LaunchDarkly vs. Optimizely Feature Experimentation

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
LaunchDarkly
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
LaunchDarkly provides a feature management platform that enables DevOps and Product teams to use feature flags at scale. This allows for greater collaboration among team members, and increased usability testing before full-scale feature deployment.
$12
per month per Service Connection per month, or $10 per 1k client-side MAU per mo
Optimizely Feature Experimentation
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Optimizely Feature Experimentation unites feature flagging, A/B testing, and built-in collaboration—so marketers can release, experiment, and optimize with confidence in one platform.N/A
Pricing
LaunchDarklyOptimizely Feature Experimentation
Editions & Modules
Foundation
$12
per month per Service Connection per month, or $10 per 1k client-side MAU per mo
Enterprise
Custom
Guardian
Custom
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LaunchDarklyOptimizely Feature Experimentation
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalRequired
Additional DetailsDiscount available on the Foundation plan for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
LaunchDarklyOptimizely Feature Experimentation
User Ratings
LaunchDarklyOptimizely Feature Experimentation
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(0 ratings)
4.5
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.4
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
5.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
LaunchDarklyOptimizely Feature Experimentation
Likelihood to Recommend
Great for rolling out features slowly for beta testing in production. I would say it is less well suited for toggling features permanently for users as this requires more integration with our backend and billing systems that would be a lot of work to set up.
Read full review
Based on my experience with Optimizely Feature Experimentation, I can highlight several scenarios where it excels and a few where it may be less suitable. Well-suited scenarios: - Multi-Channel product launches - Complex A/B testing and feature flag management - Gradual rollout and risk mitigation Less suited scenarios: - Simple A/B tests (their Web Experimentation product is probably better for that) - Non-technical team usage -
Read full review
Pros
  • Feature Flag Management: It's like magic. With a flip of a switch, you can manage feature rollouts to visitors or accounts across the web and mobile applications!
  • Segmentation: Create a segment of visitors or accounts and then use that to target a feature flag rule. Really easy to use and saves so much time.
  • Ease of Use: Seamless copy/paste functionality, really clear status indicators so you can find what is on and for whom.
Read full review
  • Splitting traffic between variants and enabling you to scale up or down the amount of traffic in each one
  • Giving a standardised report that you can share with a huge number of users
  • Showing a large variety of results/metrics you can then dive into
Read full review
Cons
  • It would be nice to see a feature flag's settings against all environments at once.
  • It would be to have a "array" type flag for related but different settings (eg, enableA and enableB could be enable: [a, b]).
  • It would be nice have customizable columns on the Users page (eg, if I want to inject a new meta data).
Read full review
  • Difficult integration if your data is not front end
  • Costly MAU model needs to be based on experiments not on site visits
  • It's not easy to understand how to build an Experiment
  • Onboarding team is more focused on punching through their slides and not focused on your needs or understanding.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
It fits out business case
Read full review
Competitive landscape
Read full review
Usability
It's very easy to create new feature flags and set them properly. It is more difficult to get LaunchDarkly integrated within a distributed system so that flags can be used. Especially on stateless servers where gating features by user is not easy. Overall though, it is very easy to get started and I like how simple it is to use.
Read full review
Easy to navigate the UI. Once you know how to use it, it is very easy to run experiments. And when the experiment is setup, the SDK code variables are generated and available for developers to use immediately so they can quickly build the experiment code
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
No issue with availability at all
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Performance
From what I have seen, LaunchDarkly integrates well with your code and also services you might have in your tech ecosystem. We use Jenkins for automation and we were able to use it to build pipelines to automate the control of LaunchDarkly toggles in our code.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
The overall support is very responsive
Read full review
Support was there but it was pretty slow at most times. Only after escalation was support really given to our teams
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Yes I do.
Read full review
It’s straightforward. Docs are well written and I believe there must be a support. But we haven’t used it
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Rollout is another dedicated feature flag tool that can be used to manage features. LaunchDarkley offers all the features of an enterprise level tool, unlike Rollout, reserves the security features for the Enterprise plan. Out of box integrations are limited but they do have a well documented REST API.
Read full review
In previous companies I've used Monetate which is a similar A/B testing kind of feature experimentation engine that is very similar from my memory, but again, back to the point of these new features of the analytics engine and Opal, it kind of cuts it above Monetate from my experience. Obviously Monetate may have improved since when I lost use it, but from what I can see, yeah.
Read full review
Scalability
The platform didn't go down since we implemented it
Read full review
had troubles with performance for SSR and the React SDK
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Improved developer experience with some teams moving to Trunk-based Development.
  • Increased deployment frequency due to smaller code releases.
  • Validation of the technical and business value of work is achieved more quickly through smaller pieces of work and through experimenting with a small group of users before a feature gets to 100% of customers.
Read full review
  • We have a huge, noteworthy ROI case study of how we did a SaaS onboarding revamp early this year. Our A/B test on a guided setup flow improved activation rates by 20 percent, which translated to over $1.2m in retained ARR.
Read full review
ScreenShots

LaunchDarkly Screenshots

Screenshot of regression detection and automated incident response at the feature level. This connects critical metrics to the release process so that every change is monitored - even the smallest releases, where issues would previously have been obscured by noise in the wider system metrics.Screenshot of where track the progression of a feature flag across a series of phases, where each phase consists of one or more environments.Screenshot of how to target groups of contexts individually or by attribute. Contexts are people, services, machines, or other resources that encounter feature flags in a product.Screenshot of where to design experiments that measure business-critical user flows and provide results specific to those product funnels, and measure multi-step user journeys. This is used to determine whether conversions are succeeding, with all metrics visible in one place.

Optimizely Feature Experimentation Screenshots

Screenshot of Feature Flag Setup. Here users can run flexible A/B and multi-armed bandit tests, as well as:

- Set up a single feature flag to test multiple variations and experiment types
- Enable targeted deliveries and rollouts for more precise experimentation
- Roll back changes quickly when needed to ensure experiment accuracy and reduce risks
- Increase testing flexibility with control over experiment types and delivery methodsScreenshot of Audience Setup. This is used to target specific user segments for personalized experiments, and:

- Create and customize audiences based on user attributes
- Refine audience segments to ensure the right users are included in tests
- Enhance experiment relevance by setting specific conditions for user groupsScreenshot of Experiment Results, supporting the analysis and optimization of experimentation outcomes. Viewers can also:

- examine detailed experiment results, including key metrics like conversion rates and statistical significance
- Compare variations side-by-side to identify winning treatments
- Use advanced filters to segment and drill down into specific audience or test dataScreenshot of a Program Overview. These offer insights into any experimentation program’s performance. It also offers:

- A comprehensive view of the entire experimentation program’s status and progress
- Monitoring for key performance metrics like test velocity, success rates, and overall impact
- Evaluation of the impact of experiments with easy-to-read visualizations and reporting tools
- Performance tracking of experiments over time to guide decision-making and optimize strategiesScreenshot of AI Variable Suggestions. These enhance experimentation with AI-driven insights, and can also help with:

- Generating multiple content variations with AI to speed up experiment design
- Improving test quality with content suggestions
- Increasing experimentation velocity and achieving better outcomes with AI-powered optimizationScreenshot of Schedule Changes, to streamline experimentation. Users can also:

- Set specific times to toggle flags or rules on/off, ensuring precise control
- Schedule traffic allocation percentages for smooth experiment rollouts
- Increase test velocity and confidence by automating progressive changes