Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
Amplitude vs Heap vs Mixpanel: What are the differences?
Choosing the Right Analytics Tool: Amplitude vs Heap vs Mixpanel
Amplitude, Heap, and Mixpanel are three popular analytics tools that provide valuable insights into user behavior on websites and mobile apps. Each of these tools has its own strengths and features that differentiate them from one another. Here, we will explore the key differences between Amplitude, Heap, and Mixpanel.
Data Collection and Integration: Amplitude focuses on event-based tracking and offers seamless integration with various platforms. Heap, on the other hand, captures all user interactions automatically without the need for manual event tracking. Mixpanel allows flexible tracking using events and user properties and supports integration with multiple platforms.
User Analytics: With Amplitude, you can analyze user behavior by creating funnels, cohorts, and retention reports. Heap, on the other hand, offers retroactive analysis, allowing you to track user actions retroactively and create segments based on past user behavior. Mixpanel provides granular user tracking and segmentation using events and properties.
Mobile Tracking: Amplitude and Mixpanel are both well-suited for mobile app tracking and analytics. Amplitude offers mobile A/B testing and enables tracking of user-level and device-level attributes. Mixpanel offers advanced mobile tracking capabilities, including push notifications and in-app messaging. Heap also supports mobile tracking but with fewer advanced features.
Data Visualization: Amplitude provides a wide range of visualization options, including charts, graphs, and dashboards, allowing you to easily explore and analyze your data. Heap offers a codeless interface that allows you to visually explore and analyze your data without the need for complex queries or coding. Mixpanel offers customizable dashboards and visualizations to help you understand your data effectively.
Data Security and Privacy: Amplitude and Mixpanel comply with industry standards for data security and privacy. Amplitude enforces strict data access controls and offers enterprise-grade security features. Mixpanel offers data encryption and compliance with regulations like GDPR. Heap also prioritizes data security and privacy but may require additional configurations for compliance with certain regulations.
Pricing and Scalability: Amplitude, Heap, and Mixpanel each offer different pricing plans based on the volume of data and the features required. Amplitude and Mixpanel have higher pricing tiers compared to Heap, making Heap more cost-effective for smaller businesses or startups. Additionally, Amplitude and Heap have no data limits, while Mixpanel's pricing may be based on the volume of data.
In summary, Amplitude, Heap, and Mixpanel offer distinct features in terms of data collection, analytics, mobile tracking, data visualization, data security, and pricing. Choosing the right analytics tool depends on your specific needs, budget, and the level of insights you want to gain from your data.
I am trying to decide on a solution to better track our user data. We need to track which google ads are leading to signups, and which signups are performing various actions on the site. We then need to visualize this data in various ways. We also need to run A/B tests on features and content, to track which ones lead to the most paid conversions.
Functionally, Amplitude and Mixpanel are incredibly similar. They both offer almost all the same functionality around tracking and visualizing user actions for analytics. You can track A/B test results in both. We ended up going with Amplitude at BaseDash because it has a more generous free tier for our uses (10 million actions per month, versus Mixpanel's 1000 monthly tracked users).
Segment isn't meant to compete with these tools, but instead acts as an API to send actions to them, and other analytics tools. If you're just sending event data to one of these tools, you probably don't need Segment. If you're using other analytics tools like Google Analytics and FullStory, Segment makes it easy to send events to all your tools at once.
Another option you might consider is Google Analytics App+Web.
It is a new type of Google Analytics property which is event-based (like Amplitude and Mixpanel). In App+Web you can collect exactly the same data and in the same format as the other 2 tools mentioned.
The great things about it are: - it is free - there is a free integration with BigQuery (though you'll need to pay for BigQuery, but for most SmB's it is peanuts - $5-30 a month)
Not so great: - reporting side is pretty buggy (App+Web is very new).
So if you are ok building your reporting in something like Google Data Studio, App+Web will be a great option. Your data analyst will especially be happy to have all the data in SQL format (BigQuery).
If you choose App+Web, then you can use Google Optimize (also free) as an A/B testing solution.
Hello Ben,
I have been using Mixpanel and Amplitude and both of them are good solutions in order to track events on your product; events, funnel analysis, retention and so on. The most important thing is that you set up properly the taxonomy and naming convention of your events' structure. I don't have anything against Segment I tried once but I didn't work with that tool but it for sure is a good one based on other workmates' opinions. ¡Important! When tracking distribution channels, take into consideration the attribution channel and all the touches that the users do in all the channels before your conversions. Some of them are good to open a path and other ones good to close.
Besides that, for A/B testing there are several options in the market but VWO is a good one that with a lot of features to get good insights into the A/B testing. Another one could be Optimizely or Google Optimize. ¡Important! Some teams instead run A/B testing because sometimes that could be a technological issue, they run cohort tests, where basically they change features on the product and they analyse this performance with the new users and compare. That could have another issue like seasonality but it is another option.
Overview, I recommend Amplitude and VWO but just to make simple the answer, because Mixpanel, Segment and the other options that the other users wrote here are good too.
All the best, and let me know how your experience was with all these tools. :)
Cheers,
Pros of Amplitude
- Great for product managers11
- Easy setup8
- Efficient analysis6
- Behavioral cohorts2
- Event streams for individual users2
- Chart edits get their own URLs2
- Free for up to 10M user actions per month2
- Fast1
- Great UI1
- Engagement Matrix is super helpful1
Pros of Heap
- Automatically capture every user action36
- No code required23
- Free Plan21
- Real-time insights14
- Track custom events11
- Define user segments10
- Define active users7
- Redshift integration2
- Fun to use2
Pros of Mixpanel
- Great visualization ui144
- Easy integration108
- Great funnel funcionality78
- Free58
- A wide range of tools22
- Powerful Graph Search15
- Responsive Customer Support11
- Nice reporting2
Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions
Cons of Amplitude
- Super expensive once you're past the free plan4
Cons of Heap
Cons of Mixpanel
- Messaging (notification, email) features are weak2
- Paid plans can get expensive2
- Limited dashboard capabilities1