Heap vs. FullStory: Product Overview And Alternatives

Heap and FullStory are renowned players in the digital analytics space, each offering unique capabilities to their users. By capturing and analyzing user interactions, these platforms enable businesses to optimize user experience, ensure product efficacy, and derive key insights for strategic decision-making. 

If you're trying to choose between these two popular platforms, it can be hard to know which is the right option, especially since they offer a lot of the same features. In this article, we will take a look at Heap and FullStory in detail, compare the features of each platform, as well as provide alternatives to both. 

What is Heap?

Heap is a software that allows you to automatically collect, organize, and analyze your website or app's data without having to write any code. With Heap, you can easily track user behavior, conversions, and other key metrics that can help you make informed decisions about how to optimize your website or software so that you can improve the retention and conversion rate of your customers.

By providing a streamlined interface and a range of customizable features, Heap is an essential tool for businesses of all sizes, from startups to corporations, that want to gain deeper insights into their online presence. 

What is FullStory?

FullStory is a unique digital experience analytics platform that is designed to help businesses better understand their customers. With FullStory, businesses can gain insights into customer behavior and preferences, identify trends and common pain points, and ultimately make data-driven decisions that improve the user experience.

From tracking user sessions and behavior to visualizing funnels and segments, FullStory provides a comprehensive view of the customer journey. Thanks to its user-friendly interface and powerful analytics capabilities, FullStory has quickly become a popular solution for businesses of all sizes looking to enhance their digital offerings and drive growth.

FullStory vs. Heap: Which is the better session replay tool? 

Now that we've talked a bit about both Heap and Fullstory let's look at how they compare regarding features, pricing, target market, and user experience. 

Features 

Both Heap and Fullstory offer powerful analytics capabilities. Let's dive into both of their features to see which platform is the better tool for tracking user behavior and optimizing digital performance. 

FullStory features

• Insightful session replays: FullStory offers high-quality session replays that allow you to see exactly what users are doing on your website. This feature gives you a front-row seat to user interactions, helping you understand their behavior and preferences.
• Advanced product analytics: With FullStory, you gain access to in-depth product analytics. This feature provides granular data about how users interact with your product, allowing you to optimize features, troubleshoot issues, and enhance user experience.
• Comprehensive data capture: FullStory's comprehensive data capture feature collects extensive information about user interactions on your site. The collected data is organized and easy to analyze, providing a comprehensive overview of user activity.
• Effortless integration: FullStory supports seamless integration with other popular tools and platforms. This makes it easy to incorporate FullStory into your existing tech stack, streamlining the process of analyzing and utilizing user data.

Heap features

• Session replay: With Heap's session replay feature, you can dive deep into individual user sessions and gain complete insight into their interactions with your website or application. It allows you to replay user sessions, providing a detailed view of how users navigate, interact, and engage with your product. 
• Heatmaps: Heap's Heatmaps feature offers a visual representation of user activity on your website or application. By analyzing user clicks, scrolls, and interactions, heatmaps highlight popular areas and areas of concern, allowing you to understand the most engaging and interactive parts of your digital interface or parts that need work.
• Illuminate: Illuminate is a data science feature provided by Heap that goes beyond traditional analytics. It uses advanced algorithms to automatically identify and pinpoint unknown sources of friction within your product. By analyzing user behavior patterns, Illuminate helps uncover potential issues that may be impacting user experience, conversion rates, and overall business performance.
• Journeys: Heap's Journeys feature enables you to visualize and map out user flows across your website or application. By tracking and analyzing the paths users take, Journeys provides a comprehensive understanding of how users navigate through your product. This helps you identify drop-off points, detect bottlenecks, and optimize user journeys to increase engagement and conversion rates. 

Pricing 

Heap provides a completely free package that comes with core analytics charts, guide integrations, a data history of six months, and a capacity for up to 10,000 sessions per month. For those seeking enhanced capabilities, the Growth plan is recommended. This plan encompasses all the benefits of the free package, plus e-mail support, 12 months of data history, and unlimited reports and users. However, no prices are shown online, so you must contact a sales associate for an accurate quote. 

Fullstory does not disclose its pricing publicly either. It appears that you will need to contact them directly in order to learn more about the different packages available and receive a tailored quote for your business. 

Target market and use cases

Both FullStory and Heap offer session replay features and comprehensive analytics tools that are designed to help businesses better understand their customers. However, there are a few key differences in the scope of their target markets and use cases. 

