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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    NativeScript

    Score4.8 out of 10
    N/ANativeScript is an open source framework that allows you to create native iOS and Android apps, with one codebase, using ​the web skills you already have (JavaScript and CSS) and ​the libraries you already love​.N/A

    Olark

    Score10 out of 10
    N/AOlark is a website live chat tool for engaging website visitors while they browse. It can be used to to track leads, drive sales, provide support.

    $15

    per month

    Pricing
    NativeScriptOlark
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Self Service
    $19.00
    Per Agent Per Month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    NativeScriptOlark
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsThe NativeScript framework and CLI are completely free and open source. NativeScript Sidekick is a free download to improve developer productivity with optional paid tiers for power users.—
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    NativeScriptOlark
    Chat Analytics and Reports
    Comparison of Chat Analytics and Reports features of NativeScript and Olark
    Feature
    NativeScript
    -
    Ratings
    Olark
    10.0
    1 Ratings
    14% above category average
    Chat history and transcripts00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Chat reporting00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Chat and web analytics00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    NativeScriptOlark
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    Gist
    Score9.5 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    SAP Extension Suite (discontinued)
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Zoho SalesIQ
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    Genesys DX (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    NativeScriptOlark
    Likelihood to Recommend
    4.8
    (13 ratings)
    10.0
    (18 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.6
    (5 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    1.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.8
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    NativeScriptOlark
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Progress Software
    I gotta be honest, after a PoC period, we choose to rewrite the whole application in a different cross-platform app. Our developers had to invest a lot of time and effort to debug a lot of plugin-related issues, which we needed to utilize the android mobile phone capabilities. QR reader, special visualizations, and fine-tuning were really hard and often resulted in writing native Android code instead of using the shared Angular code. In the end, we think that writing a standalone Android app and an Angular app would have been a better alternative, as the shared code base was so unreliable that it did not save us any time.
    Incentivized
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    Olark
    Olark chat is easy to set up and use. You can have more than one user logged in to monitor the chat on different computers. This makes a fast response time more likely. Although you have to be sure to keep your volume up on the computer so you hear the sound letting you know there's a chat waiting. I like that you can see the customers path through the website and you can put clickable links while you are in a chat to guide the customer to a product or a help page. Plus you can see if they actually went there. This makes it easier to upsell
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Progress Software
    • True native app. The app uses native components and that is quite noticeable in the overall performance of the app. NativeScript is also awesome in the way we can access the native APIs, so we are never really constrained by the framework. If we need, we can just dive into the native APIs without leaving our environment and language (JS).
    • Cross-platform. Builds for Android and iOS. It deals with the platforms differences very well.
    • Support for Vue.js. Even though it is just a community effort, the NativeScript-Vue plugin is the best alternative to build native Apps with Vue.js. That was a major factor to go with NativeScript.
    Incentivized
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    Olark
    • Olark is user friendly for both sides of the CHAT conversation. If you are initiating the chat, or the one receiving the chat, it is extremely easy to follow and use. There are many different levels of computer use comprehension and Olark is for every level.
    • Olark has reporting features to allow you to check the quality of your employees chat abilities as well as their productivity. It provides feedback for the employee themselves to also see how they are doing and take any suggestions the customer may leave for them regarding their chat experience.
    • Olark is very affordable and offers you the option, at a low cost, to look bigger and more professional that you even are. We were a smaller company and has the chat option with Olark and now have grown tremendously and STILL have the Olark chat option. Olark allowed us to grow and provide professionalism to our customers .
    • The Olark program allows you to set up quick responses to keep your customer from waiting, and to allow your employees to not have to retype the same response over and over. It is a great program that the employees really enjoy as well. It reminds you if you forgot to log out when you left your desk and provides your customer a quick note giving them the option to send the chat as an email inquiry instead, so you don't miss a thing.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Progress Software
    • The need to know the native Android and iOS APIs to access device hardware and other platform-specific functionality
    • Not all user interface components are available for free
    • NativeScript has no HTML and DOM, which requires some deep knowledge of different UI tools to be implemented instead
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Olark
    • Not really an area of improvement for Olark specifically, but I will offer that it is incredibly important to keep in mind your company's "shopping hours" or peak traffic times (there is a Reports feature on the software that allows you to analyze peak traffic times).
    • Transcript history can be a little tricky - if you're searching for a specific past conversation, sometimes you may get multiple search results and have to sift through them until you find exactly what you're looking for.
    • I'd also offer that you will occasionally come across folks that are on your site to cyberbully or say nonsensical things. While there isn't an absolute fullproof way to deal with this, Olark does offer a nice "block" feature to disregard any unwanted conversations.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Progress Software
    The hybrid is ok but native is better for performance and the right use case I want to go for is the performance without dealing with too many development tools.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Olark
    To be honest, renewal decisions are not currently within my power. Hypothetically speaking, I'm very comfortable with the platform, have used it daily for nearly a year, and would see no reason to switch to anything else. The small criticisms I had are not significant enough to deter me from using Olark. It's a user friendly, effective tool for our department.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Progress Software
    No answers on this topic
    Olark
    It is simply easy and customizable to be exactly what you need it to be
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Progress Software
    The community support is excellent.
    They have a slack community as well as a discourse forum
    forum.nativescript.org
    Both of these offer community driven support.
    The forum is more for a threaded discussion. The slack community is more for a quick talk.
    Incentivized
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    Olark
    Our organization does not have any complaints about Olark's Support. Anytime we reached out to them for assistance, we received a prompt, helpful reply! As mentioned previously, we used Olark fairly basically so we didn't have too much need to work with their support team other than a few general questions here and there. They were always pleasant to work with.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Progress Software
    Ionic Ionic is an excellent Angular-based framework for mobile, and it does give a lot of access to the native device api's. However, the technology is based on Cordova, which means the apps being built are just webviews, with html, css and JS all running on the UI thread, and potentially creating very slow experiences for users. NativeScript is a truly native solution, and so provides a faster user experience. ReactNative We evaluate ReactNative, and found it much the same as NativeScript. The main difference is that your JS is all written with React, while NativeScript lets you choose between normal JS, Angular, and Vue. For our team, Angular was the most appropriate choice.
    Incentivized
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    Olark
    Olark has an easier implementation process and has better functionality such as the ability to send commands through the platform to either create a ticket in your CRM or push an opportunity to salesforce; you're even able to 'push' the end user to a web page. Implementing their SDK is a snap as well.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Progress Software
    • The poor quality of NativeScript documentation has the potential to weigh heavily on development timelines, budgets, and QA resources in a NEGATIVE manner.
    • The poor interoperability of NativeScript plugins can significantly increase development time.
    • The need to seek out professional instruction to learn how to use NativeScript effectively may become a burden on your budget.
    • The number of breaking changes between versions of NativeScript, may cause your development efforts to lag further behind the most recent releases of NativeScript and your other chosen environments than you are accustomed to.
    • NativeScript still does not support the latest major version of Angular. Any significant changes to the other environment components of your systems may hold you back even further while NativeScript plays catch-up.
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    Olark
    • Olark allows my customer support team to respond to inquiries much faster than before.
    • We have seen an uptick in sales as we are able to address more questions from website visitors.
    • We have changed the design of our website based on chat feedback and questions obtained through Olark.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    NativeScript Screenshots

    Screenshot of Example of a styled NativeScript list viewScreenshot of Charts and graphs available as part of NativeScript UIScreenshot of Groceries – the app you build as part of the getting started tutorialScreenshot of Leverage native mapping systems with NativeScript