| Functionality | 8 <p>Atlas offers most of the support functionality that SMBs will need. It includes support for most channels, help centre creation, basic AI, automation and reporting functionality. It also uniquely offers "session recording" functionality, which allows you to view a video/ live session of a user using your web product. </p><p>However, it lacks more advanced features such as a chatbot builder, native phone and SMS support, advanced automation, and custom reporting. The product is still evolving, with features in beta. </p> | 8 <p>Pylon is "modern support platform for B2B companies". It offers a good range of features including support for email, live chat, ticket forms, Slack/ Teams and help centre. It also offers decent automation, AI and reporting functionality.</p><p>However, it lacks support for many channels (e.g. phone, socials) or custom objects.</p> |
| Ease of Use | 8 <p>Atlas has a gentle learning curve, and really shines with its efficient keyboard shortcuts that power users love. One of its best features is the customer timeline, which gives you a clear, chronological view of every client interaction at a glance. While everything flows nicely for shortcut users, those who prefer mouse navigation might find it frustrating that they can't see all tickets in a sidebar.</p> | 8 <p>Pylon has a relatively quick learning curve - an average employee should take 1-2 hours to familiarize themselves with the key workflows, with the bulk of that time spent on getting up to speed with how Slack/ Teams integration works.</p> |
| Look and feel | 6 <p>Atlas has a modern, clean interface that is pleasing to use. However, the UI lacks the polish of more established competitors, and loading times can be comparatively slow, taking 2-3 seconds for some pages.</p> | 6 <p>We find Pylon's interface to be clean and modern. However, some pages can be slow to load e.g. opening a ticket takes ~2 seconds, and the analytics dashboard can take >5 seconds to load.</p> |
| Customisability | 6 <p>Atlas offers a standard level of customisability.</p><p>Users can create custom fields for customers, set up custom views, and track custom events. The live chat widget and chatbot builder have standard customization options.</p><p>However, it lacks more advanced customization features like custom objects, custom actions, and custom reports. Help Centre customization (style, layout) is particularly limited.</p> | 8 <p>Pylon offers good customization options including custom views, custom fields, and custom reporting (including the view of customer context within Account Management). A unique feature here is that users can create swimlane diagrams for Kanban views. However, it lacks more advanced customization features like creating custom data objects and tracking custom events. </p> |
| Ease of Setup | 4 <p>Frustratingly, Atlas does not offer a self-serve free trial for its platform. Instead, you'll need to trudge through a sales demo before you can get access. However, the process is relatively short and smooth and once access was granted, we found the tool to be simple to set up and configure.</p> | 5 <p>Frustratingly, Pylon does not offer a self-serve free trial on its website. Instead you'll need to trudge through a sales demo to access the platform. However, calls are generally short and often deals are often closed in just one call if you're looking to purchase right away. Once you're in, initial setup is very slick, taking less than 10 minutes. Additionally, given its Slack centricity, connecting core channels is a one-click process.</p> |
| Customer Support | 9 <p>Atlas's customer support is excellent. They offer 24/7 in-app live chat with Atlas's team (including the founder!), who are always happy to provide friendly and personal help.</p> | 9 <p>Pylon offers support via in-app live chat and Slack/ Teams. We've found the team helpful, and quick to respond. Pylon is also known for being very responsive to product feedback.</p> |
| Integratability | 4 <p>Atlas only has 15 pre-built integrations. While these integrations cover key areas like CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, Close, Pipedrive) and calling (Aircall, Dialpad), it lacks integrations with popular tools in other categories such as project management, data enrichment, and surveys. It does offer an API for custom integrations.</p> | 7 <p>Pylon currently offers only 10 integrations, though they cover key areas like project management (JIRA, Linear, Asana) and CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive). The recent addition of webhook support improves its integration capabilities. However, it still lacks integrations in categories like data enrichment, surveys, and marketing tools. It does offer an API for custom integrations.</p> |
| Ease of Migration | 3 <p>Atlas's data export capabilities are somewhat limited. While reporting data for selected reports can be exported directly from within Atlas, most data seem only available for export via API. For example, tickets can only be exported as PDFs.</p> | 5 <p>Pylon's data export capabilities appear to be limited. While users can export reports to CSV, it doesn't seem possible to self-export tickets.</p> |
