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Freedom CMS

Freedom CMS

Overview

What is Freedom CMS?

Freedom is a cloud-based content management system from Accrisoft Corporation.Accrisoft Freedom specializes in membership and events management, social media, online marketing and e-commerce. Freedom is notable for its highly customizable databases, providing full control over HTML layout and complex filter…

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Learn from top reviewers

Accrisoft Freedom will free you from the worries of open source CMS tools.

Rating: 8 out of 10
January 18, 2016
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
It is the CMS that our website is built on. We partnered with Spinweb on our site build and Freedom is the CMS they use.
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Chris Theisen
Director - Marketing
Director of Digital Communication
FlexPAC
Accrisoft Freedom4 years of experience

All your (and your clients) CMS needs addressed. The Freedom you need.

Rating: 10 out of 10
January 7, 2016
IncentivizedVetted Review
Accrisoft Freedom is used by our entire organization, both internal and externally for our clients. We build all of our websites on the Freedom CMS platform. Accrisoft const...
Continue reading
Verified user
Professional
Accrisoft Freedom4 years of experience

Accrisoft Freedom - It does work, in some cases

Rating: 5 out of 10
July 17, 2015
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
Accrisoft Freedom has been used as a potential solution for clients looking to rebuild their company website. We are a multi-platform agency so we offer an unbiased opinion to...
Continue reading
Verified user
Engineer
Accrisoft Freedom3 years of experience

Accrisoft or WordPress?

Rating: 9 out of 10
May 9, 2014
Vetted ReviewVerified User
We used Accrisoft Freedom as a primary content management system. We, the 2-person internet marketing department, used Accrisoft Freedom to the create and maintain the website...
Continue reading
Mark A. Buckawicki
Contributor - Information Technology
Internet Marketing Specialist
The Law Office of Amy L. Klingler, PC
Accrisoft Freedom1 year of experience
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Pricing

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Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $100 per month
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Product Details

What is Freedom CMS?

Freedom is a PHP based cloud-based content management system from Accrisoft Corporation.Accrisoft Freedom specializes in membership and events management, social media, online marketing and e-commerce. Freedom is notable for its highly customizable databases, providing full control over HTML layout and complex filter and search capabilities.

Accrisoft Freedom offers separate, color-coded management interfaces: the green interface is used for building websites and managing HTML and CSS layouts and the Blue Interface allows non-technical users to add and maintain content. Freedom's Blue Interface utilizes the TinyMCE Editor, an open source WYSIWYG editor, and it features many modules for adding content to Freedom websites. Accrisoft Business Tools, a software product provided to Accrisoft Freedom resellers, features three additional interfaces: Red, Purple and Orange, for administration, server control and accounting, respectively.

The built-in Email Marketing module pulls data from other modules so that marketers can send campaigns to lists generated from other parts of the site, such as event registrations. The Freedom Forms module allows building custom forms for applications, event registrations, donations, and lead capture. That data can be exported or integrated into the shopping cart for advanced e-commerce applications. The built in shopping cart allows businesses to deploy an integrated e-commerce. This extends to event registrations, allowing organizations to sell registrations to events and accept credit card or e-check payments online.

Freedom also has built-in modules for Blogs, Event Calendars, Press Releases, Podcasts, Forums, Directories, RSS, Affiliate Programs, Billing, and Polls, and integration with social networking sites. Freedom's multi-user, role-based access features and workflow module augment security and editorial control.

Freedom CMS Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Freedom is a cloud-based content management system from Accrisoft Corporation.Accrisoft Freedom specializes in membership and events management, social media, online marketing and e-commerce. Freedom is notable for its highly customizable databases, providing full control over HTML layout and complex filter and search capabilities.

Freedom CMS starts at $100.

Reviewers rate Code quality / cleanliness highest, with a score of 8.6.

The most common users of Freedom CMS are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews From Top Reviewers

View all reviews
(1-4 of 4)

Accrisoft Freedom will free you from the worries of open source CMS tools.

