Pylon and Front are both customer communication platforms, but they target different needs. Pylon excels for businesses heavily reliant on Slack and Microsoft Teams, providing deep integrations and robust features for managing customer interactions within those platforms. Front is more versatile, supporting a broader range of channels and emphasizing shared inbox management and team collaboration, making it suitable for various business types and communication styles.
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Pylon
Front
About
Pylon is a customer support platform designed for growing B2B companies. It allows you to manage customer interactions from various channels like Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, and in-app chat, all within a single platform. Pylon offers tools for tracking customer issues, automating workflows, analyzing support data, and collaborating with your team. It also provides features like a knowledge base, customer portal, and integrations with popular business tools. Pylon aims to help businesses streamline their customer support operations and improve efficiency.
Front is a customer service platform designed to help businesses manage customer interactions efficiently. It offers a shared inbox that combines email, chat, social media, and other channels into one place. This allows teams to collaborate, automate tasks, and access customer information easily. Front also provides analytics and insights to help businesses improve their customer service operations and measure performance. It's suitable for businesses of all sizes looking to streamline customer support and enhance team collaboration.
Summary
Main difference
Pylon is a customer support platform best suited for B2B SaaS companies, especially those heavily reliant on Slack and Microsoft Teams for communication. It offers robust integrations with these platforms, enabling seamless conversation tracking and issue management. Front, on the other hand, is a more versatile customer communication platform catering to a wider range of communication channels and business types, with a stronger focus on team collaboration and shared inbox management.
Relative strengths of Pylon (compared to Front)
Strong Slack and Microsoft Teams Integrations: Pylon offers deep integration with Slack and Teams, allowing for efficient management of customer conversations directly within these platforms, which is crucial for teams heavily reliant on these tools.
Unified Inbox for Multiple Channels: Pylon provides a unified inbox aggregating communication from various channels like Slack, email, and in-app chat, streamlining customer interactions.
Automation Features: Pylon offers valuable automation features such as AI-powered tagging and status updates, helping streamline workflows and improve efficiency.
Relative weaknesses of Pylon (compared to Front)
Limited Native Integrations: Pylon has fewer native integrations compared to Front, potentially requiring more custom integrations or workarounds.
Price: Pylon can be more expensive, especially for smaller teams, which might make it less budget-friendly.
Complex Feature Set: Pylon's extensive features, while powerful, can be overwhelming for new users and require a steeper learning curve.
Who should use Pylon VS. Front
Pylon is a customer support platform designed for growing B2B SaaS companies. It centralizes customer interactions from various channels like Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, and in-app chat into a single platform. Users praise Pylon's seamless Slack integration, organized conversation tracking, and helpful customer support. However, some users find the platform expensive and complex. Pylon is best for small businesses seeking streamlined customer support and those with developer-centric customer bases.
Front is a customer communication platform that centralizes all customer interactions into a single, shared inbox. This collaborative platform streamlines workflows through features like internal commenting, email drafts collaboration, and automated tagging. Users praise Front's snooze feature and easy task management but find its search function lacking and rules inconsistent. Ideal for businesses wanting enhanced team collaboration and improved customer support.
Best for small businesses looking to centralize customer communications.
Ideal for B2B SaaS companies with developer-centric customers.
Best for small, mid-sized, and enterprise businesses seeking streamlined customer support.
Suitable for most industries, including Healthcare, Finance, E-commerce, Retail, and more.
Pylon and Front features
Supported
Partially supported
Not supported
Type in the name of the feature or in your own words tell us what you need
Unified inbox for support interactions
Supported
Pylon offers a unified inbox for various support channels, including Slack, email, and in-app chat.
Partially supported
Front offers a unified inbox for email, SMS, live chat, Facebook, and Twitter.
AI-assisted knowledge base creation
Not supported
Pylon uses AI for customer support but not for knowledge base creation.
Supported
Front supports AI-assisted knowledge base creation via AI Compose and AI Answers.
Project Tracking
Not supported
Pylon does not seem to support project tracking.
Partially supported
Project tracking is supported via integration with project management tools like Trello, Asana, and ClickUp.
Shared inbox
Not supported
Pylon does not appear to offer a shared team inbox for emails.
Supported
Front supports the ability to have a shared team inbox for emails.
Email drafts collaboration
Not supported
Email drafts collaboration is not supported.
Supported
Front supports email drafts collaboration, allowing multiple users to collaborate in real-time on email drafts.
Internal comments
Supported
Internal comments are supported via internal threads, linked to issues.
Supported
Front supports the ability to comment on emails internally, visible only to the team, not the external recipient.
Browse all features
Qualities
Value and Pricing Transparency
+0.5
Rather positive sentiment
-0.43
Rather negative sentiment
Customer Service
+1
Strongly positive sentiment
+0.67
Rather positive sentiment
Ease of Use
+0.94
Strongly positive sentiment
+0.83
Strongly positive sentiment
Reliability and Performance
+0.89
Strongly positive sentiment
+0.04
Neutral sentiment
Ease of Implementation
+0.67
Rather positive sentiment
+0.09
Neutral sentiment
Scalability
+1
Strongly positive sentiment
+0.67
Rather positive sentiment
Pylon and Front Pricing
Pylon offers support system for various sizes of teams. The pricing is per seat and billed monthly or annually (with a discount).
Plans
$59 per seat/moStarter
Get started our basic support system for small teams.
