Cascade CMS (formerly Cascade Server) by Hannon Hill is a content management system, with built-in tools to help users eliminate stale content, increase digital outreach, and promote end-user adoption and accountability. Cascade CMS is designed for decentralized web teams in most major industries, including higher education, government, healthcare, and technology.
Included is Clive, an engagement and real-time personalization tool for collecting information and using it to craft personalized…
N/A
Duda
Score 8.6 out of 10
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Duda, the eponymous platform from the company in Palo Alto, is a web design platform for companies that offer web design services to small businesses. The company serves customers from freelance web professionals to digital agencies, all the way up to the large hosting companies, SaaS platforms and online publishers.
$25
per month
Pricing
Cascade CMS
Duda
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Basic
$25
per month
Team
$39
per month
Agency
$69
per month
White Label
$199
per month
Custom
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cascade CMS
Duda
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
Optional
No setup fee
Additional Details
—
25% discount available for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Features
Cascade CMS
Duda
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Cascade CMS
8.0
Ratings
1% below category average
Duda
8.9
Ratings
10% above category average
Role-based user permissions
8.00 Ratings
8.90 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Cascade CMS
7.1
Ratings
7% below category average
Duda
8.6
Ratings
13% above category average
API
7.00 Ratings
9.10 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language
7.30 Ratings
8.10 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Cascade CMS
7.1
Ratings
8% below category average
Duda
8.8
Ratings
13% above category average
WYSIWYG editor
6.10 Ratings
9.10 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness
6.00 Ratings
8.90 Ratings
Admin section
8.00 Ratings
9.30 Ratings
Page templates
9.00 Ratings
7.90 Ratings
Library of website themes
5.50 Ratings
8.30 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design
7.00 Ratings
9.30 Ratings
Publishing workflow
9.00 Ratings
9.30 Ratings
Form generator
6.40 Ratings
8.50 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Cascade Server is well suited with it's WYSIWYG editor being better than most editors that I have used in other systems. In context, editing makes adding content easy compared to the last CMS I used where you had to wing it and view the page outside of the CMS to see if it was correct. The ability mix HTML, CSS, and the Script of your choice anywhere and with ease.
The scenarios were Cascade Server is less appropriate would be in the use of compilers or programs like Visual studio. You need to go out of Cascade Server and go to other environments to perform tasks and then copy the result to Cascade Server. You can write directly in Cascade Server, but it's easier to do in and editor that is specific to a function.
Duda is great for small to medium sized websites building, where some level of animation is ok and mostly for presenting online information, and its SEO performance is very good then. But for very large or heavily interactive websites it may not be the best choice.
Very easy-to-use. I trained over 200 users, and never once heard someone say that it was difficult to figure out. People generally left the training excited to get started managing their content.
Technology independent. We were able to put any language into it that our customers required: .NET, classic ASP, PHP, static HTML.
Customer Support. The Hannon Hill team was truly amazing when it came to helping their customers, including us. They always went above and beyond to fix issues, help customers figure out complex methods for using Cascade Server, and general support.
Annual User's Conference. This was a great event that brought Cascade Server enthusiasts together, and the entire Hannon Hill staff was present and available for customers to talk 1-on-1 with.
Ongoing Education for agencies and users. Anton has done what he does best and turned Duda into a go-to-source for information, ideas, and practical implementation.
UX - The ability to create simple yet highly customizable sites.
Speed - Sites take much less time to build and maintain, allowing agencies to scale and business owners to spend more time on growing their core revenue channels.
Reliability - From technical reliability, reduced down-time to support, Duda is a reliability option.
Not much that I can add here, except that as a non-programmer, it can be a bit overwhelming to understand all the options and capabilities of the system. We have programmers who have been able to do almost anything we need with the system, but I can't understand it!
Changing systems would require too much effort. Our institution is using Cascade Server, WordPress and Drupal but we only serve 2200 students so we have 1 too many content management systems. Reflecting on current technical resources we would like to drop down to 2. This effort hasn't moved forward because of the extensive work required to migrate content and train users in a new system.
Cascade CMS is completely usable on mobile devices, we can train our content editors in a single 2-hour session, and we support 1,000 users with a very small team.
There is a level of complexity for the system administrators, site managers and web programmers who implement templates and content types. But the complexity is neither arbitrary nor inconsistent – and once learned provides a powerful environment within which we can develop robust sites that are beautiful and powerful, yet easy for our content editors to manage.
Upon using the builder for the first time, I found Duda to be extremely intuitive and easy to figure out, but also has a high skill-ceiling. After 5 years of building in the drag-and-drop builder, I continue to teach myself new tricks and methods to continually improve my process and design capabilities within the platform. I've built dozens of Duda sites and each one is better than the last.
They have always regarded any question or problem we encountered as very important. We have never felt that they ignore or downplay any issue and not once has anything been left unresolved. They also hold an annual conference where users are invited to attend and share their experiences and wisdom with the entire Cascade community. And with the care and support the provide, we all feel a part of that community.
The key to any CMS implementation is PLAN, PLAN, PLAN. Proper planning with Cascade can increase your satisfaction exponentially once the site migration/creation is complete. When all is said and done, your implementation can make your site run like a Yugo or Maserati. Be smart and deliberate in your decisions. Drive the Maserati. It is already paid for.
Cascade CMS focuses on managing content and gives you the tools to display this content any way that is needed. While it may lack some features/extensions found in other popular platforms, the user management, workflow and template engine are the best you can get.
Duda lets me customize the entire page. With Squarespace, many of the templates were limiting on editing the header and footer. Also in the past, I couldn't change the page title and page header to be different in Squarespace. This was not good for SEO. Wix is good but also a little bulky and glitchy.
Initially, ROI was positive - because we completely redesigned the website when we implemented Cascade.
Over time, the inability to keep up with the latest interactive tools has reduced visitors time on site.
Also over time, the difficulty of use has led to less buy-in by backend users, leading to outdated pages, little timely information, and lower visitors.
