But if SharePoint hasn’t quite been the solution you’re looking for, these SharePoint alternatives have been pretty successful in tapping a share of the market, especially since they address and neutralize age-old SharePoint pain points. Some vendors even directly market themselves as SharePoint alternatives.

Table of contents

• What is SharePoint?
• What Are The Reasons to consider a SharePoint alternative?
• Best SharePoint alternatives
  • Google Workspace
  • Huddle
  • Box for Business
  • Confluence (by Atlassian)
  • Source by IC Thrive
  • Igloo
• Making your final decision on SharePoint alternatives

What is SharePoint?

To better understand how these SharePoint competitors are subverting the client base, we first need to understand what SharePoint is: what it offers, who it’s for, and where it fails to delight.

So, what is SharePoint? Billed as team collaboration software, SharePoint offers the following features, depending on edition:

• User dashboards
• Document management and editing
• Web publishing tools
• Content management
• Compliance management
• Enterprise wikis
• Tags and notes
• Enterprise social networking (through Yammer)
• Workflow and basic project management
• Business intelligence integration (through Power BI)

The platform is available through three deployment models:

1. SharePoint Server (2019): This is the on-premises version, and a client access license (CAL) is required for each person or device on the server.
2. SharePoint Hybrid: This version syncs data between your on-premises server and SharePoint Online with OneDrive for Business.
3. SharePoint Online: This allows cloud-based access to SharePoint and is available through Office 365 for Business or as a standalone service. It’s also licensed per user, per month.

Also Read: SharePoint vs OneDrive for Business

SharePoint is meant for organizations that need a document management system and storage, along with a way to collaborate on projects while not in the same office. It’s generally used by larger organizations because they have the budget and technical resources needed to get the most out of the software. While smaller organizations can benefit from the features SharePoint offers, they generally spring for cheaper project management or task management tools.

Businesses that switch to a SharePoint alternative typically cite one of the following reasons for leaving SharePoint:

• Too expensive: When you factor in the upfront price, plus maintenance costs, provisioning, and upgrades, the server-based version of SharePoint can cost a business thousands of dollars for a single license. Companies that successfully use SharePoint often hire a dedicated SharePoint specialist to configure, maintain, and update the system, which is quite unrealistic for the average small or medium-sized business.
• Too complicated: SharePoint is less a single product than an ecosystem of product modules. This is good in terms of versatility, but doesn’t always translate into “user-friendly,” or even “buyer friendly,” for that matter. It’s probably why, if you Google “SharePoint,” the second result is a post by Microsoft Support called “What is SharePoint?”
• Too high-maintenance: Because of its complexity, especially in the server-based version, SharePoint requires a lot of time and IT resources to maintain.

Why should you consider a SharePoint alternative?

It’s seldom that a major software platform is downright bad. In most cases, the organization and software are simply incompatible. For example, a business purchases SharePoint, attracted to some of its marketing promises and one or two core modules, but eventually realizes how broad and complex the product is—too broad for their needs. Then six months into their contract, they may be struggling with IT maintenance costs and lack the resources to properly use the system.

To avoid this, make sure the collaboration software you choose (or intranet or content management system or project management tool) is a good fit for your needs. You may also be interested in SharePoint alternatives if you’re looking for a cloud storage service but don’t need the robust features of an intranet platform and don’t want to pay the higher price tag. If that’s the case, there are plenty of cloud storage solutions on the market. Many offer enterprise-level encryption and access control for business accounts.

Alternatively, you may want a project management solution that includes document collaboration.

Best SharePoint alternatives

We focus on SharePoint alternatives that offer similar feature sets to SharePoint, exclusively employee collaboration and content management suites. With that in mind, here are six solutions that are good for both companies leaving SharePoint or buying a platform for the first time.

Google Workspace

If you’re familiar with Google’s productivity apps, Google Workspace essentially takes these apps and optimizes them for business use under your company domain. The core package includes Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Keep, and Meet.

More than 5 million businesses use Google Workspace to stay productive and collaborate across the enterprise. The Google ecosystem offers a diverse, affordable alternative to other commercial platforms like SharePoint. Google provides tools for email, file sharing, real time shared document editing, and communication. You can access all of these from any location and any device. Its administrative controls let you easily manage users, file security, data archives, and a range of other functions.

Unique Features:

• Email and chat archiving
• Drive file search
• Built-in calendars and scheduling
• Video conferencing
• Simultaneous document editing
• Intranet sites
• Survey and form creation

Huddle

Huddle offers a ton of features for team collaboration and project management. Its platform is geared toward large enterprises and government agencies, and they are trusted by NASA, EPSON, and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Huddle helps businesses share files, collaborate on projects, and organize their workflows. Users can edit files directly within the application and enjoy complete version control, similar to what you’d find in a Google Doc. Huddle supports both mobile and desktop apps and offers native integrations for Salesforce, Zimbra, Centrify, and (ironically) Microsoft SharePoint.

As far as per-user cost, Huddle is more expensive than SharePoint Online and Office 365 for Business. But then again, it was never intended for the small budget company.

Unique Features:

• Intelligent content dashboard
• Automatic version control
• Customized cloud workspaces
• Social Collaboration
• FedRAMP, EU Directive 95/46/EC adherence, and ISO 27001 certified data centers and offices, among other safeguards
• Task management
• Intelligent sharing and collaboration with version tracking and view timestamps

Box for Business

For consumers, Box is simply a cloud storage service. But to businesses, it’s a powerful collaboration platform. Beyond basic file sharing, Box offers enterprise security, mobile synchronization, version control, and project management tools.

Through the IT console, administrators can set up retention policies (for example, to retain specific file types for HIPAA compliance), custom access controls, and security measures. A quick single sign-on gives users access to all modules of Box without compromising data security. Since it doesn’t provide native document editing, Box integrates with Office 365 and other third-party apps.

Also Read: Box vs. Dropbox: Which is Best For Your Business?

Unique Features:

• Custom branding
• Mobile security controls (including mobile device management, or MDM, integration)
• Project and task management
• Workflows with Box Relay
• Password-protected share links
• Access stats and reporting
• Compliant with HIPAA/HITECH, SEC 17a-4 (FINRA), DoD Cloud SRG, GDPR, GxP, ISO 27001/27018, SOC 1, SOC 2, and SOC 3

Confluence (by Atlassian)

Confluence is a team collaboration solution owned by Atlassian—a vendor best known for its project management and software development tools. But Confluence isn’t just for developers. It’s a cloud-based platform designed to help any kind of agile team “create, organize, and discuss work.”

The software lets you create unique spaces for each of your teams to store their work and collaborate in real time. Each space contains multiple pages, which use intuitive templates to capture meeting notes, project requirements and designs, and other assets. Through comments and @mentions, users can stay informed about changes to content and respond quickly to pressing issues. For greater elasticity, Confluence integrates with over 600 add-ons through the Atlassian Marketplace.

The system leans heavily toward software development project management, so if your teams aren’t used to agile methodology (requirements, sprints, stories, releases, retrospectives, etc.), Confluence may not be the best fit.

Unique Features:

• Advanced search function
• Shared calendars
• Task management
• Agile development workflows
• Shared document editing
• Team sites/spaces
• Team decision pages
• GDPR, Privacy Shield, SOC 2, SOC 3, PCI DSS, ISO/IEC 27001, ISO/IEC 27018, and VPAT compliant

Source by IC Thrive

Source by IC thrive offers simple intranet platforms to help companies automate business processes, collaborate on work tasks, and keep employees engaged. The system is designed for easy implementation, but also to scale as businesses grow by offering a wealth of out-of-the-box features.

You’ll get the standard fare: document management, team sites, calendars, and enterprise search. But Source also has some capabilities you might not expect—such as its innovative e-learning module, which lets HR managers create onboarding workflows and online training courses, or its social-style employee directory.

Unfortunately, this vendor doesn’t offer on-demand pricing, which makes sense given the complicated infrastructure of an intranet platform, but it could be a big drawback for small-budget companies.

Unique Features:

• Corporate social networking
• Mobile intranet
• Extranet portal (for secure third-party access)
• Shared calendars
• Help desk ticketing
• Alerts and subscriptions
• Employee milestones
• Document editing
• Company blogs
• Company polling
• E-learning
• HTML editor and design-builder

Igloo

Igloo provides an intranet platform for businesses of various sizes and industries. They currently support over 10,000 collaboration sites, including those of IDC (International Data Corporation), Deloitte, and NetApp.

Their core product offering focuses on improving collaboration and information sharing through blogs, calendars, file sharing, forums, task management, and wikis. Igloo positions itself as a lower-cost, easier-to-use SharePoint alternative. Pricing is all-inclusive, with special pricing options for custom requirements or enterprise companies.

One significant drawback is Igloo’s lack of in-app document editing. The software tracks version uploads and offers document previews, but you’ll need to employ a separate program like Microsoft Office or Google Drive to create and edit your documents.

