Salesforce Lightning Platform vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Salesforce Lightning Platform
Score 8.4 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 8.8 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 month per user
Professional
$80.00
per month per user
Enterprise
$165.00
per month per user
Unlimited
$330.00
per month per user
Agentforce 1 Sales
$550
per month per user
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
7.3
40 Ratings
7% below category average
Salesforce Sales Cloud
-
Ratings
Ease of building user interfaces6.140 Ratings00 Ratings
Scalability8.538 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform management overhead7.634 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow engine capability7.336 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform access control8.137 Ratings00 Ratings
Services-enabled integration8.237 Ratings00 Ratings
Development environment creation7.134 Ratings00 Ratings
Development environment replication6.732 Ratings00 Ratings
Issue monitoring and notification7.135 Ratings00 Ratings
Issue recovery6.232 Ratings00 Ratings
Upgrades and platform fixes7.837 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
269 Ratings
5% above category average
Customer data management / contact management00 Ratings8.8269 Ratings
Workflow management00 Ratings8.5258 Ratings
Territory management00 Ratings7.7211 Ratings
Opportunity management00 Ratings8.9259 Ratings
Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)00 Ratings8.0244 Ratings
Contract management00 Ratings7.9215 Ratings
Quote & order management00 Ratings7.7198 Ratings
Interaction tracking00 Ratings8.7229 Ratings
Channel / partner relationship management00 Ratings8.0190 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
104 Ratings
2% above category average
Case management00 Ratings8.2102 Ratings
Call center management00 Ratings7.782 Ratings
Help desk management00 Ratings7.486 Ratings
Marketing Automation
Comparison of Marketing Automation features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.1
244 Ratings
5% above category average
Lead management00 Ratings8.2239 Ratings
Email marketing00 Ratings8.1206 Ratings
CRM Project Management
Comparison of CRM Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.1
248 Ratings
5% above category average
Task management00 Ratings8.3236 Ratings
Billing and invoicing management00 Ratings7.478 Ratings
Reporting00 Ratings8.5201 Ratings
CRM Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of CRM Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.3
260 Ratings
8% above category average
Forecasting00 Ratings7.9228 Ratings
Pipeline visualization00 Ratings8.2247 Ratings
Customizable reports00 Ratings8.7257 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.6
252 Ratings
12% above category average
Custom fields00 Ratings9.0249 Ratings
Custom objects00 Ratings8.8239 Ratings
Scripting environment00 Ratings8.1176 Ratings
API for custom integration00 Ratings8.6209 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
9.0
253 Ratings
7% above category average
Single sign-on capability00 Ratings9.0221 Ratings
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.9225 Ratings
Social CRM
Comparison of Social CRM features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.2
160 Ratings
10% above category average
Social data00 Ratings8.4158 Ratings
Social engagement00 Ratings8.0156 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
8.1
217 Ratings
8% above category average
Marketing automation00 Ratings8.2213 Ratings
Compensation management00 Ratings8.1146 Ratings
Platform
Comparison of Platform features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
7.8
232 Ratings
3% above category average
Mobile access00 Ratings7.8232 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Salesforce Lightning PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud
Small Businesses
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Score 8.4 out of 10
Salesmate
Salesmate
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.2 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.2 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Salesforce Lightning PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(43 ratings)
9.0
(425 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(58 ratings)
Usability
8.4
(8 ratings)
8.4
(135 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.8
(27 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(18 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(15 ratings)
8.9
(92 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(11 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(15 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
2.2
(18 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(9 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(83 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
Obviously, for any business, there are two main areas to focus on — the sales path and the service path. Sales Cloud wouldn’t be suited for a company that’s primarily into support services. For those kinds of companies, Salesforce has a different product — Service Cloud. So, for anyone in the support or service space, Sales Cloud isn’t the right fit.
Read full review
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
  • The customizations - We have an organization that operates differently from most companies, so we’ve had to implement quite a few customizations — and Salesforce allows us to do that quite quickly. Most of the time, delays come from dependencies on other internal parties rather than the system itself.
  • From my perspective as a consultant, one of the biggest advantages is that everything is in Salesforce — all the details, all in one place. The ability to customize it easily is a big plus; there’s really a lot you can do with it.
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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
  • We still need to include the production part. We started using Salesforce to sell the seeds — our inventory is in SAP — and from there we handle sales and track the process of planting, harvesting, selling, and then collecting payments. But we don’t yet manage the earlier production processes, like production planning. We handle allocation, but not full production planning, and that’s an area where we still have room for improvement.
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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.
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Usability
Salesforce
It's very good, but it's still living in a little bit in an older design aspect, but I think a lot of it is about to come out, just hasn't quite gotten there yet. Still a little clunky from a you have to know it to know it or you know it to use it. It takes a little bit of training to get into it. It's not quite the, anybody can come in and start using it immediately, type feel.
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Salesforce
Because I think it could be easier. We have different standards today since we’re used to interacting with consumer apps like Starbucks, where all you do is scan your card. Then, when you use Sales Cloud, there are still a lot of manual inputs. So my mission with AI is really about figuring out how to make that easier.
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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
So I've evaluated, implemented Microsoft Dynamics in the past. I've used Oracle CRM solutions. I've used Daylight, which is a very niche CRM system the last couple of years. And I've evaluated a variety from Legacy Microsoft Ones to Zoho and Sugar when making implementation decisions at other companies. But usually I've gone with Salesforce. I'd say it's better than most. The only one that I generally prefer, and last time I chose an implementation from scratch, I did Microsoft Dynamics. And the reason is for small mid-size organization, Microsoft Dynamics, if you already have Microsoft Office products, it's much better integrated to all of the Excel, Word, OneNote, Outlook email than what you get from Salesforce. And so that's the only one that if someone's a Microsoft organization and small sized company, it'll save a lot of integration things, a lot of security, a lot of login and access and IT management by just sticking within the Microsoft ecosystem. But outside of that, if you don't use Microsoft or if you're a large organization or have other needs that you want, Salesforce I'd say is better than all of the other CRM offerings out there. It's the easiest to use and the most robust and the most vendors and products for the ecosystem.
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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
It's very scalable as it has a ton of features (but you do need an admin who understands how to leverage these features). Because of the various features, we've also needed to host onboarding sessions with our users so that they can familiarize themselves with the platform, which isn't always super user-friendly or intuitive.
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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.
Read full review
Salesforce
  • It is easy for the sales team to track how well the dealers in their region are selling products.
  • It is easy to generate reports and see how well sales are each month compared to past months.
  • Quicker time to get products shipped to customers.
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ScreenShots

Salesforce Sales Cloud Screenshots

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