Open Source CRM UI Comparison

Just like in the real world, first impression can mean everything. Traditionally, business applications were more focused on providing a robust,trusted and feature-full application, while the user experience was sometimes neglected. But with the explosion in the usage of the web and the development of user friendly web applications, business application developers could not ignore the user’s experience any more.

This post will compare the UI’s of open source CRM solutions SugarCRM, Vtiger and Concursive.

Comparing the different open source CRM applications UI is easy. One of the things I found common to almost all open source business applications is that they offer online demos. These can be very useful - get a first impression of the look and feel of the software without having to go through downloads and installations. I will provide links to the demo systems of the CRM solutions we will examine.

SugarCRM

SuagrCRM Demo systems.
SugarCRM’s UI has be constantly evolving, becoming smoother, faster and more customizable. Sugar keeps adding Ajax functionality into its application, improving usability and performance.

Some of the cool things you can do using Sugar’s Ajax is open and close the Left sidebar, drag-and-drop the different ‘widgets’ (Sugar calls them ‘deshlets’) found on each of Suagr’s screen and dynamically edit widgets. All this is done very smoothly and in intuitive fashion. The whole idea of using Ajax is that the user does not have to reload the entire page in order to fetch and display new data on the screen and Sugar’s implementation is right on target - you can juts refresh any deshlet you want-new data will be displayed but the entire page will remain unchanged.

Vtiger

Vtiger’s Demo System - English
Vtiger is a SuagrCRM fork. You get that feeling the moment you log on to the Vtiger demo. Since my experience with open source CRM started with Sugar, working with Vtiget was very intuitive. Vtiger’s applications screen are less cluttered than Sugar. They offer a similar widget drag-and-drop.
Vtiger added several useful shortcut buttons which are available throughout the application - calender,world clock, calculator and a chat window. Chat within your CRM application is cool, and I am not sure if Sugar are offering built-in chat.

Concursive

Concursive Demo-Requires Registration
Concursive, unlike the two other PHP applications, is a Java application. The front-end is written in JSP. Java business applications are usually robust and highly performing. The UI is not as sexy as the other solutions, though. Ajax is not used and the charts are pretty basic.

Whenever you navigate to a new module, you get a help screen, providing you with a module overview. This is very useful for anyone who is new to CRM and want to get an idea of the things he can do with this application. You can, of course, ask Concursive to not show the help the next time you go to a module.

A bar with some frequently used shortcuts is located in the right hand side of the screen.

Working with Concusrive, you get a strong feeling of the robustness of the application, despite the fact that it lack the bells and whistles found in other CRM solutions.

SugarCRM,Vtiger, Concursive UI Comparison - Recorded Flash Demo

Open Source CRM UI Comparison

*Click image to play flash demo. Zoom-in to view demo in highest quality.

July 28, 2008 · Filed Under Solutions

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Comments

One Response to “Open Source CRM UI Comparison”

  1. leon on February 25th, 2009 1:02 am

    In SugarCRM 5.2, there is a new feature called Sugar Feeds.
    You can use Sugar Feeds to chat with sb. or team, and you can monitor what new record created that you interesting.

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