Appcues vs Pendo

Which onboarding software will better suit your needs?

I tested Top In-app Onboarding Software: Appcues, Userpilot, Pendo, Stonly, Userflow, Chameleon, Product Fruits, Userguiding, Usetiful.
Discover the best software here.

Appcues
Flow builder in Appcues

What struck me most is that Appcues looks like Userpilot’s clone. Their app panel layouts and flow builders are very similar, with only cosmetic changes.

Nonetheless, Appcues is less “polished” and doesn’t offer the resource center feature, what I treat as a major inconvenience. Also, even though the localization feature is there, I wouldn’t wish using it my worst enemy.

If you think about going for Appcues, check out Userpilot first. In my opinion, it’s better and half as cheap!

Pendo
Flow builder in Pendo

I can’t say Pendo isn’t a decent tool. In the end, it has all the main features and many of the more advanced options. But it’s expensive, not pleasant to use, and takes time to get used to.

If its flow builder went through an overhaul, I’d be curious to test it again. But for now, I wouldn’t want to use it on a daily basis.

Appcues vs Pendo: Engagement features

Table: Main feature availability

AppcuesUserpilotPendoUserflowStonlyChameleonProduct FruitsUserGuidingUsetiful
Modals/Pop-ups/Slideouts
Tours/Tooltips
Hotspots/Spotlights/Pins
Checklists
Resource centers
Surveys

Checklists

AppcuesUserpilotUserflowStonlyChameleonProduct FruitsUserguidingUsetiful
Add title & description
Embed images/videos in the header
Item description
Add guides and links
Run JavaScript on click
Set targeting per checklist item
Item completion based on user attributes/eventsOnly events
Embed the resource center in a page

Resource centers

UserpilotUserflowStonlyChameleonProduct FruitsUserguiding
Embed checklist
Add guides and links
Add custom contentOnly videos
Add nested pages
Add content groupsOnly flows
Set targeting per item
Built-in “Contact us” section
Built-in contact form
Embed iframe
Search items or flows
Search knowledge base
Integrate live chat
(e.g., Intercom, Zendesk)
Notifications about new items

Appcues vs Pendo: Flow setup options

Triggering

You might think there’s not much science to flow triggering. While in most cases you’ll use a page view to trigger a flow, there are some additional possibilities you might find interesting.

  • Appcues – Custom event triggering, Element click
  • Pendo – Element click

Audience targeting

Most user onboarding software allow for the same targeting options based on user attributes and performed events (both generated by interactions with the messages/widgets as well as custom events). However Appcues is the only one that lets you create endless nested logic groups (logic group in a logic group).

Audience targeting in Appcues

Scheduling

Scheduling in Pendo

Pendo contrary to Appcues lets you set exact dates your guides will be shown.

Frequency (single flow)

  • Appcues: Once, Every time
  • Pendo: Once, Repeat every X days/hours and set the frequency cap

Appcues vs Pendo: Additional features

Table: Feature availability

AppcuesUserpilotPendoUserflowStonlyChameleonProduct FruitsUserGuidingUsetiful
LocalizationOnly flowsIn beta
Versioning
Frequency capping (throttling)
Account structuring/Flow organization
Flow analytics
Event builder

Localization

When it comes to translations Pendo is a better alternative to Appcues because after localization you still can edit your flows. However, in Pendo, you can work only with XLIFF files (no CSV upload).

In Appcues, you can localize only flows (and not checklists or pins), and what’s worst is that after localizing the content is locked (you can’t edit it). It causes a lot of trouble, especially for onboarding/lifecycle flows (in contrast to regular, one-off communication) that are meant to stay there for longer and should be subject to iterative optimization.

Account-wide frequency cap (throttling) + Flow prioritization

Both Pendo and Appcues offer the highest flexibility of guide prioritization (you can define the exact order in which your flows are to be shown).

Appcues vs Pendo: Pros, cons, prices

Each tool can receive max. 5 points.

The score is calculated as a sum of the factors listed below (max. 25 points), divided by 5.

  • Main feature availability – max. 7 points
  • Secondary feature availability – max. 3 points
  • Options inside features – max. 4 points
  • Ease of use/UX – max. 3 points
  • Out-of-the-box end user experience (look and feel) – max. 2 points
  • Bonus point (my subjective preference) – max. 1 points

Name

Pros (summary)

Cons (summary)

Appcues

Price for 10k MTU: $1.150

My rating: 3.5/5

  • Event triggering
  • High flow design flexibility
  • User diagnostics useful for debugging
  • No resource center feature
  • Very poor localization (after adding translations you can’t edit flows)
  • Limited checklist options
  • Quite a few quirks that make working with Appcues frustrating in the long run
  • Has all the important features
  • It’s not just a product adoption platform — it also has product analytics and roadmapping
  • No user-friendly (UI can be a bit confusing)
  • Poor out-of-the-box look and feel from end-user perspective
  • Localization only with XLIFF file
  • I constantly experienced issues starting the builder
  • Resource center (and checklists) not available on free plan what made it impossible for me to test

Read full comparison of the 9 top in-app onboarding software here.