Are you looking to build a dynamic website? It’s all about proper tools, guys. Today, I’m going to compare two giants — Toolset and Crocoblock — feature by feature. Keep reading!
Crocoblock Overview
Crocoblock is a polished suite of 20 plugins developed by a Ukrainian team. It also embraces:
Altogether, they make a powerful solution that allows you to build full-fledged dynamic websites with no coding skills.
However, one particular plugin covers every dynamic aspect, from meta fields and custom post types to forms and profiles. It’s JetEngine. Believe it or not, this one plugin allows developing a dynamic web spot, end to end.
JetEngine functionalities are indeed broad:
- create of custom post types, taxonomies, meta fields and meta boxes, setup of posts relations and options pages;
- display the meta field values on the frontend using six dynamic widgets and showcase data as a Listing Grid;
- save all data to a dedicated database table, thus forming a custom content type;
- build user profile pages and signup forms;
- use REST API functionality to manage the content on several websites remotely;
- create data stores like a Wishlist page and Recently Viewed section;
- create custom query types and use them to showcase any data on the frontend;
- create a data set called “Glossary” and use it as a source to pull the data from;
- all sorts of forms, even multi-step.
Toolset Overview
Toolset is developed by OnTheGoSystems and embraces six modular plugins that help you create customized websites without any coding knowledge.
To get the needed functionality, you can combine these six plugins in any way you like. There are two core components, which are Types and Blocks.
- Types allow you to add and manage custom post types, custom fields, and custom taxonomies.
- Blocks let you display custom content and queries in the front by creating a View.
The remaining four components are optional:
- Access allows you to add custom user roles and edit their privileges.
- Maps module is needed to display the content you add on Google Maps.
- Forms help you build forms that can be submitted from the front-end.
- WooCommerce Views facilitates the work with WooCommerce products.
All combined, these components make Toolset’s dynamic solution, whose features you can use to develop a dynamic website.
Common Grounds
Before highlighting the differences between Crocoblock & Toolset, I’d like to mention several common features. The table below shows that they supersede the differences. Not to spill the tea, I’m safe to say it’s not that simple.
Even though both Crocoblock and Toolset offer plenty of dynamic features, the devil is in detail. Hush, for now, we’ll get to that later.
Crocoblock and Toolset — what do they have in common?
First things first, they are compatible with WooCommerce, Elementor, and Gutenberg.
This means that website developers can build custom eCommerce, marketplace, and directory sites in the preferred visual editor.
They both support custom post types and custom content types, meta boxes, taxonomy & terms functionality, listings, profile & form builder, and advanced REST API.
To give you more insights, I’d like to go over each feature separately.
CPT support
Custom Post Type (aka CPT) is a type of content that differs from regular WP posts. It’s a broad concept embracing minor posts related to a particular niche. Here are a few examples:
- WooCommerce. If you were to build a virtual storefront, you might want to create a “Products” CPT. Inside it, there would be all the necessary meta fields to describe the product’s specifications like size, material, price, color, brand, additional pictures, etc.
- Directory. Let’s say you want to create a travel agency website, where people can book tours around popular travel destinations. You need to add a “Tour” custom post type, which will store the tour essentials like duration, start date, end date, etc.
- Marketplace. Imagine that you sell houses and apartments and want to move that online. You create a dedicated real estate marketplace, where each property is represented thoroughly. By adding a “Properties” CPT with a set of custom meta fields, you’ll have it covered.
Custom meta boxes
A meta box is storage for custom meta fields that lets you then apply it to posts, taxonomies, CPTs/CCTs, and WP users, to name a few.
It’s super convenient when you want to add extra details to the existing WP entity fast. Meta boxes lift the burden off of you because you don’t have to create the same meta fields more than once.
Dynamic Repeater groups
It’s a simple way to multiply content for posts, products, or single pages. Using dynamic repeater, you can add one more guest, team member, social media credential, floor plan, etc. — basically anything within the same form.
Taxonomy & terms functionality
Using this functionality, you can easily categorize the custom post types, content types, products, and pages according to any criteria.
Ability to set posts relations
“One to one,” “one to many,” and “many to many” — these are the relation types you can use to interrelate different post types. Both Crocoblock and Toolset offer that functionality.
That’s almost all the dynamic features needed to develop a web spot. The rest of them are shared yet sometimes don’t coincide fully — time to delve into details and figure out the tiniest nuances between Toolset and Crocoblock’s dynamic sets.
Crocoblock vs. Toolset: Fight!
Disclaimer: since some functionalities coincide and some don’t, I won’t focus on the common things. This paragraph is dedicated entirely to feature differences, and my goal is to determine which options are missing.
Custom meta fields
What’s a custom meta field? It lets you add supplementary info to any post, page, category, tag, CPT, and even CCT in WordPress.
Referring to the examples from CPT & CCT section, here’s how custom fields could be of use:
- Real estate CPT. Custom fields will store the property details like bedrooms/bathrooms/guest rooms, location, number of floors, area, etc.