Unique Features:

• @mentions and notifications
• Moderated folders
• Links to related content
• Internal and external blogging, including WYSIWYG editor
• Shared calendars
• Discussion forums
• Microblogs and wikis
• Task and subtask management

Final thoughts

Although these SharePoint alternatives represent some of the stronger players on the market, this is by no means a comprehensive list. There are dozens of team collaboration and file sharing solutions to consider, and even more if you include project and workflow management apps like LeanKit or Planbox.

Businesses in different industries will likely favor certain features. For example, marketing teams may look for SharePoint alternatives that offer internal and external blogging features, an HTML editor and design-builder, and an intelligent content dashboard. These features will make it easier for them to create unique, engaging content and reach potential customers in more places.

By contrast, a managed services provider (MSP) should look for helpdesk ticketing, project and task management, and wikis. They need to be able to address client concerns quickly and tackle projects without too much redundancy. The right SharePoint alternative can increase their efficiency and overall client satisfaction.

The post Best SharePoint Alternatives for 2023 appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

That’s no small wonder since the data is being kept in separate places.

Let’s look at a home construction business, for example. The client’s order request, sales history, and contact information are kept in the customer relationship management (CRM) system. But the data about the home you’re building (project status, budget adherence, timeline, etc.) is being kept in the project management software, which might only be accessible to your engineers and contractors.

So, how can businesses provide the needed visibility into both their CRM systems and project management software? Bridging the two systems eliminates silos and provides greater visibility across the customer journey.

Benefits of Combining CRM and Project Management Software

This miscommunication between project teams and business units often causes confusion for customers – or worse, misinformation. Answers take longer and make less sense. The relationship becomes weaker.

Small businesses and enterprises alike are finding a solution in a customer relationship management system with integrated project management software. Bringing the two systems together eliminates silos and provides visibility to marketing, service, operations, and sales teams.

There are a number of strategic advantages to connecting CRMs with project management software:

• Businesses can manage the customer lifecycle and multiple projects in one tool

• Separate teams can collaborate on client initiatives and deliverables through unified task management, project pipelines, budgeting, reporting, and reminders

• Customers’ feedback and input are connected with ongoing projects

• Greater overall ROI for software subscription and purchase, as you typically only pay for one tool instead of two.

Want to improve your project management processes? Learn more about the Most Innovative Project Management Strategies.

Best CRM Project Management Software

You’ll see CRM project management software packaged in a number of ways. Some vendors provide customer relationship management software with out-of-the-box project management tools, meaning you won’t need to purchase any separate add-ons or perform manual integration. Other vendors offer CRM/PM software modules that, while fully compatible, are sold and installed separately. We’ll look at examples of both.

Insightly

Average User Rating: 4/5

Although its features are less extensive than some competitors, Insightly is one of the few products that offer integrated CRM and project management software below market price. Because of its low cost and high flexibility, this platform is a great choice for small businesses in any industry, although they also offer a custom-priced enterprise edition.

Insightly’s project management tool lets users create milestones, pipelines, and project tasks, receive automatic email reminders, customize contact roles, and view reports on project activity. Of course, you’ll also have access to traditional CRM tools like address books, email integration, calendars, notes, and web forms.

monday.com

Average User Rating: 4.5/5

monday.com’s work management platform allows for seamless integration between CRM software and PM tools, via preconfigured workflows like the monday.com sales CRM. All client information is stored in one shared board to avoid confusion between team members or customers. Sales requests, new client onboarding, and account tracking are some of the features of the monday.com sales CRM dashboard.

The dashboard itself is unique from other CRM tools because it’s a user-configurable, visual board with color-coordinated tabs. The standard spreadsheet-style CRM doesn’t fit every team, which makes monday.com a highly sought-after CRM alternative for task management and tracking customer data.

Reviews of this tool say that it’s easy to understand and use. The color-coordinated dashboard provides a simple way to track progress, stages, and action items. This CRM feature is part of the base package; however, there are options to upgrade to higher packages with increased features and capabilities.

Zoho CRM

Average User Rating: 4.4/5

It’s no mystery that Zoho makes a great CRM (so great that we gave them an award). Zoho is perfect for businesses with intensive software needs (deeper analytics, automation, etc.). Their Projects module is a free add-on that comes with Professional and Enterprise editions of Zoho CRM. If you already have one of these editions, you’re one download away from having Zoho Projects.

The Projects add-on will give you access to some powerful abilities, including traditional PM tools such as Gantt charts, time-tracking, and milestones, but also a few more innovative ones, like Kanban boards for agile planning, detailed analytics, and the ability to create new projects directly from within customers’ accounts. These project management solutions directly connect to the CRM as well, which will give your teams better visibility and control in both directions.

Note: Zoho also makes standalone project management software available for purchase without CRM; this is distinct from the “Projects” tool.

SugarCRM

Average User Rating: 3.9/5

Sugar CRM is well known for its open-source software that packs innovative, user-friendly functionality into a flexible platform. Similar to Zoho, Sugar CRM started offering integrated project management software in 2007 with its Sugar Professional and Sugar Enterprise product lines.

The core product addresses the three main pillars of CRM software – sales force automation, customer service, and marketing automation. The project management tool allows customers to deploy and manage projects directly connected to campaigns, opportunities, customers’ accounts, and cases. Users can share files, access project templates, view Gantt charts and collaboration history, and even export project data to external project management solutions like Microsoft Project.

HubSpot CRM

Average User Rating: 4.4/5

The HubSpot CRM platform works well for small businesses all the way up to enterprises. While the base platform is free, you’ll have to pay if you want sales process automation or project management solutions. HubSpot can help businesses track customer interactions and make managing projects easier with nearly 1,100 native integrations.

HubSpot’s customer service CRM system organizes communication with ticketing and live chat options to improve customers’ satisfaction. Users can also create canned responses directing customers to the knowledge base for self-service options. Additionally, project teams get task management and customizable reports to track the business’s most important KPIs.

CRM Software Needs Project Management To Be Effective

CRM solutions have come a long way since the 50 percent fail rate reported by Gartner in 2001. Cloud and mobile technology, crowdsourcing, and a wealth of third-party app start-ups have slowly but surely transformed CRM into a key component of business IT.

But there’s still room for improvement. Ongoing development of project management software integrations is yet another way CRM is evolving and expanding its reach. Ostensibly, this move is about convenience and efficiency. But on a deeper level, it’s about adding value to customers’ experience by enabling a 360-degree view of each relationship your business maintains.

To find the perfect CRM project management software for your business, use our CRM Product Selection Tool. In as little as five minutes, you’ll get a free list of software recommendations tailored to your organization.

But how do you know which CRM system is right for you? Check out our ProTips: How to Compare CRM Software Like an Expert.

The post CRM and Project Management: Today’s Best Integrated Solutions appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

Thankfully, e-signature software isn’t one of the many oversaturated business technology categories that require a massive budget approval and a six-month procurement process. You can select the most attractive vendor from a small handful of market leaders and get started with minimal financial risk.

If you’ve spent any time comparing these vendors (or been alive with internet access), you’ve probably heard of DocuSign and EchoSign — the two leading choices for e-signature and “digital transaction management.”

ALSO READ: 6 of the Best Tools for Digital Transaction Management

Since you’re reading this article, it’s safe to assume both have made it onto your shortlist. Before you pay for either, you need to know which offers the best features for the best price. In this article, we’ll compare DocuSign vs. EchoSign based on features, pricing, and integrations to help you make your final decision.

DocuSign vs. EchoSign: Company Overview

The first thing you should know is that EchoSign is no longer called EchoSign. Although we included it in the title (to accommodate search trends), EchoSign was actually acquired by Adobe in 2011 and is now referred to as Adobe Sign — part of the Adobe Document Cloud.

As you can imagine, that means you get all the benefits of working with a well-established vendor (phone/email support, bountiful integrations, a thriving user community) from a company that happens to have invented the PDF.

Notable customers who have used Adobe Sign include Workday, The Global Fund, Unum, and Kia Motors of America.

DocuSign was founded in 2003 and began selling to real estate professionals when zipForm integrated DocuSign with their own platform. Since then, DocuSign has grown significantly and acquired thousands of customers in every industry from healthcare to high-tech. In their last round of investment funding, the company was valued at $3 billion.

Notable DocuSign customers include Cisco, Community Energy, and the Georgia Department of Community Supervision.

Systems and Pricing

DocuSign offers a handful of “general use” editions for individuals and businesses and three dedicated to real estate. Subscription costs are relatively low for individuals and small teams ($10-$25/user/month, billed annually), but can amount to a significant operational expense for customers who need advanced features and support.

DocuSign offers a choice between four shelf-priced editions (personal, standard, business, business premium) and their custom, enterprise edition, which is priced by the sales team. All editions include basic templates, workflows, custom fields, audit trails, and access to the DocuSign mobile app.

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If you’re worried about paying for extra licenses based on your customer/client relationships, don’t be. Only people who are creating/annotating documents need to be listed as users on an account. Any signer can respond to a DocuSign request for free, without a login.

