LaunchDarkly vs. Optimizely Web Experimentation

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
LaunchDarkly
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
LaunchDarkly provides a feature management platform that enables DevOps and Product teams to use feature flags at scale. This allows for greater collaboration among team members, and increased usability testing before full-scale feature deployment.
$12
per month
Optimizely Web Experimentation
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Whether launching a first test or scaling a sophisticated experimentation program, Optimizely Web Experimentation aims to deliver the insights needed to craft high-performing digital experiences that drive engagement, increase conversions, and accelerate growth.N/A
Pricing
LaunchDarklyOptimizely Web Experimentation
Editions & Modules
Foundation
$12
per month per Service Connection per month, or $10 per 1k client-side MAU per mo
Enterprise
Custom
Guardian
Custom
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LaunchDarklyOptimizely Web Experimentation
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
Additional DetailsDiscount available on the Foundation plan for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
LaunchDarklyOptimizely Web Experimentation
Considered Both Products
LaunchDarkly
Chose LaunchDarkly
LaunchDarkly stood out to us because it put control of the application within the hands of our engineers. We didn't want to allow business users to manipulate the production site via a third-party tool. Instead, our focus was on delivering faster as an engineering team.
Optimizely Web Experimentation
Chose Optimizely Web Experimentation
The feature set and ecosystem for Optimizely seemed much more robust and scalable.
Chose Optimizely Web Experimentation
Marketing mostly focuses on small changes to static sites, which is well suited to Optimizely.
Chose Optimizely Web Experimentation
Of the tools we've explored, none have the full suite of testing with in depth results analysis that Optimizely provides so we have not switched.
Features
LaunchDarklyOptimizely Web Experimentation
Testing and Experimentation
Comparison of Testing and Experimentation features of Product A and Product B
LaunchDarkly
-
Ratings
Optimizely Web Experimentation
7.9
163 Ratings
6% below category average
a/b experiment testing00 Ratings9.0163 Ratings
Split URL testing00 Ratings8.5135 Ratings
Multivariate testing00 Ratings8.4139 Ratings
Multi-page/funnel testing00 Ratings7.9126 Ratings
Cross-browser testing00 Ratings8.097 Ratings
Mobile app testing00 Ratings8.075 Ratings
Test significance00 Ratings8.4147 Ratings
Visual / WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings8.0133 Ratings
Advanced code editor00 Ratings7.9125 Ratings
Page surveys00 Ratings6.217 Ratings
Visitor recordings00 Ratings8.418 Ratings
Preview mode00 Ratings7.6145 Ratings
Test duration calculator00 Ratings7.7112 Ratings
Experiment scheduler00 Ratings8.2112 Ratings
Experiment workflow and approval00 Ratings7.890 Ratings
Dynamic experiment activation00 Ratings7.574 Ratings
Client-side tests00 Ratings7.996 Ratings
Server-side tests00 Ratings7.250 Ratings
Mutually exclusive tests00 Ratings8.080 Ratings
Audience Segmentation & Targeting
Comparison of Audience Segmentation & Targeting features of Product A and Product B
LaunchDarkly
-
Ratings
Optimizely Web Experimentation
8.3
152 Ratings
5% below category average
Standard visitor segmentation00 Ratings8.4147 Ratings
Behavioral visitor segmentation00 Ratings7.7122 Ratings
Traffic allocation control00 Ratings9.1144 Ratings
Website personalization00 Ratings7.9111 Ratings
Results and Analysis
Comparison of Results and Analysis features of Product A and Product B
LaunchDarkly
-
Ratings
Optimizely Web Experimentation
8.3
149 Ratings
4% below category average
Heatmap tool00 Ratings9.313 Ratings
Click analytics00 Ratings8.833 Ratings
Scroll maps00 Ratings8.517 Ratings
Form fill analysis00 Ratings8.072 Ratings
Conversion tracking00 Ratings8.744 Ratings
Goal tracking00 Ratings8.2127 Ratings
Test reporting00 Ratings7.9137 Ratings
Results segmentation00 Ratings7.7103 Ratings
CSV export00 Ratings7.9102 Ratings
Experiments results dashboard00 Ratings8.049 Ratings
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LaunchDarklyOptimizely Web Experimentation
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Score 8.7 out of 10
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User Ratings
LaunchDarklyOptimizely Web Experimentation
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(28 ratings)
8.7
(241 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(1 ratings)
9.5
(51 ratings)
Usability
7.4
(26 ratings)
10.0
(58 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(7 ratings)
Performance
8.1
(26 ratings)
7.3
(6 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(16 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(11 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(1 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(151 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
LaunchDarklyOptimizely Web Experimentation
Likelihood to Recommend
LaunchDarkly
If a new feature should be added but unsure of how it will actually work or how users will accept the new enhancement or change, this tool allows you test and measure initial results. This saves so much time and energy knowing the results before it is deployed and might have low user adoption or acceptance.
Read full review
Optimizely
I think it can serve the whole spectrum of experiences from people who are just getting used to web experimentation. It's really easy to pick up and use. If you're more experienced then it works well because it just gets out of the way and lets you really focus on the experimentation side of things. So yeah, strongly recommend. I think it is well suited both to small businesses and large enterprises as well. I think it's got a really low barrier to entry. It's very easy to integrate on your website and get results quickly. Likewise, if you are a big business, it's incrementally adoptable, so you can start out with one component of optimizing and you can build there and start to build in things like data CMS to augment experimentation as well. So it's got a really strong a pathway to grow your MarTech platform if you're a small company or a big company.
