Google Analytics vs. Heap

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
Heap
Score 8.1 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Heap is a web analytics platform captures every user interaction on web iOS with no extra code. The tool allows you to track events and set up funnels to understand user flow and dropoff. It also provides visualization tools to track trends over time.
$0
per month
Pricing
Google AnalyticsHeap
Editions & Modules
Google Analytics 360
150,000
per year
Google Analytics
Free
Free
$0
Up to 10k sessions/month
Growth
Starting at $3,600 annually
Up to 300k sessions/year
Pro
Contact Heap Sales
Custom sessions per month and unlimited projects
Premier
Contact Heap Sales
Custom sessions per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google AnalyticsHeap
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsHeap pricing is based on session volume. A session is a period of activity from a single user on your app or website. It can include many pageviews or events.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google AnalyticsHeap
Considered Both Products
Google Analytics

No answer on this topic

Heap
Chose Heap
From a startup perspective, Heap is one of the best and fastest ways to go from 0 analytics to nearly all of what one would need with the least amount of effort. It's faster and easier to implement than many above and it's better suited for quick quantifiable analytics that …
Chose Heap
Heap is way, way more intuitive, and easy to use than Google Analytics 4. It took so much effort to set up the simplest reports in the GA4 interface, which is also a huge mess at the moment. Heap obviously lacks the tighter integration with Google products, meaning you have to …
Chose Heap
We evaluated Heap against Mixpanel but realized that Mixpanel was a non-starter for us. (Kudos to their sales rep, who quickly identified this and told us.) We inherited a Google Analytics implementation but have since had to stop using it due to GDPR restrictions.
Chose Heap
I prefer Google Analytics to Heap, but that's probably because I used it first and for longer, so I've gotten very used to it. Heap is about as similar to Google Analytics as cheese is to filing your tax return, so switching from one to the other was difficult, and, as I said …
Chose Heap
During the procurement process, we looked at Google Analytics and Amplitude. Google Analytics is free, and it is a platform we are already using frequently at my company; however, it does not have the dynamic product analytics capabilities that we need. Amplitude is more …
Chose Heap
I didn't select heap. Someone else did. I wasn't consulted during the process either, it was there before I arrived and we recently renewed, but I wasn't part of that process. Hotjar was alright, the heapmap is a neat way to quickly show non-experts where we might have an …
Chose Heap
Heap is much easier to use versus Google Analytics. Previously, I was using Segment to get channel level data. However, Segment is not a customizable tool to understand top of funnel/web performance in the same way Heap does. Heap Connect is excellent when it comes to creating …
Chose Heap
Heap is a little more user-friendly and much more robust than Google Analytics, but it is less user-friendly than Amplitude.
Chose Heap
Heap blows away the competition in this space in my opinion. Amplitude was the closest competitor but did not have the ease of instrumentation that Heap offers out of the box. Google Analytics has gotten worse year after year and was borderline worthless for our business, as …
Chose Heap
Heap had an edge over Google Analytics in many ways. Few points to consider Heap over GA.
1. Low code implementation and less involvement of engineering team.
2. Great reporting dashboard with additional feature of of showing user journey, that helps understand user behaviour
Chose Heap
For me, Heap is much simpler to utilize. I've previously used Google and Adobe Analytics but switched to Heap because it provide better features and is easy to integrate. Without a specialist's assistance, I am able to construct dashboards and am convinced that they are useable …
Chose Heap
Heap was one the first platform we explored. As our needs were fulfilled and data was customized very easily
Chose Heap
The ability to view events in real time as they occur, restrict them to just show mine, and then create dashboards using those events is the finest feature for me. It eliminates the requirement for constant 100% accuracy in documentation maintenance and guessing. I can monitor …
Chose Heap
Heap was the clear winner in our comparison as it had a clear interface which allows for easy graph and table making. The best part of Heap is that it saves each and every action performed on all of our webpages. Even if a certain event is not defined, it can still be created …
Chose Heap
We didn't choose Heap over the others listed above. But we use Heap in conjunction with several other platforms in order to better understand our user base. Heap has been a great addition to our repertoire of usable tools and we love how it has integrated with other …
Chose Heap
Heap is far easier to use compared to these.
Chose Heap
Compared to GA, Heap provides a much better UI, and its a much better product analytics tool (considering GA's main functionality is not for Product analytics) Overall, of you, are searching for Product analytics I would choose Heap instead of GA.
Chose Heap
Heap is much easier for me to use. With Adobe Analytics, I needed to work exclusively with a product analyst whose whole job is working in Adobe Analytics. I can create dashboards without help from a specialist and feel confident that they are functional, actionable, and usable …
Chose Heap
Mix panel did not have automated event tracking so a developer would need to manually add every single event which was not functional. Outside of that, many core features were the same although mix panel did allow for custom reporting and querying. Mix panel felt much more …
Chose Heap
One of the key features of Heap compared to other tools is auto-capture. Heap is now introducing session recordings, thereby covering features from other competitors as well.
Chose Heap
Simpler, once you understand it it's easier to use overtime and can give you much more insights. Very versatile.
Top Pros
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All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google AnalyticsHeap
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(183 ratings)
8.2
(233 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(51 ratings)
8.8
(9 ratings)
Usability
9.9
(8 ratings)
8.9
(64 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(4 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(2 ratings)
8.4
(61 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(42 ratings)
9.0