Adobe Sign offers fewer pricing tiers, but they don’t limit the number of documents you can send at the entry-level tier, and the Business tier is actually cheaper than DocuSign’s Business and Business Premium editions, which share many of the same features.

• Individual: $9.99/month (billed annually)
• Business: $30/user/month (billed annually)
• Enterprise: custom pricing

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Features

Obviously, both tools will let you send documents to people and request an e-signature. One isn’t necessarily better than the other at doing this. Where you start to see the differentiation is in user experience and in the various features that support digital transaction management. Let’s take a look.

DocuSign’s signature process works like this: pick a document, specify recipients who need to sign it, designate required fields such as address or company name, and send the document to your recipients. After recipients complete their digital signature, the document is stored for your records and key stakeholders receive an automatic alert. You can do this with PDFs, Microsoft Word files, and most other common document formats.

In addition to signature functionality, DocuSign can help users collaborate on shared documents in something they call a Transaction Room. Transaction Rooms give teams and groups of stakeholders a secure, shared space in which to review and comment on documents, seamlessly integrated with DocuSign’s signature application.

If you work in a highly-regulated industry like healthcare, banking, or government, you can deploy DocuSign privately, on-premise, through the DocuSign Signature Appliance, which mounts to a traditional server rack.

Other DocuSign features include:

• Reminders and notifications
• Audit trail
• Company branding
• Advanced authentication
• Advanced workflows
• Bulk sending
• Shared document templates
• Embedded web signing
• Retention policy management (enterprise edition)
• Single sign-on integration (enterprise edition)
• CRM connectors
• Native mobile apps
• API access
• Two-factor authentication

Adobe Sign’s signature process looks like this: enter recipient’s email address, add the file you want signed, add a custom message (optional), specify identity verification measures (password, social, email address, KBA), add form fields and signature blocks to your document, and set required fields. Send. The recipient will sign and return, and both/all parties receive a PDF copy of the signed document. You can also track progress under the “Manage” tab to see when your file has been viewed. As you can see, not a ton of difference between the two applications in terms of core functionality.  

Adobe Sign also offers workflow customization, so you can set up specific processes that meet your business and regulatory needs. With the right integrations, you can even use these workflows to trigger internal next steps, such as invoicing or order fulfillment.

Need to build a document from scratch? Adobe Sign provides a number of document and form templates that you can populate with data from your existing systems. They don’t offer anything akin to DocuSign’s Rooms feature, but if you’re already using a cloud-based file sharing app, that won’t matter much.

Adobe Sign’s mobile app

Other Adobe Sign features include:

• Hybrid routing (control the signing sequence, when you have multiple signers)
• Reusable handwritten signatures
• Dashboards and reports (viewable in Salesforce)
• Audit trails
• Workflow templates
• Bulk sending
• Embedded web signing
• Notifications and reminders
• Digital seals (prevent document tampering)
• Native mobile apps
• API access (with enterprise edition)
• Two-factor authentication

Integrations

While you certainly can send all of your documents by logging into your e-signature app, you’ll save a considerable amount of time if you embed e-signature functionality into your existing workflows. I.e. instead of leaving your CRM and managing the contract approval process via email/DocuSign/Adobe Sign, you could dispatch a signature request from directly inside the opportunity page, automatically populating form fields with data from existing account/contact profiles. Just one example.

To do that and other stuff like it, you’ll need to make sure the e-signature app you choose can exchange data with whatever systems you use — either via plug-and-play integration or API (application programming interface).

DocuSign has over 140 native integrations — among them Box, Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, Office 365, Salesforce, Netsuite, SuccessFactors, Oracle Sales Cloud, Intuit, and SharePoint. Although you’ll need to purchase the Enterprise edition to use any of the CRM integrations (and to set up single sign-on), DocuSign provides open access to all other third-party and custom API integrations with any product tier, including personal. They’ll even give you a developer sandbox for testing integrations before they “go live.”

If you’d rather not worry about user count and instead pay for a set quantity of signatures through your own app, you can purchase one of DocuSign’s API editions, which have different signature caps, depending on price.

Adobe Sign offers a similar spread of native integrations: Google Drive/Apps, Box, Office 365, Salesforce, Workday, Microsoft Dynamics, Ariba, Apttus, SharePoint, Xero, Oracle, Netsuite, and Namely, to name a few. The biggest difference here is that Adobe limits all of the enterprise and custom API integrations to the Enterprise product tier. That means if you want to weave e-signatures directly into your workflows, you might have to pay a significantly higher subscription price.

Note: Office apps, Google, and Box work natively with all Adobe Sign editions.

Making Your Final Decision

In the end, neither vendor’s e-signature functionality is vastly superior. They both essentially do the same thing. But, depending on the size of your team and your integration needs, you’ll be paying different prices for different levels of access, control, and customization.

If you plan to embed e-signature workflows into your website or proprietary apps, DocuSign’s built-in sandbox and API editions might be attractive. If you need to edit and customize PDFs on a regular basis, you may appreciate the seamless utility of Adobe Sign as part of the Adobe Document Cloud.

And then . . . there are a hundred more indecisions, a hundred visions and revisions to consider. Check out our Product Selection tool to compare products and get a custom recommendation. If you find your head banging against a wall, contact one of our expert advisors for a free consultation. We’ll show you what works.

The post DocuSign vs EchoSign: E-Signature Software Comparison appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

Adoption has increased significantly since 2015 when this comparison was first published. Now 51 percent of marketers use marketing automation tools, and the marketing automation technology market is projected to grow to $25 billion by 2023. That’s an increase of 120 percent from its 2017 size of $11.4 billion.

Even now, marketing automation vendors are racing to stake their claim in the future market, and like the land rushes of the Old West, acreage is up for grabs. These vendors will court you and your business. They will say that their product is the best, the highest performing, the crowd favorite.

And since niche players still have a lot of work to do before they become household names, most companies will make their decision between a small handful of best-in-class solutions, which makes the choice even more difficult due to the lack of differentiation in the market.

One of the most common marketing automation faceoffs is HubSpot vs Marketo. These two cloud-based industry leaders both have strong customer bases, high satisfaction scores, and a lot of overlap in features. But they aren’t the same.

There are some clear distinctions between Marketo’s Engagement Marketing Platform and HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing software. Marketo primarily makes marketing automation tools for enterprise and B2B clients, while HubSpot caters to growing companies of all types. These different audiences are reflected in the ways the systems are built and their pricing.

Systems and Pricing

Marketo

Marketo’s system is broken down into five main modules:

• Lead management
• Email marketing
• Consumer marketing
• Customer base marketing
• Mobile marketing

These modules can be purchased separately, bundled, or purchased together in an integrated platform. This lets you create a custom solution for your needs, but some businesses may prefer a more unified system. Beyond that, Marketo’s modules are priced in tiers according to scale:

• Pro
• Elite
• Enterprise

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HubSpot

Unlike Marketo, HubSpot offers all of its features and capabilities through a single system with sales, customer service, and CRM applications available as free add-ons. An all-in-one solution is attractive to many buyers since it provides seamless functionality and is priced as a single unit.

HubSpot also offers a number of pre-built integrations with popular business apps to allow for further customization. Their core product, Marketing Hub, is priced in five tiers according to scale:

• Free
• Starter
• Professional
• Enterprise

Get the CRM free forever, while Sales Hub and Service Hub pricing increase according to use.

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For smaller businesses, HubSpot is the more affordable option. Their entry-level product is significantly less expensive than Marketo’s Basic edition. For enterprise use, Hubspot and Marketo are more comparable in price, but Marketo is still more expensive, especially since most businesses will need more than one module to be effective.

How are Marketo & Hubspot Similar?

Despite some distinct differences (which we’ll get to in a moment), there are a few areas where Marketo and HubSpot overlap, in terms of function and use case.

Both are designed to help companies build out their marketing strategies across multiple channels, whether it be web, email, or social media. To that end, both platforms have built-in email campaigns with delivery optimization tools, event-based triggers, lead-nurturing, and A/B testing. Both platforms can monitor and analyze web traffic, and both platforms can track and manage social marketing efforts.

	HubSpot	Marketo
Average user rating	4.58/5	4.03/5
QUICK FACTS
Pricing	Average	High-end
Works best for	Any size	Medium to enterprise
CORE FEATURES
Blog management features	Yes	No
Social media monitoring	Yes	Yes
Website monitoring	Yes	Yes
SEO tools	Yes	Yes
Landing pages	Yes	Yes
A/B landing page testing	Yes	Yes
Lead management	Yes	Yes
List segmentation	Yes	Yes
Dynamic content	Yes	Yes
Email marketing	Yes	Yes
Deliverability optimization	Yes	Yes
A/B email testing	Yes	Yes
Marketing calendar	Yes	Yes
Drip campaigns	Yes	Yes
Automation templates	Yes	Yes
Event-based triggers	Yes	Yes
Reporting/Analytics	Yes	Yes
Built-in CRM	Yes	No
Event marketing/webinars	Yes	Yes
Social marketing/Publishing	Yes	Yes
Financial management	No	Yes
Transactional emails	Yes	No
Sales dashboards	Yes	Yes
Native mobile app(s)	Yes	Yes
STUFF IT NEEDS TO KNOW
Cloud platform	Yes	Yes
SOAP APIs	No	Yes
REST APIs	Yes	Yes
Webhooks	Yes	Yes
Secure page services (SSL)	Yes	Yes
Role-based access	Yes	Yes

Click here to download this table as an image.

