Loop Municipal Websites vs Single Digital Presence
Loop Municipal Websites
looponline.coSingle Digital Presence
vic.gov.auSide by side
| Figure | Loop Municipal Websites | Single Digital Presence |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 2 |
| Spec score · Government Website Builders | 7.9 (#13) | 8.1 (#9) |
| Accessibility | Loop says it builds websites to WCAG Level AA and trains editors on maintaining accessible content. | Ripple components are designed for accessibility and are being updated toward the latest WCAG Level AA standards, although implementation choices still affect compliance. |
| Founded | 2005 | 2016 |
| Hosting | The websites are hosted in a private cloud operated as a managed service. | Fully hosted websites are offered as a chargeable service, with management possible by SDP, the agency or a vendor. |
| Integrations | Loop lets administrators schedule and share website content directly to social media platforms. | Salsa documents integrations with CKAN, Campaign Monitor, Mailchimp, Salesforce, Oracle, PayPal, Stripe, LDAP, Active Directory, Facebook and Twitter. |
| Purpose | Loop builds websites and apps for municipalities, with a focus on small and medium-sized communities. | SDP is a secure, scalable web publishing platform for consolidating, managing and developing Victorian Government websites. |
| Support | Training and ongoing direct support are included for Loop users, and support requests are handled through a web form. | The help centre covers CMS training, content, accessibility, analytics, SEO, release notes, site administration and developer guides. |
| What it does | Loop provides municipal websites, a content-management system, and companion mobile apps for towns, cities, villages, and counties. | Single Digital Presence is Victoria’s whole-of-government web publishing platform, with vic.gov.au as its main public implementation. |
Plans
Loop Municipal Websites
- Custom municipal website/app quotePriced on request
- Scalable annual pricing plansPrice not published
Single Digital Presence
- Create a new section on vic.gov.auFree
- Independent website or building a componentPriced on request
In their own words
Loop Municipal Websites
Loop Municipal Websites provides municipal websites and resident apps, with a focus on small and medium-sized communities. Loop says it serves over 90 municipalities across North America. Administrators manage website and app content through Loop CMS in one place. Website modules include emergency notices, business directories, polls, tax calculators, online forms and payments, council meetings, waste collection, trail maps, snow removal, and problem reporting. The resident app supports push notifications, news, events, waste reminders, and problem reports, with content shared between the app and website.
Municipalities can select a pre-designed template or work with Loop on a partial or fully custom design. Loop can migrate existing site content. Pre-designed sites typically take about one month; custom projects typically take three to four months. The company says its sites are hosted in a secure private cloud and built to WCAG Level AA standards. Training and ongoing direct support are included at no extra cost. Pricing is on request, and an optional applicant-tracking feature is available for job postings. The service is listed for Android, iOS, and web.
Single Digital Presence
Single Digital Presence (SDP) is a web publishing platform for Victorian Government websites, established on Drupal in 2016. Its CMS provides publishing tools, data collection forms, revision history, federated approvals and domain redirect management. Each website receives Google Analytics dashboards. The service also provides security assessments and updates, Drupal and Ripple upgrades, outage and update alerts, bot protection and disaster recovery. The Ripple design system supplies styles, components and patterns for Victorian Government branded digital products. SDP’s design framework states technical and design compliance to Level AA of the latest WCAG accessibility standards. Victorian public servants can access online content training, a help centre and a Community of Practice. Technical support covers website bugs, malfunctioning elements and CMS assistance; 24/7 emergency support applies to outages and emergencies covered by the service level agreement. The service runs over 140 instances across 60 sites. Creating a new section on vic.gov.au costs nothing and requires approval from the lead department’s Digital Management Committee. Independent websites or components require a quote after a requirements document; some features and services incur charges.