Fullstory vs. Google Analytics

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Fullstory
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
FullStory headquartered in Atlanta offers a heat map and session recording / replay application, presented as a digital experience analytics solution that provides on-the-fly conversion funnels, advanced search capabilities, video-like replay of real user sessions, and robust debugging and developer tools. The FullStory analytics engine automatically indexes digital interactions with sites or apps to empower teams to measure, validate, and act on each experience at scale. FullStory also boasts…
$0
per month
Google Analytics
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Google Analytics is perhaps the best-known web analytics product and, as a free product, it has massive adoption. Although it lacks some enterprise-level features compared to its competitors in the space, the launch of the paid Google Analytics Premium edition seems likely to close the gap.
$0
per month
Pricing
FullstoryGoogle Analytics
Editions & Modules
Free
$0.00
Business
Contact Sales
Enterprise
Contact Sales
Google Analytics 360
150,000
per year
Google Analytics
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FullstoryGoogle Analytics
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
FullstoryGoogle Analytics
Considered Both Products
Fullstory
Chose Fullstory
Fullstory is really the best at session recording. They are adding new and more features to become more competitive with other web analytics tools (like Pendo, Heap, and GA). But we ultimately keep them because they make it so easy to actually see how people interact with your …
Chose Fullstory
Smartlook seemed very early in its stage, so there seemed to be plenty of bugs with how it worked. FullStory just seemed a bit more put together and ready to service a bigger company like ours. The breadth of features also seemed to be favoring FullStory over Smartlook.
Chose Fullstory
FullStory is simpler to set up and use than some of the other more sophisticated (and expensive!) tools. It's also got a richer feature set than some of the freemium tools in the market. It's a nice 'middle man' in that sense. We wanted it because it was a nice easy way to get …
Chose Fullstory
FullStory takes the best parts of session recording tools and analytics services. While it may not go as deep in the analytics area, it nonetheless provides a good suite of tools to work with. If all you need are the session recording capabilities, then there are few tools that …
Google Analytics

