Top 8 Optimal Workshop alternatives to use in 2024

Conducting UX research with the wrong tool is like navigating a maze blindfolded. You won’t be able to conduct the UX research projects you need, and you definitely won’t uncover actionable insights.

Optimal Workshop is a UX tool that allows you to conduct user research with a variety of solutions, such as card sorting, tree testing, and UX surveys.

While Optimal Workshop can be useful, it offers limited research methods at a hefty price-point and lacks design tool integrations, making your UX workflow disjointed. So before you sign up, consider whether it’s the only—and the right—tool for your team.

Here, we’ve compiled the top eight Optimal Workshop alternatives to help you find the right solution for your UX research.

Before we reveal the eight alternatives, let’s take a closer look at Optimal Workshop. This user testing platform offers a suite of user experience tools, including first-click testing (Chalkmark), tree testing (Treejack), and card sorting (OptimalSort). UX researchers can also use Optimal Workshop for survey creation and qualitative research for product development.

Optimal Workshop focuses on information architecture and how users interact with digital experiences. While this is beneficial for certain specific research, UX teams will need a broader array of in-depth research methods and functionalities—such as interview studies, prototype testing, or tool integrations—to fulfil a comprehensive research function.

When considering alternative tools, you’ll want to look for an Optimal Workshop alternative that has:

While Optimal Workshop offers a selection of UX research solutions, its primary focus is on information architecture testing and user feedback. The product suite is missing some key UX research methods that a UX researcher may need for valuable insights, like prototype testing and live website testing.

With its narrower scope of UX tools, many medium to small-size companies may find Optimal Workshop too pricey for the value it offers. The team option costs $191 per month for up to five members. If you’re looking for more bang for your buck, there are better options out there.

Getting insights from usability testing isn’t the final act of building better products. You’ll still need to report your data and insights to stakeholders in a way that engages them and encourages buy-in. While Optimal Workshop offers some reporting for card sorting, many find its reporting capabilities and trend analysis lacking for other methods.

UX research should never exist in a silo. Whatever the size of your research function, if you’re looking to scale UX research and improve decision-making, integrations are key. Your designs need to be able to shift seamlessly between prototyping, review, research, testing, and back again. Optimal Workshop offers very limited integration options when compared with other tools on this list, which makes streamlining product development and user testing difficult—especially at scale.

If you’re ready for a UX research tool that unlocks the secrets of user experience with a broad range of moderated and unmoderated tools—stay tuned, we’ve got eight you’ll love.

Finding the perfect tool for your team requires a lot of research. To make your job a little easier, we’ve scoured the industry for the best Optimal Workshop alternatives and outlined their key pros and cons (and price points).

Here’s your shortlist:

Maze is a holistic continuous product discovery platform that allows UX teams to conduct in-depth user research through both moderated and unmoderated methods, like UX surveys and interviews. UX teams can use Maze for every phase of the UX design and research process—from idea validation to usability testing—to build better user-driven products.

The main difference between Maze and Optimal Workshop is the UX research methods they offer. While Optimal Workshop’s solutions mostly cover information architecture, Maze provides UX research solutions for getting insights at every stage of the product development process.

Optimal Workshop is best known for its card sorting and tree testing solutions. While it does offer survey and qualitative data research, these aren’t the most robust tools in the Optimal Workshop toolbox.

Maze, on the other hand, offers all major research methods: Maze users have access to card sorting, prototype testing, interview studies, usability testing, and AI features (to name but a few) for reaching more insights faster.

The verdict: Choose Maze if you’re looking for a UX research tool that can grow with you and help speed up time-to-insight across multiple moderated and unmoderated testing methods. Maze also offers user-friendly data reporting that makes understanding insights and reporting to stakeholders a breeze.

UserTesting is a video-first user feedback tool that allows UX teams to gain valuable user insights on their product. UX teams recruit user testers—via the platform or their own participant recruitment—and set them tasks to complete, which enables them to see exactly how users interact with the product. It comes with a decent range of research tests and methods, including user interviews, usability testing, and clickstream tracking.

UserTesting doesn’t publicly share its prices but users state that they start at $30,000 per seat/year.

Here’s what’s included in each package:

When it comes to comparing UserTesting and Optimal Workshop—it all depends on your exact priorities and budget. While both tools offer unmoderated and moderated solutions, UserTesting primarily focuses on moderated testing.

However, you also want to consider other aspects, like participant recruitment—UserTesting has a large pool of testers for you to run research with. While UserTesting is considerably more expensive, if you’ve got the budget—it could be worth the investment for your team.

The verdict: UserTesting is a better option if you need to recruit participants for your user testing efficiently, although some users report the participant answer quality is questionable. It also has a wider variety of UX tools for broader research. However, if you’re looking for a tool with varied applications and recruitment at a lower cost, there are other tools on this list which may suit your needs better.

UserZoom, now a part of UserTesting, is a UX research platform that offers interviewing, surveys, click tests, and in-depth analysis for making data-backed decisions. While it can work for small teams (if you have the budget to spare), UserZoom was created for the enterprise level.

UserZoom doesn’t publicly share pricing, so you’ll need to get in touch for pricing details. Their available plans are:

UserZoom is better suited for larger teams because of its extensive UX research options. With a range of research methods, UserZoom may be the better option for UX teams that need more than one way to gather data, however that comes with a steep cost and reportedly unintuitive UI.

