Chartbeat vs. Optimizely Web Experimentation

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Chartbeat
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Chartbeat delivers real-time analytics, insights, and transformative tools for content teams around the world, to help improve audience engagement, inform editorial decisions, and increase loyalty.N/A
Optimizely Web Experimentation
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Optimizely Web Experimentation empowers teams to conduct experiments (without having to rely on developer resources) in order to test various user interactions, make website changes backed by data, and personalize customer experiences.N/A
Pricing
ChartbeatOptimizely Web Experimentation
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ChartbeatOptimizely Web Experimentation
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsChartbeat pricing is based on monthly site page views. Discounts are applied to multi-year contracts. The Basic Plan includes the Real-time Dashboard, Historical Dashboard, Heads Up Display, Reports, Big Board, iOS and Android app, and Real-time API endpoints. The Plus Plan includes all of the Basic Plan features, plus ONE of the following Premium features: Headline Testing, Advanced Queries, or Multi-Site View. The Premium Plan includes all of the Basic Plan features, plus ALL Premium features: Headline Testing, Advanced Queries, Multi-Site View, and enterprise-level support and custom trainings.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ChartbeatOptimizely Web Experimentation
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
ChartbeatOptimizely Web Experimentation
Web Analytics
Comparison of Web Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Chartbeat
7.6
13 Ratings
5% below category average
Optimizely Web Experimentation
-
Ratings
Lead Conversion Tracking6.35 Ratings00 Ratings
Bounce Rate Measurement8.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Device and Browser Reporting7.612 Ratings00 Ratings
Pageview Tracking8.312 Ratings00 Ratings
Event Tracking6.17 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting in real-time8.912 Ratings00 Ratings
Referral Source Tracking8.212 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable Dashboards7.010 Ratings00 Ratings
Testing and Experimentation
Comparison of Testing and Experimentation features of Product A and Product B
Chartbeat
-
Ratings
Optimizely Web Experimentation
7.9
150 Ratings
5% below category average
a/b experiment testing00 Ratings9.0150 Ratings
Split URL testing00 Ratings8.5122 Ratings
Multivariate testing00 Ratings8.5127 Ratings
Multi-page/funnel testing00 Ratings7.9116 Ratings
Cross-browser testing00 Ratings7.986 Ratings
Mobile app testing00 Ratings7.966 Ratings
Test significance00 Ratings8.4136 Ratings
Visual / WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings7.9121 Ratings
Advanced code editor00 Ratings7.9114 Ratings
Page surveys00 Ratings6.417 Ratings
Visitor recordings00 Ratings8.418 Ratings
Preview mode00 Ratings7.7133 Ratings
Test duration calculator00 Ratings7.4101 Ratings
Experiment scheduler00 Ratings8.1101 Ratings
Experiment workflow and approval00 Ratings7.781 Ratings
Dynamic experiment activation00 Ratings7.565 Ratings
Client-side tests00 Ratings8.188 Ratings
Server-side tests00 Ratings7.344 Ratings
Mutually exclusive tests00 Ratings8.074 Ratings
Audience Segmentation & Targeting
Comparison of Audience Segmentation & Targeting features of Product A and Product B
Chartbeat
-
Ratings
Optimizely Web Experimentation
8.3
142 Ratings
4% below category average
Standard visitor segmentation00 Ratings8.5137 Ratings
Behavioral visitor segmentation00 Ratings7.9113 Ratings
Traffic allocation control00 Ratings9.1135 Ratings
Website personalization00 Ratings7.9103 Ratings
Results and Analysis
Comparison of Results and Analysis features of Product A and Product B
Chartbeat
-
Ratings
Optimizely Web Experimentation
8.3
138 Ratings
2% below category average
Heatmap tool00 Ratings9.313 Ratings
Click analytics00 Ratings8.833 Ratings
Scroll maps00 Ratings8.517 Ratings
Form fill analysis00 Ratings8.065 Ratings
Conversion tracking00 Ratings8.744 Ratings
Goal tracking00 Ratings8.2117 Ratings
Test reporting00 Ratings7.9126 Ratings
Results segmentation00 Ratings7.793 Ratings
CSV export00 Ratings7.892 Ratings
Experiments results dashboard00 Ratings8.049 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ChartbeatOptimizely Web Experimentation
Small Businesses
Serpstat
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Score 9.6 out of 10
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Convert Experiences
Score 9.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Siteimprove
Siteimprove
Score 9.4 out of 10
Dynamic Yield
Dynamic Yield
Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Contentsquare
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Score 8.8 out of 10
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Score 8.7 out of 10
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User Ratings
ChartbeatOptimizely Web Experimentation
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(67 ratings)
8.7
(238 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(9 ratings)
9.4
(51 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(58 ratings)
9.8
(58 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(7 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(6 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(10 ratings)
10.0
(16 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(11 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(148 ratings)
User Testimonials
ChartbeatOptimizely Web Experimentation
Likelihood to Recommend
Chartbeat
The main point of benefit is the realtime data. This is vital to our team as we are publishing a lot of content per day, so we have a busy homepage to manage and it's important to know which content is performing well. We also like to get an understanding as quickly as possible - which Chartbeat offers - of where traffic is coming from. Often we will see an example where a page is getting high traffic from Google, for example, and we know that might not need to be placed so prominently on the homepage because the traffic is arriving to us externally anyway. Without that depth of understanding what is performing best and why - updated immediately, unlike in Google Analytics now - our homepage would not be as well optimised for users coming to us direct
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Optimizely
Best for CRO initiatives, including testing variations of landing pages,
user flows, and product pages. Optimizely may not be suitable for more complex machine
learning models. To analyze the effect of the feature usage the way we will do in our solution. Using the audience to measure the success of the features Also, to the best of my knowledge, Optimizely is the only tool that can do all this.
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Pros
Chartbeat
  • Provides easy at-a-glance look at what people are reading right now
  • Heads-up Display allows you to make sure the homepage is showing the content people want to read
  • Headline testing tool provides fascinating insight into what makes people read a story and improves headline-writing ability
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Optimizely
  • Powerful Stats Engine that drives conclusivity of outcomes and helps generate trust in results when shared to leadership and stakeholders.
  • Customizable metrics with various tags, properties, and attributes that allow users flexibility in what and how they architect their Optimizely analytics.
  • Flexibility for different levels of tech expertise, I live in the tool as an expert JavaScript and front-end developer, someone else might use solely the visual editor to click and make changes without knowledge of how to code.
Read full review
