EasyContent vs GatherContent - Which Content Collaboration Platform is Better?

There are several content collaboration platforms out there. GatherContent is one of the big ones. But alternatives such as EasyContent exists.

EasyContent offers the same set of tools (some are even better) and has a couple of exclusive ones that you can't find in GatherContent. But that's not it. EasyContent offers a more affordable pricing plan.

Of course, we know that having cheaper plans is not enough to sway you. That's why we're going to take a quick tour of the two platforms side by side and compare their features.

By the end of this article, you will be able to understand the difference between EasyContent and GatherContent. This way, you will have the confidence to choose the platform that's perfect for your team.

Let's get started!

Table of Contents

• Collaboration Tools
  • Text Editor
  • Comments
  • Messaging
  • Text Change Tracking
• Workflow
• Generating Ideas
• Templates
  • EasyContent Templates
  • GatherContent Templates
• Asset Management
• Managing Users
  • Roles and Permissions
  • Inviting Users
  • Creating Groups/Teams
• Creating and Managing Projects
• Creating Articles or Content Items
• Integrations
• Pricing
• Conclusion

Collaboration Tools

In this section, we're going to compare the major collaboration tools offered by EasyContent and GatherContent.

Text Editor

The text editor or content editor is where your team will spend the majority of their time, and this is also where most collaboration happens.

Below we compare some of the features present in EasyContent with GatherContent.

EasyContent’s text editor uses a customized version of TinyMCE, one of the most popular online rich text editors. Chances are, you’ve already used a version of it before. For example, WordPress' classic text editor uses TinyMCE. It's safe to say that it’ll take no time to be able to get started using EasyContent's text editor.

GatherContent, on the other hand, uses a customized version of the Quill text editor. It’s a newer technology and their interface is a little bit different than TinyMCE so it might take some getting used to. The vanilla version of the Quill text editor comes with advanced formatting features but it seems that GatherContent stripped them out to keep things simple.

Comments

Both EasyContent and GatherContent allow you to add comments to text, items, etc.

GatherContent has a couple of advantages over EasyContent in this section. One is the ability to subscribe and unsubscribe to email notifications for a specific comment thread and the other is the ability to generate a direct link to a specific comment thread.

EasyContent still allows you to manage your email notification settings for comments, but this will affect all comments in your account.

Messaging

EasyContent features an in-app messaging system, allowing your team to communicate without leaving the app or using a third-party messaging system.

All messages received by a user will also be sent to their registered email address.

GatherContent doesn’t have this feature.

Text Change Tracking

In EasyContent, you can track text changes. This will allow you to see editing actions as well as who and when the edits were made. This is extremely useful during the editing or revision phases.

GatherContent doesn't have this feature as well. You can use revisions to compare two versions of an article and see what changed, but that's not good for live editing.

Workflow

This is where there's a major difference between EasyContent and GatherContent. GatherContent offers a basic workflow structure while EasyContent comes with advanced options such as automatic due dates and a rating system.

In GatherContent you have to manually set an item's status every time it changes.

This is fine, but if you're looking for a more "natural" flow, you may not like it as much.

In EasyContent, changing an item's status can be done using buttons with labels "submit", "approve", and "send back".

Submitting and approving an item automatically moves it to the next status. Sending it back gives the user an option to set it back to any previous status.

This gives a more natural feel compared to GatherContent's way of having to manually set an item's status. Note that you can also manually set an item's status in EasyContent.

Aside from that, in EasyContent, you can also set auto-due dates, add a rating system for reviewers, and set specific roles that will be responsible for a workflow status.

Generating Ideas

Technically, both EasyContent and GatherContent allow you to generate ideas for future articles.

In GatherContent, you can create a workflow step called "Idea" or something similar and create items and assign them to that workflow step. However, this will also appear alongside items that are being worked on. This can add clutter but you can use their filters to clear your view.

EasyContent comes with an exclusive feature for generating ideas.

EasyContent's briefs allow any user with the right permission to add "to-do" items. These items can then be claimed by or assigned to a user.

They have a dedicated page.

You can add more details about a brief, unlike a regular item. You can add a description, keywords, and categories, and even assign a template to it in advance.

Templates

In this section, we're going to compare EasyContent and GatherContent's templates. Note: GatherContent calls them "structure".

EasyContent Templates

EasyContent's templates are made up of fields. The fields reside in a tab. Tabs and fields work together to help you organize your content's structure.

The fields will offer slightly different options depending on their type. Generally, you will be able to define word and character limits on fields accepting text input. You can set any field as required and add field guidelines. 

Field guidelines are little helper text underneath a field describing what you want a user to do with that field. For example, what image type and dimensions you want for a featured image or how many words should a paragraph text field have.

A content item with an empty required field can't be submitted to the next workflow status.

EasyContent offers the following fields:

• Single line text
• Paragraph text
• File/image upload
• Checkboxes
• Radio buttons
• Date
• Dropdown select
• Heading
• Guidelines (different from field-level guidelines, this stand-alone field allows you to add a global guideline, describing what you want for the entirety of the content item or simply for an entire tab).