Read full review
Pros
LaunchDarkly
  • A/B or Multi Variant Testing as a methodology to gather insight from customer usage. Experimentation as a feature within LaunchDarkly offers information around the success of one variant over another and whether the experiment has reached statistical significance.
  • Being able to decouple deployment of code from the release of a feature is hugely valuable.
  • Development teams are empowered to manage features within their production applications for reliability or testing purposes.
Read full review
Optimizely
  • The Platform contains drag-and-drop editor options for creating variations, which ease the A/B tests process, as it does not require any coding or development resources.
  • Establishing it is so simple that even a non-technical person can do it perfectly.
  • It provides real-time results and analytics with robust dashboard access through which you can quickly analyze how different variations perform. With this, your team can easily make data-driven decisions Fastly.
Read full review
Cons
LaunchDarkly
  • Limited number of users on cheaper plans that is limiting our ability to audit log who is making changes.
  • Some of our engineers are confused between flags and segments and have set up items incorrectly.
  • Better documented support for React with Typescript.
Read full review
Optimizely
  • JavaScript is hard to implement sometimes especially for JQuery elements
  • ROI reporting should be part of the overall experimentation reporting
  • CMP integration: where we can easily show status of test on the HPT request
  • CMS integration
  • More widgets like social proof banners, etc.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
LaunchDarkly
It fits out business case
Read full review
Optimizely
I rated this question because at this stage, Optimizely does most everything we need so I don't foresee a need to migrate to a new tool. We have the infrastructure already in place and it is a sizeable lift to pivot to another tool with no guarantee that it will work as good or even better than Optimizely
Read full review
Usability
LaunchDarkly
It's very easy to create new feature flags and set them properly. It is more difficult to get LaunchDarkly integrated within a distributed system so that flags can be used. Especially on stateless servers where gating features by user is not easy. Overall though, it is very easy to get started and I like how simple it is to use.
Read full review
Optimizely
Optimizely Web Experimentation's visual editor is handy for non-technical or quick iterative testing. When it comes to content changes it's as easy as going into wordpress, clicking around, and then seeing your changes live--what you see is what you get. The preview and approval process for sharing built experiments is also handy for sharing experiments across teams for QA purposes or otherwise.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
LaunchDarkly
No issue with availability at all
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Performance
LaunchDarkly
From what I have seen, LaunchDarkly integrates well with your code and also services you might have in your tech ecosystem. We use Jenkins for automation and we were able to use it to build pipelines to automate the control of LaunchDarkly toggles in our code.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Support Rating
LaunchDarkly
The overall support is very responsive
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Online Training
LaunchDarkly
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).
Read full review
Implementation Rating
LaunchDarkly
Yes I do.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
LaunchDarkly
LaunchDarkly stood out to us because it put control of the application within the hands of our engineers. We didn't want to allow business users to manipulate the production site via a third-party tool. Instead, our focus was on delivering faster as an engineering team.
Read full review
Optimizely
The ability to do A/B testing in Optimizely along with the associated statistical modelling and audience segmentation means it is a much better solution than using something like Google Analytics were a lot more effort is required to identify and isolate the specific data you need to confidently make changes
Read full review
Scalability
LaunchDarkly
The platform didn't go down since we implemented it
Read full review
Optimizely
We can use it flexibly across lines of business and have it in use across two departments. We have different use cases and slightly different outcomes, but can unify our results based on impact to the bottom line. Finally, we can generate value from anywhere in the org for any stakeholders as needed.
Read full review
Return on Investment
LaunchDarkly
  • Improved developer experience with some teams moving to Trunk-based Development.
  • Increased deployment frequency due to smaller code releases.
  • Validation of the technical and business value of work is achieved more quickly through smaller pieces of work and through experimenting with a small group of users before a feature gets to 100% of customers.
Read full review
Optimizely
  • We're able to share definitive annualized revenue projections with our team, showing what would happen if we put a test into Production
  • Showing the results of a test on a new page or feature prior to full implementation on a site saves developer time (if a test proves the new element doesn't deliver a significant improvement.
  • Making a change via the WYSIWYG interface allows us to see multiple changes without developer intervention.
Read full review
ScreenShots

