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Salesforce Lightning Platform

Salesforce Lightning Platform
Formerly Salesforce App Cloud

Overview

What is Salesforce Lightning Platform?

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.

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Learn from top reviewers

Salesforce Lightning Platform - what is needed by all sales forces

Rating: 6 out of 10
October 22, 2024
Vetted ReviewVerified User
My organization utilizes Salesforce Lightning Platform as a CRM. My position is in sales so we use the tool to record leads, prospect accounts, customer accounts, and opportun...
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Mary Bruder
Employee - Sales
Enterprise Account Executive
Staffbase
Salesforce Lightning Platform6 years of experience

Great product for enterprise level operations

Rating: 7 out of 10
October 3, 2024
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
Salesforce Lightning Platform is out main CRM. We use this for most all sales related purposes to track customers, sales, opportunities, and reports on other integrated system...
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Verified user
Project Manager
Salesforce Lightning Platform2 years of experience

It's the Gold Standard for a reason

Rating: 8 out of 10
June 26, 2024
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
It is our CRM platform. Salesforce Lightning Platform acts as our contact list, our lead list, our donor list, etc. We can see a detailed history of a contact, and tag them in...
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Verified user
Project Manager
Salesforce Lightning Platform4 years of experience

Salesforce does it for your enterprise! Highly recommend.

Rating: 9 out of 10
May 26, 2023
Vetted ReviewVerified User
We use Salesforce to keep track of our day-to-day customer engagements. Right from actioning leads that land on the SFDC platform to managing opportunities, Salesforce is cruc...
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Verified user
Contributor
Salesforce Lightning Platform2 years of experience

Salesforce Lightning Platform, everything you need

Rating: 10 out of 10
March 29, 2023
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
I currently work as the delivery manager for Salesforce Lightning Platform. It is currently used throughout the business for marketing, sales and customer care. there are othe...
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Verified user
Manager
Salesforce Lightning Platform6 years of experience
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

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Pricing

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Starter

$25.00

Cloud
Per User Per Month

Plus

$100.00

Cloud
Per User Per Month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

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

Salesforce Lightning Platform Overview Demo

YouTube
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Features

Platform-as-a-Service

Platform as a Service is the set of tools and services designed to make coding and deploying applications much more efficient

7.5
Avg 8.0
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Product Details

What is Salesforce Lightning Platform?

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.

With the Salesforce Platform and Heroku users can deploy, run, and manage apps written in open languages like Ruby, Java, PHP and more. Deploy code via git and Salesforce Platform automatically builds and runs the application so developers can focus on delivering engaging apps for their own users. In addition, Heroku Enterprise provides collaboration functionality, additional control features, and enterprise grade support.

With Lightning on the Salesforce Platform, developers can also quickly deliver innovative apps with an interactive UX by using reusable building blocks including maps, calendars, buttons, and number entry forms. And, with the Salesforce Lightning Design System, every developer has a how-to guide and code for building beautiful apps.

The Salesforce AppExchange is a proven ecosystem of apps, with millions of installs and thousands of customer reviews to help Salesforce users find the best match for their business. Whether developers are looking for applications to accelerate internal implementations or looking to grow their business by selling apps or components to other customers, the AppExchange can assist with that.


Salesforce Lightning Platform Integrations

Salesforce Lightning Platform Competitors

Salesforce Lightning Platform Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Quickbase are common alternatives for Salesforce Lightning Platform.

Reviewers rate Services-enabled integration highest, with a score of 9.

The most common users of Salesforce Lightning Platform are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

View all alternatives
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Reviews From Top Reviewers

View all reviews
(1-5 of 19)

Salesforce review from an end user

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
March 20, 2021
Verified User
Account Manager in Sales
Computer Software Company, 501-1000 employees
Vetted Review
Verified User
Salesforce Lightning Platform
2 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Salesforce [Lightning Platform (formerly Salesforce App Cloud)] is used as our system of record for all customer interactions. We keep information about accounts, opportunities, contacts, and much more.
Pros
  • It's a great way to organize your interations
  • With custom reports, you can drill into the data
Cons
  • It would be great if you didn't need a customer outreach tool in addition, but instead could email or call directly from SFDC.
Likelihood to Recommend
I understand that it is one of the more expensive CRMs. It wouldn't make sense to have for a small company with only a few customers. For SAAS companies with lots of customers, this is a great option!

We Love Salesforce Lightning Platform

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized
December 04, 2019
MB
Matthew Bernstein
Account Executive
Intersection Co. (Marketing and Advertising, 501-1000 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Salesforce Lightning Platform
2 years of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Salesforce Lightning Platform is used across several verticals of my organization, including sales, sales operations, sales excellence, sales administration, marketing, operations, and customer support. It is used most importantly by the sales reps, account executives, and account managers, who use the tools available to accurately manage their pipelines and forecast upcoming deals.
Pros
  • Reporting dashboards.
  • Pipeline management.
  • Contact records.
Cons
  • Not entirely user-friendly and intuitive.
  • Sometimes glitchy when inputting a pending opportunity entry.
  • Synching with 3rd party applications is often glitchy.
Likelihood to Recommend
Salesforce Lightning Platform is best suited for an organization in which the sales cycle is extended over a lengthy period of time. This is due to the fact that oftentimes, a potential deal can get lost throughout the sales cycle, in which case managing an accurate pipeline becomes difficult. Being able to follow the progress of a deal is vital information for forecasting revenue.

