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Act-On Software vs SugarCRM Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 6, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Act-On Software
Ranking in Marketing Automation
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.7
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SugarCRM Platform
Ranking in Marketing Automation
11th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (9th), CRM (23rd), Sales Force Automation (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of Act-On Software is 1.8%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SugarCRM Platform is 2.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Marketing Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SugarCRM Platform2.0%
Act-On Software1.8%
Other96.2%
Marketing Automation
 

Featured Reviews

it_user82449 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Systems Manager at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees
The adaptive nurturing, segmentation, multiple lead scoring rules, and simple CRM integration stood out the most.
The CRM integration with Act-On is better with Salesforce and had more value for sales representatives than it did with Microsoft Dynamics CRM; that was MS CRM's downfall. Act-On Anywhere is a nice feature for general users, but the tracking in CRM is lost, and Marketing team subject lines do not carry over on the email templates.
reviewer1345677 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager / IT Planning & Architecture Services at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Easily customizable, automation enhances the marketing campaigns but support is the main hiccup for us
It has been effective in managing customer relationships. It has sales email campaigns, plus integration with Active Directory. And there are centralized reports for the CEO and the general managers. We work with automation for these marketing and email campaigns. It sends out emails to prospective customers related to sales offers automatically. And it copies the sales team so that they can follow up. They are tracking the sales leads. So, the automation within SugarCRM enhances the marketing campaigns. For now, my work is done because I am the IT strategy and planning manager. I just try to deliver the solution according to the requirements of the business. From my side, it's implemented already, the requirement related to the sales funnel. But if they have any other requirement from the business side, they will submit it to me, and then I will look for a suitable solution.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Act-On is simple to use and it makes campaign development a breeze."
"Before I joined, my company used a larger, more expensive but more popular software, and after switching to this, my team can still do everything it needs to for cheaper."
"Act-On has an outstanding customer support team and they escalate issues to their technical teams before the frustration level."
"It is now much easier for us to send and segment emails, analyze our results and make smarter decisions."
"Our organization was operating blindfolded before implementing Act-On."
"Affordable and commercial open source solution is good for organizations with budget constraints."
"This solution's stability is very good, it runs almost without effort, and we don't have any support issues with it."
"Available source code, good documentation, training programs, and a relatively active community, provide the hallmarks for a successful open source effort."
"It works well with Jira. You can customize it to fit your needs."
"Good, basic out-of-the-box solution, however, in my estimation not a long term play as the design flow and user interface make it a true chore to enter data."
"It has sales email campaigns, plus integration with Active Directory."
"Saying that, it has a small server footprint and is easy to set up."
"The most valuable feature is relation capability, which allows us to relay customers with invoice orders."
 

Cons

"The CRM integration with Act-On is better with Salesforce and had more value for sales representatives than it did with Microsoft Dynamics CRM; that was MS CRM's downfall."
"One area of improvement would be ability to use dynamic content fields. It is available, but not to the fullest extent where it would help me."
"The UX was such that it limited the use of it."
"Sugar Enterprise could improve by removing bugs and glitches. For example, a comment was made but in the comment section, it was never displayed. However, the problems we faced might not be the fault of the solution."
"While it is already user-friendly, a slight enhancement in UI design, especially in terms of color combinations, could make the platform more visually appealing and comfortable to use."
"It lacks customization, and this is the main reason that we are switching to a different solution."
"Pipelines, forecasts, and reporting in general, are not that good in the free version."
"Putting so many things into SugarCRM became a much-hated task, mainly because of the horrible UI."
"At the moment, there is a complicated flow in regards to the user's permissions and what they can see."
"I would appreciate it if SugarCRM could support us in on-premise implementation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
16%
Engineering Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sugar Enterprise?
All are almost the same pricing. Maybe the cheapest is Salesforce, I believe.
What needs improvement with Sugar Enterprise?
The only challenge was that we implemented it in our on-premise data center instead of using it in the cloud. That was a little bit of a challenge. But it was overcome with the help of SugarCRM com...
What advice do you have for others considering Sugar Enterprise?
To start with, SugarCRM is a very good platform. It's easy to implement and easily customizable. Might be later when you want to scale, then I would recommend Salesforce. Overall, I would rate it a...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NYU, Tableau, Xerox, ASPCA, Lego Education, Hoopla, Avery Dennison and SolarWorld.
Redglaze Group, TengoInternet, Hilco, Bancvue, Vet Adivsor
Find out what your peers are saying about Act-On Software vs. SugarCRM Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.