Cons
Chartbeat
  • Source of traffic needs improvement. Search and social make sense, but "internal" and "links" is a grey area. It would be helpful to define those with an organization and provide an information icon so users can easily remember what each of those buckets is tracking.
  • More ways to customize the real-time board. For example, with video content, that's great that I can see a user has started a video, but what is the completion rate, was that only on O&O or can that track Facebook, too?
  • Would like to see demo (age) information included as a way to slice the data so I can see what's working with my older and younger demo.
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Optimizely
  • Google Tag Manager. Our challenge, it's a strange use case, but our challenge is that we don't have Google Tag Manager, so we can't integrate with GA4. And that's been a bit of a bummer. So I would like to be able to integrate with GA4 even without Google Tag Manager.
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Likelihood to Renew
Chartbeat
I gave Chartbeat a 5 for a renewal rating, because, while it delivers clear and understandable content, Google Analytics also provides many of the same features for free. For a small to medium website, I believe it would be more cost effective to use Google Analytics. A website with a high amount of traffic, however, could merit spending the money on Chartbeat to maximize their potential.
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Optimizely
I rated this question because at this stage, Optimizely does most everything we need so I don't foresee a need to migrate to a new tool. We have the infrastructure already in place and it is a sizeable lift to pivot to another tool with no guarantee that it will work as good or even better than Optimizely
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Usability
Chartbeat
I am able to "set it and forget it," keeping it up on my monitor for either constant checking or just keeping an eye on the numbers during the day. I'm also able to keep track of what times are perfect to post a story and which stories rack up the most traffic.
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Optimizely
Optimizely Web Experimentation's visual editor is handy for non-technical or quick iterative testing. When it comes to content changes it's as easy as going into wordpress, clicking around, and then seeing your changes live--what you see is what you get. The preview and approval process for sharing built experiments is also handy for sharing experiments across teams for QA purposes or otherwise.
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Reliability and Availability
Chartbeat
No answers on this topic
Optimizely
I would rate Optimizely Web Experimentation's availability as a 10 out of 10. The software is reliable and does not experience any application errors or unplanned outages. Additionally, the customer service and technical support teams are always available to help with any issues or questions.
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Performance
Chartbeat
No answers on this topic
Optimizely
I would rate Optimizely Web Experimentation's performance as a 9 out of 10. Pages load quickly, reports are complete in a reasonable time frame, and the software does not slow down any other software or systems that it integrates with. Additionally, the customer service and technical support teams are always available to help with any issues or questions.
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Support Rating
Chartbeat
I have had limited experience of support for Chartbeat but whenever I have needed help it has been there. Recently there was an issue of seeing different forms of data in real time - app and otherwise effectively, and the issue was being clearly dealt with and communicated back to us.
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Optimizely
They always are quick to respond, and are so friendly and helpful. They always answer the phone right away. And [they are] always willing to not only help you with your problem, but if you need ideas they have suggestions as well.
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Online Training
Chartbeat
No answers on this topic
Optimizely
The tool itself is not very difficult to use so training was not very useful in my opinion. It did not also account for success events more complex than a click (which my company being ecommerce is looking to examine more than a mere click).
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Implementation Rating
Chartbeat
No answers on this topic
Optimizely
In retrospect: - I think I should have stressed more demo's / workshopping with the Optimizely team at the start. I felt too confident during demo stages, and when came time to actually start, I was a bit lost. (The answer is likely I should have had them on-hand for our first install.. they offered but I thought I was OK.) - Really getting an understanding / asking them prior to install of how to make it really work for checkout pages / one that uses dynamic content or user interaction to determine what the UI does. Could have saved some time by addressing this at the beginning, as some things we needed to create on our site for Optimizely to "use" as a trigger for the variation test. - Having a number of planned/hoped-for tests already in-hand before working with Optimizely team. Sharing those thoughts with them would likely have started conversations on additional things we needed to do to make them work (rather than figuring that out during the actual builds). Since I had development time available, I could have added more things to the baseline installation since my developers were already "looking under the hood" of the site.
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Alternatives Considered
Chartbeat
Omnilytics is more robust, detailed, and catered for an intermediate media user, while I think Chartbeat is a more user-friendly and beginner-oriented piece of technology. That being said, there is an impressive amount of lift for Chartbeat, and it's evident that simplicity is the key to using a software daily (which is absolutely the point in the content world).
Read full review
Optimizely
Optimizely Web Experimentation was more robust and able to handle the broad array of sites we run than VWO. It has been a great platform to easily add additional sites onto, but still providing a universal overview of all of them, making management a simple task.
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Scalability
Chartbeat
No answers on this topic
Optimizely
It's incredibly flexible and adapts well to organizations of all sizes, whether you’re running a single site or managing multiple departments and platforms. The ability to deploy experiments seamlessly across different environments is a huge plus, especially for growing businesses. While it’s highly scalable, the last point would depend on the right team leveraging its full potential.
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Return on Investment
Chartbeat
  • It has helped us save time in report generation and performance analysis.
  • By helping us evaluate our contributors, we're able to get our money's worth.
  • Seeing our numbers on the Big Board fosters healthy competition among brands, motivating us to distribute our stories better.
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Optimizely
  • increased conversions/revenue from implementing successful experiments
  • time saved by not guessing and going back and forth with stakeholder
  • Used to collect click data while our GTM is down. Giving my team eyes on click data as a work around
  • able to push a winning test to 100% of users until devs can get to project, so fast implementation of a win
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ScreenShots

