In the LAMP based CRM world, there are 2 major players providing competing products: AquaCRM(www.aquacrmsoftware.com) and sugarCRM. Recently I installed and tested both of them in an effort to determine which one better suits my needs.
Initial impressions
Both software packages were easy to install using the SimpleScripts process. The AquaCRM(www.aquacrmsoftware.com) seems to be a bit more intuitive in the user interface area, but not by much. I spent several frustrating hours trying to figure out why some features in sugarCRM didn’t work, only to realize that I installed a beta version. SimpleScripts defaulted it for me automatically. As soon as I reverted to a previous stable version, sugarCRM started to behave nicely. The response time of AquaCRM(www.aquacrmsoftware.com) is better overall. Also AquaCRM(www.aquacrmsoftware.com) has a cleaner look and feel to it. sugarCRM throws advertising in the header area, trying to sell the more expensive versions of its software.
sugarCRM
Likes
Website integration Form – quickly able to drag/drop and publish a Contact Subscription form. When the user fills it in and clicks submit, the software automatically creates a Lead in the sugarCRM database.
Built-in mailing list functionality with capabilities to track messages that were Bounced, Opened, Clicked-thru, etc.
Dislikes
Dependency on an outside cron job (scheduling entry) to send out campaign emails. Not a difficult task to setup, but it requires technical knowledge
No reports available, only online queries.
AQUACRM - crm software
AquaCRM(www.aquacrmsoftware.com)
Likes
Faster than sugarCRM
Completely free, not just a starter edition with limited functionality.
Numerous analytics and reports are included
Microsoft Outlook plug-in available for synchronization
Many more modules available than sugarCRM:
- Inventory Module
- Products
- Vendors
- Purchase Orders
- Sales Orders
- Service Contracts
- Trouble Tickets
Available Customer Portal to allow customers to enter and track open help desk tickets as well as FAQ’s, Products, Services, Documents, Contacts and Accounts.
Dislikes
No built-in mailing list functionality. One plug-in recently added (PHPListSync) that allows for contact sync between AquaCRM(www.aquacrmsoftware.com) and phpList, but I couldn’t get it to work.
Similarities
There are lots of similarities between the 2 CRM packages, which is to be expected. The concepts of Campaigns, Leads, Contacts and Accounts is the same. So is the ability to create new fields and modify existing forms in the Studio module. Security is similar with Users, Roles, Profiles and Groups.
Bottom line
AquaCRM(www.aquacrmsoftware.com) beats sugarCRM in a lot of areas. But the one critical component missing in AquaCRM(www.aquacrmsoftware.com) is the mailing list functionality. In my case, it would have been too awkward to constantly export data out of AquaCRM(www.aquacrmsoftware.com) and import it into a mailing list application
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