Platform comparison

Maze vs Optimal Workshop: Which is right for research with your users?

Maze is a Optimal Workshop alternative that helps scale continuous product research across your entire company.

A tale of two platforms

Investing in research with your users fuels high adoption, activation, and retention. Simply put, it enables you to ship a better product to your users, and more frequently. That said, a lot of the impact research creates is supported by the platform you choose.

Maze and Optimal Workshop are two of the better known platforms in the market, but which is the better choice for your organization?

Maze empowers everyone in product teams to continuously collect user insights at an expert-level. It enables testing anything from prototypes to ideas, and allows you to round up valuable user feedback to help deliver truly customer-centric products—all in one place.

Optimal Workshop helps organizations build more intuitive and successful digital experiences backed by user research through a variety of tools.

Let's take a closer look at both.

Maze vs Optimal Workshop: Overview

Name

Main applications

Price

G2 Rating

Available on

Main applications

Optimal Workshop

Moderated user interviews First-click testing Research repository

Free to start Pro Plan from $208/month Team Plan from $191/user/month Custom Enterprise plans

4.5/5 out of 10+ reviews

Browsers

Moderated user interviews First-click testing Research repository

Maze

Prototype testing Usability testing Participant management

Free to start Pro Plan from $75/month Custom Enterprise plans

4.5/5 out of 90+ reviews

Browsers

Prototype testing Usability testing Participant management

Maze vs Optimal Workshop: Main differences

What really sets Maze and Optimal Workshop apart for teams doing research?

Breadth of research methods

Maze offers a wider range of block types than Optimal Workshop, including card sort, 5-second test, tree test, and opinion scale.

Design integrations

Optimal Workshop does not integrate with design tools (you can only upload images). Maze offers full integrations with popular design tools, such as Figma, Sketch, and InVision to validate designs early on.

Tester management

Sourcing and recruiting test participants is both easier and cheaper with Maze. You can choose from two options: panel recruiting, or creating your very own participant database.

Maze vs Optimal Workshop: Feature comparison

Features

Maze

Optimal Workshop

Maze

Tester panel

Tester management database

Surveys

Tree testing

Heatmaps

Card sorting

Video / screen session recording

Moderated video sessions

First-click testing

Deep integrations with design tools

Adobe XD, Figma, InVision, Sketch

Adobe XD, Figma, InVision, Sketch

Prototype testing

5-Second testing

In-product surveys

Live website testing

For product research from A-Z, choose Maze

Whether you’re just getting started or looking to scale your research, Maze will lead you towards always delivering a truly user-centric product.

Why product and design teams are making the switch to Maze

Intuitive experience

It’s hard enough to source test participants—you don’t want any more friction to get research campaigns completed. Maze is an easy-to-use platform whose tests can be carried out on any device, with no apps, scripts, or plugins installed.

Prototype testing, done right

Integrate with leading design tools to record sessions and set journey paths on your prototypes. Validate usability across your designs with real users, before investing valuable resources.

Works with:

Figma
Sketch
Adobe XD
InVision

Robust, customizable reporting

Data insights are only as valuable as they are understandable and easy to work with. Maze's reports are visual-rich, automated, and fully customizable. Filter and categorize information in detail to uncover patterns and share valuable insights with stakeholders.

Scaleable research practice

Ultimately, Maze saves time and budget collecting data without compromising quality. Empower your product team with actionable insights and deliver value to your customers more often.

Maze vs Optimal Workshop: Takeaways

Both Maze and Optimal Workshop are great options to conduct product research with your end users. At the end of the day it comes down to which platform aligns better not only with your budget, but also with your workflow and vision as a team.

Optimal Workshop focuses on extracting qualitative insights from moderated interviews and organizing this data through features like note taking. This makes it tailored to larger individual in-depth projects.

On the other hand, Maze is a better fit for those who want to inform smaller everyday decisions. Apart from being a more affordable option if you're hiring from a panel, its superior prototype features and integrations allow to validate concepts and de-risking designs early on and save resources on the long run.

No more dead ends in research—bring a customer-focused mindset to your organization

Frequently asked questions

Who is Maze for?

Anyone working in a product team should be empowered to do research—whether you’re a designer, researcher, product manager, or other.

Maze is used by teams that want to empower everyone to collect actionable user insights to make informed decisions, and share learnings across their whole organization.

What kind of teams use Maze?

Maze is used by product, design and research teams that want actionable user insights to make informed decisions with their users, for their users.

Teams from all sizes and industries use Maze, including Financial Services, Travel, Insurance, Technology/Software, Healthcare, and Retail.

What’s continuous discovery and why does it benefit my company?

Continuous product research fuels high adoption, activation, and retention—simply put, it enables you to ship more value to your users, and more frequently. Maze empowers anyone who does research to autonomously run expert-level, unmoderated research—facilitating a discovery mindset in product teams so you can build the right product, with your users, for your users.

Can I request a demo?

Absolutely! Tell us a little about your company here and we’ll connect you with someone in our team.

Do you have comparisons with other platforms?

Yes. Read on to discover all comparisons of Maze with other platforms.