Realm vs ACS

Planning Center

Tithe.ly

Tithely Church Management

IconCMO

Text In Church

ShelbyNext Membership

Compare Realm and ACS based on features, pricing, verified reviews, integrations & more on GetApp. Find out which software is best for your business in 2026.

ShelbyNext Membership offers attendance tracking, events scheduling and automating processes & workflows for churches and other non-profit organizations

Planning Center is an all-in-one church management system made to help you organize information, coordinate events, communicate with your team, and connect with your congregation. 

Use different tools for your ministry needs while keeping everyone informed about what's happening around the church.

Breeze is a cloud-based church management software designed to assist small & mid-sized churches in managing events, donations, follow-ups, volunteers, and more.

Try a free 30-day trial of Breeze today and see why more than 11,000 churches love Breeze!

Realm by ACS Technologies is a church management system with an emphasis on online community

Accounting

Accounting Integration

Accounts Payable

Accounts Receivable

Activity Tracking

Alerts/Notifications

Attendance Tracking

Bank Reconciliation

Budgeting/Forecasting

Built-in Accounting

Child Check-in

Compliance Management

Credit Card Processing

Customizable Reports

Customizable Templates

Data Import/Export

Donation Management

Donation Tracking

Donor Management

Electronic Payments

Event Management

Financial Reporting

For Religious Organizations

Fund Accounting

Fund Management

General Ledger

Member Communication

Member Directory

Member Portal

Membership Management

Mobile Access

Multi-Location

Online Calendar

Online Giving

Payroll Management

Pledge Management

Recurring/Subscription Billing

Reporting & Statistics

Small Group Management

Volunteer Management

Worship Planning

Realm

Android

Web-based

iPad

iPhone

Finance Manager

Our overall experience with Realm has been great, we truly enjoy using this product; our senior members love using the Realm app for their giving and enjoy the accounting module.

Administrative Assistant

Probably the best part might be the database end. It's pretty good at keeping all the information for our people, and creates a nice directory.

communications coordinator

The directory is helpful, and the customer support is good. My favorite part about Realm is the annual conference.

Realm is simply the best solution available in a market without many well-integrated products available yet. Constant improvement will only make it better.

As a former IT/programmer this software is the worst... very frustrating to use... slow.

Treasurer

The cost is probably the best feature for us as a small church. It also allows our members and friends to donate an online gift and have it immediately posted to the member's  statement.

Parish Administrator

I have had a positive experience with Realm. I have not had any questions that couldn't be answered or any tasks that could not be accomplished.

Director of Family Ministries

Compared to our previous ChMS, Realm is very good, and the frustrations are surpassed by a solid experience and feature set.

Office Administrator

I highly recommend the investment of time and finances to get the full benefit of the software by getting the training needed. I wish we had done so when we got it.

Realm Administrator

You can buy (which we did) the integrated accounting module, thus eliminating the need to double post donation summary information. Customer support is excellent.

Coach

I like the marketplace section as well as the ability to chat through the app with people in the community.

I am constantly calling Realm to see if there is a solution to one problem or another, and every time I am basically told "we don't do that" and "we have no plans to do that.

Rector

Sometimes confusing for users when it comes to privacy management and notifications.

Director of Operations & Communications

Easy to use for members and staff; cloud-based means you can access it from anywhere. We are still growing into attendance and check-in functions but look forward to using them.

administrator

It is too expensive for what you get. It's difficult for our members to understand so they don't use it.

Worship Pastor

The online interface is much friendlier than the old version, and it generally has good features and capabilities, but as with any database/CRM, it's all in how you set it up and implement use.

Generating year end tax statements is especially user friendly.

Everything is easy to navigate and it manages  people and contributions very easily. They are always adding improvements which is a plus.

Realm screenshot: Realm users can track event attendance

Realm screenshot: Realm displays attendee demographic on its attendance dashboard

Realm screenshot: Users can set up multiple fund accounts in Realm to hold donations for specific purposes

Realm screenshot: Realm enables users to batch enter contributions, such as Sunday collections

Realm screenshot: Donors have multiple giving options with Realm, and multiple payment types can be accepted

Realm screenshot: Realm automatically generates donation statements

Realm screenshot: Users can filter groups in Realm using multiple criteria

Realm screenshot: Realm allows users to specify in which situations they would like to be notified

Realm screenshot: Administrators can restrict which information in Realm other users can access

Realm screenshot: Realm includes self-service check-in functionality

Freelancers

Large Enterprises

Mid Size Business

Non Profit

Small Business

Text In Church is a church texting and email communication software to help busy church leaders spend less time managing tools and more time building relationships. Your church deserves to follow up with guests, send Plan A Visit reminders and engage regular attendees in a simple, meaningful way.

IconCMO is a church management solution for ministries of all sizes. The cloud-based solution provides tools such as member management, visitor tracking, communications, donor management, fund accounting, child check-in, event registration, and more to help churches manage their operations online.

Tithe.ly is a web & mobile based donation platform providing digital giving tools & event management features for ministries & churches of all sizes

ACS is a church management software designed to help churches of all sizes handle finances, members, services, background checks, contributions, accounting processes, payroll, purchase orders, and more on a centralized platform.

ACH Payment Processing

Application Management

Asset Tracking

Attendance Management

Committee Management

Communication Management

Dues Management

Event Scheduling

Financial Management

Member Database

Member Types

Membership Renewals

Mobile App

Payment Processing

Registration Management

Third-Party Integrations

Website Management

Linux

Windows

Administrator

The customer service at ACS is outstanding and would recommend this company and their products to anyone.

summer projects secretary/teacher

The onboarding team and the customer service reps are easy to work with and try to be as helpful as possible. The Church Life app is great, and has been a blessing to our church members.

What I like best is that it is an affordable, integrated, double-entry accounting system designed specifically for churches and small non-profit organizations.

Pastor

It is marvelous in it's simplicity but also the sky is the limit with regards to it's complexity in it's ability to create reports, schedule volunteers, and communicate with teams.

church administrator

There are several modules that will allow you to track different aspects of the member or prospect in the life of the church and this system does it very effectively.

Executive Pastor

Set-up for reports is too complicated and graphs are difficult to arrange and filters are confusing.

Indépendant 

In conclusion, ACS is a very good software to store any kind of information.

Former Communications Director

ACS was powerful and stable. It's accounting software was also a huge perk.

ACS used to be the leader in this industry, but that was in the 1990s. Unfortunately, their software is still stuck in the 90s.

If you spent a lot of time setting things up and were using it daily, ACS seems to have the capability to have good functionality.

Owner

Honeslty the software is stuck in the 90s, I am shocked how far behind the programing is, it was not user friendly at all.

Customer Service was friendly, extremely helpful and patient. On site training was available at extra cost.

The user interface was difficult, making learning it (and teaching it to church staff who are often technically slower) very difficult.

IT Director 

It was a strong tool for us for quite some time.

Some days we notice it's "sluggish" (may be an internet issue). We use it every day in our office, but people using it from home often have problems.

Finance Mgr

I also can no longer run event and other income smoothly and directly to a contra-expense.

While all the modules technically work together, in practice their integration is flimsy and difficult to understand.

Event and Office Coordinator

Overall, the service performs what you need it to do at a lower budget cost, but it could offer more in terms of functionality and appearance.

Realm vs ACS Comparison (2026)

Realm

ACS

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives