3

I am considering purchasing CiviCRM Spark to trial it for my organization. I know CiviCRM can be loaded into Drupal, Joomla or Wordpress. I was just wondering whether "spark" is a stand-alone product or if it comes with either website (CMS) platform.

Thanks! Chris

3 Answers 3

3

Sorry, Spark cannot handle the public-facing website part. We have locked out those Drupal features. Only the CiviCRM features are available.

However, you can use another service to create your website, then point to your CiviCRM forms hosted on Spark (donation form, newsletter signup, event registration, etc).

CiviCRM Spark aims to help people evaluate and get started with CiviCRM. It is also suitable for smaller organisations (larger ones will hit the contact/email limits and will want to customize it more). For those who outgrow Spark or who have more customization requirements, we recommend contacting a CiviCRM hosting partner.

1

CiviCRM always needs a CMS at front end. So unless I update this Answer, you will be given the choice once you sign up. Have asked for clarification to be added to https://civicrm.org/spark via https://chat.civicrm.org/civicrm/pl/q4nqexud7tyw7q3hxh5s9eykoc

2
  • 3
    Spark runs on Drupal CMS however CMS permissions are seriously restricted (no views, no webform eg) so it effectively resembles a headless instance Dec 29, 2018 at 22:06
  • @KarinG. To confirm, if I was hoping to build a public facing website with CiviCRM installed in the back end, would it e possible to do so with spark? (Home page, about us, services, membership registration, etc.) or would I need to set up the public facing website separately? I’ve used CiviCRM before with a larger organization but am looking to start up a small social enterprise. Trying to do as much research as possible before I dive in. Thank you, Chris
    – CAiken
    Dec 30, 2018 at 4:35
1

Spark is just a hosted version of CiviCRM intended for folks who don't have the capacity to install CiviCRM on their own site. So by definition I don't think it's what you want. However, there's nothing that Spark has that self-hosted CiviCRM doesn't; in fact, the opposite is true.

1
  • I agree: CiviCRM Spark aims to help people evaluate and get started with CiviCRM. It's also suitable for smaller organisations (larger ones will hit the contact/email limits and will want to customize it more). I would also note that Spark does have regular CiviCRM/Drupal upgrades. Unless an organisation is hosting with a CiviCRM hosting partner who handle the upgrades for them, I would say that this is something that Spark does, and CiviCRM (by default) does not :-)
    – bgm
    Jan 4, 2019 at 16:48

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.