How are Marketo & Hubspot Different?

The chart above shows a detailed comparison of specs and features, and as you may notice, a handful are exclusive to one product or the other. But there are a lot of internal differentiators between HubSpot and Marketo that aren’t addressed by a surface-level features comparison.

For starters, Marketo has traditionally been associated with lead nurturing, while HubSpot’s focus has long been tied to inbound marketing. Here are some other areas where users will notice key differences between the two products.

Ease of Use

Since Marketo specializes in custom solutions for enterprises, their software tends to require more IT knowledge to operate. If you have a dedicated MA specialist or employ a marketing technologist with MA software experience, this may not be a problem for your business, and you’ll appreciate the depth of features Marketo offers.

On the other hand, if your team needs a marketing automation solution that gives you intuitive access to a wide range of marketing functions, you might be better off with HubSpot. In the software industry, ease-of-use is a powerful asset, as evidenced by its impact on user satisfaction and a product’s viability. For this and other reasons, HubSpot’s average user rating across software review sites is over half a point higher than Marketo’s.

CRM Integration

In many ways, marketing automation and customer relationship management (CRM) are mutually dependent. That’s why most businesses shop for an MA solution that integrates with their CRM or vice versa. HubSpot offers its own built-in CRM, as well as integrations with popular systems such as Salesforce, SugarCRM, Microsoft Dynamics, and Zoho, among others.

Also Read: HubSpot vs. Zoho CRM: An In-Depth Look To Help You Choose Your New CRM

While Marketo doesn’t provide a built-in CRM module, their product was built using the Salesforce platform, which means they offer some of the best Salesforce integration in the industry. They also offer native integrations for Microsoft Dynamics and SAP, and certified integrations for Netsuite, Oracle, and SugarCRM.

Analytics

Successful marketing is driven by insight, and insight comes from data — data about customers, content, engagement, and business deliverables. A marketing automation solution without practical data analytics tools is little more than an email robot. Both Marketo and HubSpot give marketers and managers access to a set of powerful analytics tools for tracking campaign programs and pulling reports. And both solutions provide reporting on marketing efforts and revenue fluctuations and can tie revenue to campaigns.

Also Read: 4 Simple Ways To Supercharge Your Sales Strategy With Business Intelligence

HubSpot offers a closed-loop integration with your CRM, giving you easy access to customer data for analysis, and revenue reporting comes standard with the Enterprise tier. Marketo lets you perform predictive analytics and modeling based on digital behavior patterns, content preferences, CRM data, and firmographics.

Conclusion

If you’re a growing business looking to bring more visitors to your site and nurture leads with a marketing automation software of enterprise capabilities, you might be better served by HubSpot. If you’re a large B2B company looking for a custom-built solution to align prospect engagement with business goals, you should consider Marketo.

Then again, these aren’t the only two fish in the sea. New products continue to appear in the market, each with a slightly different feature set than its competitors. For more help narrowing down your options, complete the form on our marketing automation software page or contact us to get a custom list of solutions that match your business needs.

The post Hubspot vs Marketo: Marketing Automation Comparison appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

• If you’re looking for a highly-advanced system with plenty of room to scale, get a price quote for Salesforce (price can vary depending on your use intent, team size, and implementation needs).
• If you’re starting out with the basics and want to save on costs, Zoho is certainly no slouch.

Businesses use their CRMs to store customer data, track sales and service activities, forecast revenue, and measure the efficacy of marketing programs. As a result, CRM software has become one of the most quintessential business tools on the market — a kind of Swiss Army Knife for customer-facing teams.

In many circles, mentioning CRM immediately brings Salesforce to mind. That’s because Salesforce was one of the original cloud-based platforms and has consistently held the lion’s share of the market.

Also Read: HubSpot CRM vs. Salesforce: CRM Software Comparison

But Salesforce isn’t the only CRM on the market, and it isn’t necessarily the best choice for your business. In fact, we’ve compared Salesforce to several of its alternatives in the past, including Microsoft Dynamics, SugarCRM, Infusionsoft, and others.

In this article, we’ll compare Zoho vs. Salesforce, pitting the smaller, less expensive competitor against the market leader in cloud CRM. If you’re reading this post, you probably intend to choose one of the two. As this decision will affect your productivity and profitability for years to come, it’s important to look at other options as well.

Zoho vs. Salesforce: Company Overviews

Salesforce is the number one CRM on the market by market share and revenue. They were founded in 1999 and lead the charge as one of the original software as a service (SaaS) vendors. With an initial public offering of $110 million and the stock symbol “CRM,” Salesforce was destined for astronomical growth. They now boast over $13 billion in revenue and employee 36,000 people.

Notable Salesforce customers include ADP, Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, and the American Red Cross.

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Zoho started in 1996 as an IT management provider called AdventNet Inc. They originally focused on enterprise customers and didn’t launch the Zoho web suite we know and love until the SaaS boom of 2005.

At the moment, Zoho is still a privately-held company. They are globally headquartered in Chennai, India, with plans to move their US headquarters from Pleasanton, CA to Austin, TX. Most of their customers are small businesses in technology, consulting, media, and real estate industries, but they offer solutions for companies of every size and industry.

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Zoho vs. Salesforce: Systems and Pricing

Salesforce markets itself as a “customer success platform,” which means all of their different products integrate with one another. Their most popular products are Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, or Marketing Cloud, and they are all are priced separately. Since marketing and service applications are usually peripheral, we’ll focus on Sales Cloud for most of our comparison points.

Sales Cloud comes in four editions: Essentials (out-of-the-box CRM for up to 10 users), Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited, which adds 24/7 support and configuration services. Although priced per user per month, these enterprise versions are notoriously expensive.

Zoho’s CRM is divided into three product tiers: standard, professional, and enterprise. Each tier differs based on features and support, and price is calculated per user, per month. Compared to Salesforce CRM’s Unlimited edition, Zoho’s enterprise tier is almost 90 percent less expensive. Zoho also stands apart in that it offers month-to-month billing in addition to annual billing.

Features

As with any business solution, it’s important to consider functionality. If a solution can’t perform as needed, can’t support the workflows that matter to your team, and can’t deliver results that align with your goals, it’s obviously not a good fit.

To help you evaluate this, we’ll compare Zoho and Salesforce based on some of the most mission-critical (and most popular) CRM features: contact management, reporting, and mobile capabilities.

Also Read: The Only CRM Integration List You’ll Ever Need

Contact management

Contact management is one of the most important components of any CRM, but specifically when comparing Zoho vs. Salesforce. The ability to store firmographics and build rich data profiles around clients, prospects, and accounts will save your business money during campaign execution and sales development. Both platforms offer features for adding and managing contacts, as well as leads, accounts, and business opportunities.

The Salesforce database stores customer data, communication history, related activities, and more for every contact. You can also use Einstein AI (Salesforce’s virtual CRM assistant) for insights such as predictive lead scoring. If you’ve imported leads from marketing campaigns, you can track their activity in real time and move them seamlessly into your sales pipeline.

Zoho’s contact management features won’t disappoint, either. You can record phone numbers, emails, meeting notes, to-do lists, documents, and much more without leaving the system, especially since Zoho integrates with most major office applications.

Use the Zoho Import Wizard, Web Forms, or the Zoho CRM API to easily import contacts from other third-party business applications. A built-in social media CRM feature pulls data from Google+, Facebook, and Twitter and lets you track social conversations involving your leads, prospects, and customers (an advantage over Salesforce, which would require an add-on for this feature).

Zoho also provides lead management features to help you turn accepted leads into contacts, accounts, and business opportunities.

Reporting

Both platforms provide a number of tools to help decision-makers slice and dice data about revenue, customer acquisition, marketing programs, etc.

Salesforce offers built-in dashboards and reports that let you track lead volume, conversion rates, sales forecasts, and other metrics without bothering your data analyst to manipulate and merge massive spreadsheets. You can access dozens of pre-built reports, or use the Report Builder to create a custom report. Just drag and drop the fields and filters you want, select a chart type, and you’re done.

If you need more advanced reporting options for sales managers or CFOs/CROs, you can purchase the Einstein Analytics add-on for an additional per-user fee.

Under the Dashboards tab in Zoho, you can access similar analytics tools. The Opportunity Tracking tool, for instance, gives you a comprehensive view of all sales activities, including deal size, lead source, competitor information, and any other metrics you select (using the drop-down menu). All reports in the Sales, Marketing, Support, and Inventory modules are fully customizable, in addition to the 40+ standard reports available with a click.

Advanced reporting features are available through Zoho Reports (create sales funnels, analyze win/loss ratios, make predictions, etc.). Zoho Reports is technically an add-on, but it’s included in the base price of all paid editions of Zoho CRM.

Mobile capabilities

Both vendors offer native mobile apps for Android and iOS devices — a definite perk, considering many vendors only provide a mobile web interface.

Zoho’s mobile apps include calendars and scheduling, geolocation (to find nearby prospects), meeting check-ins, team newsfeeds, and, of course, access to the basic system. If you lose cellular and wireless coverage, the app will automatically sync your data when you’re back online.

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Salesforce provides a similar array of mobile features: calendars, updates, task management, mobile dashboards, file sharing, and more. With Salesforce, you can also dial into conference calls directly from the app and easily record notes afterward.

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In terms of usability, there shouldn’t be many complaints for either platform, though Salesforce is currently rated higher than Zoho in the Apple App Store.

Apps and Integrations

Horizontal integration can be a huge selling point for CRM software. As a buyer, you want a solution that can easily exchange data with your other business systems and provide flexibility when you need it. What if you decide to bring in case management functionality for your support team? A project management add-on for team collaboration? You get the idea.

Zoho’s online product suite offers a decent selection of business apps and pre-built integrations with most of the important office programs (Google for Work, Outlook, etc.). But in terms of sheer integration volume, Salesforce takes the cake. Their legendary AppExchange boasts over 2,900 apps built on the Salesforce platform and designed to extend functionality in sales, marketing, customer service, IT, finance, human resources, and other verticals.

While you certainly can’t use 2,900 apps at once, the option to expand is a clear advantage.

Making Your Final Decision

If you’re looking for a highly-advanced system with plenty of room to scale, get a price quote for Salesforce (price can vary depending on your use intent, team size, and implementation needs). If you’re starting out with the basics and want to save on costs, Zoho is certainly no slouch. Comparing Zoho vs. Salesforce may seem strange, but there are always different ways to find the right solution for you.

As usual, the question is not “Which is better?” but “Which is better for your needs and budget?” If you’re having trouble deciding, we’d love to help. Contact us for a free, five-minute consultation, or complete the form on our CRM software page to get a custom software recommendation.

Check out some of our other Salesforce comparison articles:

• SugarCRM vs Salesforce
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM vs Salesforce
• Salesforce Alternatives: 5 CRMs That Work Just as Well

Top CRM software

If you’re not sure that Zoho or Salesforce is the right choice for your company, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a short list of the top CRM platforms, so you can make the decision that’s best for your business.

The post Zoho vs Salesforce: CRM Software Comparison appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

Security-as-a-service providers usually function the same way as software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers: they charge a monthly subscription fee to reduce cost burden for outsourced services. But instead of providing access to a tool or platform, they provide protection for your apps, data, and operations that run in the cloud.

ALSO READ: Slack vs. HipChat: Choosing a Messaging App for Your Team

As more and more companies are discovering, this service is highly valuable, if not mission-critical. Here’s why:

Many organizations plunged headfirst into cloud computing without adequate knowledge and resources for provisioning their own security. They trusted vendors to take care of everything behind the scenes, but failed to consider the implications of an entire cloud infrastructure with a dozen or more applications sharing data and credentials.

What does it mean to protect corporate data and systems when all of your applications, storage, and infrastructure are running on remote servers, hosted via the web? How relevant are firewalls and traditional endpoint protection?

In this brave new world, the perils are many:

• Data loss
• Regulatory compliance violations
• Compromised credentials
• Hacked APIs
• Advanced persistent threats (APTs)
• Hijacked accounts or traffic
• DoS and DDoS attacks (denial of service; distributed denial of service)

The right SECaaS provider can help you overcome these and other vulnerabilities without exhausting your own IT resources, and without paying an exorbitant sum for a server-based solution. Most will integrate their services with your existing infrastructure, and some can even work in hybrid environments if you use a mix of cloud and on-premise resources.

If you’re shopping for SECaaS for the first time, it can be difficult to decide which provider is best suited to your needs. There are many different types of SECaaS providers with different specialties, features, and price points. In this article, we’ll divide the market into five major categories and highlight a top vendor for each.

1. Cloud access security brokerage

Cloud access security brokerages (CASBs) are the “integrated suites” of the SECaaS world. CASB vendors typically provide a range of services designed to help your company protect cloud infrastructure and data in whatever form it takes. According to McAfee, CASBs “are on-premises or cloud-hosted software that sit between cloud service consumers and cloud service providers to enforce security, compliance, and governance policies for cloud applications.” These tools monitor and act as security for all of a company’s cloud applications.

Top vendor: Oracle Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)

Oracle acquired the company Palerra in 2016, extending its Identity Cloud Service into a fully-featured CASB. This product was the first on the market to automate the entire security lifecycle, from preventative measures to detection and remediation.

The CASB solution covers cloud security, user behavior analytics, and shadow IT discovery. The Oracle Security and Identity Cloud also offers a web application firewall, identity and access management, identity cloud services, and key management.

2. Single sign-on

Single sign-on (SSO) services give users the ability to access all of their enterprise cloud apps with a single set of login credentials. SSO also gives IT and network administrators a better ability to monitor access and accounts. Some of the larger SaaS vendors already provide SSO capabilities for products within their suite, but chances are, you don’t just use applications from one vendor, which is where a third-party SSO provider would come in handy.

Top vendor: Okta

As a vendor, Okta focuses on the identity and access management (IAM) aspect of cloud security. Part of their mission is to “grant people access to applications on any device at any time, while still enforcing strong security protections.”

Okta’s single sign-on solution uses Security Assertion Markup Language 2.0 (SAML), Secure Web Authentication (SWA), or OpenID Connect to validate log-in credentials and let users securely access any application with a single username and password. Okta provides strong central administrative features, so IT managers can set custom policies and report on usage, as needed. They also offer one of the broadest integration networks in the industry, so you can add SSO capabilities to about every application imaginable — whether cloud or desktop.

3. Email security

It may not be the first application that comes to mind when you think about outsourcing security, but a massive amount of data travels in and out of your business through cloud-based email servers. SECaaS providers that focus on email security can protect you from the menagerie of threats and risks that are an intrinsic part of email like malvertising, targeted attacks, phishing, and data breaches. Some email security tools are part of a larger platform, while other vendors offer it as a standalone solution.

Top provider: Proofpoint

Proofpoint is one of the top cloud security providers that focuses on email. Their solution is designed to secure and control outbound and inbound email threats in any kind of environment, from small businesses running on Gmail, to complex, hybrid Sharepoint environments at large enterprises. They use signature-based detection to protect your company against known and emerging threats from any kind of IP address.

Like other solutions in this article, Proofpoint provides some pretty useful tools for administrators, like their 60+ out-of-box reports and custom policy creation at the group, user, and global level. Other features include: graymail management, mobile defense, data loss prevention (DLP), encryption, and social media security.

4. Website and app Security

Beyond protecting your data and infrastructure when using cloud-based applications, you also need to protect the apps and digital properties that you own and manage — like your website. This is another area where traditional endpoint and firewall protection will still leave you vulnerable to attacks, hacks, and breaches. Tools and services in this category are usually designed to expose and seal vulnerabilities in your external-facing websites, web applications, or internal portals and intranets.

Top provider: White Hat Security

White Hat Security has been around a lot longer than many of its competitors, so they have a considerable amount of experience identifying and remediating web and application threats. Their products use dynamic and static application security testing to make sure your websites and source code stay secure. White Hat also offers a solution for web application security, which applies the same analytics and testing capabilities to any mobile apps your organization deploys.

Regardless of which White Hat solution you implement, you’ll gain access to a dedicated team of engineers at the White Hat Threat Research Center who can provide guidance on any issues that are beyond the expertise of your own team and issues where business context makes identifying threats difficult. White Hat has an impressive list of current and past clients, including the likes of Dell, NetApp, and Akamai.

5. Network security

Cloud-based network security applications help your business monitor traffic moving in and out of your servers and stop threats before they materialize. You may already use a hardware-based firewall, but with a limitless variety of threats spread across the internet today, it’s a good idea to have multiple layers of security. Network security as a service, of course, means the vendor would deliver threat detection and intrusion prevention through the cloud.

Top provider: Qualys

With over 8,800 customers in 100 countries, Qualys is one of the most popular providers in this category. Their platform is an integrated suite of security and compliance solutions that was built in the cloud and delivers all of its service through either multi-tenant or private cloud. Functional areas include continuous network monitoring (through sensor appliances and lightweight agents), vulnerability management, compliance management, web scanning, web application firewall, malware detection, and secure website testing.

Qualys network security tools monitor your assets (servers, computers, devices) and continuously discover them, identifying new vulnerabilities and helping you patch them immediately. You can also track devices in your local office or remote cloud environments and receive alerts about suspicious activity. The visual reports and dashboards let network admins keep a close eye on all assets, hosts, scans, and patches applied. Current and past Qualys clients include Cisco, GE, Microsoft, and Deloitte.

