7.5
(4 ratings)
8.4
(121 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.8
(27 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(18 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(15 ratings)
8.5
(92 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(11 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(15 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
1.5
(18 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(9 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(54 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.3
(8 ratings)
User Testimonials
Salesforce Lightning PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
Salesforce
We use Salesforce Lightning Platform in everyday business as sales coordinators. By using this tool, we are able to send new requests to clients and communicate regarding pending proposals in real-time. This also tool holds many of our client accounts where we are able to monitor their sales and revenue.
Read full review
Salesforce
Salesforce Sales Cloud is an intuitive and easy-to-use platform. It is easy to customize this platform to meet the ever-changing business needs and requirements. It is easy to integrate with other platforms and offers incredible features that help businesses generate leads, automate their marketing processes, and collaborate effectively.
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Pros
Salesforce
  • Reporting and Dashboards are thorough and can show a wealth of important data to inform and scale processes. It's helpful in a high volume sales cycle to be able to quickly identify weak points in performance and productivity so that adjustments can be made.
  • Highly customizable. We are able to customize just about everything which allows us to track very specific things and in theory create better efficiency.
  • Parent/Child account hierarchy exists which is helpful.
  • Contact records can be associated with multiple accounts and opportunities. This, in theory, should minimize duplicates and mismanagement of contacts.
  • Console helps a lot with data nesting. Having a fairly comprehensive look at an account without searching through various tabs and sections speeds up an otherwise cumbersome platform.
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Logging notes: SF makes it easy to log notes in the timeline or static notes that live in an easy-to-see spot for longevity.
  • Logging activities: It's easy to post a call, text, email, etc.
  • API data: Once connected, SF is critical to automation, such as website activity, login activity, pages visited, etc., which saves the Customer Success side time in understanding account activity.
  • Custom fields: you can add custom fields to really personalize your experience. We use quite a few and it's brilliant.
Read full review
Cons
Salesforce
  • Can be cumbersome: takes multiple clicks to get where you need to go
  • Lightning is slower than original Salesforce, and it is very noticeable
  • The UI change means sometimes I can't find what I need, so I have to switch back to the Classic version to find it
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Sometimes setting up the interface can be overly complex.
  • Depending on what level of salesforce you are paying for, the SLA for their service team to respond can take a decent amount of time.
  • Wish there was more connection between the salesforce apps like service and sales.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
There are days when I wish we hadn't switched, but I know that if we put in the time, we will get to where we want to be with the software and that it has many more capabilities than anything else we looked at. However, the amount of time and onboarding we need to do is also far greater than we realized/were told when we originally bought the product. They told us we should hire onboarding support, but at the end, after we had already reached our budget maximum for this, so it's been slower than we had hoped.
Read full review
Usability
Salesforce
UI can be quite complex, but the more that is required will bring more complexity. Can handle complexity and variety very well, but makes ground-level views harder when not knowing full extent of functionality. Finding new functionalities can be difficult to pinpoint on some pages
Read full review
Salesforce
Salesforce has been designed on the basis of "Clicks, not code". So anyone willing to learn the Salesforce user interface (which is quite good as far as management software platforms go) is able to become a Salesforce user or even a Salesforce administrator. You don't have to know coding language to work in the Salesforce environment. Also, Salesforce has one of the best software training resources (Trailhead) that I have ever encountered. It is free to all, easy to use, and most importantly it is interactive. No scrolling through endless text in a user manual. There are hands-on modules and related videos interlaced and through it all you earn points and badges to display your level of learning.
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Reliability and Availability
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Salesforce is always available securely from any internet-capable device anywhere in the world, UNLESS you choose to set security measures so that ONLY trusted IP ranges may access the system at certain times of the day. It's all about choice and flexibility with Salesforce products.
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Performance
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Salesforce performance in general is excellent. "The cloud infrastructure beneath Force.com has been fine-tuned over the past 10 years. It powers nearly 100,000+ businesses running more than 185,000 applications that 3 million users count on every day."
Points per Salesforce -
1) Multitenant kernel - With a multitenant platform, each business that uses the app doesn’t have its own copy. Instead, all businesses share a single copy and then customize it for their specific needs.
2) ISO 27001 certified security - You can’t compromise when it comes to enterprise-level security. Force.com is road-tested and trusted by nearly 100,000+ companies, including many of the world’s most security-conscious organizations, such as banks and health care providers.
3) Proven reliability - All Force.com apps run on world-class data centers with backup, failover, and disaster-recovery facilities. Force.com has had a proven 99.9 percent uptime record for years.
4) Proven, real-time scalability - Force.com is used by many of the world's largest enterprises, including Cisco, Japan Post Network, and Symantec. Applications can automatically scale from a few users to millions of page views, as needed.
5) Real-time query optimizer - You need fast access to your data. The Force.com query optimizer delivers under 300ms response time, at a massive scale.
6) Real-time transparent system status - You can always see real-time system performance, availability, and security information at trust.salesforce.com.
7) Real-time upgrades - Unlike traditional software platforms, our upgrades never break your customizations, code, or integrations. We upgrade the platform for you 3 to 4 times each year. As a result, you’re always on the latest version, with access to the latest features, performance, and security enhancements.
8) Real-time sandbox environments - With a single click, you can create copies of your applications, configuration, and data in separate environments for development, testing, and training.
9) Three global production data centers and disaster recovery - Force.com runs on three geographically dispersed, mirrored data centers with built-in replication, disaster recovery, a redundant network backbone, and no single points of failure
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Support Rating
Salesforce
Salesforce's support is top-notch. They have subject-matter experts that are accessible at all times to address needs as they come up. They let you know in advance when there are system updates and enhancements so that you are prepared for upcoming changes. I've never had an issue that wasn't addressed immediately when reaching out for support.
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Salesforce
The overall support has been good. More and more features are being released quite frequently. Very small features are also making big difference in how the tool can be adapted and used better. If there is anything we need or are stuck, the support team sets up a call and helps in resolving the issue/provides workarounds.
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In-Person Training
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
I attended two training sessions. I would rate them a 4 as an advanced user. It was very basic – great for someone new – would give 8+ for new person.