Meanwhile, Optimal Workshop may be better suited for smaller teams focused on less research methods or with smaller budgets.

The verdict: UserZoom is better for working in larger teams because of its extensive range of moderated and unmoderated tools. It also features more options for making efficient team collaboration.

Hotjar is a product analytics and research tool that helps visualize and map out how users interact with your product or digital experience. The platform helps you get actionable insights through a range of research methods, such as heatmapping, click tracking, and reports that map out bottlenecks in user experience.

In many ways, Hotjar and Optimal Workshop are similar. They both offer insights into how users interact with your digital product through a narrow set of research methods.

Hotjar is the better alternative for teams primarily focused on optimizing conversion rates. If you’re more interested in a slightly broader approach to testing your website, Optimal Workshop—or some of the other tools on our list—might be the better choice, with a wider variety of information architecture tools like card sorting and tree testing.

The verdict: Choose Hotjar if you want an in-depth visualization of how users interact with your live website. It’s also much easier to navigate, making it easy to conduct user testing efficiently. Stick with Optimal Workshop or choose another tool from our list if you’re looking for less strict-quantitative data.

Lyssna, formerly UsabilityHub, is a UX research platform with a range of unmoderated usability tests, from click tests to navigation tests. While Lyssna primarily focuses on unmoderated UX research methods, it also allows your UX team to plan and conduct moderated, virtual user interviews.

Lyssna pricing is as follows:

Lyssna offers a broader range of tools and methodologies than Optimal Workshop, making it a more versatile tool for gathering insights from your users. However, users report the per-answer pricing system confusing, and it can quickly add up for more robust research. You also risk paying multiple times if participants drop out or provide unsatisfactory answers.

If you’re set on card sorting and tree testing analysis—Optimal Workshop is the better choice—as Lyssna doesn’t have the two options Optimal Workshop is known for. For a complete UX tool, we suggest considering other tools on our list instead.

The verdict: It really comes down to your chosen methods. If card sorting and tree testing aren’t important to you, Lyssna could be a better option for many UX research teams.

Besides analyzing your website’s user experience, Userlytics can also measure your competitor’s websites. This UX platform gives you an overview of market data and how to build better products, with multiple research methods for analyzing websites, advertisements, and social media.

Check out the Userlytics website for use-specific pricing.

Broadly speaking, Userlytics is the better platform for regular UX research. It has the tools necessary for both qualitative and quantitative methods while also offering the tree testing and card sorting solutions that Optimal Workshop is known for.

However, its pricing can be confusing and difficult to manage. Enterprise users should be wary of the pay-as-you-go plan, as it could be easy to run out of budget mid-project or overspend if your research takes longer than planned. If you don’t need extensive analysis and you’re working with a small team, other tools on this list can fulfill your needs.

The verdict: Choose Userlytics over Optimal Workshop if you have the budget to spare and need to conduct UX research for a larger team. Userlytics has more research methods while also offering card sorting, tree tests, and other tests for improving information architecture. If you’re looking for a more accessible tool, options like Maze can provide the same options at a lower price.

UXTweak is a UX research platform that provides a clear picture of what users do when interacting with your website, while also offering a range of tools for testing and feedback. It covers various features UX teams may need, including usability testing, analytics, and information architecture research.

UXTweak offers the information architecture research methods that Optimal Workshop lacks, making it a better option—along with some other tools on this list—if you’re looking to run that type of research. It’s also less expensive than Optimal Workshop, making it more accessible to teams with smaller budgets.

The verdict: Choose UXTweak over Optimal Workshop for a better all-round tool. UXTweak has everything Optimal Workshop offers, with the addition of more usability tests and more extensive data analysis.

PlaybookUX's tool allows for focused UX research using both unmoderated and moderated solutions, with participant recruitment and demographic filters enabling you to target the users you need. The process for setting up research studies is straightforward, allowing researchers to conduct, gather, analyze, and report all in one place.

Starting with a 'pay as you go' plan, PlaybookUX's pricing is as follows:

Both PlaybookUX and Optimal Workshop offer tree testing and card sorting, but PlaybookUX has a plethora of usability tools that Optimal Workshop doesn’t offer. It’s also a video-based feedback platform, meaning you’ll get to see user reactions when conducting tests.

Of course, these additional features come at an increased price. Despite PlaybookUX being better value for money, if you just need a simple, streamlined tool for information architecture with some research on the side—then Optimal Workshop just might be the better fit.

The verdict: PlaybookUX is better if you value seeing user reactions while interacting with your product. With both unmoderated and moderated methods, PlaybookUX is also better for in-depth user insights when it comes to usability and sentiment.

With all these Optimal Workshop alternatives, you may be struggling to identify the best one for elevating your UX research. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Keeping these considerations in mind will help you pick the right UX research tool for your team—whether you’re making a switch or choosing your first tool.

Building data-backed, user-driven products starts with getting in-depth, actionable insights—which requires the right tool. The best UX research platform for your team depends on your unique research wants and needs.

Maze helps you scale research and improve time-to-insight through continuous product discovery. With an extensive range of research methods, AI-powered analysis and in-depth reporting capabilities, Maze unlocks better understanding of your users and how they interact with your product—through both unmoderated and moderated research methods. Try it today for free.