Chartbeat Screenshots

Screenshot of Big Board: For newsrooms, the leaderboard-style visualization shows the top stories on the biggest screen.Screenshot of Real-time dashboard: Displays how an audience is connecting with content in the moment – across platforms, channels, and devices.Screenshot of Historical Dashboard: To assess content performance, KPIs, and valuable trends over the long term.Screenshot of Heads Up Display: Shows which homepage articles are the top performers, how stories are trending up or down in traffic, and how far visitors are scrolling down the page.Screenshot of Video Dashboard: Reveals how video content captures viewer attention.Screenshot of Conversion Dashboard: Tracks conversion metrics and insights.

Optimizely Web Experimentation Screenshots

Screenshot of the visual editor, used to make changes to the appearance and layout of a website.Screenshot of the results dashboard that displays experiment results.Screenshot of the integrations page, where integrations can be enabled.Screenshot of Advanced Audience Targeting: Custom Real-Time Segments provide customers with the ability to create rapidly-updating segments which can be used as audiences for testing or personalization. These segments can be based on profile data, omni-channel behaviors, and AI-based observations.Screenshot of AI Content Suggestions: AI-powered suggestions in the Visual Editor accelerate ideation.Screenshot of Extensions for Edge: reusable elements minimize developer dependency when launching multiple tests with the same element.