October 6th, 2009
top 10 CRM software we had mentioned two widely used open source CRM
software - SugarCRM and vTiger. There has been much altercation over
the fact that vTiger will become the SugarCRM alternative in the CRM
space. vtiger CRM was actually forked from Sugar CRM designed to
create a fully open source CRM that would offer functionality
comparable to salesforce.com. vtiger has undergone significant
improvements over the years and is one of the leading CRM software
now. Although vTiger shares several common features with Sugar, it
includes a few propriety extensions. We decided to bring the two major
open source CRM solutions face-to-face.
When comparing between Sugar CRM and vtiger CRM it needs to be taken
into account that the later is designed to fit the small and medium
organizations. Let's have an comparative overview before moving onto
core competencies.
Sugar CRM offers wide ranging feature-set for business processes,
focusing on marketing effectiveness, enhancement of sales performance,
and providing executive insight into business performance. The CRM
solution is a preferred choice for organizations of all sizes across a
broad range of industries for its collaboration and administration
capabilities to adapt how their company operates. Sugar's mobile
solutions translates to less downtime and greater productivity. With
the Flexible Delivery Model, there are no constraints around
deployment. SugarCRM is based on the open source LAMPS platform:
Linux or Windows, Apache or IIS, MySQL, PHP, and SugarCRM. Moreover,
Sugar CRM integrates e-mail and calendar information with Microsoft
Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, and several additional email clients.
This ensures that the company's communications are centralized and
always coordinated.
vtiger has been designed to manage Inventory Management activities
effectively, including sales force, marketing automation, customer
support and service, and procurement. In vtiger the software such as
Apache, MySQL, and PHP are integrated. The executables in vtiger are
available for both Linux and WIndows operating systems. vtiger
provides open source add-ons for Microsoft Outlook,
Mozilla/Thunderbird, Microsoft Word, and Customer Portal. These make
it more user-friendly for the end-users. The CRM software allows
pre-sales and post-sales activities to be integrated in a single
application.
Coming down to the comparative features
Installation
For the non-techies Sugar CRM installation could be a hassle, but the
installation is simpler than vtiger. One of the major problems with
vtiger installation is that it cannot populate its database during
installation.
Loading time
Sugar Suite loads slower than the vtiger. Sugar CRM also has a
resource consuming upgrade process.
User Interface
Sugar CRM's offers a customizable UI. However, vtiger comes with a
much more simple and intuitive AJAX based user interface.
Ease of use
vTiger is the extremely easy to use and the most flexible solution for
small businesses. Although Sugar CRM gives an impression of
flexibility with several downloadable modules in their community, .
Majority of the modules only work on older versions. It gives loads of
errors when you try to use the ones that should work to streamline the
CRM functionality. Especially some of the standard features like
quoting and invoicing are not included.
Adding Modules
Sugar CRM offers easy installation of modules with an installer to add
new modules.
vTiger scores over Sugar CRM in diversity of modules.
Administration area
Sugar CRM has great capabilities when it comes to administration area.
It offers a wide variety of options and tools in the admin area.
vtiger misses out some basic features that were build-in Sugar such as
the custom fields.
Code
When comparing the code base Sugar surpasses vtiger. Sugar's has a
clean and tidy code base. The open source architecture provides 100%
visible source code for easy customization. This allows you to do
things faster on Sugar than on vtiger.
Customization
Sugar CRM is a great concept that leads to several issues which are
harder to track as the # changes.
PHP modifications
Vtiger is a better option for those working with PHP. Every CRM has a
learning curve, but those with strong command in PHP.
Emailing Campaign
Sugar CRM offers wider ambit for creating different types of email
marketing campaign. Moreover, when you create an email campaign, you
can execute it through Sugar and view statistics to measure its
success. Sugar allows the marketing managers design. vtiger has some
serious shortcomings regarding email campaign module. It isn't
user-friendly at all.
Importing data
SugarCRM's has an edge over vtiger with an update feature that allows
for messaging post-upload.
Add-ons
Sugar CRM offers more online support with several third party add-ons
and additional tools. Unlike vTiger, all the add-ons for Sugar CRM is
not free and has to be ordered additionally. vtiger offers free open
source add-ons for Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla/Thunderbird, Microsoft
Word, and Customer Portal that makes it more user-friendly.
Conclusion
Overall Sugar CRM shows better stability and scalability as compared
to vTiger. For the coders Sugar could always be a better CRM option.
It also offers more features, more support, larger community and
larger user base, these might be some of the reasons to go for Sugar
CRM. vTiger includes most of the features in SugarCRM, however, it is
more focused on small business management solutions rather than being
a CRM centric solution.
