Realm vs Church Windows Comparison

I love that Realm is cloud based and can be used anywhere. Everything is in one place instead of having several different programs to pull together.

Other financial software programs offer better ability to edit transaction that have already been processed. In Realm, you have to completely void and reenter it. Church Windows offered greater ability.

User-friendly, support is great, helps me to work a lot more efficiently

More options with printing church directory

One window church management tool that brings all aspects of church life together -- well almost all.

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

The ease of use for church leaders and administrators, as well as church members.

The Communications and Volunteer capabilities are still under development.

User interface is clean, crisp and easy enough to use. Our Church congregation enjoys using it and adopted it fairly quickly.

This Church Management Software feels like a Beta-version, and you can tell that it hasn't been tested. It is unrefined, and glitchy, with navigation being confusing at times and illogical. Development teams are not helpful ("Sure, we'll add that to the suggestion box."), and there are some major functionality issues - specifically with their Group Search tools. We've had to manage to separate systems...

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Multi-dimensional and ultimately customizable. So many ways you could use this software its brilliant.

Difficult to train staff and communicate possibilities throughout our church community.

I love the ability to track church members and groups in which each member is a participant. Knowing where each person fits into the life of our church is essential for church growth and health.

There are limitations to this software where other options are better. Check-ins, groups, and giving are great, but each of these features are more user friendly on other softwares.

Whole Church management. Everything in one place

Still a few holes to fill, but they update it about twice a month

The interface is pleasing and fairly intuitive. The customer service is excellent. The tools available are very useful for our church. I appreciate the customized fields in the system that allow me to change certain terminology to better match our church.

There are bumps in the road sometimes with updates, whether it's an unexpected consequence, changed features, or having to teach volunteers a new way to use the software. I also appreciate how much Realm listens to customer feedback, but sometimes wish improvements could be made faster.

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No cons were added to this review

For the past few years I have been attending a small community church. Just recently our church began using this for gathering information and tithing. There are many mornings that it is hard to get to the church on time with three teenagers, this app is great to donate to the church directly from my phone. I can get seated and during announcements make a payment without worrying about bringing the check book.

It took me a minute to get acquainted with the layout. I am afraid that inexperienced church members may not want to use this technology just because its an app but they just need to get past that!

Ease of Use; Cust. Support; Not just a church office software, but a church community software. ; Best feature is the continual improvement of the software based on comments from users.

Connect App is unstable. The registration process too hard for some of our members. Software fails to recognize if user is already registered and results in duplicate users.

Love being able to use for many functions in our church

feels a little cumbersome with going back and forth to different sections

ACS products perform at the highest level. Realm has all the functionality and ease to ensure all staff are able to use the product. Realm combines all the functions of church administration into one online accessible product.

The messaging component with church members and staff is glitchy and some members don't receive the messages.

The search features, both in searching for individuals and running custom queries. This enables us to save time when producing any kind of communication.

The end user (congregant) experience. For back-office staff Realm is a big help, but for our members it is a headache. For this reason, we have not yet released/used many of Realm's features like event registration, group messages, and the connect app. Congregants mainly use it for online giving only, and we still field lots of call and questions. The user must be very familiar with computer software programs in order to follow the logic of which buttons to click, etc. To a layperson, it's incredibly difficult. They really do need a giant red button screaming at them with what to do next.

It's at least an attempt to unify the communication in a church environment.

Extremely difficult to navigate. Lots of missing functionality. Difficult to manage news feeds. Software sometimes sends out emails without notice or options when editing an item. One bug will even send the emails with old info prior to an edit. Documentation was almost useless. Extremely difficult to figure out how to get a task done. Something as simple as signing up for a small group is too buried for most users to locate, so everyone ends up contacting the group leader, asking to be signed up.

Realm really is a great tool to assist our church ministry. I really enjoy the user experience in terms of being about to use Realm from my laptop, smartphone or tablet. It is very easy to send out mass emails to various church groups within our ministry like the book club, flower guild and youth events. The member profile piece is easy to use and customize. I can track church member contributions, family situation and what activities they are involved with at our church. The Small Group Activity area is VERY helpful because I can attach and track members of certain groups with our church and they can communicate within that group through Realm and no one will get emails that are not relevant to them.

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We use Realm for everything at our church – group messaging, pushing announcements, contributions, event calendar, church directory... the list goes on! It's pretty user-friendly, and customer service is alway super helpful. Our staff love it and our members rave about it!

Although the desktop site is great, the app needs some work. Also, it works better on Chrome than on Safari which is just weird.

The ability and ease of communicating to our church and the different ministry groups within our system.

There have been several glitches that have happened. Some of them took a few days to resolve.

How user-friendly it is and how everything for our church from finances to membership is under one umbrella.

It can move very slowly at times which can be very frustrating.

I like all the information that you can enter about the many church members you have. There is a place to find out everything you would need to know about what they are involved in the church. The group features and pathways are so easy to work with.

I don't like how you can't easily copy and paste members of one group into a volunteer group and vice versa.

The best thing about Realm is that it is user-friendly! Our congregants love that. Also, they are constantly changing and updating the software, so it is becoming more and more useful in day to day church business!

Sometimes an aspect hasn't been developed or developed fully, but we do know the developers are working on it.

Versatility - easy to use and accurate, like that it's in the cloud and constantly being updated and current.

Not much. We are a Canadian church, and although the software is based in the USA, they have been very helpful in accommodating any Canadian issues.

The most favorable thing about this software is it intended as a single system for Church Management as well as ministry and group support. From the promotional videos it appears there is a very dynamic and interactive church management portion of the software to which I do not have access.

I can only comment on the ministry portion since I am not church staff and have no access to that portion. As an end user involved in leadership of several different ministries I was looking for this part of the program to be user friendly, attractive and engaging output, and easy to communicate and interact with group members. In its current format it does not support this type of need. It is...

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We use Realm for our communications within the church body. It's an easy tool to use and have accessible to many.

It is not as user friendly as many other social platforms. Especially considering the wide array of age groups using it.

Phone support is prompt. They call back very quickly.

This is one of the most non-user friendly program I have ever had to use. It is difficult to navigate and to select what you need takes way longer than it should. I have used other church programs and hope we switch soon.

Wendy, We truly appreciate your feedback about Church Windows Software, thank you! Church Windows, like other programs, will generate errors from time to time, however, you should not be getting errors regularly. We encourage you to call Church Windows Support at 800-533-5227 for assistance in figuring out why you're having problems and getting errors. If you have a recent version of Church...

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