* * *

The scale of your IT environment and the applications you currently use will likely have the biggest impact on what solution you choose. Although these five are certainly some of the most popular security-as-a-service providers, they are by no means your only options. To browse other security solutions and get a custom recommendation for your business, head over to our Security Software Product Selection Tool.

The post Top 5 Security-as-a-Service Providers appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

• Evaluate new apps and systems in a safe, partitioned environment
• Deploy and test your own software on multiple operating systems without needing multiple devices
• Set up and regulate encrypted corporate desktops for remote employees or employees using their own devices
• Run legacy programs that require an older OS on a machine with a newer OS
• Transfer virtual machines between devices and servers  

It’s not surprising that roughly 80 percent of x86 server workloads are now virtualized, and the average server runs 16 simultaneous VMs.

ALSO READ: Top Five Security-as-a-Service Providers

If you’re comparing VMware vs. VirtualBox, you’re looking for a tool that will help you create and provision virtual machines (VMs) on desktop devices running an x86-based platform.

Pretty straightforward, except it’s not. These two solutions, although both reliable, bear some distinct differences that make a lateral comparison complicated. It’s not quite an apples-to-oranges scenario, but it is like comparing apples from two different orchards.

Overview

VMware isn’t a single product as much an ecosystem of connected tools and applications. You can use VMware to set up a private cloud, to manage mobile devices in your corporate network, to protect endpoints, and of course, to virtualize stuff.

For the purpose of this comparison, we’ll mostly be looking at VMware Workstation — their desktop virtualization tool for Windows and Linux — and VMware Fusion — their desktop virtualization tool for Mac. The latest release, VMware Workstation 12, came out in September of this year.

It would be an understatement to call VMware the market leader. In fact, they were the first to virtualize the x86 architecture and make the technology available as a commercial product. And Gartner’s 2016 Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization listed VMware as the undisputed “leader.” Of course, there’s a difference between server and desktop virtualization, but it’s not a bad accolade to have.

VirtualBox is Oracle’s answer to host-based virtualization — a purchase they made from Sun Systems in 2010 to (hopefully) compete in the same market with VMware’s Workstation. VirtualBox is a free and open-source solution that works with all x86 platforms including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris. The latest version (5.1.6) was released September 12, 2016.

It’s important to note that not all manifestations of VirtualBox are free — only the core product. The extension pack that adds USB functionality, Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), and Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) is available under a proprietary license, free for personal or educational use. If you plan to deploy for commercial use on more than one device, you’ll need to buy a license from Oracle.

VMware vs. VirtualBox Comparison

VMware’s Workstation offers a wide array of features for desktop virtualization, with slight variations between the “Player” and “Pro” editions — namely, that you can’t run multiple VMs at the same time, create encrypted VMs, or share VMs as servers.

Workstation Pro is free during the trial evaluation period. After that, you’ll need to buy a license and enter the product key. Workstation Player (the basic edition) is permanently free for non-commercial use, although paid licensing and support are available.

What are VMware’s Workstation top features?

Here’s a summary of some of Workstation’s most beloved features:

• Mass deployment
• Host/guest file sharing
• USB smart card reader support
• USB 3.0 support
• Snapshots
• VM sharing
• Integration w/ vSphere/ESXi server
• Integration w/ vCloud Air
• 3D graphics with DX10 and OpenGL 3.3 support

VMware Workstation running Mac OS X on a Windows 10 computer.

In addition to the basic feature set, Workstation has a few of interesting capabilities that you might not find mission-critical, but are nonetheless convenient. Networking and printing, for example, require no additional setup. You can connect to the same devices and servers in your network from either the host machine or the VMs running on top of it. Another example is Workstations ability to create “linked clones” that let you create the same VM over and over again without exhausting disk space.

Speaking of space and power, Workstation can support up to 16 vCPUs, 8TB virtual disks, and 64GB of memory in a single, virtual environment.

As previously mentioned, the core, open-source VirtualBox package is free under general public use (GPU) license, and its proprietary extension package is free indefinitely under a personal use and evaluation license (PUEL).

What are VirtualBox’s top features?

Despite hitting the market much later than Workstation, VirtualBox offers many of the same features, and couple of unique ones:

• Cross-platform compatibility (installs on Mac, Linux, Windows, Solaris computers)
• Command line interaction
• Shared folders and clipboard
• Special drivers and utilities to facilitate switching between systems
• Snapshots
• Seamless mode (lets you run virtual applications next to normal ones)
• Limited support for 3D graphics (up to OpenGL 3.0)
• Can exchange disk images with VMware
• VM video capture
• VM disk image encryption (with extension pack)
• Virtual USB 2.0/3.0 support (with extension pack)

You may notice a couple of drawbacks here, compared with VMware’s feature set. For one thing, VirtualBox doesn’t offer the same level of support for 3D graphics, which could be an issue if you plan to be a heavy user (i.e. have more than one or two VMs running at the same time). Furthermore, while VirtualBox can exchange disk images with VMware, it doesn’t integrate with vSphere, ESXi, or vCloud Air, which may prevent you from enjoying a truly seamless hypervisor experience.

VirtualBox running Windows 7 on a Mac OS X computer.

That said, VirtualBox’s cross-platform capabilities tip the scales back in its favor. Unlike VMware, which offers separate editions specific to one OS, the core version of VirtualBox can install and function on any x86 computer.

Snapshots

Both solutions offer a “snapshot” feature that has proven highly popular as a response to one of the inherent challenges of virtualization: mistakes. Let’s say you’re using a VM as a test environment for an unknown piece of software, and something goes horribly wrong, and you can’t seem to get the OS back to its correct configuration. Instead of installing a brand new VM and starting over, you can revert back to a previous image of the OS, or — as VMware calls it — a “rollback point.”

If you decide to compare other virtualization tools, this feature should probably be one of your top criteria. Having the ability to start over without starting completely over will save any IT professional a lot of time and effort.

Final Considerations

Choosing the right solution for your needs, in this case, is highly subjective. A lot will depend on your preference — for the security and assurance of proprietary tools, or the flexibility and customization of open-source. If you prefer one over the other, you may already have your answer.

If not, here are a few final considerations:

• Workstation/Fusion is obviously the better choice is you already work in a VMware environment, as it will provide better compatibility with VMware servers and data management tools. Overall, probably a better choice for enterprise use.
• VirtualBox is excellent if you only need to run VMs on a few machines and want access to a command line interface in addition to the GUI.
• The both start with the letter V, so if you’re an alphabet person, that’s something to consider.

Still can’t decide between VMware vs. VirtualBox? Give us a call, or use our Product Selection Tool to compare other business solutions and get a custom recommendation based on your needs for free. 

The post VMware vs VirtualBox: Best Tool for Virtualization appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

Accounting isn’t exactly a favorite pastime for small businesses. Most are busy trying to find customers, explore new markets, and create sustainable strategies for growth. The tired business of ledgers and invoices is usually an afterthought — a chore to be procrastinated or even outsourced.

SEE ALSO: Why the CFO and CIO Need to Collaborate

Cloud-based accounting software can save small businesses from tedious spreadsheets, complicated filing systems, and hours of redundant data entry. But if you choose a product that’s ill-suited for your business, you can end up doing more harm than good.

If you’re shopping for a small business accounting solution, you’ve probably come across Xero and FreshBooks and wondered how the two are different. Both offer affordable, cloud-based platforms that simplify and automate accounting for the small business user. But there are some important distinctions to note.

Xero vs. FreshBooks: Vendor Overview

Xero was founded in New Zealand in 2006 by now CEO Rod Drury and his personal accountant. The company went public on the New Zealand Exchange in 2007 and is now worth an estimated $62 million.

Xero has over 540,000 global subscribers and has received numerous awards from Accounting Today, Marketers that Matter, CPA Practice Adviser, and other organizations.

As a company, FreshBooks is a little older — founded in 2003 — but doesn’t necessarily own a bigger share of the market. FreshBooks claims 5 million users, which probably divides down to a similar size customer base as Xero. The company has yet to release an IPO (initial public offering).

Xero Industries Served: Retail, e-commerce, high-tech, nonprofit, legal, hospitality, coffee shops, marketing/advertising

FreshBooks Industries Served: Contracting, legal, consulting, personal services, creative agencies

Systems and Pricing

Cloud-based accounting software is relatively simple, so you don’t have to worry too much about piecing together a multi-module product suite like you might with ERP or marketing automation. You pay one subscription price for one product.

That said, both platforms offer their accounting software in several different pricing tiers, depending on features and needs.

Here’s what the breakdown looks like for FreshBooks:

• Sprout: up to five clients
• Seedling: up to 25 clients
• Evergreen: up to 250 clients, includes 1 additional user, team timesheets, and team expense reporting
• Mighty Oak: unlimited clients, includes 5 additional users, team timesheets, and team expense reporting

As you can see, the biggest differences are in the number of clients you can manage, the number of staff who need access, and the use of team-wide accounting features. Each edition is priced per month and includes phone support during business hours, credit card processing, and data import/export.

