Optimizely vs VWO | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 8.1 out of 10

Based on 393 reviews and ratings

Score 7.4 out of 10

Based on 174 reviews and ratings

Feature Rating Comparison

Optimizely

VWO

a/b experiment testing

Split URL testing

Multivariate testing

Multi-page/funnel testing

Cross-browser testing

Mobile app testing

Test significance

Visual / WYSIWYG editor

Advanced code editor

Page surveys

Visitor recordings

Preview mode

Test duration calculator

Experiment scheduler

Experiment workflow and approval

Dynamic experiment activation

Client-side tests

Server-side tests

Mutually exclusive tests

Optimizely

VWO

Standard visitor segmentation

Behavioral visitor segmentation

Traffic allocation control

Website personalization

Optimizely

VWO

Heatmap tool

Click analytics

Scroll maps

Form fill analysis

Conversion tracking

Goal tracking

Test reporting

Results segmentation

CSV export

Experiments results dashboard

Pros

Optimizely makes it extremely easy to setup almost any type of split or multi-variate testing experiment. It has a variety of test triggers types & many ways to segment incoming visitors.
I believe Optimizely's results dashboard is one of the best among split testing software. It allowed my team to get insights into the running of tests, like time to significance and a view of metric changes over time.
Optimizely is very easy to use for non-engineers. It has a powerful visual interface that allows marketers and advertisers to setup complex variations without 1 line of code.
In terms of documentation and implementation, I believe Optimizely is ahead of its competitors in terms of its focus on reliability and speed.

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Founder

Alec Dibble ConsultingInformation Technology and Services, 1-10 employees

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VWO has a strong support team willing to help provide answers to questions during the setup process. During setup, we had some questions regarding implementation across a significant number of sites and they were able to ease dev team concerns and provide detailed best practices to streamline integration.
Some of the initial results of a few of the initial tests raised some questions internally. We setup a call and were able to quickly address the questions and find some opportunities to leverage moving forward.
I discovered a bug within the UI that lead to some questions internally. I was able to report it and the problem was fixed rather quickly and their team followed up with a thank you for reporting it and to report the issue was now resolved.

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Real Estate, 51-200 employees

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Cons

Actual creation of an A/B test is confusing and difficult (like the differences between Pages vs URLs etc.).
Setting up a URL Redirect Experiment is so convoluted it seems like it's not even a feature Optimizely wants you to use. Instead, it's like I'm tricking Optimizely into alternating between 2 URLs. That really needs to be cleaned up as it would be very helpful.

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Verified User

Analyst in Product Management

Internet Company, 51-200 employees

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The user interface within VWO does take a bit of time to get used to, especially as it pertains to switching back and forth between tests. When running multiple experiments on a site at a time, a clear and succinct dashboard for everything in one place would be helpful (as opposed to needing to switch between A/B, multivariate, etc).

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Account Supervisor

Digital CurrentMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Optimizely 9.0

Based on 42 answers

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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Jeremy Bradford

Conversion Optimization Specialist

HomeAdvisorInternet, 1001-5000 employees

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VWO 8.7

Based on 20 answers

It's great value and we think we've ironed out all the major teething troubles. However, if we experience any more bugs or problems that significantly slow us down then we're seriously considering switching to Optimizely, which I haven't personally tested but have heard great things about from my CRO peers

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Head of User Experience

streetlife.comInternet, 11-50 employees

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Usability

Optimizely 7.2

Based on 56 answers

Without a doubt, after 8 years using various different testing tools, Optimizely is by far the easiest to use. Feedback from developers and more technical teams has always been positive, mostly due to the code editor allowing for easy implementation along with the creation of advanced audience segments using advanced javascript. For business users and non-technical people, the wysiwig editor allows for smaller changes to be made quickly whilst somewhat educating the user on the types of code changes that are being made.

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CRO Manager

Ted BakerApparel & Fashion, 1001-5000 employees

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VWO 8.2

Based on 2 answers

I gave Visual Website Optimizer a rating of 8 because it is overall a great product to use. Setting up and keeping track of various tests is easy and straight forward. The only reason why this product is not rated higher is because the support documents online leave a lot of room for improvement.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

5001-10,000 employees

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Reliability and Availability

Optimizely 9.0

Based on 10 answers

Web interface is nearly always available. Javascript snippet (which actually runs the test) is distributed on a CDN for near-constant availability.

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Albert Wavering

Analytics Architect

Blue State DigitalMarketing and Advertising, 51-200 employees

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VWO 9.1

Based on 3 answers

I have not experienced an application error or unplanned outage with VWO.

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Verified User

Strategist in Marketing

Facilities Services Company, 51-200 employees

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Performance

Optimizely 6.0

Based on 10 answers

We have had some issues with screen flicker when loading experiment content. We had to dial back some of the creative changes to load smaller files.

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Manager - Analytics and Optimization

Rosetta1001-5000 employees

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VWO 8.2

Based on 1 answer

VWO doesn't appear to slow down our website at all, though some customers with adblockers like UBlock Origin have been known to not see entire pages if VWO is making changes to the page at a macro level (background, font, etc). This is rare though.

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Verified User

Strategist in Marketing

Facilities Services Company, 51-200 employees

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Support Rating

Optimizely 9.1

Based on 28 answers

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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Web Content Specialist / Technical Lead

In The Swim Discount Pool Supplies & EquipmentChemicals, 201-500 employees

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VWO 9.1

Based on 4 answers

While their online document support is lacking a simple email to their support team will almost always get responded to the next day. It has however taken more than one email to explain the problem to the support team till they understood the problem. The solution I was given also only half fixed the problem the rest I figured out on my own.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

5001-10,000 employees

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Online Training

Optimizely 3.0

Based on 1 answer

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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Verified User

Analyst in Other

10,001+ employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

VWO 6.4

Based on 1 answer

Training was good, just limited to the onboarding process. They walked through all of the steps it takes to get started in VWO and each of the modules, along with giving us ideas for starting our first test. I feel like it could be better if there was a guided process within the VWO program to continue to educate you along the way, and a way to turn that off for experienced users.

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Verified User

Strategist in Marketing

Facilities Services Company, 51-200 employees

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Implementation Rating

Optimizely 8.0

Based on 22 answers

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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Verified User

Director in Information Technology

Entertainment Company, 51-200 employees

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VWO 9.1

Based on 3 answers

Overall, the implementation of VWO is straightforward. If you've got a straightforward way of deploying code to all of your test pages, either a good CMS or a TMS, then implementation should be a breeze. There is no tweaking to be done to the code itself, and once deployed it has the flexibility to cope with different VWO modules (tracking, conversion analysis, session analysis) without modification.

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Verified User

Professional in Marketing

Events Services Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Alternatives Considered

I think that Optimizely is more user-friendly than Adobe and Monetate, for example - Adobe is really suited for people with deep pockets and a distinct technical acumen that may not be suitable for a small business. Montetate is not user-friendly - even for seasoned marketers. Apptemize is a pretty great product but they killed their free product. Like Optimzely, they seem to be shooting for enterprise-level clients.

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Chief Creative Officer + Founder

Bad AgencyMarketing and Advertising, 1-10 employees

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I used Google Optimize when it had just launched. It was therefore not yet a competitor to VWO. I haven't used it in roughly half a year time, so a lot has probably changed.I still use Hotjar for certain features that VWO offers, but which I think function better in Hotjar. I for instance prefer the Hotjar heatmaps, because I can elect to ignore certain elements on the webpage, such as a cookie consent pop up. A simple difference which makes me like Hotjar recordings more is that I can view a recording and click next, rather than going back to the overview and selecting the next recording.

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Michel Zurkirchen

Content manager

Fontem Ventures B.V.Tobacco, 201-500 employees

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Scalability

Optimizely 7.0

Based on 49 answers

Thus far, Optimizely's overall scalability has been great. Our organization has a white label business that continues to grow and we've had to build up our MarTech stack accordingly, which comes with scalability challenges - especially with the budget. This is something we need to monitor as we continue to grow.

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Verified User

Manager in Marketing

Internet Company, 51-200 employees

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VWO 8.2

Based on 1 answer

The product seems infinitely scalable for our needs (small business) and we've never had any issue with loading VWO-edited elements. I will say, though, that online customers with ad blockers have been known to not see certain VWO elements as their third-party scripts are disabled.

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Verified User

Strategist in Marketing

Facilities Services Company, 51-200 employees

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Return on Investment

Optimizely has had a tremendous positive impact on the ROI of our clients. Whether you're just starting your testing program and just want to get your feet wet with a few simple WYSIWYG tests, or you're ready to dive in to complex MVT test designs and Personalization Campaigns, Optimizely has everything you need to create, and maintain, a highly successful testing center.

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Verified User

Analyst in Other

Internet Company, 51-200 employees

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The ability to offer a CRO service is greatly enhanced by VWO, as it allows us to run tests for clients
The editor means to some extent we don't need much developer resource to run the tests, lowering costs of doing so

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Verified User

Analyst in Other

Marketing and Advertising Company, 51-200 employees

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Screenshots

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See Both VWO Screenshots

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Optimizely Editions & Modules

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Additional Pricing Details

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General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

No

VWO Editions & Modules

Edition

TESTING	Get a Demo¹
CONVERSION OPTIMIZATION	Get a Demo²
ENTERPRISE	Get a Demo³
Subscription	$99.00⁴

The classic VWO A/B testing solution
The all-in-one platform for all your optimization needs
Customized solution with advanced AB testing and conversion optimization capabilities
Per Month

Additional Pricing Details

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Rating Summary

Optimizely

VWO

Optimizely

VWO

Optimizely

VWO

Optimizely

VWO

Optimizely

VWO

Optimizely

VWO

Optimizely

VWO

Optimizely

VWO

Optimizely

VWO

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