SiteSpect A/B testing platform - compared to Optimizely and Visual Website Optimizer
Updated March 01, 2016

SiteSpect A/B testing platform - compared to Optimizely and Visual Website Optimizer

Jonathan Hodak | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with SiteSpect

Sitespect is an interesting platform. It is based and utilized for A/B testing purposes mainly. One of the major reasons to choose a tool like SiteSpect is the fact that it is not only client-side or front-facing and has the ability to alter the code being rendered on the front-end before it actually gets to the front-end meaning that you do not get the frustrating flicker or flash from code being changed by JavaScript after render. However it does also have some other unusual perks, it can be used to rapidly implement a hotfix across an entire website.

Pros

  • It is able to intercept the code from your server, inject your code and then it continues on to the end-user's computer with virtually no speed interruptions.
  • It has several different options for performing A/B tests from regular factors to client-side factors, and origin experiments.
  • It is extremely flexible and configurable for the needs of your company or organization.

Cons

  • SiteSpect has a number of areas that are a bit difficult for users to understand, the main one being traffic allocation. Without getting into a long example the basic fact is that if you have 10 experiments running, it is very possible to have a very difficult time understanding how much traffic is going to each test, which is obviously not ideal for A/B testing. This problem is being addressed and hopefully will be fixed before 2017.
  • SiteSpect is very powerful, and it does have a GUI interface to help you make simple changes to your website, however to really use it to its potential, you will need developers who are comfortable with advanced CSS and JavaScript to use it.
  • The workflow of setting up experiments in Sitespect is also a little counter-intuitive. This is being addressed and fixed, but as it sits currently it does take some getting used to.
  • SiteSpect has had a huge impact on this business, being in the online retail market A/B testing can have enormous impacts especially when you are using it on a website that has millions of visitors a day.
  • SiteSpect has also allowed us to rapidly implement hotfixes on several occasions where we had a known problem and fixing the problem on the production environment would take time, this gave us a kind of quick fix until we could implement the permanent solution.
Most of these other tools do not really have a direct comparison. Optimizely and Visual Website Optimizer (VWO) are both A/B testing tools that are similar in nature to SiteSpect. Both Optimizely and VWO are good tools and have their place, but they are not as flexible or as configurable as SiteSpect is. They are considerably easier to learn so it really comes down to what is the end goal, do you want a product that is relatively easy to use and can do a lot of things, or do you want a toold that is much more difficult to use but gives you complete flexibility to design your tests and implement them any way that you want? For this reason I would recommend Sitespect for people at large companies who have a team devoted to testing, and for most small/mid size companies who will not have testing be a dedicated part of their progress then maybe use something more like Optimizely or VWO instead.
SiteSpect is kind of the difference between the space shuttle and a bicycle. They will both get you places. However Sitespect is considerably more complex and more configurable than most other options that I have seen and used (Optimizely, Visual Website Optimizer, etc.). But those other solutions also have a much lower learning curve and [users] are able to do a lot of things with relatively no coding experience or skill, where SiteSpect really does need capable developers to be utilized well.

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