VWO emerged as the dominant player in the A/B testing landscape in G2’s Spring 2023 Report.
Key advantages of each platform in delivering holistic customer experiences
To truly achieve experimentation-led growth, you need a platform with capabilities that help you meet all your business goals.
Capabilities | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Behavioral Insights | |||
Targeting and Personalization | |||
Project Management | |||
Customer Data Platform | |||
Robust Statistical Engine and Reporting |
You can explore all the above capabilities for free on VWO. Learn more about VWO's 30-day free trial.
Choosing the right A/B testing solution to level up your optimization program
Let's take a closer look at the important features and benefits offered by Google Optimize 360 and Optimizely to understand which one is better equipped to support your optimization goals.
Customer Data Platform | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Custom Events and Properties Configure any kind of user event and event properties |
- | Cannot define event properties | |
Advanced Metrics Create metrics based on events and their properties with complex aggregate functions such as first value, last value, average, sum, etc. |
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Campaign targeting | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Advanced Targeting Logic Use brackets to create logic of targeting with multiple conditions. For example - [Users in USA OR Users in India] AND [New Users OR iOS Device] |
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Behavioral targeting Target based on user behavior and actions taken by the user. For example - user clicks a button, time spent on page, page scroll etc. |
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Custom event targeting Target user groups based on custom events that occur on the website. |
Campaign Triggers | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Basic and Advanced Triggers Granular control over when visitors become part of a campaign or see a survey, widget, modal, etc. |
24x7 support | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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24x7 support The availability of our support team to respond and resolve your queries irrespective of the timezone. |
- | Only for priority support package | Enterprise plans |
SSO | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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SSO Enable single sign-on using any SAML 2.0 identity provider to authenticate members from your organization. |
Self Hosting | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Self Hosting Host library and campaign setting files on your servers, easing your dependency on the platform's servers. |
SPA | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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SPA Single-page apps support |
Re-usable Pages | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Re-usable Pages Classify your web pages into different categories to quickly create, manage and scale experiments specific to them. |
API | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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API Start and pause campaigns programmatically or pull test metrics into other dashboards. |
Cross Domain Testing | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Cross Domain Testing Run tests on multiple domains within user journey, where user tracking and goals can be on one or more domains. |
Limited & based on plan | Unlimited |
Campaign Reports | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Advanced Reporting Logic Use brackets to create logic of filtering reports with multiple conditions. For example - [Users in USA OR Users in India] AND [New users OR iOS Device] |
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Bayesian reporting Get accurate test reports powered by a Bayesian statistics engine |
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Heatmap of Variation See how the users of a variation behaved with the help of heatmaps |
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Dimension Level Reporting Make use of visitors' unique attributes to analyze test performance |
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Compare User Segments Simultaneously visualize and compare two or more user segments in reports for far more comprehensive insights and decision-making. |
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Download Detailed CSV Download detailed user reports in .csv format with complete segment data, goal completion and custom dimensions. |
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Intuitive reporting dashboard See the results of your experiments on our Bayesian-powered reporting dashboard. |
Data unavailable publicly |
Editor | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Elements Library Library of customizable pre-designed UI elements like list item, content block, buttons, etc. |
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Save elements to library Use the click-and-save feature to store UI elements, such as text blocks, buttons, banners, and pop-ups, in the library for future reuse. |
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Widget Triggers Control when a widget appears, how often it appears, or does not appear when dismissed. |
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AI-Based Text Recommendations Generate alternate text recommendations for the existing copy on your website. |
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Widgets library Create customizable banners, pop-ups, and other web page elements with images and forms, directly within the visual editor, without coding. |
Using code editor & extensions | ||
Test inside Shadow DOM Shadow DOM is a web API that can attach a hidden DOM to a DOM element. |
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Visual Editor Utilize the powerful WYSIWYG point-and-click visual editor to create and edit variations with ease, eliminating the dependency on IT. |
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Code editor Make advanced modifications to any aspect of your website using HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and jQuery. |
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Add / Edit elements Add new or edit UI elements to your webpage. |
Using code editor & extensions |
Web testing | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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3rd party Integrations Seamlessly integrate with third-party tools. |
- | 3rd party analytics, DMP, CRM, tag manager | 3rd party analytics, eCommerce platforms, CMS, tag manager |
A/B Testing Build and compare variations of your website to analytically determine the better performing version. |
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Multivariate Testing Simultaneously modify multiple variables to test a hypothesis and determine the best-performing combination of variations. |
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Split URL testing Compare various versions of your website hosted on multiple URLs by distributing website traffic among them to determine the highest-performing variation. |
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Multi page testing Easily apply the same experience to multiple pages with a single click, eliminating the need for manual duplication of changes across pages. |
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Mobile website testing Run tests on mobile responsive sites |
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Multiple domain support Run tests on multiple domains within user journey, where user tracking and goals can be on one or more domains. |
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No concurrent test limit Total number of tests you can run on your account concurrently. |
Limited (>100) |
Previews | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Cross browser screenshots Conduct a quality review of the variations by previewing them to verify that all modifications have been applied to the website before going live. |
Multi armed bandit testing | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Multi armed bandit testing Expose the better performing variation to more users long before the test reaches statistical significance thus reducing the opportunity cost. |
Mutually exclusive campaigns | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Mutually exclusive campaigns Ensure that a user doesn't participate in two or more running tests to eliminate result noise, bias, and test inter-play. |
Form Analytics | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Conversion Report Track user drop-offs at different stages of form submission, from landing to interaction to submission. |
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Dropped Field Report Percentage of users who dropped off on a field without submitting the form. |
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Interaction time Understand how long users spend on a specific field while actively interacting with it. |
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Hesitation time Understand how long users spend on a specific field without actively interacting with it. |
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Refilled Field Percentage of users who refilled a field on the form. |
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Ignored Field Percentage of users who did not interact with a form field and submitted the form. |
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Dropped Field Percentage of users who dropped off on a field without submitting the form. |
On-page surveys | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Survey Logic Make your surveys smarter by asking subsequent questions based on the responses given. |
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Question bank Choose from a repository of frequently asked questions to select an appropriate question. |
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Variation targeted surveys Trigger survey to users when they see a specific A/B test variation. |
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Custom triggers Write custom triggers using JavaScript to fire a survey based on an event or a specific user action. |
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NPS Run an NPS survey to gauge the likelihood of users recommending the website to others. |
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Recordings of respondents Watch recordings of user sessions in which they responded to a survey to understand why they gave specific responses. |
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Themes and customisation Add custom CSS to restyle and resize the surveys per your branding guidelines. |
Funnels | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Drop-off analysis Filter reports based on users who dropped off from a funnel. |
Heatmaps and Scrollmaps | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Browsable heatmaps View heatmaps of different pages, interactive elements(such as popups, modals, and menus), and pages behind logins as you navigate your website. |
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Heatmap of test variations View the heatmap of a particular A/B test variation. |
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Heatmap views Create a heatmap view and quickly access heatmap data for specific pages and user segments without repeating the heatmap configuration. |
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Clickmaps and area stats Track clicks on specific elements and compare them to total clicks on a page or area. |
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Element list Displays a list of both visible and hidden elements with their types and show clicks on each from highest to lowest. |
Visitor Recordings | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Recordings of variations Filter recordings based on users who were part of a test campaign or saw a particular test variation. |
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Page Filters Filter recordings based on parameters like entry page, exit page, visited page, etc. |
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Recording views Create a recording view and quickly access recordings for specific pages and user segments without repeating the recording configuration. |
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Save recordings The number of recordings you can store for later viewing. |
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Funnel Drop-off Filters Filter recordings based on users who dropped off from a funnel. |
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Download Download recordings for offline sharing and viewing. |
Server Side Testing | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Multiple Environments Supported Configure multiple environments under each project to run tests in simulated environments. Ensure your changes are of production-ready quality and roll out changes confidently |
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3rd party Integrations Seamlessly integrate with third-party tools. |
- | Web analytics, CRM, DMS, CMS, eCommerce | |
User Whitelisting Ensure certain users are always served a specific variation by whitelisting the users based on their userID |
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Scheduling Schedule tests at specific time/date or create recurring schedules to run tests |
Feature Test | Optimize 360 | Optimizely | |
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Feature Test Test multiple variable values for a feature to determine the most optimal value |
Comparing features and benefits: Choose the best platform for your business needs
Here are some non-negotiable factors that you must consider before choosing the best optimization platform for your business.
Website loading time
One of the major beliefs around A/B testing is that it tends to slow down your website and causes a flicker effect as the changes load on the page.
Optimize 360 has much lower latency (the time it takes for a page to load) as compared to Optimizely. It also offers an anti-flicker snippet that allows you to prevent flicker by temporarily hiding the page as relevant changes are applied.
While Optimizely has a higher load time than Optimize 360, it offers an ultra-fast Experiment Delivery Network called Performance Edge to boost user experience. This feature allows users to run multiple web experiments with a lower load time.
VWO offers an asynchronous SmartCode that ensures zero impact on your website load time. Moreover, SDK API decisions are executed in less than 50 ms which ensures that server-side experiments are superfast with absolutely no lag in your applications.
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Optimize 360
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Optimizely
Behavior analytics
To understand the evolving journey of a customer, you need to constantly monitor customer behavior and analytics. This helps in identifying frictions in your conversion funnel, while also allowing you to discover new opportunities for experimentation.
Although Optimize 360 offers seamless integration with products like Google Ads, it does not offer a Customer Data Platform (CDP).
On the other hand, while Optimizely does provide a Customer Data Platform, you still need to integrate your website with third-party tools to collect customer behavioral insights.