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
FullstoryGoogle Analytics
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Fullstory
5.2
18 Ratings
38% below category average
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
Responsive Design for Web Access6.216 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Application5.99 Ratings00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile6.612 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile App Analytics6.412 Ratings00 Ratings
Results and Analysis
Comparison of Results and Analysis features of Product A and Product B
Fullstory
7.6
48 Ratings
15% below category average
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
Heatmap tool7.436 Ratings00 Ratings
Click analytics7.243 Ratings00 Ratings
Scroll maps7.732 Ratings00 Ratings
Form fill analysis8.025 Ratings00 Ratings
Conversion tracking6.427 Ratings00 Ratings
Goal tracking6.522 Ratings00 Ratings
Funnel Analysis7.133 Ratings00 Ratings
Session Recording and Replay9.747 Ratings00 Ratings
User Segmentation8.242 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
FullstoryGoogle Analytics
Small Businesses
Smartlook
Smartlook
Score 8.5 out of 10
StatCounter
StatCounter
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Contentsquare
Contentsquare
Score 8.6 out of 10
Siteimprove
Siteimprove
Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Contentsquare
Contentsquare
Score 8.6 out of 10
Contentsquare
Contentsquare
Score 8.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
FullstoryGoogle Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(71 ratings)
9.0
(183 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.7
(9 ratings)
9.0
(51 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.9
(8 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
8.3
(61 ratings)
7.0
(42 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.6
(56 ratings)
9.0
(7 ratings)
Configurability
7.0
(1 ratings)
6.0
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
FullstoryGoogle Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
Fullstory
It was extremely useful in identifying places in our product where things weren't functioning, or where it looked like action was available to the end user but in reality, it was not and therefore caused lots of confusion. It doesn't help as much in other scenarios to see what catches a user's Eye or where they go if they leave our application as well as an actual in-person interview would help with eye-tracking software.
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Google
Google Analytics is particularly well suited for tracking and analyzing customer behavior on a grocery e-commerce platform. It provides a wealth of information about customer behavior, including what products are most popular, what pages are visited the most, and where customers are coming from. This information can help the platform optimize its website for better customer engagement and conversion rates. However, Google Analytics may not be the best tool for more advanced, granular analysis of customer behavior, such as tracking individual customer journeys or understanding customer motivations. In these cases, it may be more appropriate to use additional tools or solutions that provide deeper insights into customer behavior.
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Pros
Fullstory
  • Tracks users' online experiences from start to finish.
  • Makes it easy to share a customer's experiences with the rest of my team.
  • Allows me to use different methods to find evidence of a customer's experience.
  • Shows page insights via segmentation that help me know where to improve my site.
  • Tracks error clicks and dead clicks for quick insights into site improvements.
  • Integrates with HelpScout for easy access to customer problem-solving.
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Google
  • Multiple reports to see website use and behavior
  • Allows you to customize reports with days, weeks, months, and years
  • You can build out a dashboard to easily view stats from multiple websites in one place
  • You can share analytics reports via the dashboard, automatically emailed PDFs or in other formats
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Cons
Fullstory
  • The ramp-up time to learn the entire product can take a little while. There are just so many absolutely wonderful tools and different ways to look at the same type of information that it can take a new user a few weeks to understand and then more time to master. However, FullStory has a ton of training resources to help with that! A lot of my own teammates have taught themselves FullStory through those training resources.
  • The UX of the product is totally wonderful, but there are tiny things that make getting to certain parts of the product slightly more challenging (like clicking into a modal in a modal). Sometimes buttons or links are placed out of my field of view, but those are minor things I notice because I work in UX.
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Google
  • Data sampling is somewhat inaccurate on the free tier - this is addressed in premium but is expensive.
  • Some of the UI is very similar in naming when presenting different data, some in-situ information might be useful.
  • Gotchas around filtering and data validation.
  • Implementation can be tricky, it can take a lot of time and expertise to get a full, accurate picture of your metrics.
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Likelihood to Renew
Fullstory
It's been a phenomenal tool for us; every department that uses it has found something new and unexpected that it can do that they're really excited about. Even if we *only* used it for bug triage, it would be worth our time and money. The fact that we can use it for so many other things as well--gauging how customers interact and use our site, identifying UI problems, etc.--is above and beyond
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Google
We will continue to use Google Analytics for several reasons. It is free, which is a huge selling point. It houses all of our ecommerce stores' data, and though it can't account for refunds or fraud orders, gives us and our clients directional, real time information on individual and group store performance.
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Usability
Fullstory
Because everything seems to be easy to find and it doesn't take long at all to learn how to use the product
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Google
Google Analytics provides a wealth of data, down to minute levels. That is it's greatest detriment: find the right information when you need it can be a cumbersome task. You are able to create shortcuts, however, so it can mitigate some of this problem. Google is continually refining Analytics, so I do not doubt there will be improvements
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Reliability and Availability
Fullstory
We've never had issues with availability
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Google
We all know Google is at top when it comes to availability. We have never faced any such instances where I can suggest otherwise. All you need is a Google account, a device and internet connection to use this super powerful tool for reporting and visualising your site data, traffic, events, etc. that too in real time.
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Performance
Fullstory
It seems the performance is really good and always loads quickly
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Google
This has been a catalyst for improving our site's traffic handling capabilities. We were able to identify exit% from our sites through it and we used recommendations to handle and implement the same in our sites. We have been increasing the usage of Google Analytics in our sites and never had any performance related issues if we used Analytics
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Support Rating
Fullstory
They have been overall pretty responsive and proactive. The tool is pretty straightforward to use. Most of the questions we have had to work with them on our how to use new features or adjust our integration to ensure we are gathering all the data from all of our tools.
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Google
The Google reps respond very quickly. However, sometimes they can overly call you to set up an apportionment. I'm very proficient and sometimes when I talk to reps, they give beginner tutorials and insights that are a waste of time. I wish Google would understand my level of expertise and assign me to a rep (long-term) that doesn't have to walk me through the basics.
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Online Training
Fullstory
No answers on this topic
Google
love the product and training they provide for businesses of all sizes. The following list of links will help you get started with Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented by Google Analytics.
  1. How to Use Google Analytics for Beginners – Mahalo’s how-to guide for beginners.
  2. A beginner’s guide to Google Analytics – A free eBook walking you through Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented.
  3. Getting to Know Your Google Analytics Dashboard – The title says it all! This is a brief post with one goal: to introduce you to the Google Analytics dashboard.
  4. Google Analytics for Beginners: How to Make the Most of Your Traffic Reports– This guide doesn’t cover setup, but it does a great job of helping you to better understand the data being presented.
  5. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 1: Setup – A video presentation that walks you through Google Analytics setup.
  6. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 2: Essential Stats – A video presentation that introduces you to some of the most important data being presented in Google Analytics.
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Implementation Rating
Fullstory
To successfully implement FullStory, it is important to plan your implementation carefully by defining your goals and user segments. You should also use tags and filters to analyze your user data, train your team to use FullStory effectively, and use FullStory in conjunction with other analytics tools to get a more complete picture of your user's behavior. By following these tips, you can gain valuable insights into your users' behavior and experiences, and use this information to improve your website or application.
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Google
I think my biggest take away from the Google Analytics implementation was that there needs to be a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it before you start. Originally the analytics were added to track visitors, but as we became more savvy with the product, we began adding more and more functionality, and defining guidelines as we went along. While not detrimental to our success, this lack of an overarching goal resulted in some minor setbacks in implementation and the collection of some messy data that is unusable.
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Alternatives Considered
Fullstory
Smartlook is software that records users on a website
and mobile app. Finding useful information within thousands of recordings is
made quick and easy with features that help you accomplish this. I have chosen FullStory because it is easier to use and has more advanced features compared to Smartlook.
Read full review
Google
I have not used Adobe Analytics as much, but I know they offer something called customer journey analytics, which we are evaluating now. I have used Semrush, and I find them much better than Google Analytics. I feel a fairly nontechnical person could learn Semrush in about a month. They also offer features like competitive analysis (on content, keywords, traffic, etc.), which is very useful. If you have to choose one among Semrush and Google Analytics, I would say go for Semrush.
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Scalability
Fullstory
Full story was easy to scale with the growth of our teams and organisation
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Google
Google Analytics is currently handling the reporting and tracking of near about 80 sites in our project. And I am not talking about the sites from different projects. They may have way more accounts than that. Never ever felt a performance issue from Google's end while generating or customising reports or tracking custom events or creating custom dimensions
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Return on Investment
Fullstory
  • Triage for front end bugs - FullStory can sometimes help you spot a bug in action much more quickly than trying to recreate it on your own
  • Observing customers use new features and understanding why a new feature may be performing better or worse than expected
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Google
  • It has helped us gain understanding of what is going on on our website.
  • It has helped us determine areas that need fixing (i.e. pages with extremely high bounce rates may need to be redone).
  • It has helped us understand our biggest avenues for bringing traffic to the website and business in general.
  • It has helped guide our website redesign.
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ScreenShots

Fullstory Screenshots

Screenshot of a custom dashboard to visualize data.Screenshot of FullStory's session replay, combined with dev toolsScreenshot of FullStory Conversions, used to illuminate problems in the digital experienceScreenshot of Fullstory for mobile appsScreenshot of FullStory search and segmentationScreenshot of quality insights on the most valuable pages