People often ask us what the differences are between Nickelled and WalkMe vs Whatfix.
We normally speak to people when they’re struggling to drive adoption of software or are launching a new product and need to make sure people understand it. As WalkMe is one of the biggest names in the digital adoption space, it’s normally one of the first names they land on, and Whatfix regularly comes a close second as an alternative for features such as:
- Providing guided tours around a user interface
- Adding context with features like tooltips
- Driving usage of new features
- Ensuring training requirements are met for new system implementations
Finding a tool to do one or more of the above can be a challenge, so we decided to run through the features of WalkMe and Whatfix with our product teams, so that we can offer an honest comparison of the two.
We’ve tried our best to be fair in the below review of all three, so that you understand why Nickelled may work as compared vs our larger competitors. If you’d like to try Nickelled for yourself you can do so here (there’s our first differentiating factor!).
Nickelled: Digital Adoption Software Built with Simplicity in Mind
The one thing that separates Nickelled from WalkMe and Whatfix is that we are 100% focused on providing an easy user experience – simplicity is at our core.
WalkMe and Whatfix are powerful, but when we speak to people shopping around for alternatives to each, we often find people are desperate for something that’s easier to use.
We normally aim for our users to get up and running with NO intervention from our side whatsoever, which is vastly different to Walkme, where we know that large account management teams are on hand to service clients. In its early days, Whatfix was also a self-service tool, but in recent years it has migrated to be more similar to Walkme and now requires hands-on assistance as well.
Strengths:
We try hard to make Nickelled work for everybody, and there are some features we’ve nailed which our users tell us work extremely well for them:
Easy, Intuitive Guide Editor
Nickelled guide creation is almost exclusively “point and click”. That means you won’t need training to create your first guide – if you can build a Powerpoint slide, you can use the interface to make a training course for your users.
This also means that everybody in your team will be able to use Nickelled, which is a huge advantage, since team members come and go and ramping up new staff is difficult enough already!
No software installation required
A huge difference between us and Walkme and Whatfix is that Nickelled can function without any software required at all.
That means you won’t need to install any complex software, any Chrome plugins or any javascript to get your first guided tour up and running.
For companies who are trying to create guides on software which they simply can’t edit (e.g., a cloud-based ERP system with limited functionality), this is a huge boon, and one of the reasons our clients usually opt for Nickelled over Walkme (which requires plugin installation or the installation of a specialized software package).
It also means that implementation tends to be simpler – both Walkme and Whatfix tend to require hefty professional services contracts to get clients started with their software. We serve enterprise clients too, but we do it with much less support required, which translates to faster implementation times (really appreciated by our clients!).
Offline and interactive guides
We offer more formats for the help documentation our users produce, when compared to WalkMe and Whatfix.
As an example, using the WalkMe Chrome extension, users must consume their guide in the browser window – they can’t be offline or using a mobile device, for instance.
By comparison, Nickelled allows users to run guides away from their main browser, either as a video-style playback or as a printed PDF file. While these options are less interactive than a click-through guide, they offer significant advantages such as portability and ease of access.
World-class support
We’ve heard from several migrating customers that Nickelled offers stronger support than competitors. For example, one client described Nickelled as “Perfect solution, great product, and brilliant support.”
We put this down to our relative company size – we’re much smaller than our competitors, so each customer means a lot more to us. Our busy customer success team works hard to keep our clients happy, and our developers are always on hand to personally assist with any bugs or other issues with the system. It’s a world apart from larger competitors such as Walkme and Whatfix, who often are harder to access when support is required.
Weaknesses
All of the above said, Nickelled isn’t perfect for all users.
Walkme, for instance, is probably better suited to companies who have high security requirements. Walkme works with a lot of banks, financial institutions and government bodies, so they have a tonne of experience in navigating the complex world of enterprise-grade data security.
At Nickelled, we take security extremely seriously, but we’re not set up for companies who need significant support and custom levels of service on that front.
Similarly, we’re not right for you if you know you’ll need weeks of professional services for your integration. We don’t have an in-house consulting and integration team, so WalkMe is a better choice if you know you need dedicated support in your rollout.
Pricing
Nickelled is extremely transparent on its pricing vs WalkMe and Whatfix, which will suit most small companies better:
That kind of upfront attitude isn’t available from our competitors, which is a shame.
What’s also notable is that both Walkme and Whatfix price on monthly active users – i.e. if you’re a large organization, you’re going to pay more for the contract. By comparison, Nickelled does not – making it a better deal for many companies who don’t have an unlimited budget for user onboarding or digital adoption software.
WalkMe, Compared to Whatfix and Nickelled
WalkMe Features
WalkMe is completely fully-featured as a digital adoption platform, as we point out in our review. It’s correspondingly complex though – in our experience, it’s a steeper learning curve than Whatfix and Nickelled, because there are so many more configuration options to get your head around.
That said, WalkMe has been intelligently broken out into different modules, which make sense from a training perspective:
- Walk-Thrus: Step-by-step guided tours which can walk users through different tasks inside an app
- SmartTips: Tooltip-type functionality for when you need to show guidance on the page but don’t want to launch a walk through
- Launchers: Similar to Nickelled Launchers, these are a way to trigger a specific tour
- Player: A lightweight learning management system, which WalkMe has designed as a hub for all of the other content you’re creating via their software
- Editor: A specialized software package for authoring
WalkMe Pricing
See our full section on WalkMe Pricing here, but suffice to say – it’s expensive. Our belief is that for many projects, Whatfix may be cheaper vs WalkMe, but Nickelled may offer the best value for money, since we don’t price per monthly active user, which both WalkMe and Whatfix do. This means that WalkMe vs Whatfix pricing may vary considerably for different organization sizing.
Whatfix, Compared to WalkMe and Nickelled
Whatfix Features
From our research, Whatfix offers an easier setup and installation process compared to WalkMe. You’ll still need a browser extension, unlike Nickelled, but it is easier to get started, and appears to require no technical knowledge.
We have heard (although not directly experienced) that Whatfix’s editor is more prone to errors than WalkMe’s – this is an important consideration, since creation and editing is the toughest part of setting up any digital adoption platform. If you’re planning to use Whatfix, our strong recommendation would be to try it before you buy, to ensure full compatibility with your website.
Whatfix also provides automated multi-format content creation, which is a huge advantage over WalkMe. For every tour you create, Whatfix will generate the information in multiple content formats, so you have slideshows to accompany your interactive tours as well.
It’s worth noting what external review platforms say on WalkMe vs Whatfix too. Whatfix seems to consistently score higher on B2B review platform G2Crowd – across most categories, the company managed to outperform WalkMe every single time. We’d draw special atttention to ease of use, ease of setup and ease of admin, which are three especially important factors where Whatfix scores highest.
Overall, WalkMe was rated 4.4/5 stars with 71 reviews, while Whatfix rates 4.6/5 stars with 166 reviews (source).
Whatfix Pricing
Anecdotally, we’ve heard that Whatfix is cheaper than WalkMe, but like many competitors in the field (with the notable exception of Nickelled and Appcues), the pricing structure is somewhat opaque. A few years ago, we estimated base pricing from $1,200/annually but we’re confident that most organizations will pay more these days.
It’s worth noting that Whatfix outperforms WalkMe on Capterra’s value for money scores, which is sourced from users.
Whatfix seems to offer a free trial, which we’ve heard isn’t always available from WalkMe but which is a vital buying factor and should always be offered by SaaS businesses. Nickelled offers a 14-day unlimited free trial, but we were unable to ascertain how long Whatfix offers.
Conclusion: Whatfix vs WalkMe vs Nickelled
The choice between these three is going to come down to your needs as a company. For larger organizations, WalkMe is the ‘IBM’ option – it’s unlikely anybody was ever fired for buying it, because it’s such an established name in the digital adoption platform space.
For smaller businesses, Whatfix and Nickelled are smaller, more nimble competitors. You can take a free trial of them both to see which suits you (and the support you’ll get from Nickelled will be the same as what you’d enjoy as a paid customer of out tool).
If you’re choosing between WalkMe and Whatfix, you’ll find the feature set to be similar enough that the choice may well come down to commercial considerations. This could give Whatfix the edge, but remember that digital adoption software is a long-term investment and you need to make sure that the solution can work for the business over a multi-year period.
You can try Nickelled free for 14 days here and get access to the full platform.