Heap vs. Fullstory vs. Usermaven: A detailed comparison

Choosing the right analytics tool is crucial for understanding your users, optimizing their experience, and driving business growth. With so many options available, it can be overwhelming to pick the one that fits your needs. Heap, Fullstory, and Usermaven are three popular choices, each offering unique features and capabilities tailored to different audiences.

In this blog, we’ll dive into a detailed comparison of these tools, exploring their strengths, pricing, and ideal use cases. Whether you’re a product manager, marketer, or business owner, this guide will help you make an informed decision and select the analytics solution that aligns perfectly with your goals.

Overview of Heap, Fullstory, and Usermaven

Heap

Heap is a digital insights platform designed to simplify how businesses understand user behavior. It automatically captures every user interaction on websites and apps without requiring manual event tracking or custom code. This feature allows teams to retroactively analyze data, enabling quick insights into user journeys, feature usage, and conversion paths. 

Key features:

• Automatic data capture
• Session replay
• Data science tools for uncovering user behavior patterns

Target audience: 

Product teams, marketers, and analysts seeking in-depth user behavior insights.

Pricing: 

Offers a free plan with up to 10,000 sessions per month; paid plans are available for businesses with higher needs.

Fullstory

Fullstory is a comprehensive digital experience analytics tool that helps businesses understand their customers by capturing every interaction across digital properties. It provides tools like session replay, heatmaps, and advanced user behavior analytics to help teams identify pain points and optimize user experiences.

Key features:

• Session replays
• Heatmaps
• Comprehensive data capture
• Ease of integration

Target audience: Enterprises and businesses focused on enhancing user experience through detailed session analysis.

Pricing: Custom pricing; interested users need to contact Fullstory directly for a quote.

Usermaven

Usermaven is an all-in-one analytics solution designed to meet the needs of modern marketers and SaaS product owners. It combines advanced AI-powered insights with features like multi-touch attribution, automatic event tracking, and privacy-focused analytics, making it an ideal choice for businesses seeking actionable insights without complexity. Unlike many competitors, Usermaven offers transparent and affordable pricing, ensuring teams of all sizes can access powerful analytics tools.

Key features:

• Website and product analytics
• AI-driven insights
• Multi-touch attribution 
• Advanced funnel analysis
• Automatic event tracking
• Cookieless tracking
• Ad-blocker bypassing

Target audience: SaaS product owners, marketers, and agencies seeking comprehensive analytics with clear pricing.

Pricing: Starts at $14/month and a 30-day free trial is available.

Heap vs. Fullstory vs. Usermaven: Feature comparison table

Here’s a comprehensive feature comparison table for Heap, Fullstory, and Usermaven:

Feature	Heap	Fullstory	Usermaven
Combine website & product analytics	No	No	Yes
Automatic event capture	Yes	Yes	Yes
AI-powered insights	No	No	Yes
Multi-touch attribution	No	No	Yes (AI-powered)
Funnel analysis	Basic	Basic	Yes (advanced, AI-powered)
Annotations	No	No	Yes
Cookieless tracking	No	No	Yes
Ad-blocker bypassing	No	No	Yes
GDPR and CCPA compliance	Yes	Yes	Yes
Data science tools	Yes	No	No
Heatmaps	No	Yes	No
Session replay	Yes	Yes	No
Ease of integration	Yes	Yes	Yes
Transparent pricing	Free plan available; expensive paid plans for higher needs	Custom pricing; contact for a quote	Starts at $14/month; 30-day free trial available

Feature Comparison: Heap vs. Fullstory vs. Usermaven

Selecting the right analytics platform is crucial for understanding user behavior and optimizing digital experiences. Below is a detailed comparison of Heap, Fullstory, and Usermaven across various features:

1. Automatic data capture

• Heap: Automatically captures all user interactions without manual event tracking.
• Fullstory: Records user sessions comprehensively, capturing interactions seamlessly.
• Usermaven: Provides automatic event tracking with minimal setup.

2. AI-powered insights

• Heap: Relies on traditional analytics without AI-powered features.
• Fullstory: Offers advanced analytics but lacks AI-driven insights.
• Usermaven: Stands out with AI-powered insights, enabling teams to make data-driven decisions faster and more effectively.

