Heap vs. Pendo.io

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Heap
Score 8.3 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
Pendo.io
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Pendo.io is a product engagement platform with features for in-app analytics, surveys and feedback, and guidance.N/A
Pricing
HeapPendo.io
Editions & Modules
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
*Free
Free
Base
Contact sales team
Core
Contact sales team
Pulse
Contact sales team
Ultimate
Contact sales team
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HeapPendo.io
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
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
HeapPendo.io
Considered Both Products
Heap
Chose Heap
Both have more or less the same strong and weak points.
Chose Heap
Heap is better because its easy to use, easy to install. With Heap you just add a snippet of tracking code to your header, instead of having to instrument each event like you do with other tools.
Chose Heap
Heap is better then Pendo and Amplitude. Compared to Amplitude, Heap is cheaper and easier to analyze and use. Configurations might be cumbersome but in the long run, users find it very seamless and easy. Compared to Pendo, Heap offers much superior analytics, event …
Chose Heap
I was not apart of the evaluation process.
Chose Heap
Heap stood out from other tools in the following ways: Comprehensive auto-tracking and "spotlight" tool allows us to add event attributes through their UI which greatly reduces the reliance on Engineering resources for instrumentation. Their "Effort Analysis" tool helps …
Chose Heap
Heap was selected by my predecessor. Heap does not include a digital adoption component, which is something we did not need. Pendo and Gainsight include DAP, which adds to the overall cost. Mixpanel requires developer resources to add tracking to any new features. In …
Chose Heap
Heap is a clear winner when it comes to instrumentation. Pendo is more of a customer engagement platform but their instrumentation layer is still a bit light.
Chose Heap
Pendo did not meet two of our key requirements: auto-capture of every user interaction (Pendo only captures events you manually tag, which becomes a part-time job on its own as the product changes), and a data warehouse integration (custom ETL pipelines have to be built and …
Chose Heap
Google Analytics is more intuitive to use but after you overcome that learning curve with Heap, it quickly becomes a much better analytics tool. The ability to retroactively track metrics is simply fantastic and the point-and-click configuration without the need for code …
Pendo.io
Chose Pendo.io
Heap is a tool used only for engagement analytics. It is quite robust and provides a flexible solution for collecting large sets of very granular user engagement data within our application. Definitions are easily created, definition rules are flexible and intuitive, and …
Best Alternatives
HeapPendo.io
Small Businesses
Fullstory
Fullstory
Score 9.3 out of 10
ChurnZero
ChurnZero
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Whatfix
Whatfix
Score 9.9 out of 10
ChurnZero
ChurnZero
Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Whatfix
Whatfix
Score 9.9 out of 10
Nexthink
Nexthink
Score 7.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HeapPendo.io
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(233 ratings)
8.5
(130 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.3
(9 ratings)
8.2
(6 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(65 ratings)
7.9
(43 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(2 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Performance
8.4
(61 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(8 ratings)
8.2
(5 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(3 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Configurability
9.1
(1 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.3
(2 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
HeapPendo.io
Likelihood to Recommend
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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Pendo.io
Pendo.io is useful in generating great dashboards that present user analytics in the best possible view that could be used for analysis & derive key insights on what could be done if there's a feature that's not being recognized by end users or if there are any pain points where users are struggling more around a workflow which is technically not that difficult. Pendo.io also can be used to create impactful guides where intercatoin of a user with the Guide can be created in less steps & have relevant information about that workflow that the user is completing. Pendo.io's resource center can act as a one stop hub to present any sidewide updates which could be information of Prod releases, New KB Articles, Register to any event, & much more. Segments can be created in as many variation as one can. In fact, Segments are the ruling property or feature that works so handy, which reduces a lot of iterative work.
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Pros
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
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Pendo.io
  • NPS Surveys
  • Feature usage insights
  • Identifying user behaviors using Replay feature
  • Clearly segmenting users in a way we want it to be
  • Identifying time spent on a feature/product to better understand what customers actually use
  • Documentation, in-app guides and help section
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Cons
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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Pendo.io
  • Dashboard is sometimes very slow to load
  • Preview is problematic if the Pendo.io user doesn't have access to the target environment or application where the guide is going to display
  • It would be ideal to have a gallery of thumbnail images of previously used guides to select from, either to pull a screen capture or to use as a template. It's cumbersome to go to the guides, find the one you want, click on Preview, etc.
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Likelihood to Renew
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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Pendo.io
We have had an excellent experience with Pendo. When we've had questions or concerns, Pendo is very quick to respond and communicate with us. We have experienced top-notch customer support and customer engagement. We have actually modeled some of our implementation and product processes after Pendo's examples.
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Usability
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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Pendo.io
It is intuitive for core tasks like tracking feature usage, building Guides, and viewing dashboards. The interface is clean and well structured, making it easy for product managers and operational teams to get value quickly without heavy technical support. However, there is a noticeable learning curve when setting up advanced custom events, reports, or integrations, which can take some time and internal knowledge-sharing to master.
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Reliability and Availability
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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Pendo.io
Every time I have logged into Pendo, the service has been available for me to use. The page has never been down when I am trying to get info from there.
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Performance
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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Pendo.io
Everything loads fairly quickly and it's not slow. I don't use an integration, I log in straight in the webpage.
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Support Rating
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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Pendo.io
They've been great anytime that we have needed help with something. They also have some really great help articles. We're able to figure most things out through their articles, but when we've had to call in they've been very helpful and we haven't had any problems. I'd highly recommend working with them.
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Online Training
Heap
No answers on this topic
Pendo.io
The training schedule was well thought out and tailored to meet our needs. Chantelle stayed with us through the whole implementation and made sure that we were good to go.
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Implementation Rating
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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Pendo.io
Use Segment to install and cut developers out of the work cycle!
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Alternatives Considered
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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Pendo.io
I have just very superficial experience with Google Analytics but I do believe that Pendo.io is a much much better tool in pretty much all aspects of it. It has a ton more features and capabilities and even for the capabilities where there is overlap, Pendo seems to come out ahead easily. There are aspects that Pendo could improve for sure such as what metadata it captures from the users; an example of this is screen resolution which Google Analytics captures but Pendo does not.
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Scalability
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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Pendo.io
The system is pretty flexible and scalable, I have used it in different browsers and devices without issues.
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Return on Investment
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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Pendo.io
  • Reducing development time with in-app guides and resource center, with product management being able to agilely create guides in real time, this could be as much as 1 full time developer in savings.
  • Reducing business time scoping "rock fetches" than are proven to be invaluable based on analytics, each time 1 single piece of analtical data saves around ~20 hours across multiple resources.
  • Increasing user satisfaction with in-app guides and resource center
  • Increasing usage of key features through targetted messaging, those key features either drive costs ou of our business or add value to customers business.
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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.