Realm vs Clearstream

Tithely Church Management

ChurchTrac

Clearstream

Send mass texts and emails, have two-way conversations, follow up with workflows, and create text-to-join keywords, QR codes, and more.


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!

ChurchTrac is a church management software with features for membership management, donation tracking, accounting, reporting and attendance management

Ministry Coordinator for Finance and Operations

The support staff are responsive when you need assistance.  

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

Web-based

iPad

iPhone

Android

ShelbyNext Membership

Planning Center

Pushpay

QuickBooks Online

FellowshipOne

Servant Keeper

Subsplash

Inform 

Connect 

Multiply

Frequent glitches and errors

79% of reviewers feel negative about Realm’s bugs and issues. Some users report encountering frequent error messages, glitches, and system instability, especially within the app. Reviewers indicate that technical problems often lead to frustration, lost time, and difficulty completing routine tasks. They say that issues with logging in, embedding media, and generating reports disrupt their workflow. Some users feel that their concerns about persistent bugs are not always addressed promptly, and they mention that these ongoing problems hinder their overall experience and adoption of the software.

Comprehensive member tracking

100% of reviewers feel positive about Realm’s tracking capabilities. Some users say they can easily monitor donations, pledges, and member engagement in one centralized platform. Reviewers appreciate the ability to track small group activities, event registrations, and spiritual milestones, which they find essential for community management. They indicate that tracking financial contributions and biographical information is accurate and accessible from multiple devices. Users think that having all data in one place streamlines their administrative tasks and helps them stay connected with members and their involvement in church activities.

Continuous feature enhancements

93% of reviewers feel positive about Realm’s improvements. Some users report that frequent updates and enhancements address their needs and make the software more efficient over time. Reviewers appreciate being able to suggest enhancements and see them implemented, which they say leads to a more user-friendly experience. Some users indicate that the transition from previous systems to Realm has resulted in noticeable efficiency gains. They find that ongoing development and regular software upgrades contribute to better organization and workflow, and they value the company’s commitment to listening to user feedback and releasing new features.

Office Administrator

I can also use reports to sort out particular types of members, members by age, and so on and I can create labels from the report inside of Realm itself.

We can create News Posts that allow comments and/or email notifications and send them to all members or separate groups.

Maintaining a clean database is easy to do with Realm, especially using the "merge profile" feature and the Dashboard that flags any duplicates or unrecognized addresses.

I can print checks straight from the accounting software and log it into the register.

Facility Administrator

Having used other providers, the ability to create separate giving page links, funds, text giving is far superior to any other product I have tried. Plus, it all pulls over into reports got me to look at YTD data in a moment.

Priest

Really like the "newsfeed" - I feel like it's a great way to keep people informed and also follow up on ministry events (with photos).  

Realm admin, membership secretary

Features work differently in Realm as the admin than a regular congregant on connect - it becomes confusing trying to learn two different ways of accessing what I need and communicating that to congregants.

Their main complaint with the app is that the pictures are really difficult to see.  

I love having one place to go for everything - check-in, member data-base, directory, giving, registration/events, etc.

Treasurer

Realm has allowed our parish to get into the 21st century of church management!

For our church members, the initial process of creating their accounts was difficult.  

Realm Administrator

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

I love that we have a rep who contacts us from time to time just check in and make sure we are still good.

Director of Youth and Stewardship Ministries

Realm helps us accomplish many of the basic tasks of running our office from a financial and people management perspective.

Admin for Kids and Student Min and Database Admin

I like the reporting and event section and its not hard to understand

Pastor

It's nice to have all of this functionality in one place.

Web master and designer

They contacted me right away and after we chose them they jumped on it.

The videos sometimes just show features but don’t go into detail if you want this outcome do this kind of instruction.  

Business Administrator

I haven't used the Accounting feature however, I was told that everything would go to Accounting and ACS would phase out.

Realm is opening so many doors for us and we are so happy to be on this path.

I also would appreciate the ability to delete profiles that gave 7+ years ago.

It is easy to use, easy to customize, and it just makes my job a whole lot easier.

There are occasionally things that are not intuitive and require a call into Realm/ACS for help.

Financial Operations Assistant

The system is intuitive and able to handle complex workflows.

FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATOR

WE LOVE THAT ONLINE DONATIONS POST DIRECTLY TO CONTRIBUTOR'S ACCOUNTS

They are friendly, knowledgeable, and always happy to help.