- Travel agency CPT. Here, you’ll add to custom meta fields all sorts of tour-specific data: when it starts and ends, the max number of people per group, type of transport, transfer details, and so many more.
Another cool thing about custom fields is storing any data, be it text, media, date, time, color picker, checkboxes, radio, HTML — the list goes on. You can further fetch the stored data dynamically to the frontend.
Now, let’s take a look at the Toolset. Its field range contains around 20 field types:
Crocoblock boasts a total of 18 field types, which are as follows:
Speaking of differences, Crocoblock is missing the Map field type, whereas Toolset offers its users no Switcher and Iconpicker fields.
Custom Content Type Support
On the flip side of CPT, there is CCT, a Custom Content Type, which is fully supported by JetEngine. It’s a post type that allows you to save all data into separate database tables. What’s great about it is that CCT saves server resources and doesn’t slow down your website.
Unlike custom post types, which occupy 1 row of the post database and 1 row per field in the post meta DB table, every item of any custom content type makes just one row of the table.
Plus, it is easier for you to access these data because queries are made to one database only.
Note: Toolset doesn’t support CCT yet.
Options page creation
According to Crocoblock, the options page is a “container” for meta fields that you can further use sitewide. It supports any field type and allows you to display data from these fields anywhere on the website, be it headers, footers, pages, pop-ups, etc. Plus, it makes global data management faster and more straightforward; if you alter any field value within the options page, that value will change automatically everywhere.
The reason I’m mentioning here just Crocoblock is that Toolset has no options page feature.
Data Stores module
Another functionality that Toolset doesn’t offer yet. Data Stores is a JetEngine module that stands for personalized user collections.
This means that any user can add posts and products to their own data storage regardless of their user role. You can adjust it in a way that stores posts if they were liked, viewed, or saved by the user.
Cool feature, indeed; thanks to it, there’s no problem creating a separate Favorites page, Recently Viewed section on the homepage, Comparison table, and more.
Listings / loops
All right, we finally got to data visualization tools. Listings are a way to output data dynamically yet compactly using a layout that appeals to you the most. It can be a grid, slider, carousel, regular list, or masonry.
This latter one is a pretty exciting feature. You can output posts/products, i.e., listing items, as a grid where each item is sized differently. It adds a nice modern touch to the listing.
You can one-up it and use the listing injection feature. It allows you to merge the styles of two different listings or inject a banner into the canvas of the existing listing grid.
There’s also the event calendar functionality, which helps you display all the upcoming events in a separate listing.
Lastly, you can use the map listing feature, which adds listing items to the map. Once clicked, it opens a detailed card of the place.
Crocoblock’s dynamic solution offers all the features mentioned above, while Toolset cannot boast of carousel, listing injection, and event calendar listing layouts.
However, with Toolset, you can add a Load More button, pagination, and even apply an infinite scroll to your listing.
Crocoblock cannot beat the last one; none of its features would make the content pop up automatically as soon as the bottom of the page is reached.
Content visibility conditions and rules
Whether you want some meta fields to be shown or hidden on the frontend, Toolset has got you covered. It incorporates four features that make it possible to adjust content visibility and query the necessary data from the backend.
- Dynamic visibility — configure the visibility of the elements on a page based on their meta field values, user data, etc.
- Conditional logic — set the rules for making a meta field appear/disappear on the frontend.
- Dynamic tag — use this tag to pull the information from the meta fields and display it through non-dynamic widgets.
- Queries — create custom query types and use them to sort/order posts by date, meta value, include/exclude posts by terms, tags, categories, etc.
In addition to that, Crocoblock has got two more things to surprise you with — Dynamic Function and Macros.
Using the first feature, you can perform dynamic calculations and showcase the average, min/max, or sum values in the listing grid.
The second one lets you show the child-related posts or exclude a category term in the listing grid, map listing, and advanced calendar.
Profile Builder / Membership functionality
Now, that’s where Crocoblock and Toolset are closest to even. In terms of profile building, there’s a decent range of features on both ends:
- Account Pages. Create personal pages for registered users to access all their posts, payments, comments, etc.
- Account Menu Widget. Thanks to this widget, you can add such menu items as User Posts, Add New Post, User Settings, etc.
- Profile Page. Build a custom user profile page containing all the contact details, added listings, and favorite posts.
- Restrict Admin Area Access. You can set restrictions by user roles so they won’t access the default WordPress admin area.
- Registration/Login Form. Create forms letting users sign up for an account and then log into it.
- Front-End Post Submission. Allow users to add new posts and extend the existing ones with any type of content.
- Post Publishing Rules by Roles. You can specify how many posts a single user can publish and add the “posts limit reached” custom message.
- Sample Profile Pages. Don’t build the user profile and settings pages from scratch; use templates instead.
