Bitrix24 Reviews

- How long have you been using Bitrix24?
Had been using it since early of year 2024.
- How many of your team members are utilizing Bitrix24?
Currently only me using. I was searching for a tool that helps me to keep track of my projects and progress. Bitrix24 had been very helpful in doing so.
- What features of Bitrix24 do you find most beneficial?
Ability to track my projects, to add subprojects into mega projects.

Date of experience: November 05, 2024

Very easy to use and an usefull tool to keep all teammembers in the loop!

Bitrix gave me a new plane to work with goals I keep for personal growth and innovation. It has cool platforms that one day can be used with like-minded people one day who may join my company. I love using this unique managment system!

Background:

We are a small game development studio of < 10 employees. Our projects are complex with development time running in years and lots of outsourcing (external partners).

Its important to point out that we dont use the CRM feature in Bitrix24. It looks complicated and we dont need it. But have used it once for a managing a campaign on Facebook.

I required a software for project management, employee management, including daily reports, clocking in/out, leave, purchase requests and other automated workflows, calendar, chats. Scrum management tools etc.

Document management is important as well.

In 2016, I evaluated options for a month by using Microsoft's suit of software, Salesforce and Zoho before picking Bitrix24.

With the exception of Microsoft none of the other platforms offered everything we needed. Microsoft would have been 100X more expensive after factoring in software licenses and cost of additional talent required to manage the plethora of different complex software required to get all the features needed. Microsoft was certainly more flexible and powerful option but too complex and an overkill for us.

Bitrix was significantly easier to use and set up compared to other platforms I evaluated. Specially creating automated processes using their flow chart tool. As a single, non IT person I was able to setup my organization and get Bitrix going within an hour. This included creating an org chart that would create reporting structures, setting up document access and management, workflows, email integration etc.

However, some of the complains around the net on Bitrix is also experience by us.
cons:
1. Poor documentation.

This made it difficult at times to use the automation tools. There is an option to pay partners but the quotations for simple implementations were as much as Bitrix24's yearly subscription. Given my limited energy and time to try and "discover" how to use Bitrix I am unable to really make use of its tools. (I dont want to spend money on partners!)

2. Sometimes bitrix is slow. We are based out of India and I am not sure they have a local server.

3. No single feature set is excellent, but they all, in my opinion are decent and the fact you get so many of them integrated together is what makes it great.

Example: their doc editing tool is far less than perfect, but I can start a document from within the meeting/video call or start a doc from within a folder and work cooperatively with others. This makes life easy for me. I dont need to use multiple software within our workflows is big big plus. We have office 365 subscriptions and its kind of integrated with Bitrix, but we often turn up using Bitrix24 docs for better document management. With various users uploading stuff, sometimes to wrong directories (human error) doc management can become a nightmare. Bitrix docs get auto saved and you can ensure that they are in the right place in the companies folder structure at the time of starting the doc. Given the volume of docs we generate, proper workflow for doc management is critical to our workflow.

pros:
I found the web building tool very useful. We use it for putting together pitches.
Our webpage is very simple one pager, its also been built using bitrix tools. Was easy and the team member who put it together had no skills in web development.

I am satisfied with the level of support. It used be far more responsive in 2016 than it is in 2023. But we are able to live with it. Haven't faced any issues that have been mission critical (after all, we dont use the CRM :) )

I think the user interface is easy to use given the number of integrated tools. I think reviews critical of it are looking for simpler and few options than what Bitrix offers.

Cost: Even as a small company we are able to afford their highest tier (professional?).

I would recommend Bitrix24 to others. But keep in mind that like any other tool it will require some effort to customize for your workflow and train employees to use it effectively. (it took for ever to get people to write meaningful work reports at the end of the day or for team leads to actually read them and make sensible management interventions! )

Updated and comprehensive documentation is most important improvement Bitrix24 fails to deliver year after year. Their help videos and write up are too basic. The support staff prefer to not help with implementation-know how related stuff and encourage reaching out to partners instead and that's a bummer cause we never will!

verdict: If you require process management and employee management integrated in one platform then Bitrix is good solution.