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
January 18, 2016
CT
Chris Theisen
Director of Digital Communication
FlexPAC (Packaging and Containers, 51-200 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Accrisoft Freedom
4 years of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
It is the CMS that our website is built on. We partnered with Spinweb on our site build and Freedom is the CMS they use.
Pros
  • The new all in one image editor is nice. You can upload images and then handle all of the editing needs within Freedom or through their connection with Pixlr. It makes it much more streamlined than managing outside of a CMS.
  • Freedom is set up so you don't have too much access to the backend, which for a majority of users is a good thing. Whereas you can break a lot of things within WordPress or other open source tools, Freedom ensures your site keeps working because you can't fool with it too much.
  • The ability to change the colors and branding on a page based on the page settings is nice. For companies with sub-brands within an umbrella it helps carry the branding through better than a site that only offers a static header section for each page in the site.
Cons
  • Their preview setup for reviewing page changes prior to pushing them live is not good. You basically have to push things live to see how they will look, then go back and tweak it, while the changes in progress are live on the site. They need a sandbox, or a better preview feature within the backend so you dont have to keep pushing changes live to test out functionality.
  • Integration with outside tools is non existent. Instead of trying to force people to use their modules or features it would make much more sense to more easily integrate with leading tools in niche spaces.
  • The UI is pretty old. It could use a big refresh. Things like drag and drop builders and functionality should be standard these days. This is also a plus for non tech savvy users as it keeps their page structures to what works without letting people tinker. But if you want to tinker and be a higher end user Freedom isn't the best bet.
Likelihood to Recommend
It is much more suited to a user or company who doesn't like to tinker or make wholesale changes to their site. If you just need to make basic updates in text and post articles, blogs then Accrisoft Freedom is a good bet and very secure. If you want to try out different integrations, page layouts, embedding things and generally tinkering with your site then Accrisoft Freedom wouldn't be a wise choice.
Freedom CMS Feature Ratings
Web Content Creation (6)
65%
6.5
WYSIWYG editor
70%
7.0
Code quality / cleanliness
90%
9.0
Admin section
80%
8.0
Page templates
80%
8.0
Mobile optimization / responsive design
N/A
N/A
Form generator
70%
7.0
Web Content Management (4)
37.5%
3.8
Content taxonomy
80%
8.0
SEO support
70%
7.0
Bulk management
N/A
N/A
Community / comment management
N/A
N/A
Platform & Infrastructure (2)
N/A
N/A
API
N/A
N/A
Internationalization / multi-language
N/A
N/A
Security (1)
N/A
N/A
Role-based user permissions
N/A
N/A
CMS programming language or framework
N/A
N/A
Return on Investment
  • This was the first CMS we had at our company so hard to say positive or negative impact.
  • Prior to this CMS there was a static site that html files had to be ftp to a company to have the site updated. So from that standpoint it made updating the site much less expensive.
  • Compared to a tool like WordPress this is much more secure and easier to manage, but since we outsource that portion of it to the company that built the site we dont realize those gains.
Alternatives Considered
Prior to Freedom I had only used CMSs that were specific to car dealer websites. Compared to those, Freedom is leaps and bounds ahead in every category. Compared to WordPress I would choose Freedom due to the fact that you know your site isn't going to get broken by something you tweak. You also can be sure it won't be as open to hacks/attacks as an open source tool, along with less management to keep those things at bay with an open source solution. We mainly selected Freedom due to the fact it was used by the company we had build our site, we chose that company more than we chose Freedom, but it had the basic functionality that allowed us to sign off on going with them during the evaluation period.
Other Software Used

Accrisoft or WordPress?

Rating: 9 out of 10
May 09, 2014
MA
Mark A. Buckawicki
Internet Marketing Specialist
The Law Office of Amy L. Klingler, PC (Insurance, 11-50 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Accrisoft Freedom
1 year of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We used Accrisoft Freedom as a primary content management system. We, the 2-person internet marketing department, used Accrisoft Freedom to the create and maintain the website for an insurance agency. I liked how easy it was to learn to be proficient.
Pros
  • Easy to create new pages
  • easy to update existing pages
  • very easy to learn
Cons
  • I did not find any flaws or shortcomings.
Likelihood to Recommend
I would only suggest WordPress over Arrisoft because of WP's more widespread usage.
Return on Investment
  • We wrote web content.
  • People read our pages.
  • Hopefully our conversions rates went up
Alternatives Considered
WordPress and Accrisoft are similar and have no other peers, in my opinion. These two are the easiest to use.
Likelihood to Renew
1
We switched to WordPress; it was out of my control.

All your (and your clients) CMS needs addressed. The Freedom you need.

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
January 07, 2016
Verified User
Professional in Other
Internet Company, 11-50 employees
Vetted Review
Reseller
Accrisoft Freedom
4 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Accrisoft Freedom is used by our entire organization, both internal and externally for our clients. We build all of our websites on the Freedom CMS platform.

Accrisoft constantly is upgrading and improving features in Freedom and always eagerly helps if any support issues arise. Freedom allows us to offer our clients, blogs, news, events, unlimited webpages and forms, menus, membership login areas and so much more - all easily updated and maintained by our clients. The greatest feature I believe is the custom modules that we can create to have any field(s) we want and to display those field values however we want for our clients. Freedom might not have a pre-built staff directory module, but it's a name field, bio field and photo/image field away for us to easily create one for our client - and allow the client to easily input and update.

