| Functionality | 4 <p>Google Analytics excels at website visitor tracking but struggles with product analytics. It offers solid traffic analysis and acquisition data but falls short on user behavior insights. Its real power comes from Google Ads integrations and benchmarking functionality.</p> | 8 <p>Userpilot offers an all-in-one solution that typically requires multiple separate tools to achieve the same capabilities. While competitors like Mixpanel specialize in event tracking and data analysis, and others like Hotjar focus on visual feedback tools (heatmaps, session replays), Userpilot combines these diverse functionalities in a single platform. This integration allows teams to handle multiple product analytics and user experience tasks without switching between different software solutions.</p><p>Note: As of March 18, 2025, heatmap functionality in Userpilot is temporarily unavailable (deprecated). According to Userpilot representatives, this feature is expected to return later this year.</p> |
| Ease of Use | 3 <p>GA4 is surprisingly difficult to use despite its popularity. Finding basic metrics often requires hunting through multiple screens. The learning curve is steep, and the recent redesign has only made things worse by disrupting established workflows.</p> | 8 <p>Day to day use of Userpilot is straightforward and efficient. With a straightforward and well labeled lefthand side panel controlling most navigation through different features, navigation remains easy and intuitive.</p><p>Each feature (ie user activity metrics) are immediately set up with a page and dashboard of what Userpilot deems to be the most typically important metrics for that feature. Clicking into each panel gives more granular controls, limited download options, and more.</p><p>Creating new dashboards and customising others are also relatively straightforward, often needing just several clicks to set up a New Users Activation dashboard in our testing. However, some features within a dashboard have been greyed out due to their restrictions to higher tiered subscriptions.</p><p>One great feature available to the higher tiered paid plans is the Visual Labeller, a Chrome Extension that allows users to label specific elements of their sites for event tracking without the need to engage the developer team though user reports have indicated slightly cumbersome usability.</p><p>Day-to-day setup of a functioning account also does not need developer involvement, with most employees able to navigate small changes like adding events etc.</p> |
| Look and feel | 2 <p>GA4's interface is cluttered and confusing. Navigation is a labyrinth of menus and submenus that hide basic information. Reports load quickly but finding the right one is a chore. The design prioritizes Google's needs over users', making common tasks unnecessarily difficult.</p> | 5 <p>Userpilot's interface is relatively straightforward and intuitive to use. One major comment however is that the design can look a bit dated compared to other similar solutions on the market. Whilst not tiring to look at, Userpilot's interface doesn't particularly impress visually either.</p><p>We particularly like the left side panel with clear labelling which opens up to show more options within that category. This allows users to efficiently move between various types of powerful analytics tools often within 2 menu clicks. Load times have been said to be average for such a powerful analytics product.</p><p>Different features like heatmaps, flow analysis, cohort analysis, and more each have slightly varying UIs, however we also liked the relative consistency Userpilot has across different features.</p> |
| Customisability | 6 <p>Google Analytics offers decent customization through custom dimensions and metrics, but implementing these requires technical knowledge. Custom reports are possible but clunky to configure.</p> | 5 <p>Userpilot may be slightly more difficult to customise compared to other analytics tools in the category. The trade-off to the ease of onboarding and getting started is the lack of more granular control over dashboards and also the widgets and tiles within the dashboards at the lowest tier.</p><p>They do offer custom dashboards with up to 25 custom dashboards available at the higher paid tiers, with several templates available as well as the option to create one from scratch.</p><p>In testing, we found that tables had a certain level of customisability i.e. rearranging, adding and dropping, and excluding from exports. However, the interface which houses the table and the larger report dashboard was set with no ability to change further.</p><p>We also found that within certain dashboards, the tiles of metrics exclusive to higher paid tiers remained on-screen but greyed out, seemingly aimed at upselling to a higher tier with no option to remove these from dashboard view.</p> |
| Ease of Setup | 7 <p>Drop in a tracking code and you're done. Setting up Google Analytics takes minutes, making it very simple to start with like most web analytics products. However, to make full use of the product there is a fair amount of customization that you can action after initial installation.</p> | 7 <p>Userpilot has a relatively straightforward setup process to get from 0 to 1, with our testing showing just a simple javascript snippet from our website sufficient to start logging event data within the platform within an hour of sign up. We also liked seeing Userpilot's less intrusive setup and onboarding suggestions, allowing users to jump straight into the dashboard without needing to interact with too many tutorials.</p><p>The onboarding guides remained suggested even throughout setup of our first tracking events without creating visual clutter, giving confidence of being able to resume learning the software quickly.</p> |
| Customer Support | 3 <p>Support is practically non-existent for free users. Google offers documentation but it's often outdated or unclear. Users mostly rely on community forums for help, creating a significant gap compared to privacy-focused alternatives that provide stronger documentation.</p> | 8 <p>Userpilot has made it easy to access help, with a clearly labelled help section in the main panel that instantly pops up a whole suite of useful resources within the same window.</p><p>On top of their clearly labelled self-help resources, it was also very simple to get in touch with a live chat with a support member. In testing, we were in touch with somebody and keeping a live conversation within 30 seconds of raising an issue- and were given explanations, workthroughs, and resource links for the issue raised. They also handled additional questions within the same chat with ease.</p><p>Upon inquiry, their live chat line isn't 24/7, with live support active only from 0800-2400<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(17, 17, 17);"> (GMT+3). </span></p> |
| Integratability | 8 <p>Google Analytics integrates seamlessly with Google's ecosystem (especially Google Ads) and offers connections to major marketing platforms. Its status as the industry standard means most tools support it, though privacy-focused competitors are quickly catching up.</p> | 7 <p>Great integrations are available for both import and export when paying for higher tiers, though its integration coverage is more than respectable even at its lowest tier.</p><p>Userpilot has a marketplace of native integration apps spanning a healthy amount of the most ubiquitous and industry standard products including Segment, MixPanel, Heap, and Amplitude, as well as access at the higher paid tiers to HubSpot and Salesforce.</p><p>Userpilot also has straightforward documentation for usage of its javascript SDK, as well as access to its bulk data export API at the higher paid tiers.</p> |
| Ease of Migration | 5 <p>Data export options are adequate but outdated. Reports can be exported to spreadsheets or accessed via API, but the process feels clunky compared to modern alternatives.</p> | 8 <p>When paying for one of the higher tiers, Userpilot has a great suite of export options that should be more than sufficient for most use cases.</p><p>All plan tiers come with export data via CSV, with some controls such as excluding specific traffic available.</p><p>Several of the native integrations within Userpilot's integrations marketplace also allow for export of data direct to other analytics tools, including Heap, Segment, Hubspot, and more.</p><p>A bulk data export API is available at the enterprise plan level or as a paid add-on to the growth plan level.</p> |
