If you are in search of a tool that will help you onboard and train employees, as well as cut software support costs, you've probably looked at the WalkMe Digital Adoption Platform. But if you want to find a more affordable tool with easier setup for your business, we're here to help you!
Since we have experience in employee training and onboarding, we know the real pains of companies that are searching for the most suitable tool to make their training process more interactive and efficient.
By the end of this article, you will be able to choose the tool for software adoption and user support that suits all of your business needs.
Before we start the review, let’s take a look at the pioneers of Digital Adoption Platforms — Walkme.
Walkme at a Glance
WalkMe is a cloud-based platform that helps product managers and customer success managers to manage in-app experiences and create product tours.
They are one of the pioneers in Digital Adoption, trusted by large companies like Cisco, Microsoft, PayPal, and many others.
WalkMe is a great company and we respect them a lot.
From what we’ve seen, however, their platform is quite complex and requires patience to fully implement. Installing WalkMe onto your systems needs you to have a lot of technical knowledge and effort just to get started.
WalkMe’s biggest strengths
- Powerful analytics. WalkMe dashboard allows you to analyze employee onboarding and software usage data, and gain a lot of insight.
- Great features for product tours, in-application walkthroughs, and tooltips.
- Enterprise-scale platform. Based solely on functionality, WalkMe is one of the best choices for large companies. But because of price, complexity, and technical requirements, it’s not a great fit for small and medium businesses or even large enterprises that need an agile solution for software training.
HintEd is one of the top WalkMe alternatives for creating interactive on-screen guides to help employees master their software instantly.
HintEd enables companies to create a personalized, trigger-based, context-aware onboarding and training experience for enterprise users. It helps improve software adoption and reduces costs for software training and support.
HintEd key features
Product Tours
- Feature Highlights
- Hints and popups
- Simulations
- Checklists
- Tooltips
- Analytics
- Trigger automation
- No-code
- Self-support Centers
- Affordable Pricing
- Can be installed fully on-premises
- Works without integration
- Walkthroughs for desktop applications
HintEd self-support widget and interactive on-screen guides work perfectly even in third-party software.
HintEd is more simple and faster to implement. Everything you need to do is install our browser extension and put one snippet of JavaScript code inside your application. It can even work without integrating the JS snippet into your system, using just the browser extension. It even allows you to customize your on-screen guides without using CSS.
What is also cool about HintEd, is that it works with desktop applications! Many companies still use desktop platforms and Windows apps. But HintEd can deal with it. HintEd Desktop allows you to create a digital adoption layer above a Windows app just like it would for a web-based platforms. This helps companies to implement a single interactive training strategy across their entire enterprise software stack.
HintEd summary
HintEd could be one of the best fits for SMBs and large enterprises. You can easily install HintEd in any web-based application or use it with legacy Windows programs with no development efforts and without any coding.
HintEd is much more affordable compared to WalkMe. Compared to thousands of dollars per month, HintEd’s pricing starts at $199 per month and is based on the number of employees in your company.
If you are considering HintEd to boost the digital adoption effort at your organization, please contact us to get a demo.
2. Whatfix - Another Great Walkme Alternative
Whatfix is also a suitable alternative to Walkme for onboarding employees to internal software. It provides a vast functionality that includes:
- Product Tours
- Feature Highlights
- Hints and popups
- Checklists
- Tooltips
Installing Whatfix is not very complex. You can use the Whatfix Chrome extension for creating guides, but to preview them there should be JavaScript snippet installed in your system. This could be a hassle, especially with third-party apps.
There’s no information about their pricing and trials on their website. Based on recent user reviews, Whatfix pricing starts from $1 200 per year.
Customizing the tours can also be tricky since it has to be done via CSS.
The main drawback is the Whatfix support, with some customers experiencing difficulties trying to reach their technical support. Whatfix has built a pretty large community of users who are always willing to help, but the advice you receive is still not official and should be used at your own discretion.
Whatfix summary
Whatfix allows you to quickly create in-application guides, but it’s a bit harder to customize your tours and get customer support. Still, Whatfix is a valid alternative to Walkme, especially for small and medium businesses. But one has to be aware that implementing Whatfix may take several weeks or even months.
3. Userlane — Strong Walkme Competitor from EU
We like Userlane. It has basically the same main features as Walkme. The installation process is pretty simple: you just need to copy and paste a JavaScript snippet to your platform.
Userlane also has a sharp-looking walkthrough editor. The main drawback here is that the functionality is limited to just walkthroughs.
Still, Userlane tracks all of the necessary analytics and gives insights on how these walkthroughs are used.
Core Userlane features:
- Product Tours
- Feature Highlights
- Checklists
- Analytics
- No-code
- Self-support Centers
Userlane offers a trial version of the application. After it expires, the pricing depends on the number of users.
Userlane summary
If you’re looking for a less complex Walkme alternative, you should try Userlane. It works really well with simple applications, but be aware that it only supports basic walkthroughs.
4. Gainsight PX — Training for Salesforce
Gainsight PX is a powerful suite of products for customer success and product experience. It has out-of-the-box integration with Salesforce but can also work with other web-based applications. With Gainsight PX, you can create various in-app experiences to deliver the first Aha moments to users. Multiple analytical features make Gainsight possibly the most ideal solution for measuring and tracking customer success, but not for creating super-effective user onboarding scenarios and in-app experiences.
Gainsight PX has no clear pricing. The good news is that they have a free plan for up to 100 users.
Gainsight PX summary
If you’re looking for a powerful customer success data solution, then Gainsight PX might be the only suitable tool. But if you need a WalkMe alternative that enables creating great employee and user onboarding scenarios, perhaps it’s not the best match.
5. Appcues — Beautiful No-Code Onboarding Software
Appcues have pioneered various onboarding elements like hotspots and tooltips. Besides, they are one of the most widely-used tools on the market. They are amazing at creating gorgeous onboarding flows for SaaS services, but when it comes to creating complex training scenarios for business software, the Appcues editor may not be the best choice due to its particular scenario-creating mechanics. Creating and implementing guides in Appcues is more complex than in other digital adoption tools.
Appcues pricing starts at $249/month for a starter package, which is pretty steep. The Growth package will set you back $879/month, and if you need enterprise-class training and onboarding, the price goes up exponentially.
Appcues summary
Appcues is great for creating stunning onboarding scenarios for SaaS, but it can be tricky to implement complex workflows for training internal enterprise software users. Their visual editor is great, but it doesn’t allow for rapid creation and deployment of training content. So if you’re looking for a tool to cut your training costs, Appcues might not be the best fit.
So, what is the best Walkme alternative for your business?
Here’s the WalkMe alternatives comparison table
If you are looking for a platform to track customer success and employee engagement, Gainsight is the best choice, especially if you have Salesforce implemented at your organization.
If you’re looking for a more affordable software that’s similar to WalkMe to only be used to create Walkthroughs, Whatfix and Userlane are both great choices.
If you’re looking for a solution to create better user onboarding for simple applications, Appcues should be your go-to.
Finally, if you are looking for a simpler, more affordable, and faster-to-implement WalkMe alternative for employee onboarding to use with third-party solutions, that has rich customization options, automated triggers, desktop application support, and internal system integration capabilities – HintEd is your perfect match!
Book a demo with our Sales team below and we'll discuss how HintEd can help you build a stunning employee onboarding and training experience!
Feature information is correct as of February 2021. The information is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind. HintEd does not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained on this website.
