thatdesigndudeQ: This sounds incredibly interesting, and I would love to own my own ConvertKit!
A few questions (I hope they make sense and are fair, I'm way more familiar with the marketing side of things than the backend so bear with my ignorance 😅 — well, I have a VPS server with my own n8n instance, but that's about the entirety of my experience / knowledge with the backend)
1. How does your software compare in terms of features to ConvertKit? Specifically:
- Do you support advanced conditions (both for sending emails, as well as within the body of the email (similar to liquid templating))?
- I see on your website you have Automated Email Sequences. Are those only dripped sequences, or is it possible to created advanced automations? (adding tags based on conditions/recipient actions, modifying custom fields, sending emails within the sequence conditionally, etc.)
- Do you have a visual automation builder?
2. How does your software compare in terms of features to a Mautic instance hooked to Postmark? (that's what I was planning to use until I found your software)
3. Do you support n8n for integrations? (I'd like to use my existing instance and superior workflows to Zapier 😉)
4. What are the required and recommended server specs for your software to run smoothly? What about with multiple backends? (I think I understand from one of your answers that they need to be installed on the same VPS, so I assume it would require more power, correct?)
5. Do you recommend a specific VPS provider?
6. Is assistance to install and configure your software included in the deal? (I don't mean an ongoing tech support for every little thing, I assume this isn't included. But I mean, to get it up and running properly)
7. Do you have a roadmap of planned updates for future features or something similar? (Please answer for new features, as well as stability/security updates)
8. How about security/stability updates? Is that a separate calendar from the new features, and how would we update our servers? (I'm assuming either uploading and installing a package you deliver to us, or something similar to docker pull, but I have no idea if that makes sense).
Sorry for the numerous questions, It's just that I really, really hope I can make your software the heart of my marketing automation system, both for myself and my clients!
Going to try and answer your questions by number here:
4 , 5, and 6)
We use Digital Ocean droplets in-house, and we show an example in our EZ Setup video of picking a 2 CPU NVMe server on DO for about $20 as a good entry level choice. Our software runs really fast on these DO droplets, although how close to your geographic location the VPS is will play a not insignificant role in the responsiveness of the UI. Using a VPS in San Francisco feels far snappier than using one in New York in my case, for instance, being in California. Geographically close Vultr VPS are also really fast for us.
Here's a video link to the install process which will answer a lot of your questions:
https://docs.emaildelivery.com/docs/install/automated-installation
7) Roadmap is here, the top 'in progress' feature is a very significant one:
https://emaildelivery.canny.io/
8) Updates are done through updating docker images, you guessed correctly.
Stability is good, rarely are updates pushed for anything related to that.
1) I know what you're referring to with template conditions, we don't offer those yet, it's definitely an interesting idea to think about as a future feature.
However, we have really excellent segmenting, on par with the high dollar ESPs like Maropost.
We have *some* of the email sequence automations you're looking for, but we made a deliberate choice not to pursue Active Campaign type of capabilities, and instead to try and incorporate most use cases regarding tags, engagement triggers, etc that people are guaranteed to use the most into a regular drip sequence interface.
Our product thinking is centered around optimizing deliverability and being flexible, so the bases we cover on email sequences are things like being able to send each message in the funnel from a different persona, domain, and backend email delivery engine. IE, email sequence message one can go out from Betty through SparkPost, and email sequence message two can go out from Larry at Mailgun. Also being able to use all of the same editor types (drag and drop, WYSWYG, raw HTML) you can use with a broadcast in the email sequences, being able to use a different editor type in each message, having all the suppression features broadcasts have, etc.
Adding a visual editor just isn't the right direction for us in particular as that's more of it's own entire software category and not easy to do well, a lot of people add it to their product just to say they have it.
2) We're much more powerful than Mautic for what our product is designed to do, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with Mautic
Thanks for the quick answer!
However, I asked so many questions that one slipped past your gaze: 3) how about integrating with n8n? (Although I just read another answer in which you mention API access, so I assume that would be feasible since n8n allows one to create custom integrations and to interact with APIs when a pre-built one doesn't exist).
Overall, it sounds like an great tool, and I appreciate you having a clear vision and trying to focus on the features that fit that vision.
I'm not sure whether it's the right tool for me, sadly: What I would love to create is a very modular system, capable of sending hundreds of unique variations/permutations from a single sequence, based on custom fields attached to subscriber records, and a logic tree (well, more likely logic trees, plural) within the automation.
I love your answer and EmailDelivery sounds like a truly incredible tool, but from what I understand it may not be quite aligned with what I had in mind… Am I correct?
I'm not sure about n8n, but there's definitely some interest in eventually adding support for pabbly for instance. Our product can have an atypical/tricky integration with these services as they need to connect back to each customers individual platform installation, instead of connecting just once to one big SaaS which has a bunch of customers in it.
Using our product to try and create the type of logic tree you describe is feasible but i'm sure would be really sub-optimal in the experience and implementation, you're right on that count.
@Ian
I think n8n makes much more sense than Pabbly since n8n is self-hosted just like your software. Someone hosting their own software seems *far* more likely to use n8n than Pabbly, and that might avoid the problems you've encountered with Zapier.
Will check out n8n for sure.