LaunchDarkly Screenshots

Screenshot of regression detection and automated incident response at the feature level. This connects critical metrics to the release process so that every change is monitored - even the smallest releases, where issues would previously have been obscured by noise in the wider system metrics.Screenshot of where track the progression of a feature flag across a series of phases, where each phase consists of one or more environments.Screenshot of how to target groups of contexts individually or by attribute. Contexts are people, services, machines, or other resources that encounter feature flags in a product.Screenshot of where to design experiments that measure business-critical user flows and provide results specific to those product funnels, and measure multi-step user journeys. This is used to determine whether conversions are succeeding, with all metrics visible in one place.

Optimizely Web Experimentation Screenshots

Screenshot of AI-Powered Experimentation with Opal:

- Instant Test Ideas: Generates high-quality A/B test ideas based on any goals and audience insights.
- Smarter Experimentation: The AI can suggest impactful variations, reducing guesswork and increasing test velocity.
- More Than Just Ideas: From hypothesis generation to analyzing results, Opal helps optimize every stage of the experimentation process.Screenshot of the Web Experimentation Visual Editor :

- Tweak experiments using the visual editor or dive into custom code when needed.
- Modify elements, update styling, or add dynamic behaviors.
- Ensure perfect variations while keeping control over every detail of the experiment.Screenshot of AI Content Suggestions:

- Generates copy variations to supercharge experiments.
- The AI suggests high-impact messaging for tests when hovering over a field.
- AI-powered content suggestions help skip the brainstorming process.Screenshot of Advanced Audience Targeting:

- Delivers personalized experiences by targeting users based on behaviors, attributes, and real-time conditions.
- Defines precise audience segments using first-party data, geolocation, and device type.
- Can test and optimize for different audience groups to maximize impact and engagement.Screenshot of Custom Templates in the Visual Editor:

- Offers pre-built templates for common test setups.
- Standardized variations and maintains brand integrity with reusable templates.
- Templates can be customized visually or tweak them with code for full flexibility.Screenshot of the Web Experimentation Results Page:

- Data visualizations help interpret experiment performance.
- Displays which variations are winning with built-in statistical significance calculations.
- Results can be filtered by audience segments, events, and conversions to uncover key trends.