The only difference between Crocoblock and Toolset here is that Crocoblock lets you build custom permalinks of user’s public pages to get the dynamic URL.
Building front-end forms
Also known as front-end form submission, this feature lets you create different forms, display them in the front, and collect the submitted user data. Now, let’s compare Toolset Forms and JetEngine forms.
- Form Fields. You can combine different field types and achieve the optimal form layout to cover specific requests.
- Repeater Form Field. Use it to add a group of specific fields to the form and calculate the inputted values.
- Dynamic Visibility for Form Fields. You can set different visibility rules and show certain fields to either all users or only those logged in/out.
- Conditional Logic for Form Fields. This option lets you calibrate the visibility of every form field: show/hide it or pre-fill it with data you set.
- Dynamic Calculations for Forms. Thanks to different math formulas, you can calculate meta field values and output the result on the front-end.
- Form Autocompletion. This feature allows auto-filling of the form fields.
- Multi-Step Forms. Break down the form into several steps — it will make it more user-friendly.
- Form Submission Message Settings. You can decide which messages will be shown to users in case of successful/unsuccessful form sending.
- Smart Notifications/Actions. These are actions that the form will perform after submission — send an email, redirect to a particular page, insert a new post, and so on.
- Payment Integration. If necessary, you can enable PayPal payments through a front-end form.
- Zapier & Integromat Integration. Create a webhook to link your form with these automation services.
- Native Email Marketing Services Integration. MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, or GetResponse — these are three default email marketing options to link a form with.
This is a complete list of JetEngine Forms features; as to Toolset, it offers 7 of them. You will find there neither Dynamic Calculations and Form Autocomplete nor Multi-Step Forms.
Third-party integrations like Zapier and MailChimp are not possible whatsoever.
REST API
Of all REST API features, there are three that Crocoblock suggests to JetEngine users:
- Firstly, it’s REST API Endpoints for CCT, the ability to create custom tables in the admin panel and then fetch data from these tables through the REST API endpoints.
- Secondly, it’s REST API Listings, a functionality that lets you get a list of any data from a third-party REST API and display it on the frontend as a grid.
- Thirdly, it’s REST API Notifications/Actions for forms. This feature forces the form to send requests to any given third-party API after it’s submitted.
Unlike Crocoblock, Toolset doesn’t imply the creation of endpoints for CCT. Though, the remaining two features it has indeed.
Uncategorized features
Both Toolset and Crocoblock offer the Shortcodes Generator function, which stands for displaying dynamic data via shortcodes. Skins Manager allows you to import/export the existing custom post types, meta fields, user data, and terms from one site to another.
There’s one more cool feature called Glossaries, which is only available with JetEngine. The point is you create a set of meta fields that can be later used as a source for options in a CPT, form, or filter.
A Glance at Pricing
Crocoblock’s dynamic solution embraces one plugin, JetEngine. Its regular yearly price is $26 per 1 website and $54 for Unlimited websites. The first option implies creating one project only; the second plan allows you to build as many websites as you wish.
Moreover, you get plugin updates and comprehensive customer support for one year. If you didn’t like the product, you could ask for a refund during the first 30 days since purchase.
Crocoblock does provide a Lifetime plan, but it covers ALL functionality it has. For as little as $750, you get access to all plugins, templates, pop-ups, as well as client support and feature updates, new releases, and everything else the Crocoblock team comes up with. For more details, check their pricing page.
Toolset offers three pricing packages, which will cost you $69 for one website, $149 for three websites, and $299 for Unlimited websites. The 3 Sites is the most popular plan.
Just like before, these yearly plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, feature updates, and full support. If you choose to renew after the first year, you can also get a 25% discount. The dynamic features you get are the same all along; the only difference is the number of projects you can develop.
Currently, there is no Lifetime plan at Toolset.
Do They Care at Customer Care?
Toolset
Toolset’s customer care provides support services in 4 languages and works 6 days per week, 19 hours per day.
Issues can be resolved either individually in tickets or collectively on a dedicated support forum.
Toolset also provides a free consultation to everyone answering any product-related questions. If you’re willing to learn more about their plugins, you can always check out the documentation. It is as detailed as possible and covers every plugin aspect.
Crocoblock
Speaking about Crocoblock support, they operate 5 days per week, 24 hours per day, in 3 languages.
The services are provided through text chats, Zoom calls, and good old tickets.
There’s also a friendly Facebook community where everyone can start a thread about something that doesn’t work right. 80% of cases are simply resolved by some Crocoblock user sharing their experience, so it’s safe with the numbers.
Once again, there are many tutorials in the Knowledge base and on their YouTube channel. Those who crave quick fixes can access the Troubleshooting page.
⚡Read also my collection of 40+ Gutenberg Blocks Plugin
Final Words
Needless to say that Toolset and Crocoblock are worthy rivals.
Dynamic features, pricing, and customer support — I’ve gone over so much today to prove that statement.
Which one would you choose? or Have already chosen?
