For a charity delivering supported housing, mental health services or another case-based support programme, the choice of software tends to come down to what happens after a case closes. Some platforms are built from the case file outwards, designed first to give frontline staff a secure, structured place to record what happened with each client, day to day. Others are built from the outcome outwards, designed first to show whether the support actually changed anything, in a form a funder or board can see. ECCO Solutions and Makerble sit closer together than some comparisons, since both cover case recording, but they diverge on that second question.
Where ECCO is strong
ECCO has built its platform specifically around frontline case recording in supported housing, mental health services and similar client-facing delivery. Its case notes, risk assessment tools and incident logging are designed for the day-to-day realities of that work: safeguarding logs, care planning, and a fully auditable history of each client's file. For an organisation whose main need is a secure, sector-specific system for staff to log what happened in each session or visit, that focus is genuinely useful, and ECCO's tenure in housing and mental health services since 2012 shows in how well the workflows fit that world.
Where Makerble differs
For a charity trying to run several programmes, or a single service that also needs to answer to funders and trustees, the challenge usually goes a step further. It is not only whether each client's case is properly recorded, but whether the organisation as a whole can see what is working, for whom, and why, in a way that holds up in a funding bid or a trustee report. That is an outcomes question rather than a case-recording question, and it is the one Makerble was built to answer.
Makerble combines four elements in one workspace: a CRM for tracking every individual, household or organisation your programmes touch; scheduling for coordinating sessions and visits; surveys, including validated tools like PHQ-9, GAD-7 and SWEMWBS, for measuring change over time at the individual level; and an impact module that rolls all of that up into outcomes, logic models and dashboards for internal and external accountability.
A practical difference: case file vs cohort view
ECCO's strength is the individual client file: rich, detailed, built for safeguarding and audit. Makerble starts from the same point but is built to pull that data back up: to show, for example, what percentage of a cohort moved from crisis to stability between baseline and exit, filtered by project or demographic, without anyone needing to manually re-tally case files at year end.
Built for one sector vs built to flex
ECCO's case management tools are shaped around housing, mental health and similar service delivery specifically. Makerble takes a broader starting point: the same platform can hold your supported housing caseload, your mental health service and your volunteer programme side by side, each with its own outcomes and reporting, without needing separate systems stitched together.
At a glance
| Feature | ECCO | Makerble |
|---|---|---|
| Built around | Frontline case recording and safeguarding | Participant and organisational outcomes |
| Core strength | Case notes, risk assessment, incident logging | CRM, scheduling, surveys and impact tracking in one workspace |
| Primary output | A detailed, auditable client case file | Individual and organisational-level outcomes, logic models, funder or board reporting |
| Data granularity | Person and case level | Person, household or organisation level, rolled up to cohort and programme |
| Measurement tools | Care planning, incident and risk logs | Validated surveys (PHQ-9, GAD-7, SWEMWBS) plus customisable outcome tracking |
| Sector focus | Housing, mental health, learning disability and similar service delivery | Cross-sector, used across housing, mental health, youth, employability and more |
| Best suited to | Services whose main need is frontline case recording and audit trail | Organisations needing to evidence outcomes across one or more programmes to funders, boards or commissioners |
Which is the right fit
Neither platform is simply better. A service whose main measurement need is a secure, sector-specific place for staff to log client sessions and safeguarding history will likely find ECCO's case-recording tools a close fit for how frontline teams already work. A charity that also needs to show, in aggregate, what difference its programme made, whether to a funder, a commissioner or its own board, is likely to get more from Makerble's combination of case tracking and outcome reporting in one place.
The honest answer for most organisations weighing the two is to ask what question you most need the platform to answer. If it is what has been recorded properly, ECCO is built for exactly that. If it is what changed for the people we support, Makerble is the better starting point.
Curious how Makerble would work across your own services? Book a demo with our team and we'll set up a trial account where you can see the value of the platform for yourself.
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