They are also very knowledgeable and happy to help.

ALSO CANNOT HAVE MORE THAN ONE GIVING DATABASE

TAKES ME A WHILE TO FIGURE OUT SOME REPORTING FEATURES.

We do have some functionality that hasn’t been deployed.

Finance Manager

Our church transitioned to Realm July 2018, one of the initial reasons we switched was because of the people side, the ability for our congregants to create and manage profiles, as well as, the ability to give and see/manage their giving, the ability to view and print their own statements.  

Administrative Secretary

I use this product everyday, to enter information or just to make a phone call to a member through the app and most of all to check the news feed and comments from our members.

Director of Family Ministries

For instance, each household in Realm must have a "head of household" --an antiquated notion of family dynamics that isn't necessary.

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

Trustee

The inability to keep and maintain business meeting minutes in OnRealm and be able to search them.

Purchasing

It doesn't seem to automatically do anything, causing several issues.  

Minister with Students

The giving area can be hard to understand and the fact that the app doesn't allow admins from the usual access they need makes the app almost useless.

My biggest complaint is that I have some members in my groups that do not receive the Realm emails when I send them out.  

Financial Secretary

I do not like having to create payroll from scratch and making adjustments for prior payrolls.  

Life Groups Pastor

Overall, we'd like the reporting to be more robust and user-friendly, dashboards to be more responsive, and communication and app performance to improve.

The administration is a little clunky, difficult to negotiate different groups. While it has huge potential, getting things off the ground can be a intimidating.

We purchased Realm with the goal of having multiple uses in our Parish, especially event attendee tracking, giving history, identifying different groups within the Parish and customizing communication to them.

First, it was a really switchover from their previous software.

This has been the most frustrating (and expensive) software that anyone could purchase.   And I have used more than the average person).  

Ease of Use

Financial Accounting

Group Management

Church Management

Dashboard Reports

Features

User Interface

Reports

Profile Management

Member Information

Freelancers

Small Business

Large Enterprises

Mid-size Business

ACS Technologies

Chmeetings

ChMeetings is an all-in-one Church Management Software trusted by 7,000+ churches. Manage members, events, giving, volunteers, child check-in, and more. Includes a member portal, branded mobile app, and built-in church accounting.

Lead Pastor

Anyway, it is unfortunate that I have to reach out to support to adjust a subscriber who has opted out accidentally.

Operations Manager

Their tutorial videos are well-produced, and if I have further questions beyond those, their customer support is extremely responsive, knowledgeable, and friendly.

Ministry Support Staff - Connections

The customer service has been fabulous as well - quick response times to the simplest & most complex questions - that what a significant factor for us when we were choosing which platform would be the best fit for us.  

Send mass texts and emails to your church, have two-way conversations, follow up with workflows, and create text-to-join keywords, QR codes, a custom landing page, and more.


2-Way Messaging

Activity Dashboard

Automated Responses

Campaign Planning

Campaign Scheduling

Communication Management

Consent Management

Contact Database

Contact Management

Customer Segmentation

Customizable Branding

Drip Campaigns

Email Management

Engagement Tracking

Interaction Tracking

Keyword Tracking

Landing Pages/Web Forms

Mass Texting

Message Personalization

Multi-Campaign

Multi-Language

Open Rate Tracking

Polls/Voting

QR Codes

Reminders

Reporting/Analytics

Reputation Management

Role-Based Permissions

Scheduled Messaging

Shortcodes

SMS Messaging

Social Media Integration

Third-Party Integrations

Visitor Tracking

By industry, Clearstream reviewers are most commonly professionals in religious institutions (78%). The most frequent use case for Clearstream cited by reviewers is church management (76% of reviewers).

Users and use cases

Some reviewers appreciate Clearstream’s transparent pricing and say the flexible plans scale with their needs. Users report good value for the features offered, but some reviewers find costs add up quickly, especially for high-volume messaging.

Value for money

The Clearstream integration most frequently cited by reviewers is Planning Center, a church management product rated 4.8 out of 5 for its integration with Clearstream.

Integrations

Clearstream is an SMS marketing tool with key features that include mass texting, member communication, third-party integrations, mobile access, contact database, message personalization, and more.

Realm vs Clearstream Comparison (2026)

Realm

Clearstream

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives