Optimizely vs. VWO Comparison

If you’re deciding between web testing and conversion optimization solutions, Optimizely and VWO are your top contenders. These platforms have a lot in common but differ in some functions. Optimizely and VWO are top picks, each with unique features.

Plerdy also offers a free A/B testing tool for any website to supplement your optimization tools.

What is Optimizely?

Based in the US, Optimizely excels in offering diverse solutions like A/B and multivariate testing, website customization, content management, and digital commerce. Dan Siroker and Pete Koomen founded it in 2010, getting 1.2 million in funding from investors. Reflecting its industry leadership, Optimizely has been acknowledged for its ability to execute and completeness of vision in the digital experience sector.

Optimizely, recognized as a leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Content Marketing Platforms, is a US-based digital experience platform (DXP) provider, offering comprehensive solutions in content, commerce, and optimization. Optimizely empowers teams globally, orchestrating the entire content lifecycle, monetizing digital experiences, and experimenting across customer touchpoints through its AI-accelerated, highly composable Optimizely One™ platform. This way, they predict how implementing changes will affect the site performance.

Optimizely’s global impact is evident, serving over 10,000 businesses worldwide, including renowned brands like H&M, PayPal, Zoom, and Toyota.

What is VWO?

Founded in 2009 by Paras Chopra and Sparsh Gupta, the Indian-origin company VWO has been pioneering in user experience optimization even before Optimizely. Having started as a marketing optimization suite with 1,000 visitors, it has grown to a company with 2500+ customers in 90+ countries globally. VWO has seen substantial growth since its inception, reaching a milestone of optimizing over 65 billion experiences as of November 2023, a testament to its global impact and effectiveness in the field.

VWO offers a comprehensive suite of products including VWO Testing, VWO Insights, VWO Data360, VWO Personalize, and more, catering to a wide range of customer experience optimization needs. Emphasize VWO’s strengths in user experience optimization, particularly its capabilities in testing, tracking, and personalization, which are essential for digital marketing success. With this tool, you can run detailed research of your website.

Optimizely vs. VWO Compared

This section describes the main characteristics of the compared tools to make choosing the best option simpler.

Features of Optimizely vs. VWO

VWO leads with extensive user tracking features, while Optimizely specializes in innovative website testing methodologies. Let’s talk about the characteristics of these tools in more detail below. Let’s delve deeper into how these features translate into real-world applications for your business.

Optimizely

As mentioned, Optimizely has five subproducts designed to make customer digital journeys smoother:

Marketing Planning is a project management software that can help you create a roadmap of upcoming promotions. It has a calendar, workflow management, and performance analysis to demonstrate marketing results.
Content Management allows you to manage all your content in one place for seamless digital experiences. You can set roles, permissions, and publishing approval workflows to organize posting across channels. It also has the Authoring & layout feature with a drag-and-drop content builder.
Web A/B Testing lets you safely run multiple experiments without sacrificing performance.
Feature Management is a product that can enable, disable, roll out, or hide product features. You can also choose who has access to the feature.
Commerce is a tool for B2B and B2C businesses that can customize almost every detail on your website for a flawless customer experience.

VWO

The VWO platform unites even more versatile tools than Optimizely. You can pick any of the following products:

Web Experimentation is suitable for website testing and editing. You can use a point-and-click visual editor or change code directly in the distraction-free “code only” mode.
Mobile App Experimentation allows quickly testing new ideas to enhance app design. You can track all KPIs to evaluate the implemented changes instantly.
Server-size Experimentation supports omnichannel experiments to test solutions across platforms.
VWO Insights provides funnel, session recording, and heatmaps to let you step into your visitors’ shoes. You can learn why people bounce and how to make them convert.
VWO Personalize is good for building tailored visitor journeys based on real-time user data.
VWO Deploy allows you to release a new website with limited technical knowledge and skills. You have a visual editor and widgets to design pages and can push changes to production without involving developers.
VWO Data 360 provides a unified view of your customers based on real-time behavior and demographic data gathered across channels.
VWO Plan allows you to create a centralized repository of all insights from Google Docs, Excel sheets, analytics tools, whiteboards, project management boards, and other sources to prioritize the testing program.

Pricing of Optimizely vs. VWO

Both VWO and Optimizely maintain confidentiality regarding their product pricing, choosing not to disclose it publicly on their websites. Instead, you must provide your contact details and request pricing for a particular tool. It’s pretty inconvenient but makes these two tools even more similar.

Based on the online public information, we may assume that both VWO and Optimizely cost thousands of dollars annually. It’s enterprise-level software that brings considerable benefits but requires high investments. Understanding the investment for these tools is crucial for making an informed decision that suits your budget and business needs.

Benefits of Optimizely vs. VWO

Each platform is equipped with sophisticated features like campaign targeting, report segmentation, API and single-page app support, advanced user permissions, and an intuitive editor. So how to choose one of them? The review of benefits can help.

Benefits of Optimizely

With Optimizely ultrafast Experiment Delivery Network, you can run hundreds of web experiments with a 50-millisecond median load time.
Experiment status is live, so if you have sufficient traffic, you may reach statistical significance in hours.
A broad network of powerful integrations.
Machine learning optimization for nurturing audiences with personalized experiences.
More suitable to run experiments at scale than VWO.

Optimizely’s approach to experimentation is designed to cater to the dynamic needs of modern digital enterprises.

Benefits of VWO

Extensive functionality for monitoring website visitor behavior at scale or tracking every click.
Idea gallery should help you develop testing ideas for your web resource.
Opportunity to add on-page surveys and ask users’ opinions about their website experience directly.
24×7 email, phone, and chat support.

VWO’s focus on in-depth visitor behavior analysis provides unique insights, enhancing your website’s user experience.

Customer Reviews Optimizely vs. VWO

Now that you know much about Optimizely vs. VWO, it’s time to find out what other professionals think. Check out several reviews:

“Generally, we enjoy using VWO more than other testing platforms (Katie R).”

“Optimizely is the most advanced A/B testing tool I’ve ever seen. It’s solid, has a large knowledge base, and is surprisingly easy to configure (Antoaneta Y.).”

“The main drawback is that Optimizely ran a test that was more complex than the visual editor would allow us to handle. As a result, we needed development resources we didn’t have (Alex B.).”

“With VWO, you can run a variety of tests. Heatmaps showing clicks and scrolls are my favorite features. My team can see which pages have the highest activity and where guests drop off (Alex V.).”

These insights from existing users offer a glimpse into the real-world impact of each platform.

Conclusion Optimizely vs VWO Testing Comparison

Considering all these aspects, let’s summarize to help you make the best choice between Optimizely and VWO. Your final choice depends on your specific needs: a comprehensive CRO platform or a tool focused on advanced testing capabilities. In any case, you should try Plerdy as it has interesting features for UX analysis, user engagement and conversion rate improvement.