Salesforce Lightning Platform vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Salesforce Lightning Platform
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
Salesforce Platform is designed for building and deploying scalable cloud applications with managed hardware provisioning and app stacks. It provides out-of-the-box tools and services to automate business processes, integrate with external apps, and provide responsive layouts and more.
$25
Per User Per Month
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Salesforce Sales Cloud is a platform for sales with a community of Sellers, Sales Leaders, and Sales Operations, who use the solution to grow sales and increase productivity. The AI CRM for Sales features data built right in, so that companies can sell faster, sell smarter and sell efficiently. Salesforce Sales Cloud is used for, and supports: Buyer Engagement Sales Engagement Enablement Sales AI Sales Analytics Team…
$25
per month
Pricing
Salesforce Lightning PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud
Editions & Modules
Starter
$25.00
Per User Per Month
Plus
$100.00
Per User Per Month
Starter
$25.00
per month per user
Professional
$80.00
per month per user
Enterprise
$165.00
per month per user
Unlimited
$330.00
per month per user
Agentforce 1 Sales
$550
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Salesforce Lightning PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Salesforce Lightning PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud
Considered Both Products
Salesforce Lightning Platform
Chose Salesforce Lightning Platform
Salesforce Lightning Platform provides a more sales-focused CRM. It allows the sales force of an organization to be able to stay organized and can pull necessary reports to get a better understanding on how the business is performing regarding sales and customer activity. …
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Chose Salesforce Sales Cloud
We chose Salesforce as the leader in this space as it handles all that we were looking for and was customizable enough that we could build what it did not have. Their lead only continues to grow over others with recent acquisitions and their never ending focus on expanding …
Chose Salesforce Sales Cloud
SharePoint: while Microsoft's flagship crm product is tried and true, it's clunky, overly complicated, and incredibly difficult to tweak and customize with any sort of efficiency
Chose Salesforce Sales Cloud
Dynamics is the only other CRM that I've used for an extended period. I found it cumbersome, and found myself getting frustrated because of how limiting it felt compared to Salesforce. I also find Salesforce to be much more user friendly. I see users pick up Salesforce with …
Chose Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesforce seemed to be a more complete system and better organized.
Features
Salesforce Lightning PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud
Platform-as-a-Service
Comparison of Platform-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
7.5
39 Ratings
6% below category average
Salesforce Sales Cloud
-
Ratings
Ease of building user interfaces5.739 Ratings00 Ratings
Scalability8.837 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform management overhead7.333 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow engine capability7.035 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform access control8.836 Ratings00 Ratings
Services-enabled integration9.036 Ratings00 Ratings
Development environment creation7.233 Ratings00 Ratings
Development environment replication7.231 Ratings00 Ratings
Issue monitoring and notification7.234 Ratings00 Ratings
Issue recovery6.431 Ratings00 Ratings
Upgrades and platform fixes7.736 Ratings00 Ratings
Sales Force Automation
Comparison of Sales Force Automation features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.3
261 Ratings
7% above category average
Customer data management / contact management00 Ratings9.2261 Ratings
Workflow management00 Ratings8.3252 Ratings
Territory management00 Ratings7.7204 Ratings
Opportunity management00 Ratings8.7253 Ratings
Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)00 Ratings8.5238 Ratings
Contract management00 Ratings7.9209 Ratings
Quote & order management00 Ratings7.8192 Ratings
Interaction tracking00 Ratings8.7223 Ratings
Channel / partner relationship management00 Ratings8.1184 Ratings
Customer Service & Support
Comparison of Customer Service & Support features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
7.9
99 Ratings
5% above category average
Case management00 Ratings8.397 Ratings
Call center management00 Ratings7.878 Ratings
Help desk management00 Ratings7.682 Ratings
Marketing Automation
Comparison of Marketing Automation features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.4
239 Ratings
10% above category average
Lead management00 Ratings8.6234 Ratings
Email marketing00 Ratings8.2201 Ratings
CRM Project Management
Comparison of CRM Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.3
242 Ratings
9% above category average
Task management00 Ratings8.6231 Ratings
Billing and invoicing management00 Ratings7.774 Ratings
Reporting00 Ratings8.5195 Ratings
CRM Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of CRM Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.3
255 Ratings
9% above category average
Forecasting00 Ratings8.0223 Ratings
Pipeline visualization00 Ratings8.1242 Ratings
Customizable reports00 Ratings8.7252 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.7
246 Ratings
15% above category average
Custom fields00 Ratings9.0244 Ratings
Custom objects00 Ratings8.9233 Ratings
Scripting environment00 Ratings8.4173 Ratings
API for custom integration00 Ratings8.6203 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.9
247 Ratings
7% above category average
Single sign-on capability00 Ratings8.9215 Ratings
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.8219 Ratings
Social CRM
Comparison of Social CRM features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.7
156 Ratings
17% above category average
Social data00 Ratings8.8154 Ratings
Social engagement00 Ratings8.6152 Ratings
Integrations with 3rd-party Software
Comparison of Integrations with 3rd-party Software features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
8.2
212 Ratings
11% above category average
Marketing automation00 Ratings8.4208 Ratings
Compensation management00 Ratings8.1142 Ratings
Platform
Comparison of Platform features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Salesforce Sales Cloud
7.7
227 Ratings
5% above category average
Mobile access00 Ratings7.7227 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Salesforce Lightning PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud
Small Businesses
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Score 8.3 out of 10
Salesmate
Salesmate
Score 9.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Salesforce Lightning PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
6.8
(39 ratings)
8.7
(392 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(58 ratings)
Usability
7.4
(4 ratings)
9.3
(121 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.8
(27 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(18 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(15 ratings)
8.9
(92 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(11 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(15 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
2.3
(18 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(9 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(52 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.3
(8 ratings)
User Testimonials
Salesforce Lightning PlatformSalesforce Sales Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
Salesforce
We use Salesforce Lightning Platform in everyday business as sales coordinators. By using this tool, we are able to send new requests to clients and communicate regarding pending proposals in real-time. This also tool holds many of our client accounts where we are able to monitor their sales and revenue.
Read full review
Salesforce
It would be very well suited if you have someone with experience with Salesforce as your administrator and someone who can help you set everything up. However, sometimes the integrations and setup can be overly cumbersome. Otherwise, it is functional once you have everything set up and can help with everything outbound (sales and marketing are very well-built).
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Pros
Salesforce
  • Reporting and Dashboards are thorough and can show a wealth of important data to inform and scale processes. It's helpful in a high volume sales cycle to be able to quickly identify weak points in performance and productivity so that adjustments can be made.
  • Highly customizable. We are able to customize just about everything which allows us to track very specific things and in theory create better efficiency.
  • Parent/Child account hierarchy exists which is helpful.
  • Contact records can be associated with multiple accounts and opportunities. This, in theory, should minimize duplicates and mismanagement of contacts.
  • Console helps a lot with data nesting. Having a fairly comprehensive look at an account without searching through various tabs and sections speeds up an otherwise cumbersome platform.
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Logging notes: SF makes it easy to log notes in the timeline or static notes that live in an easy-to-see spot for longevity.
  • Logging activities: It's easy to post a call, text, email, etc.
  • API data: Once connected, SF is critical to automation, such as website activity, login activity, pages visited, etc., which saves the Customer Success side time in understanding account activity.
  • Custom fields: you can add custom fields to really personalize your experience. We use quite a few and it's brilliant.
Read full review
Cons
Salesforce
  • Can be cumbersome: takes multiple clicks to get where you need to go
  • Lightning is slower than original Salesforce, and it is very noticeable
  • The UI change means sometimes I can't find what I need, so I have to switch back to the Classic version to find it
Read full review
Salesforce
  • I have hard-coded the auto-update of the phone number format and state format from some codes shared by the community, but I do not know where to do it. I cannot reset it either.
  • It is unclear what functionalities each version has. We use the enterprise version, and it seems we can only have one design of the pipeline. But different business segments would have very different sales cycles, and hence, pipeline tracking would be different. It would be nice to have this available in our version.
  • It seems I cannot create a report to pull notes logged at the account levels.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
There are days when I wish we hadn't switched, but I know that if we put in the time, we will get to where we want to be with the software and that it has many more capabilities than anything else we looked at. However, the amount of time and onboarding we need to do is also far greater than we realized/were told when we originally bought the product. They told us we should hire onboarding support, but at the end, after we had already reached our budget maximum for this, so it's been slower than we had hoped.
Read full review
Usability
Salesforce
UI can be quite complex, but the more that is required will bring more complexity. Can handle complexity and variety very well, but makes ground-level views harder when not knowing full extent of functionality. Finding new functionalities can be difficult to pinpoint on some pages
Read full review
Salesforce
Salesforce has been designed on the basis of "Clicks, not code". So anyone willing to learn the Salesforce user interface (which is quite good as far as management software platforms go) is able to become a Salesforce user or even a Salesforce administrator. You don't have to know coding language to work in the Salesforce environment. Also, Salesforce has one of the best software training resources (Trailhead) that I have ever encountered. It is free to all, easy to use, and most importantly it is interactive. No scrolling through endless text in a user manual. There are hands-on modules and related videos interlaced and through it all you earn points and badges to display your level of learning.
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Reliability and Availability
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Salesforce is always available securely from any internet-capable device anywhere in the world, UNLESS you choose to set security measures so that ONLY trusted IP ranges may access the system at certain times of the day. It's all about choice and flexibility with Salesforce products.
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Performance
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Salesforce performance in general is excellent. "The cloud infrastructure beneath Force.com has been fine-tuned over the past 10 years. It powers nearly 100,000+ businesses running more than 185,000 applications that 3 million users count on every day."
Points per Salesforce -
1) Multitenant kernel - With a multitenant platform, each business that uses the app doesn’t have its own copy. Instead, all businesses share a single copy and then customize it for their specific needs.
2) ISO 27001 certified security - You can’t compromise when it comes to enterprise-level security. Force.com is road-tested and trusted by nearly 100,000+ companies, including many of the world’s most security-conscious organizations, such as banks and health care providers.
3) Proven reliability - All Force.com apps run on world-class data centers with backup, failover, and disaster-recovery facilities. Force.com has had a proven 99.9 percent uptime record for years.
4) Proven, real-time scalability - Force.com is used by many of the world's largest enterprises, including Cisco, Japan Post Network, and Symantec. Applications can automatically scale from a few users to millions of page views, as needed.
5) Real-time query optimizer - You need fast access to your data. The Force.com query optimizer delivers under 300ms response time, at a massive scale.
6) Real-time transparent system status - You can always see real-time system performance, availability, and security information at trust.salesforce.com.
7) Real-time upgrades - Unlike traditional software platforms, our upgrades never break your customizations, code, or integrations. We upgrade the platform for you 3 to 4 times each year. As a result, you’re always on the latest version, with access to the latest features, performance, and security enhancements.
8) Real-time sandbox environments - With a single click, you can create copies of your applications, configuration, and data in separate environments for development, testing, and training.
9) Three global production data centers and disaster recovery - Force.com runs on three geographically dispersed, mirrored data centers with built-in replication, disaster recovery, a redundant network backbone, and no single points of failure
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Support Rating
Salesforce
Salesforce's support is top-notch. They have subject-matter experts that are accessible at all times to address needs as they come up. They let you know in advance when there are system updates and enhancements so that you are prepared for upcoming changes. I've never had an issue that wasn't addressed immediately when reaching out for support.
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Salesforce
The overall support has been good. More and more features are being released quite frequently. Very small features are also making big difference in how the tool can be adapted and used better. If there is anything we need or are stuck, the support team sets up a call and helps in resolving the issue/provides workarounds.
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In-Person Training
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
I attended two training sessions. I would rate them a 4 as an advanced user. It was very basic – great for someone new – would give 8+ for new person.

I had 3 years of experience at the time. I skipped basic and went onto advanced and still not helpful. A lot of it was best practices that didn’t feel relevant for our business
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Online Training
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
I have gone through multiple. The content that’s delivered is quite basic – I wish they had more advanced training.

We are grandfathered into premium support plus training. We get unlimited access to instructor led and online training for free. We have taken advantage of this
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Implementation Rating
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Just from an organizational standpoint - we standardized our data prior to moving to Salesforce. But we essentially standardized it wrong. That's created a big disgusting mess for us know that I'll have to deal with as the Admin. Be sure you think through use cases prior to doing something like that - seek outside opinions on how the data will work best, especially depending on what else you're going to integrate with Salesforce.
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Alternatives Considered
Salesforce
We were previously using an older version prior to it becoming Salesforce Lightning Platform so we were well adverse on the advantages of using a CRM, to begin with. It made sense to convert to Salesforce Lightning Platform after we were given a free trial of the platform. Certain reps were chosen to experiment with it and from there a decision was made to move forward. We've been customers ever since.
Read full review
Salesforce
At our company, we use Salesforce and HubSpot. I personally like both for different reasons. Salesforce makes it easy to generate reports, keep track of dealer and customer information, tie customers to dealers, and is easy to use. However, I like HubSpot for the marketing features. I think HubSpot has easier-to-use workflows and email creations.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Salesforce is the most widely used CRM system. Professionalism tends to increase when things go wrong for market leaders. Salesforce considers us as users because they own the market. Having all of our data in one place and all of our teams working within Salesforce. Anyone who uses Salesforce is impacted by it, even if they don't.
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Scalability
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Salesforce Sales Cloud is highly scalable and designed to accommodate the needs of businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises. It offers flexible subscription models and can easily scale up or down based on the organization's requirements. Whether a company is expanding its sales team, increasing its customer base, or adding new features and functionalities, Sales Cloud can adapt to support growth without sacrificing performance or reliability. Additionally, Salesforce's cloud-based architecture ensures that users have access to resources and capabilities as needed, making it a highly scalable solution for organizations looking to automate customer relationship management at scale.
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Professional Services
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Using Salesforce.com has made my daily routines more efficient and simplified the manual tasks I had to perform independently. I can now access data from any device, online or offline, and provide better guidance to my team about the forecasts provided by the built-in artificial intelligence (AI). A chat with a Salesforce support specialist would be great. The knowledge base has a community forum where Salesforce users can ask questions and learn more about the product.
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Return on Investment
Salesforce
  • Better visibility of Accounts and Contacts interactions makes it easier to maintain during employee transitions.
  • Tracking of current jobs and relating them to past jobs is very useful.
  • More efficient use of Sales Reps time.
  • Sales Managers have good visibility into how their people are working.
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Salesforce
  • All tools we've implemented with Salesforce had a pretty quick positive ROI with the exception of CPQ & Billing. That was a very large project that I would only suggest for businesses with many SKUs that tend to be packaged together.
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ScreenShots

Salesforce Sales Cloud Screenshots

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