Optimizely Web Experimentation vs. Pendo.io

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Optimizely Web Experimentation
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Optimizely Web Experimentation empowers teams to conduct experiments (without having to rely on developer resources) in order to test various user interactions, make website changes backed by data, and personalize customer experiences.N/A
Pendo.io
Score 8.2 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
Optimizely Web ExperimentationPendo.io
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Free
Free
Team
Contact sales team
Pro
Contact sales team
Enterprise
Contact sales team
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Optimizely Web ExperimentationPendo.io
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Optimizely Web ExperimentationPendo.io
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Optimizely Web ExperimentationPendo.io
Testing and Experimentation
Comparison of Testing and Experimentation features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Web Experimentation
8.0
101 Ratings
7% below category average
Pendo.io
-
Ratings
a/b experiment testing9.3101 Ratings00 Ratings
Split URL testing8.582 Ratings00 Ratings
Multivariate testing8.884 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-page/funnel testing8.279 Ratings00 Ratings
Cross-browser testing7.454 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile app testing7.643 Ratings00 Ratings
Test significance8.592 Ratings00 Ratings
Visual / WYSIWYG editor8.081 Ratings00 Ratings
Advanced code editor7.574 Ratings00 Ratings
Page surveys6.917 Ratings00 Ratings
Visitor recordings8.418 Ratings00 Ratings
Preview mode8.090 Ratings00 Ratings
Test duration calculator6.962 Ratings00 Ratings
Experiment scheduler8.161 Ratings00 Ratings
Experiment workflow and approval6.542 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic experiment activation7.438 Ratings00 Ratings
Client-side tests9.256 Ratings00 Ratings
Server-side tests9.124 Ratings00 Ratings
Mutually exclusive tests8.542 Ratings00 Ratings
Audience Segmentation & Targeting
Comparison of Audience Segmentation & Targeting features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Web Experimentation
8.6
95 Ratings
3% below category average
Pendo.io
-
Ratings
Standard visitor segmentation8.993 Ratings00 Ratings
Behavioral visitor segmentation8.373 Ratings00 Ratings
Traffic allocation control9.489 Ratings00 Ratings
Website personalization7.962 Ratings00 Ratings
Results and Analysis
Comparison of Results and Analysis features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Web Experimentation
8.3
91 Ratings
3% below category average
Pendo.io
-
Ratings
Heatmap tool9.113 Ratings00 Ratings
Click analytics8.733 Ratings00 Ratings
Scroll maps8.117 Ratings00 Ratings
Form fill analysis8.332 Ratings00 Ratings
Conversion tracking8.744 Ratings00 Ratings
Goal tracking8.479 Ratings00 Ratings
Test reporting8.182 Ratings00 Ratings
Results segmentation8.049 Ratings00 Ratings
CSV export7.654 Ratings00 Ratings
Experiments results dashboard8.049 Ratings00 Ratings
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Optimizely Web ExperimentationPendo.io
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User Ratings
Optimizely Web ExperimentationPendo.io
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(186 ratings)
8.6
(91 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.5
(45 ratings)
9.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(57 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(16 ratings)
9.7
(4 ratings)
Online Training
3.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(11 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(98 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Optimizely Web ExperimentationPendo.io
Likelihood to Recommend
Optimizely
Optimizely Web Experimentation is appropriate if you have a big budget and your company is mature enough in experimentation to take all the advantage of a such an expensive price model. If you are just starting into AB testing, or not enough budget, I do not recommend Optimizely Web Experimentation, as it becomes quite frustrating to manage usage limits and technical set up to avoid extra charges.
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Pendo.io
Pendo is very well suited for startups and mid size product companies who are looking for -
  • Help in user experience building
  • Measuring the impact of a feature on the requirement phase itself
  • Advanced analytics to get a sense of how the product is working
  • Insights about necessary changes that are required to make the product better
Read full review
Pros
Optimizely
  • Considers every kind of experiment from simple code change, code additions, code removal, javascript functions, CSS changes, and split landing redirects.
  • Very friendly UC interface for easy navigation of implementation of pages, click events, experiment set up, and metric set up.
  • The ability to let me know when something has reach stat sig without having to do complicated math on my own
  • ability to carry UTM parameters through landing page redirects with a click of a button.
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Pendo.io
  • Track usage across our platform (new and existing features) - where each customer clicks, how long they stay at certain areas within the software, etc.
  • To promote new features.
  • To train customers on how to use new features.
  • To survey our customers within the software.
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Cons
Optimizely
  • Filtering capabilities in the reporting tab. To be able to filter based on a custom metric
  • Tracking scroll depth within the reporting tab