Salesforce App Cloud as seen from Sales

Rating: 7 out of 10
Incentivized
August 19, 2019
Verified User
Representative in Sales
Information Technology and Services Company, 201-500 employees
Vetted Review
Verified User
Salesforce Lightning Platform
2 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Salesforce App Cloud is used primarily to allow our developers the ability to build a solution easily when primary application users find a need. It's primarily used by in-house development/product teams in synergy with certain members of sales in order to roll out new applications. The primary issue it addresses is providing the base framework needed for developers to do just that...develop.
Pros
  • Opens communication/Transparency
  • Provides framework for development
  • Connects dots between mobile and web based application
Cons
  • Some features are quite difficult to use. Need additional resources to manage.
  • Very pricey, as are all things Salesforce. Hard for startups/emerging companies to justify.
  • Playing off the first con, support can be hard to come by from Salesforce.
Likelihood to Recommend
Salesforce App Cloud is well suited to larger companies with a solid development team. If you are a smaller company with less skilled developers the learning curve or potential that can be realized from using this product may be wasted. Innovation. If this word describes your business and the above points are not an issue this is for you.

Salesforce Lightning - A shockingly good CRM

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized
November 16, 2019
FM
Fraser Murphy
Sales Team Leader
Workable (Computer Software, 201-500 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Salesforce Lightning Platform
2 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Salesforce Lightning is used across the entire sales department, and in marketing a little also.

We used to use the classic version of the platform but after a few kinks with lightning were ironed out we have grown to love it. The improved user interface, greater functionality, and more accessible information have greatly helped our sales.

It is, of course, a CRM that we used to track and manage accounts, contacts, and opportunities, among others.
Pros
  • A huge amount of data in one place that is easy to access and track.
  • Integrates with many other applications to enhance user experience and life. For example Gmail - all emails are tracked and stored within the appropriate contact.
  • Flexible reporting makes spotting trends, in our markets/segments, etc., a breeze.
Cons
  • It can be a little slow, but given a large amount of data this can be expected.
  • Some of the integrations that update themselves life can cause salesforce pages to crash. For example, if you send an email and then want to edit the same account, you will be asked to refresh the page as "changes were made".
  • Searching can be tricky as it doesn't allow for spelling mistakes. You have to know exactly what you are looking for which can make searching for tricky names difficult.
Likelihood to Recommend
Excels at tracking and managing customer and prospect information. From the Sales Development Reps (SDRs) side of things, they can easily manage a large volume of accounts with tasks and views in order to manage their outreach.
As all the call and email activities are tracked it is very easy to see what is going on with a customer or prospect and understand what stage of the sales cycle they are in, or what we need to do in terms of the next steps.
SDRs can also use integrations to personalize their outreach, making them more efficient.

Salesforce has everything we need to manage our clients

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
November 26, 2019
KS
Kristin Sours
Director of Client Success
DonorSearch (Information Technology and Services, 51-200 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Salesforce Lightning Platform
7 years of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Currently, we use Salesforce across our entire organization but it's most heavily used in Client Support and Sales. For our client support team, Salesforce is crucial for keeping track of our client base, we store all their info, activities, emails, webinar attendance, etc. We also use cases to monitor our clients batch screenings/production and opportunities for renewals. Sales uses all of these components too but they heavily use leads to track all prospective clients that come in through webinars, flash classes, conferences and so on. My favorite thing that Salesforce does is allows us to easily report and track our quarterly and yearly progress to see if we are meeting our goals or not.
Pros
  • Reports and dashboards - I can build my own reports very easily to see upcoming renewals, first-year clients and so on. Then, I can create my own custom dashboard to track my favorite reports.
  • Opportunities and quotes - when I first started here we didn't use Opportunities for tracking renewals and upgrades. Now, it's easy to see what I'm working on and when ready I just add the products to a quote and it sends it to our billing for really fast invoice creation. It used to take me hours to do this and now it's seconds.
  • I love using activities - it keeps me organized and up to date on all my accounts that I manage. Plus, I can create future tasks so I don't forget to reach out.
  • I can send mass emails to any group of clients and I can create nice email templates with "placeholders" which allow me to use the first name of the main point of contact across hundreds of organizations. Again, this saves me lots of time.
Cons
  • With Lightning, the calendar is seriously lacking functionality. With Classic, I could schedule events across multiple people in my organization (something I have to do quite often). We cannot do this with Lightning and it's a big shortcoming. It caused such an issue for us that we stopped using events in SF and moved completely to Google Calendar for all work events.
  • Calendar and email sync with Google - again, this worked fine with Classic and then when we switched to Lightning it didn't.
  • Technical and client support - it's been frustrating dealing with support here. I've either had things messed up or just not resolved and a lot of times it takes a very long time to look into a small issue. It has made me reluctant to reach out again.
Likelihood to Recommend
I think any large organization that has a sales and/or client support department would be well suited for using Salesforce. In terms of CRMs, it's user-friendly, customizable and ready to use "out of the box." I would recommend anyone using Salesforce for the first time to do plenty of training and/or do trail heads (SF's online training) because there are a lot of features that you might not use but it will make your life easier. Plus, it's better to use it right the first time, as opposed to having to clean up stuff down the road. I've found that non-profits aren't as well suited with SF but this isn't from personal experience.
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