$89 per seat/moProfessional
Design a support engine for growing teams.
$139 per seat/moEnterprise
Scale quickly, securely, and offer a premium customer experience.
Pylon offers seamless integration with Slack and Microsoft Teams, centralizing customer communications.
The platform excels at organizing and tracking customer conversations, ensuring no message is missed.
Pylon\'s automation features, like AI tagging and status updates, streamline workflows and save time.
The customer support team is highly responsive and helpful, providing excellent assistance.
Pylon is constantly evolving, with new features and improvements released regularly.
The "Snooze" feature is great for clearing the inbox and prioritizing emails.
Tagging rules are very helpful for filtering and organizing emails.
Internal commenting allows for collaboration without cluttering the email thread.
Easy to assign emails to team members for efficient task management.
Users dislike
Pylon can be expensive for its full feature set, especially for smaller teams.
The product has a lot of features, which can be overwhelming for new users. A more gradual learning curve would be helpful.
Limited native integrations beyond Slack, Teams, and Email. More integrations with popular CRMs and support tools would enhance its value.
While the AI features are promising, their accuracy can vary. Some users have reported inconsistencies in AI tagging and status updates.
The mobile app experience could be improved to match the robustness of the web app.
Rules can be confusing and don’t always seem to work consistently.
Emails are sometimes missed due to the assigned teammate archiving conversations.
The search function is not very effective, requiring users to sift through many emails.
Mobile app lacks functionalities available on the online version.
Pylon and Front Ratings
G2
5.0/5
(46)
G2
4.7/5
(2106)
Glassdoor
4.5/5
(226)
Company health
Employee growth
54% increase in the last year
34% increase in the last year
Web traffic
28% decrease in the last quarter
9% decrease in the last quarter
Financing
May 2024 - $20M
March 2022 - $204M
How do Pylon's Slack-centric features compare to Front's broader multi-channel approach?
Pylon centers its multi-channel approach around Slack, allowing for deep integration with Slack-based workflows and communications. Front, while also integrating with Slack, takes a broader approach, incorporating various channels like email, social media, and chat into a unified inbox, offering more versatility for companies that rely on a wider range of communication methods.
Which platform, Pylon or Front, better handles internal team collaboration on emails?
Front better handles internal team collaboration on emails. It offers features specifically designed for this purpose, such as shared inboxes, email drafts collaboration, and internal comments, enabling teams to work together on emails more effectively than Pylon.
What are the advantages of Pylon?
Pylon offers a centralized platform for managing customer interactions across Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, and in-app chat, which is a significant advantage for businesses heavily reliant on these platforms. Its robust automation features, including AI tagging and status updates, can streamline workflows and improve efficiency. Pylon also boasts a highly responsive customer support team and a commitment to continuous product improvement with regular releases of new features and enhancements.
What are the disadvantages of Pylon?
Pylon's disadvantages include a higher price point, potentially overwhelming new users with its extensive feature set, limited native integrations beyond Slack, Teams, and Email, and some inconsistencies in the accuracy of its AI features. Additionally, the mobile app experience could be improved.
Alternatives to Pylon and Front
Thena
Thena is a customer support platform designed for businesses that primarily use Slack for communication. It allows you to manage customer requests from various sources like email and messaging apps all within Slack. Thena uses AI to automate tasks, such as categorizing requests and summarizing conversations, and provides analytics to track performance. It's best for mid-size B2B companies aiming to streamline their customer support workflow.
Intercom is a customer service platform designed to improve customer experience and streamline support operations. It utilizes AI in three key ways: an AI chatbot for instant responses, an AI assistant for agents to quickly find information, and AI-powered analytics for support leaders. This approach aims to provide faster resolutions, increase agent efficiency, and offer data-driven insights for optimizing the customer service process. Intercom is suitable for businesses of all sizes seeking to enhance their customer support through automation and AI.
HubSpot Service Hub is a customer service platform designed to help businesses manage customer interactions and improve satisfaction. It offers tools like a shared inbox, live chat, and automation to streamline support processes. The platform focuses on providing a unified view of the customer journey and uses AI to automate tasks and provide insights. HubSpot Service Hub aims to help businesses scale their customer service operations efficiently, leading to improved customer retention and business growth.
Zoom Workplace is an all-in-one platform designed to streamline communication and boost productivity for modern teams. It combines video conferencing, chat, phone, email, calendar, and AI-powered features like meeting summaries and message composition. Collaboration tools like whiteboarding, note-taking, and task management are also included. Additionally, Zoom Workplace offers solutions for hybrid work environments, such as desk reservations, visitor management, and digital signage.
Zendesk Support Suite is a customer service software solution designed to help businesses of all sizes provide excellent customer support. It offers a range of tools, including messaging, live chat, AI-powered automation, and a self-service help center. It aims to improve agent productivity, personalize customer interactions across various channels (like social media and email), and streamline workflows to increase efficiency. Zendesk emphasizes data-driven decision-making and boasts a user-friendly interface that integrates with numerous other business applications.
Tidio is a customer service platform designed for small and medium businesses. It uses AI-powered chatbots to automate conversations, answer questions, and offer support to website visitors 24/7. This can help your team manage a high volume of inquiries, potentially reducing response times and increasing customer satisfaction. Tidio also offers live chat, allowing for real-time interaction with customers when needed. Key features include website visitor tracking, customizable automated messages, and integration with popular business tools like Shopify and Mailchimp.
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