Salesforce.com vs. HubSpot - Have you tried them both? Verdict?

Dating back to 2005 when Salesforce.com was promoting itself as the 'end of software,' I was fortunate enough to have made the right choice in going with Salesforce.com over GoldMine CRM which I had been using already for years before that in previous organisations. At the time, SaaS was all new, and they were making the provocative and bold statement that we would not need to buy the software, just pay monthly (forever, of course). But ultimately what sold me was their responsive and can-do engagement during the evaluation period.

Without disparaging any vendors, I am confident that Saleforce.com  was the right choice, and it has been the ‘go to’ solution for every sales organisation I have been with ever since. Some of these were based on my choice, and the rest already had it implemented. 

Recently, I decided to get a better handle on my professional contacts. LinkedIn is great, but I find that it has become too large a network of contacts to be able to focus on the people and companies I am interested in keeping in touch with when it comes to my own professional development. So, as I started to establish a Google Worksheet, I saw that I was really heading towards a recreation of a CRM, but going back decades in time. Sorry, but that is a thing that is just not happening!

After a short search, I realized that HubSpot Sales has a free level that would at least let me put people into buckets of companies, and even add to that some form of a funnel of ‘deals’ that could represent any form of process that I want to engage in.

In less than 5 minutes, my HubSpot account was opened, and the guidance was simple and brilliant. In the following hour, I managed to connect my email and calendar to Hubspot. By the end of the day, I had set up a funnel to guide me through the steps I would want to take any of these key personalities that I was hoping to engage with. 

Am I missing something, or is this platform really amazing? I mean, the UI/UX is intuitive and pleasant and the learning curve was almost vertical!  

So, I did some research, and found that the main thing that differentiates the two platforms is the level of customisability.  As such, I am wondering if you have worked on both of these platforms, and if so, have you run into the limits of Hubspot. If I am faced with the decision to go with Hubspot or stay with Salesforce.com in the future, I want to make sure that the decision is taken early enough in the life cycle so that the pain of switching CRMs is minimized. 

Your advice, cautions, experience would be greatly welcomed in the comments below.