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Xero, on the other hand, has only three pricing tiers:

• Starter: limited to 5 invoices, 5 bills, and 20 bank transactions per month;
• Standard: unlimited invoices, bills, and bank transactions; includes payroll for 5 employees
• Premium: unlimited invoices, bills, and bank transactions; includes payroll for 10 employees and multiple-currency support

All Xero plans are priced per month and include 24/7 support and free updates.

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Features

Features are one of the most important areas to consider when you’re comparing software, and, incidentally, where you’ll see some of the clearest differences between Xero and FreshBooks.

FreshBooks was primarily designed to be an invoicing tool. They’ve added a few more accounting features through the years, but the core product is still aimed at service businesses that bill clients for their time and expertise (e.g. therapists, architects, lawyers, plumbers).

FreshBooks is built around five areas of functionality: invoicing, expense management, time tracking, reporting, and payments. The basic workflow looks like this: businesses create custom invoices, send them to clients, and receive payments online.

If you’re managing project-based work, you can also draw up estimates and easily convert them to invoices when the project is completed. FreshBooks offers native mobile apps for iOS and Android devices and is compatible with almost any currency.

On the surface, Xero seems to cover a wider spectrum of accounting features, which gives it a slight advantage over FreshBooks in terms of utility. Moving beyond the basics (invoicing, expenses, and payments), Xero also provides out-of-the-box features for bank reconciliation, inventory, and purchase ordering.  For a full list of features, check out our Xero product page.

The ability to connect Xero to your bank account means you won’t have to move back and forth between two systems, entering and re-entering financial data. You can import and organize bank statements without leaving the software and reconcile statement lines with transactions in Xero. Another perk, Xero is one of the leading alternatives to Quickbooks. If you’re looking to switch products, they can migrate your accounting data in as little as three hours.

Like FreshBooks, Xero is accessible on the go through native apps for iOS and Android.

Apps and Integrations

In some ways, an accounting solution’s utility depends on how well it can exchange data with other back-end systems. In most cases, these will be systems that house customer and financial data (a point-of-sale application or a CRM database), but they could also be related to productivity, documents, projects, or e-commerce.

If any of these systems are part of your IT environment and will affect the way you manage finances, make sure the software you choose supports native integration, or at least an API for passing data back and forth.

Xero offers a well-stocked marketplace of 500+ native add-ons for payment processing, customer management, e-commerce, data analysis, POS, and document management. Popular add-ons include Salesforce, Shopify, PayPal, ADP, and Zendesk. For any other integration needs, you can use Xero’s REST API service or consult a developer in their partner network.

FreshBooks’ add-on marketplace doesn’t disappoint, even if it’s less expansive. They offer a few options for marketing (HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, Wufoo) and project management (Basecamp, Citrix Podio, Proposify) that you won’t find with Xero. For custom integration, you can use the FreshBooks API and webhooks to sync data with third-party applications.

Services for Accountants

Beyond the software itself, Xero and Quickbooks offer a variety of tools and services to help accounting professionals maximize job success.  If you’re an independent CPA, this could be a pretty big selling point, so it’s important to know where the two vendors diverge.

FreshBooks offers a free webinar where accountants can earn 2CPE/CPD credits and a FreshBooks Certified badge to help promote their services. Accounting partners can have their firm added to FreshMap, which is similar to QuickBooks’ ProAdvisor tool — an online directory where businesses can search and connect with certified accountants. FreshBooks also helps accountants manage client reports and journal entries through their free Accountant Center portal.

Xero offers a variety of programs, resources, and products for accountants. Their partner program is a great way to connect with new clients and grow your practice. Partners get discounted margins of up to 30 percent, free training, promotional material, and a dedicated account manager. They also get free access to Xero Partner Edition and a listing on the xero.com/advisors directory. Oh, and window stickers. The partner program is graduated based on the number of organizations you work with:

Additionally, Xero also has an online knowledge base full of videos, webinars, and self-paced e-learning courses that help accountants succeed on the job and earn qualified CPE hours.  

Choosing the Best Accounting Solution for Your Needs

While there’s some considerable overlap in functionality, Xero and FreshBooks are two very different products. FreshBooks is a great choice for small teams or sole proprietorships that need to simplify client billing. As a more robust solution, Xero is a better choice for whole-business financial management or independent accounting.

If you’re still having trouble deciding, give us a call. We’d love to help.

And remember, Xero and Freshbooks aren’t the only cloud-based accounting solutions. To see a list of options sorted by deployment, industry, and features, check out our accounting software selection tool.

The post Xero vs FreshBooks: Accounting Software Review appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

Business intelligence (BI) software aids this process by pulling data from your various client-facing and back-end systems and providing visualization and analysis tools. By transforming your raw data into intelligible reports, dashboards, and illustrations, you can gain quicker insights, make better decisions about your business, and move toward positive revenue goals faster.

If you’re shopping for a business intelligence solution, you’ve probably come across Domo and Tableau — two of the most prominent vendors in the space. Both offer powerful BI solutions that process data from numerous sources for any job role, but they don’t offer the same utility and value in every area.

Domo and Tableau are popular brands, but they’re not the right BI tool for every company. Use our BI Product Selection Tool to get a short list of business intelligence software recommendations with the features and benefits your company needs.

To help you decide between Domo vs. Tableau, we’ll compare the two systems based on pricing, dashboards, reporting capabilities, and data integrations. Let’s take a look.

Also read: Tableau vs. Spotfire: Business Intelligence for the Non-IT Guru

Domo vs. Tableau: systems and pricing

In many cases, the way a product is packaged and priced will determine whether it’s a good fit for your business. This is especially true with business intelligence apps. It’s also one of the biggest points of differentiation between Tableau and Domo.

Beyond their free trial, Domo offers pricing based on numbers of users and data refresh rates. Its pricing is subscription based and offers over 1,000 data connectors and support for 250 million rows of data. In 2018, Domo offered three pricing tiers, however, they no longer publicly display pricing information.

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Tableau, on the other hand, divides its product tiers by implementation and user needs. First, decide whether you’d like to host Tableau on-premise, in the public cloud, or have Tableau host your server. Then decide how many of each user type you need:

• Creator: data analyst user role, will load and standardize data. Every account needs at least one Creator
• Explorer: general business user role, can make and edit visualizations. A minimum of 5 explorers are required.
• Viewer: can view and interact with visualizations Explorers and Creators have made. A minimum of 100 viewers are required

Tableau’s pricing differs between users of on-premise/public cloud and Tableau hosted, and it bills annually.

As is usually the case, your best value option will depend on your number of users and implementation plans.

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Domo vs. Tableau: dashboards

The ability to create custom dashboards is arguably one of the most important features in any business intelligence solution. Dashboards give you the ability to organize data sources, reports, and custom objects in a central location that (ideally) stays updated in real time.

Tableau doesn’t disappoint here. Users can easily create interactive dashboards using custom filters and drag-and-drop functionality. Dashboards can be shared internally through Tableau Online or Server or embedded into your own wikis, corporate portals, or web pages via API connection. Embedded Analytics does cost extra, but for those who consistently distribute BI data across their organization, it’s well worth the cost. Dashboard options are only limited by your creativity and the types of data you upload to Tableau.

To give you a better idea of Tableau’s interface, here’s an example of a dashboard that details customer data:

Domo, at its core, is a cloud-based dashboarding tool. When they say their platform “creates a truly digitally connected organization,” they mean it can provide insight and visibility into all of your data sources. Any sources that do not have a native connection can be accessed via API or through the Domo Workbench Connector, which allows you to bring data into Domo via a CSV file.

Domo dashboards are up to par with Tableau in terms of user experience and visualizations. They offer a number of different pre-built pages that can self-assemble based on data inputs (e.g. Finance, HR, Marketing, Sales, Retail), or you can drag and drop to build custom visualizations with the Card Builder tool.

Also read: 16 Tableau Alternatives For Visualizing And Analyzing Data

Domo vs. Tableau: reporting and analytics capabilities

One of the major selling points of both platforms is that they make enterprise-class analytics accessible to the common line-of-business user. That means companies can process and understand their data without going through the IT department.

Ignorance is bliss, but if you’re signing a year-long contract, you should at least have a basic idea of what’s under the hood.

Tableau connects to your servers, databases, and web tools to gather data from across your enterprise. Their analytics features cover data discovery, data visualization, geocoding, survey analysis, time-series analysis, social analytics, and more. It integrates with R statistical programming language and provides mobile BI access with touch-optimized features for tablets.

Tableau’s unique data preparation feature lets your data analysts connect to “messy” spreadsheets and fix/configure data while you sync. Pivot cross-tab data back into normalized columns, remove extraneous titles, text, and images, reconcile metadata fields, all as you build out your data.

Domo gives companies the ability to analyze and cleanse their data, no matter the source. It simplifies ETL processing (extract, transform, load), so you can find the value in your data, even without formal SQL training. The DataFusion feature also lets you merge data from multiple sources.