The other great thing about Freedom is we never have to worry about open-source-style plugins that break when upgrading the CMS or developers that no longer support their plugins. All of Freedom's modules, including the custom ones, always work on every CMS version update. Freedom allows us to put our client's minds at ease with their website and focus on what they do best - running their business.
Pros
  • Users and Access. Freedom has a great system setup to create unlimited users for the back office & full control over access. Do you want someone to only be able to access News, Events & Web Pages? - No problem. Do you want someone to be able to access everything except the Billing Module - No problem.Do you want someone to be able to access/edit ONLY the "Volunteer" category of Web Pages - Great! No Problem.
  • Custom Modules. Freedom has a great amount of pre-built modules that do a lot of great things. Custom Modules, however, takes that to the next level. Anything you can dream of for your client's needs, can be created as a custom module. You, as the developer, have full control over what fields should be created for a custom module, what types of fields are they (text, radio buttons, WYSIWYG editor, image, etc), and how those field values are used in a lister of ALL items added to that Custom Module & how they are used in a detailed view of one specific item in that Custom Module.
  • Hosting & Security. All Freedom sites include the licensing & hosting with easy to update Domain module for us developers to change the virtual host domain at any time.
  • Features and Usability. All of the modules offered (including custom) & the whole interface of the CMS as a whole is hands down one of the easiest to use & intuitive CMS's that I have come across. Our clients (and us) love it.
Cons
  • Cost and Licensing. Personally, we've never had a problem with this with our clients - we sell the value and our clients understand the value of using Freedom over other CMS options. We also will only work in Freedom - so our clients don't have an option. However, there is a monthly cost to license the CMS - which also includes the hosting. Yes, there are free options for CMS's out there - however even with those you have to find hosting. Accrisoft has different tiers of server sizes and monthly costs accordingly depending on you or your clients needs.
  • Minimal Themes. Accrisoft only has a small amount of themes available to deploy with your site. They probably have around 10-15, pretty modern and responsive themes that you can use to start a new Freedom installation with, however, if you typically deploy and install themes for your clientele - instead of custom sites, Freedom may not be for you. As you know some other CMS's can have hundreds or thousands of themes. With that said, they allow their solution providers to create themes and use site backups to transfer exact copies of existing sites to another Freedom server. So if you create your own starting templates you can always deploy and start with something - not completely from scratch. I personally don't think this is a problem at all, but am mentioning it for others to know about.
Likelihood to Recommend

The only thing I believe Accrisoft Freedom is not as well suited is for large e-commerce sites. Accrisoft Freedom actually has an E-commerce module and can do products and online sales, however if this is the majority of what your business does (or your clients' businesses), I would recommend an E-commerce focused CMS.

For almost all other circumstances I can think of though, I would recommend Accrisoft Freedom - ma and pa shops on up to a corporation.

Freedom CMS Feature Ratings
Web Content Creation (8)
87.5%
8.8
WYSIWYG editor
100%
10.0
Code quality / cleanliness
90%
9.0
Admin section
90%
9.0
Page templates
100%
10.0
Library of website themes
40%
4.0
Mobile optimization / responsive design
80%
8.0
Publishing workflow
100%
10.0
Form generator
100%
10.0
Web Content Management (5)
94%
9.4
Content taxonomy
100%
10.0
SEO support
100%
10.0
Bulk management
90%
9.0
Availability / breadth of extensions
90%
9.0
Community / comment management
90%
9.0
Platform & Infrastructure (2)
N/A
N/A
API
N/A
N/A
Internationalization / multi-language
N/A
N/A
Security (1)
100%
10.0
Role-based user permissions
100%
10.0
CMS programming language or framework
N/A
N/A
Return on Investment
  • Better Customer Service. Everything in Freedom is standardized & easy for our clients to use. It's also easy for our support team to handle any support tickets because there's not a thousand different plugins for one thing, e.g. 1000 different form plugins, there is just ONE forms module that is identical to all of our clients.
  • Increased Employee Efficiency. All of our development team is unified within Accrisoft Freedom. Any one of us can jump into another's project at any time and know how it's built and how to update or edit anything. Even with custom modules that one developer might not have known another created. Freedom is very intuitive and for example, to continue with custom modules point, all custom modules are built using the same process, so it's easy for developers to edit and know exactly how it's working in minutes - even if they haven't seen it before.
  • High Client Retention Rate. We have only lost a handful of clients throughout the many years we've been using Freedom CMS with our clients. And the majority of those that we did lose, were for reasons not related to the website - or beyond their control - e.g. a parent company insisting to use the parent company's CMS solution, even though our direct clients/contacts wanted to stay with us and told us later that they wished they could go back to Freedom because of how much easier and better it was.
Alternatives Considered
Compared to every similar products/CMSs I have used, nothing competes with Freedom CMS. It's far more intuitive, far easier to use as a developer (and as the client), easier to customize and better to maintain and assist our clients. Hands down the best CMS solution I've found for me, my work and our clients.