I had 3 years of experience at the time. I skipped basic and went onto advanced and still not helpful. A lot of it was best practices that didn’t feel relevant for our business
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Online Training
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
I have gone through multiple. The content that’s delivered is quite basic – I wish they had more advanced training.

We are grandfathered into premium support plus training. We get unlimited access to instructor led and online training for free. We have taken advantage of this
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Implementation Rating
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Just from an organizational standpoint - we standardized our data prior to moving to Salesforce. But we essentially standardized it wrong. That's created a big disgusting mess for us know that I'll have to deal with as the Admin. Be sure you think through use cases prior to doing something like that - seek outside opinions on how the data will work best, especially depending on what else you're going to integrate with Salesforce.
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Alternatives Considered
Salesforce
We were previously using an older version prior to it becoming Salesforce Lightning Platform so we were well adverse on the advantages of using a CRM, to begin with. It made sense to convert to Salesforce Lightning Platform after we were given a free trial of the platform. Certain reps were chosen to experiment with it and from there a decision was made to move forward. We've been customers ever since.
Read full review
Salesforce
At our company, we use Salesforce and HubSpot. I personally like both for different reasons. Salesforce makes it easy to generate reports, keep track of dealer and customer information, tie customers to dealers, and is easy to use. However, I like HubSpot for the marketing features. I think HubSpot has easier-to-use workflows and email creations.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Salesforce is the most widely used CRM system. Professionalism tends to increase when things go wrong for market leaders. Salesforce considers us as users because they own the market. Having all of our data in one place and all of our teams working within Salesforce. Anyone who uses Salesforce is impacted by it, even if they don't.
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Scalability
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Salesforce Sales Cloud is highly scalable and designed to accommodate the needs of businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises. It offers flexible subscription models and can easily scale up or down based on the organization's requirements. Whether a company is expanding its sales team, increasing its customer base, or adding new features and functionalities, Sales Cloud can adapt to support growth without sacrificing performance or reliability. Additionally, Salesforce's cloud-based architecture ensures that users have access to resources and capabilities as needed, making it a highly scalable solution for organizations looking to automate customer relationship management at scale.
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Professional Services
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Using Salesforce.com has made my daily routines more efficient and simplified the manual tasks I had to perform independently. I can now access data from any device, online or offline, and provide better guidance to my team about the forecasts provided by the built-in artificial intelligence (AI). A chat with a Salesforce support specialist would be great. The knowledge base has a community forum where Salesforce users can ask questions and learn more about the product.
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Return on Investment
Salesforce
  • Better visibility of Accounts and Contacts interactions makes it easier to maintain during employee transitions.
  • Tracking of current jobs and relating them to past jobs is very useful.
  • More efficient use of Sales Reps time.
  • Sales Managers have good visibility into how their people are working.
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Salesforce
  • The inbox feature allows me to see when the customer opens my email, and hence a timely follow-up could result in a higher response rate.
  • The mobile app allows users to gain access to leads and customer contacts on the go, which increases sales team productivity and enhances customer conversations.
  • The reports of the notes on the account level are not working, which is causing manual work in the weekly report to leadership.
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ScreenShots

Salesforce Sales Cloud Screenshots

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