When it comes to CRM software choices, there is an overwhelming amount of options that you can choose from. SuiteCRM and Sugar are both among these options and while they may be different in a lot of ways, both of them have established themselves as viable solutions for small businesses.
So, how do you know which one would be a better fit for your organization? There’s no definitive answer to that, of course.
Each solution has its own benefits and the decision really comes down to what you really need from a CRM solution and which one better caters to the specific needs of your business. That is why we have outlined how the two compare with respect to a variety of factors that affect most businesses in order to make the decision easier for you. Check it out!
What is SuiteCRM?
SuiteCRM is an open source CRM platform. The platform is developed and maintained by SalesAgility. Thanks to the open source nature of the platform, it’s fully customizable and can scale depending on the size of the business.
The platform is free to download and use, but you can also pay SuiteCRM to host the blog yor you! Thanks to its competitive pricing, users view SuiteCRM as a solid, high-quality alternative to the more popular CRM vendors like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, and SugarCRM.
What is SugarCRM?
SugarCRM is a popular CRM platform that’s actively used in a wide variety of different industries. Thanks to its flexibility, SugarCRM is used in small, medium, and large businesses.
Like SuiteCRM, SugarCRM is a completely open source platform. Anyone can download the software, customize it and use it according to their needs. Additionally, you can also hire a team from Sugar to help manage the development. Thanks to its flexibility, high quality features, and scalability, a lot of CRM specialists in the industry recommend SugarCRM.
Pricing
SuiteCRM is free and open-source, which means that you don’t have to pay a subscription fee of any sort to employ a SuiteCRM system within your organization! So, you get all the basic features that any good CRM has to offer as well as some very useful automation with absolutely no installation charges. That’s not all either. To make up for where it lacks in useful features compared to more popular CRMs such as Sugar, SuiteCRM has a paid edition targeted towards enterprise customers called SuiteASSURED. The price is calculated based on individual customer requirements, but SuiteASSURED can be considered a cheaper alternative to SugarCRM’s Enterprise Edition.
On the other hand, SugarCRM is popular for being a more affordable alternative to some of the high-end industry standard CRM software solutions. It comes in three pricing plans, in which the subscription fee differs based on the additional features and storage space each plan comprises of.
User Interface
Having an interface that is easy to use and intuitive is important, not only because it makes it easier for users to navigate through the system and thus, inevitably increases productivity as a consequence, but also because it makes it much easier for your employees to get acquainted with and adapt to the new system. This is important because it makes sure you don’t have to incur any additional costs from delays caused by the lag in employees still being somewhat uncomfortable with the system past the initial training. Let’s take a look at how the interfaces in Sugar and SuiteCRM provide this ease of use.
Despite the abundance of helpful features that have helped cement SugarCRM as one of the most popular CRM software tools, Sugar has been somewhat notorious for its blocky interface. This is probably because Sugar tries to unify all of your customer service, sales, and marketing needs within a single interface and while this is incredibly convenient once you are familiar with each aspect of the interface, it does tend to feel cluttered and slightly complicated at a first glance.
On the contrary, SuiteCRM provides easy customization for its interface that allows users to have a custom theme with their own choice of colors, logos, and fonts. Moreover, the interface is not as cluttered either. This helps make the interface more familiar to employees since it can easily be associated with the branding of the company and the added simplicity, therefore, makes it much easier for them to adapt to it.
Features
How good any given software is really comes down to how useful the features it has to offer are. Let’s take a look at how SuiteCRM and Sugar differ in the features they have to offer.
Marketing Automation
Both SuiteCRM and Sugar offer mechanisms for marketing automation out of the box and can have more advanced functionality implemented through integrations with any advanced marketing tools you want. SuiteCRM generally has more applications available and is, therefore, more open to offering a much more diverse range of functionalities.
Customer Support
Both Sugar and SuiteCRM provide the functionality to efficiently manage customer issues through ticketing so users can provide support to their customers efficiently. SugarCRM requires users to be on the Enterprise or Ultimate Edition to have a customer self-service portal on the system, and with SuiteCRM, a customer self-service portal can be downloaded as a plug-in.
Reporting & Analytics
Both Sugar and SuiteCRM provide the functionality to generate reports based on the data stored in the CRM and even forecast future sales that help plan ahead.
Workflow
SuiteCRM offers a basic workflow that allows you to streamline processes and keep track of the work being done. SugarCRM provides a more advanced workflow that allows better process management and also comes with a myriad of automation tools that elevate your business process management. However, these features are found in the pricier Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Sugar and as far as the basic Professional version goes, SuiteCRM’s workflow can definitely give it a run for its money, especially considering it costs much less.
Community
SugarCRM has a well-established community where users can discuss issues, provide feedback, and get help resolving problems that may be occurring. SuiteCRM itself does not have a similar platform due to it being free of charge. However, SuiteASSURED has bridged this gap since its introduction and there is a growing community for the paid version of SuiteCRM.
Security
Sugar provides a comprehensive set of CRM security capabilities to manage teams, roles, and access privileges. SuiteCRM, on the other hand, does not have any explicit mechanisms to ensure security owing to it being open-source. This is where SuiteASSURED yet again comes in; SuiteASSURED is the stable version of SuiteCRM and goes through an elaborate security assurance process to ensure user data is kept safe.
That covers the features that Sugar and SuiteCRM come with. While it is clear that when it comes to features, SugarCRM has the upper hand with its Enterprise and Ultimate Editions, SuiteCRM also provides a fair share of useful features that encompass everything a good CRM needs to offer and, compared with its price point, this makes SuiteCRM a very competitive option for smaller businesses that are only looking to implement a basic CRM that can help them manage their processes. The main benefit that comes from a SuiteCRM implementation is that because it is open-source, it is easily scalable and can grow with your business, just the way you want it to.
The Verdict
So, which one should you choose? The CRM you choose to go with at the end depends solely on which factors amongst the ones discussed here are a higher priority for your business. If all you want is a simple customer relationship management tool that provides the basic functionality that helps you deal with your customers in a systematic and more organized way, then SuiteCRM, with its immense value for (no) money is the perfect choice for you. However, if you want to leverage the technology you have to make the best of all of your business processes, then SugarCRM, with all of its added features, would definitely be the better option.
Generally, SugarCRM is a more desirable option for large enterprises, whereas SuiteCRM is the go-to CRM for smaller businesses, especially due to its scalability. Regardless of which CRM you choose to implement, the bottom line is that they are both great options and can give your organization the competitive edge that is so important to have in today’s landscape. And if you change your mind somewhere along the line, you can always migrate to a different CRM that better suits your changing needs!
Get in touch if you’re looking for a SuiteCRM Migration, Customization, Integration or Support. RT Dynamic is a SuiteCRM Official Partner.
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