The only 2 in this list I might recommend over Freedom would only be circumstantial: if you are an medium to large e-commerce business (or your client is). ShopSite & Shopify (or Magento, etc) would probably be a better option. Freedom does have some e-commerce included, but I would recommend Freedom for small e-commerce businesses, or businesses where e-commerce is not their main focus, but they'd like to include some on the site.
Other Software Used
Support Rating
9
This rating is based on personal experience only. I believe majority of people would say their support is top notch & 10/10.

The only reason I am personally am giving it lower is because I consider my self a much more advanced user of Freedom than their typical Solution Provider developers. Because I am advanced, I troubleshoot my own issues pretty in-depth before I even contact Accrisoft support. Therefore sometimes I feel it takes longer to get the researched & specific answer I need vs. a simple support question would.
Bug Resolution
Yes
New updates, new versions, new patches can occasionally come with bugs. Accrisoft is great at immediately fixing these issues & releasing new patch updates. Before they release a new full version or new patch version of Freedom, they will also manually fix the specific server/site in which you are experiencing the bug.

Accrisoft Freedom - It does work, in some cases

Rating: 5 out of 10
Incentivized
July 17, 2015
Verified User
Engineer in Engineering
Internet Company, 11-50 employees
Vetted Review
Verified User
Accrisoft Freedom
3 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Accrisoft Freedom has been used as a potential solution for clients looking to rebuild their company website. We are a multi-platform agency so we offer an unbiased opinion to clients as to what platform would fit them best based on their needs. We generally recommend Accrisoft Freedom to clients who run small to medium companies looking for an out of the box solution that's simple to maintain to make their web presence known. These clients are typically less "technologically savvy" and are looking for something basic to use that allows them to update content, send out email campaigns, and post blogs, and various other minor tasks.
Pros
  • Hosting and maintenance is taken care of. Due to it being proprietary software, everything is built to work together.
  • Simple to use. Basic functionality for websites is built in without having to dig through thousands of potential options.
  • Development is straightforward...no backend languages required. So if someone wants a unique layout for a portfolio, it's very simple to add a new content type and build the new layout using basic html and css.
Cons
  • Creating layouts could be simpler. For example, if you have a sidebar on different interior pages, it isn't very intuitive to have something different on each one. Having the ability to control what is in different regions of pages would be beneficial.
  • The Commerce modules aren't quite there yet. We have had issues with reliability and if it's not built in by default, you can't use it.
  • Documentation could be better organized. There has been a lot of mixed articles from past features that no longer exist, and for some things there just isn't any documentation at all. I have had to create complex layouts that had I known a shortcode existed, it would have made my life much easier.
Likelihood to Recommend
Will the client want customization for any functionality?

Unless you know what it is capable of out of the box, it may not be the best starting point. I would recommend it only for smaller clients who are not picky about how something works. If they would like membership, I wouldn't recommend it unless they only want to use it to hide certain pages, or for something very basic such as email subscriptions. If all they want is a simple site that is very easy to maintain and requires little attention then yes, this is a good solution for you.
Freedom CMS Feature Ratings
Web Content Creation (8)
68.75%
6.9
WYSIWYG editor
50%
5.0
Code quality / cleanliness
80%
8.0
Admin section
70%
7.0
Page templates
60%
6.0
Library of website themes
80%
8.0
Mobile optimization / responsive design
70%
7.0
Publishing workflow
70%
7.0
Form generator
70%
7.0
Web Content Management (5)
56%
5.6
Content taxonomy
60%
6.0
SEO support
70%
7.0
Bulk management
30%
3.0
Availability / breadth of extensions
50%
5.0
Community / comment management
70%
7.0
Platform & Infrastructure (2)
N/A
N/A
API
N/A
N/A
Internationalization / multi-language
N/A
N/A
Security (1)
80%
8.0
Role-based user permissions
80%
8.0
CMS programming language or framework
N/A
N/A
Return on Investment
  • Without knowing the limits of the software, projects tended to go out of scope easily, especially since the client would expect functionality that simply wasn't available.
  • The custom modules made it very simple to create something reusable. So, when we found a feature that clients liked, we could replicate it very easily.
  • Backups and migration are very simple within the Accrisoft platform. Sites could be moved from one location to another in under a minute.
Alternatives Considered
  • Wordpress,Drupal,Hubspot COS
In all honesty, we have been moving away from Accrisoft Freedom due to its lack of customizability. We as an agency generally prefer open source solutions since our client base primarily consists of those looking for a more custom solution that can be built off of in the future. While yes, these tend to need more care and attention, they have benefited us more.
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