  • A more interactive graph within the reporting tab. Ability to manipulate there vs having to update the whole page
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Pendo.io
  • I find the reporting and analytics to be a little light. They could improve custom reporting capabilities.
  • Would like to see the capabilities of the Pendo tagging tool built into the platform. (don't launch a separate product). I find the tagging tool does a much better job at selecting the components to be tagged than the platform does.
  • Sometimes takes a while to refresh counts when adding a new tag.
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Likelihood to Renew
Optimizely
Because it's an incredible and essential tool for my line of work as a conversion optimization specialist. Really couldn't do my job nearly as effectively without it. It's paid for itself many times over and I feel like I'm only beginning to unlock the tools potential.
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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
Optimizely
Usability is mostly great. I like the WYSIWYG functionality and adding in real code is simple as well. It's easy to target specific pages or audiences. I've knocked a couple of points off because of how difficult it is to set up URL redirect experiments, confusion around creating pages, and lack of data that can be further analyzed.
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Pendo.io
Overall, Pendo provides a smooth interface, especially with the most recent update, and I couldn't imagine using or learning any other platform so product focused. From the moment I log into Pendo, I know where I'm going and what I'm looking for and I'm able to find that, through the interface, in as little time as possible. This helps keep me focused on doing other tasks at work so I'm not overburdened with hunting things down in the system
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Reliability and Availability
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.
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Pendo.io
No answers on this topic
Performance
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.
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Pendo.io
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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.
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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
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).
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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
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.
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Pendo.io
Use Segment to install and cut developers out of the work cycle!
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Alternatives Considered
Optimizely
Overall, the tools we compared against were great, but we went with Optimizely because it has all the features we needed and has the market leadership that gave us trust we would be successful in our experimentation efforts.
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Pendo.io
WalkMe is an industry leader, but they charge an arm and a leg. Working with them you get a lot of support and CSM time, but is it really worth that price tag? Pendo.io was an easy choice for that simple reason.
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Scalability
Optimizely
While granted, I am not the one making the changes to deploy the software; it seems basically as simple as placing the optimized snippet on your site. If you place it in the header, it should reach across your entire site easily. I do think the test setup can be a bit temperamental at times, and having too many cooks in the kitchen can lead to errors. So, I would caution how many people have the access needed to make actual changes.
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Pendo.io
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Optimizely
  • Customer retention: We've reduced subscription service client churn by 20%+ using optimized unsubscribe flows.
  • Risk mitigation: Testing into full site redesigns has saved clients millions of dollars.
  • Feature prioritization: Identifying what painted door changes add value has allowed developers to focus on changes that add hundreds of thousands or even millions to the bottom line.
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Pendo.io
  • We have had an ROI in reduced support contacts.
  • We have had increased NPS scores due to our ability to target messaging for the right reasons to the right audience members rather than blanket distribution of information.
  • Delayed deployment in certain environments (being worked through) has led to a delay in one business area, but it is not public facing yet so we aren't heavily impacted by that yet.
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ScreenShots

Optimizely Web Experimentation Screenshots

Screenshot of the visual editor, used to make changes to the appearance and layout of a website.Screenshot of the results dashboard that displays experiment results.Screenshot of the integrations page, where integrations can be enabled.Screenshot of Advanced Audience Targeting: Custom Real-Time Segments provide customers with the ability to create rapidly-updating segments which can be used as audiences for testing or personalization. These segments can be based on profile data, omni-channel behaviors, and AI-based observations.Screenshot of AI Content Suggestions: AI-powered suggestions in the Visual Editor accelerate ideation.Screenshot of Extensions for Edge: reusable elements minimize developer dependency when launching multiple tests with the same element.