GatherContent Templates

GatherContent offers are also made up of fields, however, unlike EasyContent, you will start from scratch instead of having a starting structure.

When you create a new template in GatherContent, you will start from scratch. You are free to add and remove any fields you want.

GatherContent offers the following fields for you to use:

• Text field
• Asset field
• Checkbox field
• Radio buttons field
• Guidelines field
• Components

You can create a bundle of fields that you can reuse on any template called components. For example, a component can have a text field, an asset field, and a guidelines field.

Their text field can also be set as reusable, allowing users to add copies of them on-the-fly while editing an item.

Asset Management

Both EasyContent and GatherContent come with a digital asset manager. It's the central hub for files in each project that lets you upload assets and reuse them as many times as you want in your items as long as those items belong to the same project.

EasyContent's digital asset manager lets you create folders. This helps you better organize your files. Other than that, both platforms' digital asset manager works very similarly to one another.

Managing Users

Managing users in EasyContent and GatherContent are very similar, aside from a couple of features exclusive to EasyContent.

Both give you the ability to create user groups, create custom permissions and custom roles, invite users, etc.

In EasyContent you can temporarily deactivate a user. This is useful if you have a team member that, say, goes on a vacation. Upon reactivation, they'll retain the role, permission, and all items that are assigned to them.

Roles and Permissions

Both EasyContent and GatherContent have extensive roles and permissions customization. You can create different roles and those roles have their own set of permissions.

Inviting Users

Inviting users in both EasyContent and GatherContent works very similarly. You can assign an invited user to a project, add a welcome message, assign them to a project, etc.

EasyContent has one advantage over GatherContent: if you're inviting multiple users at once, you can set each user's role and team.

In GatherContent, while you can invite multiple users, you can't assign different roles and groups (teams in EasyContent) to each user.

Creating Groups/Teams

Both GatherContent and EasyContent allow you to create groups (GatherContent) or teams (EasyContent) to organize your users.

For example, you can create a team called "Social Media Experts" and add all users that are good at crafting viral social media posts under it.

Creating and Managing Projects

Both EasyContent and GatherContent feature projects. A project lets you separate tasks. For example, you can have a project for social media marketing and another for newsletters.

EasyContent offers more advanced project creation and management tools.

When you create a new project, you can assign users immediately to it. In GatherContent, you can't do that.

In addition, changing assigned users in a project in EasyContent can be done right in the project dashboard or project settings. In GatherContent, you will have to go to their user management page to reassign users to projects.

Another major advantage of EasyContent is the in-depth project dashboard. It contains a lot of information at a glance without being overwhelming. You can even assign users to the project using the "project team" widget.

GatherContent's project overview is the equivalent of EasyContent's project dashboard. It shows you recent activities within the project, the items you're assigned to, and a breakdown of item statuses.

Creating Articles or Content Items

Creating a new article or content item in GatherContent is simple. You click on "new item" and you'll be given the option to name it and it's done. Then you can assign people, change its template, add due dates, etc.

In EasyContent, when you click "add new item" to create a new article or content item, a dialog box will appear. You can name it, add a description for it, apply a template, add keywords, and add categories. All of these are optional except for the article name.

EasyContent gives you the ability to add multiple items and folders at once with ease.

Above you can see the dialog box for adding article titles (one per line). You can also add multiple folders and even define a hierarchy.

Integrations

GatherContent currently has an advantage over EasyContent when it comes to integrations.

GatherContent offers integrations to various services such as WordPress, Slack, Drupal, and more. They also offer an API.

EasyContent currently only offers WordPress integration out of the box as well as an API you can use. But right now, EasyContent's custom pricing option lets you request a specific integration, which their developers will customize to fit your needs.

We're currently expanding our integrations and we're working on implementing Zapier integration in the near future!

Pricing

EasyContent's pricing plan is cheaper than GatherContent. Not only that, they also offer higher plan limits on all tiers.

If we compare their popular plans, you'll see that EasyContent is up to four times better in terms of project and content item limits while costing you up to 38% less on yearly plans.

As for the actual pricing amounts, EasyContent starts at $79 up to $499 a month while GatherContent starts at $99 up to $799 a month.

Both of them offer custom plans for large organizations.

EasyContent offers a 20% discount for yearly plans while GatherContent offers a 10%.

You can learn more about EasyContent's pricing here and GatherContent's pricing here.

Conclusion

EasyContent and GatherContent both aim to help your team collaborate more efficiently. Both have their strengths and weaknesses.

Overall, EasyContent offers a lot of features that GatherContent has and more, plus they offer more resources for a lower price. However, GatherContent currently has more integrations.

In the end, it's for you to decide which platform to choose. Hopefully, this article helped you understand the difference between EasyContent and GatherContent! You should now have the confidence to pick the right choice for your team.

If you'd like to know more about EasyContent, don't hesitate to contact us using the chatbox in the lower right corner of the page. You may also reach us at business@easycontent.io or schedule a call.