Concise differences between hubspot.com and WordPress hub plugin

[kyl3]

Is there a concise chart or whatnot available to detail the differences between hubspot.com site and the WordPress Hubspot plugin? We are trying to decide if our site can be hosted on WP and receive all of the main benefits of using hubspot.com CRM etc. 

Thanks

[trevordjones]

We seem to have a spirited discussion going on here, and there are some relevant points being made on both sides.  As someone who has used HubSpot Marketing for a decade, I would say that the main reason I have always remained on WordPress and never gone to the HubSpot CMS is really about flexibility.

I have never had programmers on staff, but there are thousands of WordPress developers out there, many of whom do freelance work at reasonable rates.  I have always enjoyed the flexibility to work with my favorite freelance developers to build the functionality I need into my WordPress site - functionality that at times simply would not be possible in the HubSpot COS.

For me, the content customization HubSpot offers has never been practical from a workload point of view.  I just don't have the staff I would need to create and manage all those variations.  As a result, that advantage  has never outweighed the flexibility of hosting my site on an open source platform with a wide variety of potential programming suppliers.  I certainly admit that it is a compelling benefit for the right customer.  It just isn't me.

[Jake_Lett]

As a marketing consultant, I often think about this question because clients often want to know the benefits of using HubSpot vs WordPress or other similar CMS. Below are some questions to ask before making your decision. 

• Is your site mostly public-facing content and nothing needs to be private or require high levels of secure access?
• Do you have a global team of marketing and sales? Do you need the ability to assign different level of permissions?
• Do you need to translate content?
• Do you have a developer to regularly maintain your WordPress site hosting and security?
• Would you like to split test web pages to optimize lead generation?
• Do you see the benefit of having one login for your marketing and sales efforts?
• Would you like to use personalize pages with CRM data to increase conversions?
• Do you see the value of having access to a support team to ask questions when things are not working?
• Do you find the WordPress editing experience clunky and confusing using third party page builder plugins?
  
  If you answer yes to a lot of these questions, I would consider HubSpot CMS.

[kyl3]

This is pretty well thought out so thanks for that but as a WordPress dev I have to reply.

1. While php is more prone to security risks than java (or hubl) it's not without it's risks, including javascript which we all use.

2. WP does allow for various permission levels. We should be about America first, not a global team.

3. WP can translate, this is a broader topic though about browser support which is where translation should occur if done properly.

4. Are you saying we should just pay Hubspot to develop instead? I don't understand your point. Hosting and security from siteground or bluehost work great and once setup very little needs done to maintain them from our stance.

5. Alright Hub might have a advantage on split tests.

6. One login, really? We all have 20 or more logins for everything.

7. Personlize pages with CRM...I can possibly see some benefits here if they actually worked and converted.

8. I've asked questions before with no response, that was with tickets, the community is small but growing which is good. By the way

the WP community is massive and tons of stack overflow support etc. A huge plugin base with support but very little help with Hubspot online in forums etc. This is a major drawback for me especially with the documentation lacking, just updating a variable in Hubl is non trival and its not explained in the docs very well at all. I get it, things are based on a python type approach with dicts etc but the code base is hard to find everything in one place even if hubl allows for other jinjava operations. The best source on that is some github page, what a joke.

9.  I'd say Beaver Builder is the best page builder and its rendered code is lacking but nothing wrong with building with templates as I've done for years. If you compared any page builder you'd be dealing roughly the same situation as opposed to hand coding it all. Dealing with Hub for a while, making many things modules is alright but kinda tiring. The plugin base seems limiting also, I'm new here and I do wonder what all Hubl can do but overall the lack of support and documentation is the biggest setback for me. 

Beyond the nuances of the languages and support, what the actual Hubspot CRM/marketing can do that the WP plugin can't do was my main concern.

If we paid for all the Hub features (well starter plan) but used the WP plugin for our site on WP what would be missing besides split tests, CRM personalized pages and easier to translate pages? 

[Jake_Lett]

Since you are a WordPress dev, you definitely can push WordPress to achieve a lot of the functionality. But it does require effort and knowledge to do so. The companies that don't have this experience or resource to help could greatly benefit from HubSpot CMS.

1. When self hosting WP you are responsible for updating plugins and fixing any hacks or database issues. HubSpot handles all of that.

2. True, since you are a wp dev you could set this up

3. True, but in my experience not as seamless and a bit clunky

4. True. The more technically advanced you are the less you may see this security hosting as a benefit.

5. Alright Hub might have a advantage on split tests.

6. I meant one CENTRAL location for logging in. All of your company employees will login to one online platform. Cross pollination of knowledge.

7. 

8. I agree the dev community isn't as large and does not have the plugin inventory like WordPress. But it is growing and is a potential opportunity to stand out because the pool of developers is smaller.

9. Beaver builder is pretty nice and if you are comfortable using that works. Have experimented with HubSpot themes? They are a huge advancement if giving the developer more control on how marketers build pages.

If we paid for all the Hub features (well starter plan) but used the WP plugin for our site on WP what would be missing besides split tests, CRM personalized pages and easier to translate pages? You're correct. Those are the main things. Also CDN and dynamic image serving like webp. I know Wordpress has plugins for this also but is another thing to setup.

It sounds to me WordPress + HubSpot plugin is a good fit for you and your business. You have the technical knowledge to setup what you need.

Below in my opinion are use cases for using HubSpot CMS vs WordPress + HS plugin.

• You have more money than time. Will one new customer easily cover the cost of HubSpot?
• Your marketing and sales organization has more than 5 people and you are generating a lot of marketing assets. 
• You don't have access to an in-house developer or agency retainer to maintain your site

[sharonlicari]

Hey @kyl3 

In this video, you can find more information about the WordPress plugin and here you can find more information about why host your website on HubSpot. 

I'll tag a few experts that can share their thoughts about this topic.

Hey @trevordjones @Josh @Jake_Lett what would you advise in this case?

Thanks

Sharon