Pros 
Honestly, there's not much that I can say I like about it; I've come across several alternatives that feel far more intuitive and polished and in my experience those other tools just make life easier. I've used apps like Asana for task organization, Harvest for time tracking and a number of invoicing solutions that, to me, offer better features and tend to cost less overall.
Cons 
I find the whole system embarrassingly outdated and extremely unfriendly to use; because it lacks keyword search, my case notes just turn into an impenetrable wall of text that is practically useless when I need to find something quickly. On top of that, I can't generate Excel reports , only clunky PDFs , which makes analysis and sharing with my team a real headache and everything requires far too many clicks to complete even simple tasks. Customer support has been disappointing despite our nearly ten years as clients: they will only export client data one time for free and then only h and it over in a coded format that effectively requires an IT specialist to interpret and when I asked for a usable export they wanted to charge me the equivalent of two years' worth of service and said the conversion would take 35 hours , which seems absurd since this should be a routine, repeatable process for them. They've basically made it so leaving the platform is next to impossible unless I either ab andon all historical records and re-enter clients by h and into a new system or pay an exorbitant fee and I honestly feel taken advantage of because they aren't keeping pace with competitors.
Pros
Reports are great and easy to read. And they can be shared in any format I want, which is very useful for me. It is a great way for me to get insights on how frequently our clients are serviced and how they are moving through our programs. I like being able to link information with family members so that we can collect data from others and obtain a detailed, neatly presented picture of what is going on with multiple clients in a family group. The technical support team is excellent on its own; they really know what they are doing.
Cons
Penelope is more suited to a clinical setting, which is great, but only if I ran a typical clinic. There are some Penelope features that we do not use but still have to pay for. Some screens are difficult to navigate and contain features that are irrelevant to my practice’s requirements, which just add clutter to my dashboard.
Pros
Penelope has a great implementation team, and based on the directions they gave, we were able to construct a procedures handbook for our volunteers to complete the very specific jobs they need to know for recording actions and events for which they are responsible. We work with new members every day, so there was a problem training everyone. However, it was not a problem with Penelope since even the least technical staff was able to operate the software with ease and complete their work efficiently.
Cons
The only concern I had was the training and setting up of the teams that would operate the software. For that, I found an easy workaround and chose 3–4 members to undergo rigorous training and then simply pass on the learning to other members of the team. It has a lot of features, which is why it takes time to train and learn how to use it properly. Reports are exported in Excel format, which is not always required. And there is no mobile version yet, and mobile use is absolutely essential for us, and it is difficult to manage without it. They have assured me that they are working on it, and once it’s ready, it will be fantastic.
Pros
I find this product makes it straightforward and efficient for me to manage my caseloads day-to-day, helping me keep everything organized and under control.
Cons
While I appreciate parts of the system, the FAQs aren't nearly as useful as I'd hoped and I get frustrated by time-consuming procedures , for instance, having to manually add a 'not attending' worker to each individual service file slows me down significantly.
Pros
In my experience, the user interface used by our frontline counsellors is highly intuitive, making it very efficient to bring new users up to speed quickly and it performs exceptionally well for routine case documentation and ongoing file management.
Cons
We struggled initially with customizing the software because there were so many functions and configuration choices that it was difficult for us to pinpoint exactly what we needed, but experimenting in the s andbox proved really useful and helped us identify and resolve several planning mistakes we had made.
Pros
I find the software reasonably customizable in several areas and because it's straightforward to navigate I was able to get started quickly, while the per-user license pricing seems to suit our smaller not-for-profit budget.
Cons
When I onboard new team members, they often get tripped up because the same function is labeled inconsistently , for instance 'Cart' in one place and 'Unit' in another , which is confusing and on top of that I feel the reporting capabilities are quite limited.
Pros
I've found this database to be thoughtfully engineered and robust and I appreciate how many flexible customization options it provides so I can tailor it precisely to my workflows, which makes it feel adaptable to different needs and use cases.
Cons
That said, we encounter limitations in features and reporting that force us to build workarounds on our side to make things behave the way we need them to; additionally, we can't delete erroneous records, which leaves us with an accumulation of extra entries that clutter certain areas, making them busy, harder to navigate and generally more confusing than they should be.
Pros
I really appreciate that the software is straightforward to operate and offers flexible customization options so it can be tailored to meet our program's specific needs.
Cons
We find it frustrating that Penelope doesn't allow us to create visual charts directly from report data, which limits how we interpret and present our findings.
Pros
From my experience, the system can capture information for virtually every stage of the workflow and it's packed with features; I also appreciate that you can run reports straight from the raw back-end data, although tapping that capability usually means investing significant extra technical know-how before it functions smoothly.
Cons
For me, the information feels scattered across the application, so unless I already know exactly where to navigate I'll struggle to enter or locate what I need; the reporting offering, while including many built-in templates, still falls short because most of those reports are narrowly focused rather than flexible.
Pros
We've noticed that the Engage tool, which h andles client communication, has genuinely transformed how we connect with our clients, especially throughout the COVID lockdowns when remote contact became essential; moreover, the customer service and support teams are consistently responsive, knowledgeable and adaptable to our specific requirements and even though our business stretched the Penelope system beyond its typical intended use, the Athena team remained remarkably accommodating and inventive in finding solutions to the problems we encountered.
Cons
Configuring and testing the software can be quite challenging in my experience and although the available testing environments are invaluable for working through those complexities, it remains true for any system that you often cannot fully predict the effects of changes without exhaustively validating every anticipated output; I've encountered other platforms that manage this process a bit more gracefully than Athena's Penelope, so it's something to be mindful of when planning updates or customizations.