Domo vs. Tableau: data connectors

Business intelligence applications are only useful insomuch as they integrate with outside data sources like business systems (CRM, marketing automation, FSM, supply chain), servers, and databases.

Tableau and Domo provide a set of native data connectors, which means they can seamlessly pull data from those sources without custom configuration or coding. An advantage in this area can make a BI platform vastly more usable.

Tableau offers native connectors for hundreds of different sources.

Domo boasts over 1,000 pre-build connectors in their connector library. They also have a proprietary app store with pre-built solutions for different roles and industries, which could make a big difference if you’re looking for a flexible solution.

Domo can connect to nearly any data source, virtual or physical, but it does all of its processing in the cloud. That will certainly reduce the load on your own servers, but it may mean slower speeds in some scenarios.

Keep in mind, any databases or applications not listed on the company site will presumably require API integration and/or middleware to sync.

Domo vs. Tableau: making your final decision

Both platforms can help businesses mine and visualize data and make better decisions across departments. Both offer broad horizontal integration and the ability to scale as your business grows. They both even have mobile apps.

The biggest differences center around implementation and pricing. If you’re looking for a strictly cloud-based app to build attractive dashboards and share access among the whole team, Domo may be the better choice. If you work in a hybrid environment and would like to provide desktop access to a few power users, consider Tableau.

And don’t forget, Tableau and Domo aren’t the only BI solutions on the market. Use our Product Selection Tool for Business Intelligence for BI software, or click on the image below to get started with a customized list of software recommendations based on your needs.

Top Business Intelligence Software Recommendations

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It’s no wonder businesses across the globe are making cloud storage part of their IT environment.

While big players like Amazon, Google, Oracle, and Microsoft have tapped into the cloud storage market for enterprise data storage, many companies need reliable and non-developer driven cloud storage solutions for document and asset management.

If you’re considering a solution for your business, you’ve likely wondered about the difference between Box vs. Dropbox. On the surface, they seem to offer a similar solution for business customers: secure cloud storage with collaborative and administrative tools.

While that’s true, there are some clear distinctions in packaging, functionality, and user experience that set them apart.

Box vs. Dropbox is one of the most common business cloud storage comparisons, but these vendors each have many competitors. To save time wading through the cloud backup and storage landscape, use our Cloud Backup and Storage Product Selection Tool and Guide to get a list of 5 recommendations based on your needs. Click on the image below to get started.

Box vs Dropbox: An overview

Before we get into specific features, let’s take a look at Box vs Dropbox from a 10,000-foot view.

Box, Inc. has lost nearly half it of its value after a 2018 high of nearly $4 billion. It’s currently valued at $2.4 billion. Their user base includes 8 million users at 95,000 companies and 70 percent of the Fortune 500.

Dropbox went public in Q2 2018, and is worth $8.5 billion as of November 2019. Its current user base includes over 600 million registered users.

Both vendors offer multiple plans for business and personal accounts. But it’s important to note how Box and Dropbox uniquely position themselves in the market. It wouldn’t make much sense if they offered the same product, targeted toward the same customer, for different prices — which is why they don’t.

While Box does offer two personal storage plans, their product is first and foremost an enterprise solution. Consequently, its features and user experience are tailored to the needs of CIOs and IT departments:

“We’re a 100 percent enterprise-focused company. All the technology we’re building goes toward asking how do we make it easier, or more scalable, or simpler, and just a better way for businesses to share and manage and access this data.”   — Aaron Levie, Box CEO 

Dropbox, on the other hand, began as a consumer-facing product and gradually made its way into the workplace as a form of consumerized IT. In other words: people liked Dropbox; people used Dropbox at work; workplaces saw the benefits of Dropbox; workplaces adopted Dropbox as a business solution.

“We’re solving really important problems for a big chunk of the world, not just Silicon Valley. Our users are trapeze artists, high school football coaches . . . physicists who collaborate across the world.” — Drew Houston, Dropbox CEO

These different approaches to file management pose unique challenges to each vendor.

For Box, that might mean improving the user experience on an individual level, making their platform easier to use and easier to administrate. For Dropbox, it might mean providing deeper administrative control.

Let’s take a closer look.

Platforms and pricing

The first thing you’ll need to consider is the core product: how much does it cost, and what are you getting for the money?

Box offers four pricing tiers for businesses. Their Starter package, aimed at 3-10 person teams, provides 100 GB of storage. The Business tier — for medium-sized teams with more advanced needs — provides unlimited storage, the Business Plus tier gives teams advanced administration and controls, and the Enterprise tier adds some advanced features like HIPAA compliance, unlimited software integrations, and document watermarking.

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Dropbox offers three plans for businesses with 5 users and up: Dropbox for Business at the Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise. The Standard plan includes most business capabilities and 3TB of storage. Users who want more granular administration, IT, and domain controls should upgrade to a higher plan.

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Security and administrative control

Box provides a full suite of advanced security features, from file encryption to custom data retention rules and enterprise mobility management (EMM). Administrators can decide which users are granted access to files and folders and create user groups for easier assignment. There are seven levels of access control, which address access, preview, editing, and sharing.

Files themselves are protected by TLS and multi-layered encryption, file versioning, and expiration controls, as well as custom content security policies. Users can also apply passwords to confidential files as needed.

Features:

• SSL and At Rest Encryption
• File locking
• Two-factor authentication
• Single sign-on via SAML 2.0 and ADFS 2
• AD/LDAP account management
• Secure sharing
• Auto-expiration
• Data residency in Box Zones
• Granular permissions
• Data retention rules
• Mobile security controls
• Account and user management
• Access stats and reporting
• Dropbox includes standard security for a public cloud server — more than enough for the average business to protect their sensitive data. With Dropbox for Business, you’ll get 256-bit AES encryption (same as Box), group management and sharing restrictions, and the ability to remotely wipe data in the case of a compromised account or hostile termination.

Administrators can use the admin dashboard to track user and team access stats, including logins, devices, and sharing, as well as add and remove team members. Dropbox for Business retains deleted documents for 120 days, and extended version history can be purchased as an add-on.

Features:

• 256-bit AES and SSL encryption
• Sharing controls
• User and team activity tracking (logins, devices, sharing)
• Active directory and single sign-on integrations
• Remote data wiping
• User management
• Team usage stats
• File recovery

Collaboration

Collaboration is one of the biggest selling points of cloud storage for a business, so it’s important to consider how a given solution will help your team work together. Both vendors offer collaboration tools that extend beyond basic file sharing.

Box and Dropbox perform well in this category. First, they both offer flexible sharing options including link sharing, invite-only sharing, and external sharing. Second, they both enable teams to collaborate in real time using team or group folders. Users can comment on files, work directly from Outlook, and access their storage account through native mobile apps for most devices. Not only that, but both vendors have built-in file recovery and versioning to keep users from losing their work.

Both platforms integrate with Office 365, DocuSign, and other content apps.

Project and task management 

Obviously, neither of these products are designed to be a fully-fledged project management solution.

But they can support existing project strategies by helping your teams manage work in an orderly, repeatable fashion — especially files and documents directly related to the project, such as RFPs, budgets, Gantt charts, media assets, and so forth.

Dropbox recently released a collaboration and project management tool, Paper, to help teams come together around projects. Paper includes features like calendars, check lists, approval lists, messaging, notifications, and more. It’s a free product that comes with any Dropbox account.

With Box, you can create workflow automation rules to manage files based on preset conditions. You can also use Box Relay, an automated process tool that helps companies manage highly-manual and repeatable approvals processes for onboarding, training, and more.

Neither Dropbox or Box provides a sophisticated task management solution that could replace a feature-rich project management or help desk tool like Jira. But the task management tools cover the types of repeatable and document-heavy projects that marketing, sales, and HR teams might manage.

Integration with third-party business apps

Almost every business has a system or set of systems that support their core business operations. In sales, this might be a CRM database. In the medical field, it might be an EHR system. Whatever the case, it’s crucial that your file management tools integrate seamlessly with your enterprise software. That means you need to be able to upload, download, and sync files from directly within the application.

How do Box and Dropbox line up with this standard?

For starters, they both integrate with Office 365 and Outlook. This is important since 1 in 5 corporate employees use Office 365.

Beyond that, each platform uses APIs to integrate with a variety of third-party applications. Dropbox calls pre-built connections Extensions, while Box lists their over 1,400 native connections as apps.

Dropbox’s universality, in large part, can be attributed to its role as a consumer and business app. Box, on the other hand, mainly focuses on business-critical apps such as CRMs and marketing platforms.

The verdict?

Box and Dropbox both offer solid solutions for public cloud storage — including versatile file sharing, mobile access, and reliable security. The “better” product will depend on your unique priorities and budget. If you’re overwhelmed by the comparison process, use our Cloud Backup and Storage Product Selection Tool. Answer a few questions regarding your needs, and we’ll send you a short list of vendors.

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