Dovetail, headquartered in Sydney, aims to enable the world to create better products and services through deep customer understanding. Dovetail states they empower 45,000+ people, from agencies to universities to Fortune 100 companies, to make sense of their customer research in one collaborative research platform.
$0
per month
Mural
Score 7.3 out of 10
N/A
MURAL (formerly Mural.ly) from Tactivos (DBA MURAL) in San Francisco is described by the vendor as a digital workspace and visual collaboration tool, designed for creative teams to make the process of design more efficient for distributed teams, working remotely.
$12
per month
Pricing
Dovetail
Mural
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Professional
$15
per month
Enterprise
Contact Sales
per year
Starter
$12
per month
Plus
$20
per month
Enterprise
Contact sales team
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Dovetail
Mural
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
Optional
No setup fee
Additional Details
Discount available for annual billing on the Professional plan.
See 1st question answer for my use case, I went into depth there for the specific use cases we have. For less appropriate (touched on this earlier) the final report is not great in dovetail. The formatting options are not great and does not look professional because of the lack of customization and layouts. For my customer we wouldn't be able to present that data as it's constructed. So we have to copy and paste all the quotes and insights to a word doc. That's ok but then it means if we want to use Dovetail as a repository of data we have to then re-import a pdf of the report into the project page.
I've recommended MURAL to a lot of people in a lot of fields. This is a great tool for any group of people that might stand around a white board if they were in person. Even if they are in person, I still recommend it pretty often because, unlike a white board, MURAL is virtual, so it can go offline with you. I've recommended it to other Software Teams, individual software developers, engineering teams, Sales Managers, Office Staff, Manufacturing teams, and more.
The tagging, linking, and repository features make it simple to maintain a living library of knowledge, ensuring past work is never lost.
Dovetail enables our researchers and non-research partners to engage more directly with findings, fostering a stronger culture of evidence-based decision-making.
Dovetail makes it simple to track engagement metrics with research insights proving overall ROI.
enables easy for all collaboration especially in the hybrid environment
makes brainstorming better as users can create digital sticky notes, draw diagrams, and add images to visually represent concepts and ideas
it helps to visualize data effectively - users can create charts, graphs, and diagrams to present data-driven insights to team members and stakeholders
We should have a trust indicator for our insights, as it is difficult to quickly determine when they are trustworthy or not.
Chatbot analysis within different data, I mostly use it with a small sample and replicate the process instead of using the chatbot for more global analysis.
Insight creation, the format is not always really engaging, and you can't really create a presentation from it. It does not align with some stakeholder expectations and requires us to redo the work.
Because we are really happy with the tool and it’s capabilities at the moment. The price increase is the main issue we can have but the features are getting better and better. It really saves a lot of time for our team and allow us to collaborate more efficiently with certain stakeholders that often did not réalise how much research we conduct. Now they can just have a look to it by themself!
Very organized and user-friendly; however, the editing capabilities for the analysis report/insight doc could use some work. There was a recent update also causing it to be harder to find the in-project search bar and where to switch from the highlight list and highlight board view, which made the experience more challenging, especially since I was sharing my screen. Not only did it catch me off guard that it changed, but stakeholders and I were trying (on-call) to figure out how to access it and couldn't. After the call, I did more digging and finally found it, but that was after a bit of time. Outside of this and the editing for insight reports, I feel like the usability is actually very well thought out and effective.
Overall, MURAL is really easy to use, but there are a couple downsides. It's really easy to make areas of the board consistent because double clicking adds stickies that match those around the current one. It's really easy to connect the elements. And it's really easy to organize elements. Inconsistent controls, Panning, Line Connections, and latency are the only issues I had. My biggest issue is that the MURAL mouse buttons are very different from most similar software. This always causes me problems switching to a graphics software or 3D modelling software. Because MURAL uses the same button to pan and move elements, it's really easy to move things when panning around. The lines can also be a (sometimes huge) problem because thew will occasionally disappear or connect to things incorrectly. I think this is tied to latency issues which, in addition to causing phantom lines, can sometimes cause confusion to your team.
Regarding performance, I would say it’s satisfactory. Adding data and transcriptions is really fast and efficient, and can be done in the background, so I’m never hindered by these aspects. However, all the new AI-generated features are still somewhat slow to run. It’s nothing major, but it should improve in the future.
My customer success manager is very responsive and has always been able to answer my questions and resolve issues quickly. The collaboration is smooth, so I have no complaints in that regard.
The training went very well, and we co-built it to really address our needs. I also think it was beneficial to have feedback coming from someone other than myself (since I manage the tool), as it helped reinforce the points I wanted to highlight. The team’s feedback on the training was very positive.
Dovetail is the most stakeholder-friendly research tool we've used. Its visual insights, highlight reels, and intuitive interface make it easy for non-researchers to understand and act on customer feedback. Stakeholders can engage directly without needing deep training, making it ideal for cross-functional teams. Compared to other tools, Dovetail offers the best balance of depth for researchers and clarity for decision-makers.
Mural was easier to use and share compared with Whiteboard. Whiteboard's functionality is limited. It is also integrated into Teams in an odd way that makes it difficult for team members to refer to old whiteboards. Mural as a stand alone web app is better.
Management is quite straightforward; it’s easy to change access if certain stakeholders need to use it. The repository features are accessible to all teams, making it a good entry point into the tool. The more people use it, the more powerful the tool becomes, so it seems truly scalable to me. The limits are more financial, in terms of accessing additional features.
Researchers and designers now spend less time digging through scattered notes or redoing similar studies. Centralizing everything in Dovetail has significantly reduced the time needed to prepare synthesis reports, align stakeholders, or onboard new teammates into past research.
With Dovetail, user insights are no longer abstract or anecdotal—they're traceable, searchable, and backed by real quotes. Product teams feel more confident making roadmap decisions based on what users actually need, not assumptions.
Dovetail has encouraged more non-designers to engage with user feedback directly. This democratization of insights helps align everyone around real user problems, which ultimately leads to better product-market fit and faster iteration loops.