(8 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(7 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Configurability
6.0
(2 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(2 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google AnalyticsHeap
Likelihood to Recommend
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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Heap
Scenarios when Heap was well suited: It is when a user claims that he encountered a bug without giving us the details of the error message. Scenarios where it is less appropriate: Its when we try to capture user interaction in our mobile app
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Pros
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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Heap
  • Realtime interactions which are captured automatically is a unique feature which no other product offers.
  • Low code implementation is a big plus for marketing teams, as there is less dependency on engineering
  • Detailed customer behaviours can be studied with captured replay sessions
  • Due to all the above points - it helped to improve customer experience
Read full review
Cons
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.
Read full review
Heap
  • I think Heap can improve its onboarding; I would love to see some info that is helpful for someone who isn't in Heap every single day.
  • Sharing dashboards can be tricky, it feels like a huge learning curve that I already have forgotten how to do.
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Likelihood to Renew
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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Heap
It's a great platform. I'm glad that one of our product managers introduced it because it has allowed us to create all kinds of new functionality. We're not only able to create a better product experience from our communications because of Heap, but we're also able to generate all kinds of helpful analysis.
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Usability
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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Heap
On a scale from 1-10, I find Heap to be incredibly user-friendly and easy to use. I enjoyed the training videos available and was quickly able to pick up how to create events and reports to track user interactions on our product. I would recommend Heap for its usability first and foremost.
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Reliability and Availability
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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Heap
I've never run into any issues with Heap's availability, Heap is always there when I need it. I haven't run into any issues like application errors or unplanned outages during my 2+ years of using Heap. Each and every time I log in to Heap I have a completely functional experience
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Performance
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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Heap
Heap doesn't affect page load times considerably nor has a large impact [on] our overall score, as far as page loading times inside of the tool its pretty reliable to retrieve data as much as "instant" that it can be the delay seems to be on data getting tracked into the servers to be read but it's not significant.
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Support Rating
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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Heap
Heap support has allowed us to troubleshoot and test a lot of different items. Their support team is always helpful and friendly, even when we come to them with the most complicated questions. I think this greatly improves the value proposition of the product because their support team is knowledgable and friendly.
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Online Training
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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Heap
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
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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Heap
The implementation was smooth and easy. The Heap team helped us with implementation and it went great! Within a few weeks, we were fully up and running and utilizing the platform to its full capability. This is an additional thing that has made this platform so great and we couldn't recommend it enough.
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Alternatives Considered
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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Heap
Heap offers a ton of functionality on a single platform.It also has an smart data science layer to offers suggestions for next steps in the analysis, allowing us to explore alternative paths we may not think to take. The low-code option for updating data is appealing, and there is a lot of automation with minimal engineering effort.
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Scalability
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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Heap
The most challenging part of using Heap in a growing organization is the naming and structure in which reports and dashboards are organized. I work within the marketing department and our Heap leader internally works within the IT/Product department, which makes it challenging because we often don't speak the same language, so the learning curve has been steep without any specific use-case examples to leverage online.
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Return on Investment
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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Heap
  • It has helped us make decisions on what products to scope for our MVP based on the usage data.
  • It's allowed us to measure success with our beta product.
  • It's helped us view our conversion rates in an easy and usable manner.
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ScreenShots

Heap Screenshots

Screenshot of Dashboard in Heap (Use to get Product or User Behavior Insights)Screenshot of Effort Analysis provides the first-ever quantitative measurement of user friction, capturing the difficulty users face when moving through every step of every user flow across the digital experience.Screenshot of Heap Illuminate looks for the most common events between two steps in a funnel and generates a Top Events table that displays how well paths including different events convert to the next step so you can understand how that behavior is helping or hurting conversion.Screenshot of From Top Events you can choose an event and use Path Comparison to fork your funnel and see how the selected behavior impacts conversion downstream.