VWO offers a plethora of behavior insight tools like funnels, heatmaps, session recordings, form analytics, etc. These advanced features are designed to boost your testing program without additional integrations with third-party tools such as FullStory or Hotjar. You never have to switch contexts or worry about multiple code snippets with VWO.
Customer support
This is one of the most crucial aspects of choosing an optimization platform for your business. To make the most of your partnership, you should go for a platform that offers constant guidance and support whenever you need it.
While Optimize 360 offers email support, the platform does not offer live chat support.
Optimizely offers various support packages (Standard, Priority, and Priority Plus) with different features. However, 'live phone support' is only available when you upgrade to the Priority Support package.
VWO offers global consultancy, on-demand implementation service at full scale, and comprehensive training for onboarding and enablement. We stand out for offering 24x5 unlimited support to enterprise accounts without additional charges.
Privacy compliances
It is extremely important to respect and protect the privacy of your visitors. Check whether your experimentation platform complies with data privacy regulations and ensure they adhere to the required privacy and security guidelines.
Since Optimize 360 is a Google product, it adheres to the major privacy guidelines the same way Google does.
Optimizely also has an effective compliance program in place to ensure complete data protection. However, it is not HIPAA and ISO/IEC 27701 Compliant.
At VWO, we continuously update our security controls to attribute privacy well ahead of any regulations changes.
Pricing and plans
Small businesses prefer Google Optimize's free plan.
Optimizely's forte lies in tailoring pricing packages to meet specific business needs.
On the other hand,VWO's transparent pricing plans are well-suited for small, medium, and large enterprises as well. VWO also offers a 30-day free trial that gives you a chance to experience all the features provided by the optimization platform.
Our customers back our stack too!
A vast majority of our customers purchase a set of VWO products to achieve their goals. While our industry-leading G2 ratings and benchmark CSAT scores are evidence enough, here are some success stories in our customers' own words
One of the many reasons we switched to VWO is cost. In terms of cost and benefits, VWO outweighs the competition quite handily.
Trevor AndersonDirector, Marketing & Advertising, Disruptive Advertising
VWO fits right into Agoda’s experimental and data-focused culture. The A/B testing tools were easy to set up and execute and they helped us achieve a 100% conversion lift on our careers website. We also love the insights product, which is comprehensive and rich with features - this puts VWO head and shoulders above other competitors.
Teetat SrethbhakdiRecruitment Marketing and Analytics Lead, Agoda
Google Optimize Sunset
Google Optimize will be discontinued on September 30th, 2023. If you're a current Google Optimize user, there's good news. You can quickly migrate to VWO in just 30 seconds for uninterrupted and free testing for up to 50k monthly visitors. If your experimentation and personalization needs are more sophisticated, take VWO's all-inclusive trial for free with no commitment for 30 days.
Frequently Asked Questions
While both of these are popular A/B testing platforms, Google Optimize 360 is more user-friendly and is better suited for small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) that are just getting started with their testing journey.
Optimizely, however, offers more robust features and capabilities that are ideal for organizations having advanced testing goals.
Also, Google Optimize 360 shares native integration with Google Analytics, which makes it easier to discover and leverage useful insights. Optimizely, on the other hand, requires third-party integration with various tools and platforms to deliver key insights.
Moreover, Optimizely offers a Customer Data Platform (CDP), which is unavailable with Google Optimize 360. However, the key feature of tracking customer behavioral insights is not offered by either of these optimization platforms.
Both of these platforms are better suited for different business needs. If your business is just getting started with testing or if you are already using quite a few Google products, then Google Optimize 360 is the obvious choice.
If you are looking for advanced testing capabilities, Optimizely is the preferred option. However, since Optimizely is a standalone tool, you will have to rely on various third-party tools like Hotjar to track and analyze important behavior insights.
We recommend that you rely on just one tool for your experimentation needs.
This is because using more than one optimization platform can increase the complexity of your testing process and can easily lead to conflicting data and inaccurate reports.
Additionally, this can also increase the time it takes to implement and analyze experiments.
Yes, it is possible to migrate from Google Optimize 360 to Optimizely or vice versa, but the entire process can be complicated and time-consuming.
Migrating from one platform to another requires a lot of planning and effort as it could have a direct impact on your data, reports, and results.
If you are currently using Google Optimize or Optimize 360, you can migrate to VWO in just 30 seconds.
Before making the final decision between Google Optimize 360 and Optimizely, you should take a step back and understand your testing goals and long-term business objectives.
Also, you should have a closer look at whether these platforms are offering important features like CDP, personalization, program management, and visitor behavior analysis.
Based on this, you can make an informed decision about choosing the best optimization platform for your business.
This is why fast-growing brands across the globe opt for VWO, as the leading experimentation platform allows them to leverage all of the above features and capabilities at a reasonable price. Take a free trial now!