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IBM MobileFirst vs Salesforce Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM MobileFirst
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Mobile App Platforms (8th)
Salesforce Platform
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (7th), Rapid Application Development Software (7th), Low-Code Development Platforms (5th), No-Code Development Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of IBM MobileFirst is 2.0%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Platform is 8.1%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

MT
Streamlines development of hybrid applications, and has ability to integrate device-native code
It was a cakewalk for us to develop mobile apps for three different platforms using IBM MobileFirst. Since it was a consumer application built for large-scale events, it was very crucial for us to manage application compatibility with all sort of devices. With MobielFirst, we could actually achieve this with very little trouble. With help of this product, we have been able to develop mobile applications without having complete knowledge of each mobile OS's native programming. App development, delivery, and code management have been very efficient using this product.
Yasser_Anter - PeerSpot reviewer
Has customization and integration capabilities which increase efficiency
Salesforce could improve by offering AI features or functionalities to help business decision-makers analyze business history, suggest forward strategies, and participate in events. The previous version had a complicated interface where multiple pages and data entries were required, which was not pleasant for sales teams or business users. Also, deploying Salesforce took a long time, about four to five months, which is not ideal for any business.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"With help of this product, we have been able to develop mobile applications without having complete knowledge of each mobile OS's native programming technology. App development, delivery, and code management have been very efficient using this product."
"I like Its capability for developing hybrid applications, with an ability to integrate device-native code as well"
"IBM MobileFirst has one of the most feature-rich admin panels."
"The most valuable feature is ease of use."
"The solution is easy to use."
"I like the reports and the dashboards. Since I'm a managing partner, I use the reports and dashboards to understand my team's contact management, opportunity management, and account management activities. We use Pardot for marketing campaigns."
"The support is very good."
"The technical support services are good."
"The solution is used to track our customers."
"It has definitely improved how we function."
"I find Salesforce Platform to be stable."
 

Cons

"There are issues with push notifications, especially for Windows mobile apps. JSONStore also crashes abruptly at times."
"I would like to see improved support for native device functions."
"Its documentation and price should be better."
"Salesforce's mobile app could be better. Also, it could integrate more seamlessly with Gmail."
"Areas of improvement can be around Engagement of Customers feature and approvals of transactional records."
"When it switched to lightning, it threw me for a loop. When they changed the look and feel, I had a hard time finding things and doing what I used to do."
"They should provide access to data quality tips and tricks to make it better."
"When we're documenting information such as notes, and so forth, if we were to go back to the same case all notes go missing."
"The initial setup process was a complex thing to do because four different organizations were working together."
"Getting reports in Salesforce is sometimes a little bit difficult. You need to do a lot of things to get detailed reports. This feature can be improved. Its price can also be improved. It is currently expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cost depends upon various factors. Size of the overall application and product usage matter a lot. For an enterprise-grade application, this certainly comes out as an economical solution. However, for small-scale applications, it can turn out to be on the higher side."
"It is very expensive. Its licensing is on a monthly basis."
"It is an expensive program."
"Pricing for the Salesforce Platform is too expensive."
"The cost of this solution depends on negotiations. It is somewhere between expensive and reasonable. There is always additional costs for consulting services. It's the kind of solution that requires consulting, but it is not a licensing cost. It is a consulting cost. It is CAPEX versus OPEX."
"I don't know anything about its cost, but I'm sure it has got a nice little price tag that goes along with it."
"For the number of people that are using Salesforce Platform in my organization, I feel the price is reasonable."
"The solution is fairly priced."
"Costly, but it is the top product in SaaS/PaaS. Pricing is more for large to enterprise level companies."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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I think it depends on your use case. If your organization uses Microsoft Enterprise products, PowerApps will work better in your environment. Similarly, if you have a Salesforce integration in pla...
How does Salesforce Platform compare with Azure?
Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform is not easy or intuitive to deploy. The difficulty will be impacted by the type of application that you are trying to use the platform to build. Organizations tha...
Do you build applications using low-code or pro-code builders on Salesforce Platform?
At my organization, we have only used Salesforce Platform's low-code builder. The reason for this is not because we do not like the pro-code option, but because we do not see the need of using it, ...
 

Also Known As

MobileFirst, Worklight
Salesforce1, Force.com, Salesforce App Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

UniCredit Business Integrated Solutions, Gruppo Unipol, Raymond James Financial, Toshiba GCS, CST, ABK-Systeme GmbH, BNP Paribas
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Find out what your peers are saying about IBM MobileFirst vs. Salesforce Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.