Firebase vs. Optimizely Web Experimentation

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Firebase
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Google offers the Firebase suite of application development tools, available free or at cost for higher degree of usages, priced flexibly accorded to features needed. The suite includes A/B testing and Crashlytics, Cloud Messaging (FCM) and in-app messaging, cloud storage and NoSQL storage (Cloud Firestore and Firestore Realtime Database), and other features supporting developers with flexible mobile application development.
$0.01
Per Verification
Optimizely Web Experimentation
Score 8.7 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
FirebaseOptimizely Web Experimentation
Editions & Modules
Phone Authentication
$0.01
Per Verification
Stored Data
$0.18
Per GiB
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FirebaseOptimizely Web Experimentation
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
FirebaseOptimizely Web Experimentation
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
FirebaseOptimizely Web Experimentation
Testing and Experimentation
Comparison of Testing and Experimentation features of Product A and Product B
Firebase
-
Ratings
Optimizely Web Experimentation
8.0
92 Ratings
7% below category average
a/b experiment testing00 Ratings9.392 Ratings
Split URL testing00 Ratings8.574 Ratings
Multivariate testing00 Ratings8.877 Ratings
Multi-page/funnel testing00 Ratings8.272 Ratings
Cross-browser testing00 Ratings7.450 Ratings
Mobile app testing00 Ratings7.638 Ratings
Test significance00 Ratings8.584 Ratings
Visual / WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings8.076 Ratings
Advanced code editor00 Ratings7.568 Ratings
Page surveys00 Ratings7.017 Ratings
Visitor recordings00 Ratings8.418 Ratings
Preview mode00 Ratings8.082 Ratings
Test duration calculator00 Ratings6.956 Ratings
Experiment scheduler00 Ratings8.154 Ratings
Experiment workflow and approval00 Ratings6.537 Ratings
Dynamic experiment activation00 Ratings7.434 Ratings
Client-side tests00 Ratings9.250 Ratings
Server-side tests00 Ratings9.119 Ratings
Mutually exclusive tests00 Ratings8.437 Ratings
Audience Segmentation & Targeting
Comparison of Audience Segmentation & Targeting features of Product A and Product B
Firebase
-
Ratings
Optimizely Web Experimentation
8.6
86 Ratings
2% below category average
Standard visitor segmentation00 Ratings8.985 Ratings
Behavioral visitor segmentation00 Ratings8.365 Ratings
Traffic allocation control00 Ratings9.481 Ratings
Website personalization00 Ratings7.957 Ratings
Results and Analysis
Comparison of Results and Analysis features of Product A and Product B
Firebase
-
Ratings
Optimizely Web Experimentation
8.3
84 Ratings
3% below category average
Heatmap tool00 Ratings9.113 Ratings
Click analytics00 Ratings8.733 Ratings
Scroll maps00 Ratings8.017 Ratings
Form fill analysis00 Ratings8.326 Ratings
Conversion tracking00 Ratings8.744 Ratings
Goal tracking00 Ratings8.473 Ratings
Test reporting00 Ratings8.176 Ratings
Results segmentation00 Ratings8.048 Ratings
CSV export00 Ratings7.648 Ratings
Experiments results dashboard00 Ratings8.049 Ratings
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FirebaseOptimizely Web Experimentation
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Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Quickbase
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Score 9.2 out of 10
Dynamic Yield
Dynamic Yield
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 9.2 out of 10
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Score 9.2 out of 10
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User Ratings
FirebaseOptimizely Web Experimentation
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(27 ratings)
8.7
(177 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.5
(45 ratings)
Usability
9.5
(2 ratings)
9.0
(57 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(7 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(6 ratings)
Support Rating
7.3
(6 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)
8.0
(89 ratings)
User Testimonials
FirebaseOptimizely Web Experimentation
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
Firebase should be your first choice if your platform is mobile first. Firebase's mobile platform support for client-side applications is second to none, and I cannot think of a comparable cross-platform toolkit. Firebase also integrates well with your server-side solution, meaning that you can plug Firebase into your existing app architecture with minimal effort.
Firebase lags behind on the desktop, however. Although macOS support is rapidly catching up, full Windows support is a glaring omission for most Firebase features. This means that if your platform targets Windows, you will need to implement the client functionality manually using Firebase's web APIs and wrappers, or look for another solution.
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Optimizely
This is our second testing platform, and is by far the best we have leveraged. Its intuitive in how you are able to build tests. Tracking is easy to set up within the visual editor or as a capability in URL tracking. The reporting tab does need more filtering capabilities for custom metrics.
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Pros
Google
  • Analytics wise, retention is extremely important to our app, therefore we take advantage of the cohort analysis to see the impact of our middle funnel (retargeting, push, email) efforts affect the percent of users that come back into the app. Firebase allows us to easily segment these this data and look at a running average based on certain dates.
