Although this question requires lots of explanation and also it is not suited here for technical terminology. But I would like to answer it as it seems to me you are new on SFSE and really want to try it.
Let me give some backgound on which behalf I'm giving my answer, I'm an experienced Zoho and Salesforce Developer. I'm working on these both platform since 2011, and know their up's and down's.
Now comes to your question, I will make this comparison more on technical side, as economically you knows Zoho is much more cost effective. anyway here is the comparison:
Technical:
On learning side, Zoho is much more simpler to learn or building the applications, Even if you are not coming from any technical background. Zoho will walk-through you or you can just look and build your application easily over there. In Salesforce also it is not required to be technical, but somehow users are not very comfortable with Sf without any training and knowledge.
Salesforce built on a scalable architecture and one of the best truly multi-tenant architecture. its platform is very robust and can handle large amount of data and any level of complex architecture. whereas Zoho Creator still in is shaping period, that product is not as matured as it can handle large amount of data and complex application architecture.
As I said earlier due to its robust and scalable architecture, No body can beat it on the performance side, applications which are built on salesforce doesn't face any kind of performance issue until unless they used an optimized design for their code and logic. In Zoho Creator many times I came across with performance issues, like if our logic is little complex or a single transaction contains so much logic then it may timeout or took more then 60-90 seconds.
Salesforce and Zoho Creator both supports click to configure thing, In Salesforce you can make things your own by extending the click to configure functionality like with process builder. In Zoho creator you can use only defined set of configuration, you can't extend that, or go with Custom Development.
In Custom development side Both platform supports that. but In Zoho creator there are many restrictions if you want to create any custom page or logic it doesn't allow Javascript (can you believe that) on the page, so if you gonna design something stunning forget it you can achieve anything like that on Zoho creator. they have their predefined client side functions like enable/disable or show/hide which you can use. Apart from that you can only use CSS and basic html, some of the HTML5 components are also not supported by them. In Salesfroce you are free to use any Client side framework and you can design your application in your way.
Both system provides their application to use with Mobile and tab devices. But Salesforce allow user to build their custom application with mobile compatibility or platform independence. Whereas Zoho only supports their core functionality on Mobile devices and you can't extend that with your custom Development. your custom pages will be break on Mobile devices.
Both System provides external platforms, like customer portal and sites, In Salesforce you can manage these external platforms more effectively with your data access and permissions, whereas on Zoho Creator they are still working on permission and accessibility to provide more data management.
On Data and Metadata sharing and permission, Salesforce is ahead of Zoho Creator, In Data Sharing SF supports Org based, Role hierarchy based, user group based, Rule/logic based, and individual manual sharing; Similarly in Metadata permission, Sf supports Object permission, field permission and other metadata (like layout, rules, reports, Dashboard) on profile level, User group level and individually. Zoho creator supports Group level permission for Data and Metadata like (object, Fields and Layout etc). They supports profiles level and individual data permission with some extend.
Both system support Email, scheduled tasks and other custom actions,
On the Developer community side (As it really matter, when you caught in some problem or technical design), Both system provides their own support as well as public forums support. But again in Salesforce you have SFSE (Salesforce Stack Exchange) apart from Salesforce developer discussion forums. So you have millions of Developers who can help you. In one thing I really appreciates Zoho creator they really value their customer, even you are a trial account holder or developer, they will respond and provide you answers on your queries. In Salesfroce, I'm still confuse about how to get support from officials.
Market Scope:
- Both platform having their Marketplace to sell/buy the applications. But Salesforce having a large global impact, and also having good customer area like small, mid and enterprise level customers.
Conclusion:
In short, If your application having limited scope, not very complex design or custom UI and you are building that for your personal use not for sell or commercial, then use Zoho. and if you have some future plans with your application then use SF as it is scalable and fully supported on technical side as well as market side.
Good luck with your decision.