Heap is geared towards small to large businesses, with its suite of features best suited for larger enterprises looking for an advanced analytics solution. It can be used to analyze your customer journey, gain insights into user behavior and preferences, identify potential user pain points, and uncover hidden sources of friction. 

Meanwhile, FullStory is designed for larger businesses that need comprehensive analytics capabilities, as well as small to mid-sized businesses looking for an easy-to-use platform. It's an ideal solution for businesses wanting to gain insights into user behavior and make data-driven decisions that improve customer experience. However, FullStory is reportedly expensive and may not fit smaller budgets.

User reviews

FullStory pros

FullStory has a 4.5-star rating on G2. Users love its "ability to capture and replay user sessions, allowing teams to see how users interact with their website and identify areas for improvement with remarkable precision." and that the user sessions "let you see what users experienced on your site, uncover usability issues, and gain valuable context for user feedback."

FullStory cons

Some users have noted that "FullStory captures extensive user data, including session replays, which can lead to information overload. It requires careful filtering and analysis to extract meaningful insights and avoid getting overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data. Additionally, "the learning curve for advanced features [is steep]. While FullStory offers powerful features, fully utilizing its advanced capabilities may require a deeper understanding of the software."

Heap pros

Heap has a 4.3-star rating on G2. Users love that "it is mostly "drag and drop," and no coding knowledge is required to use the platform." and that it's "best in class in combining auto-captured events + custom API events." Additionally, "building reports is so easy and intuitive. I can build reports in less than a minute if I know where to look."

Heap cons

However, some users have noted that "the trainings were a little longer than I had hoped for. It would be best to have short 20-30 minute onboarding videos tailored to new users' use cases." and that "Heap caches so much – sometimes the tool can get really slow due to this."

Alternative to FullStory and Heap: Fullview

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An exceptional alternative to both Heap and FullStory? Fullview.

Here's why: 

• Data security: Fullview, headquartered in the EU, empowers users with the option to store data on either EU or US servers, ensuring complete adherence to GDPR regulations. This feature sets it apart from many other session replay and digital analytics tools available.
• Best-in-class session replay: Among Fullview's remarkable attributes is its proficiency in session replay capabilities. The tool automatically records user sessions within your application, capturing intricate details like mouse movements, DOM events, frustration cues such as rage clicks, and other user behaviors. These session replays prove invaluable for diagnosing and comprehending user and product issues through visual evidence of missteps and bugs.
• Cobrowsing capabilities: Distinguishing itself from other session replay tools, Fullview gives users the ability to initiate cobrowsing calls directly from within their app. This seamless feature facilitates customer support teams in swiftly taking control of a customer's screen to expedite issue resolution.
• Comprehensive console logs: Fullview enriches its offerings by providing comprehensive console logs, user insights, and device information during session replays and cobrowsing calls. This data eliminates guesswork by directly revealing errors and issues encountered by users, enhancing the troubleshooting process.
• Data blurring enhancement: Fullview introduces data blurring as an additional feature, granting users the authority to selectively capture and blur information during cobrowsing calls and session replay recordings. This emphasis on user privacy and data protection is a distinctive attribute not found in every session replay tool.
• Cost-effectiveness: Notably, Fullview boasts high cost-effectiveness. It extends a free plan that includes up to four cobrowsing sessions per month for each agent and allows 1000 session recordings monthly. Paid plans, commencing at $39 per seat, offer unlimited cobrowsing, integrations, and starting at 10,000 session recordings per month.
• Seamless integrations: Fullview further solidifies its appeal through integrations with popular helpdesk and CRM software such as Intercom, Zendesk, and Salesforce. This integration streamlines access to session recordings and initiation of cobrowsing calls straight from the software companies already use for support, enhancing its standing as a superior alternative to both FullStory and Mouseflow.

Wrapping it up

Ultimately, the decision of which analytics platform to use depends on your specific business requirements and budget. Heap and FullStory both offer comprehensive tools for understanding user behavior and customer engagement. However, if you're looking for a privacy-conscious solution that won't break the bank, Fullview is just the ticket. With its free plan and GDPR compliance, Fullview is the perfect choice for businesses looking to get the most bang for their buck. 

No matter which solution you choose, understanding how customers interact with your product is essential for creating a great user experience and driving customer loyalty. With the right analytics platform in place, you'll be able to make informed decisions, optimize user journeys, and increase conversion rates.