  • When it comes to any mobile app, a deep linking strategy is essential to any apps success. With Firebase's Dynamic Links, we are able to share dynamic links (recognize user device) that are able to redirect to in-app content. These deep links allow users to share other deep-linked content with friends, that also have link preview assets.
  • Firebase allows users to effectively track events, funnels, and MAUs. With this simple event tracking feature, users can put organize these events into funnels of their main user flows (e.g., checkout flows, onboarding flows, etc.), and subsequently be able to understand where the drop-off is in the funnel and then prioritize areas of the funnel to fix. Also, MAU is important to be able to tell if you are bringing in new users and what's the active volume for each platform (Android, iOS).
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Optimizely
  • Considers every kind of experiment from simple code change, code additions, code removal, javascript functions, CSS changes, and split landing redirects.
  • Very friendly UC interface for easy navigation of implementation of pages, click events, experiment set up, and metric set up.
  • The ability to let me know when something has reach stat sig without having to do complicated math on my own
  • ability to carry UTM parameters through landing page redirects with a click of a button.
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Cons
Google
  • Attribution and specifically multi-touch attribution could be more robust such as Branch or Appsflyer but understand this isn't Firebases bread and butter.
  • More parameters. Firebase allows you to track tons of events (believe it's up to 50 or so) but the parameters of the events it only allows you to track 5 which is so messily and unbelievable. So you're able to get good high-level data but if you want to get granular with the events and actions are taken on your app to get real data insight you either have to go with a paid data analytics platform or bring on someone that's an expert in SQL to go through Big Query.
  • City-specific data instead of just country-specific data would have been a huge plus as well.
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Optimizely
  • Hard to use extensions without some knowledge of HTML/CSS
  • Inconsistent user counts between GA & Optimizely when it comes to calculating MAUs, hard to be able to forecast budget and overages when our source of truth (GA) differs from our testing platform (Optimizely)
  • Impressions model doesn't support scaling personalization experiences - hard to run a serious data driven testing program when you have to cut tests short before 14 days (ideal length to get to any statistical read) in order to save on impressions
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Likelihood to Renew
Google
No answers on this topic
Optimizely
Because it's an incredible and essential tool for my line of work as a conversion optimization specialist. Really couldn't do my job nearly as effectively without it. It's paid for itself many times over and I feel like I'm only beginning to unlock the tools potential.
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Usability
Google
It is simple to use overall, the console's main menu is divided into Develop, Quality, Analytics and Grow - which have further subdivisions by their set of features and tools. Develop and Quality are relevant for product and tech. Analytics is relevant for product, analytics and Grow is relevant for marketing. This makes the overall use very easy.
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Optimizely
Usability is mostly great. I like the WYSIWYG functionality and adding in real code is simple as well. It's easy to target specific pages or audiences. I've knocked a couple of points off because of how difficult it is to set up URL redirect experiments, confusion around creating pages, and lack of data that can be further analyzed.
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Reliability and Availability
Google
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
Google
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
Google
Our analytics folks handled the majority of the communication when it came to customer service, but as far as I was aware, the support we got was pretty good. When we had an issue, we were able to reach out and get support in a timely fashion. Firebase was easy to reach and reasonably available to assist when needed.
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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
Google
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
Google
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
Google
Before using Firebase, we exclusively used self hosted database services. Using Firebase has allowed us to reduce reliance on single points of failure and systems that are difficult to scale. Additionally, Firebase is much easier to set up and use than any sort of self hosted database. This simplicity has allowed us to try features that we might not have based on the amount of work they required in the past.
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Optimizely
Overall, the tools we compared against were great, but we went with Optimizely because it has all the features we needed and has the market leadership that gave us trust we would be successful in our experimentation efforts.
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Scalability
Google
No answers on this topic
Optimizely
While granted, I am not the one making the changes to deploy the software; it seems basically as simple as placing the optimized snippet on your site. If you place it in the header, it should reach across your entire site easily. I do think the test setup can be a bit temperamental at times, and having too many cooks in the kitchen can lead to errors. So, I would caution how many people have the access needed to make actual changes.
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Return on Investment
Google
  • Makes building real-time interfaces easy to do at scale with no backend involvement.
  • Very low pricing for small companies and green-fields projects.
  • Lack of support for more complicated queries needs to be managed by users and often forces strange architecture choices for data to enable it to be easily accessed.
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Optimizely
  • Customer retention: We've reduced subscription service client churn by 20%+ using optimized unsubscribe flows.
  • Risk mitigation: Testing into full site redesigns has saved clients millions of dollars.
  • Feature prioritization: Identifying what painted door changes add value has allowed developers to focus on changes that add hundreds of thousands or even millions to the bottom line.
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ScreenShots

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.