3. Multi-touch attribution

• Heap: Does not support multi-touch attribution.
• Fullstory: Does not include attribution modeling.
• Usermaven: Offers advanced multi-touch attribution, allowing marketers to track the impact of multiple touchpoints on conversions.

Also read: What is multi-channel attribution and how it works?

4. Funnel analysis

• Heap: Provides funnel analysis to understand user drop-offs and optimize conversion paths.
• Fullstory: Offers funnel analysis to visualize user journeys and identify friction points.
• Usermaven: Features AI-powered funnel insights with drop-off points and optimization suggestions.

Also read: The role of AI in website and product analytics

5. Cookieless tracking

• Heap: Relies on cookies for tracking user behavior.
• Fullstory: Uses cookies and does not currently offer cookieless solutions.
• Usermaven: Offers cookieless tracking to ensure accurate data collection in privacy-conscious environments.

6. Ad-blocker bypassing

• Heap: Cannot bypass ad blockers for tracking purposes.
• Fullstory: Does not provide ad-blocker bypassing capabilities.
• Usermaven: Includes ad-blocker bypassing, ensuring accurate analytics even when users have tracking blockers enabled.

7. Privacy and compliance

• Heap: Complies with major data protection regulations and offers data anonymization features.
• Fullstory: Adheres to privacy standards and provides tools to mask sensitive data.
• Usermaven: Focuses on privacy-friendly analytics, offering cookieless tracking and compliance with data protection laws.

8. Real-time data

• Heap: Provides real-time data processing for immediate insights.
• Fullstory: Offers near real-time data updates to monitor user behavior as it happens.
• Usermaven: Delivers real-time analytics, allowing prompt decision-making based on current user interactions.

9. User interface

• Heap: Features a user-friendly interface with customizable dashboards.
• Fullstory: Offers an intuitive interface with easy navigation and visualization tools.
• Usermaven: Provides a clean, intuitive interface designed for teams of all technical skill levels.

Also read: How to get started with marketing analytics for better decision-making?

10. Search engine and keyword data

• Heap: Does not specialize in search engine or keyword analytics.
• Fullstory: Focuses on user behavior analytics without specific search engine data features.
• Usermaven: Integrates with tools like Google Search Console to provide search engine and keyword data.

11. Heatmaps

• Heap: Does not include heatmaps as a core feature.
• Fullstory: Offers heatmaps to visualize areas of high engagement and friction on a webpage.
• Usermaven: Focuses more on AI-driven insights and does not currently offer heatmaps.

12. Integrations

• Heap: Offers multiple integrations with marketing, analytics, and CRM tools.
• Fullstory: Provides seamless integration with popular tools, including customer success and marketing platforms.
• Usermaven: Supports easy integration with a variety of tools, including marketing and CRM platforms, ensuring a smooth workflow.

13. Pricing 

• Heap: Offers a free plan for up to 10,000 sessions per month; custom plans available for businesses with higher needs.
• Fullstory: Operates on a custom pricing model; interested businesses need to contact them for quotes.
• Usermaven: Starts at $14/month for the Pro plan with a 30-day free trial, offering transparent pricing.

Use cases and ideal scenarios: Heap vs. Fullstory vs. Usermaven

Choosing the right analytics platform is essential for achieving business objectives efficiently. Here’s a detailed comparison of where Heap, Fullstory, and Usermaven excel

Heap

Ideal for: Businesses requiring automatic data capture and in-depth behavioral analysis. Heap excels at tracking user interactions without manual setup, enabling fast data collection and analysis.

Use cases:

• Product teams: Automatically gather data to identify user trends, uncover pain points, and optimize workflows.
• Marketers: Map out customer journeys to improve campaign efficiency.
• Growing businesses: Leverage Heap’s free plan for smaller-scale analytics and expand as your data needs grow.

Scenario example: An e-commerce company analyzing abandoned cart behaviors to streamline its checkout process.

Why It’s not always ideal:

For privacy-conscious users, its reliance on cookies may raise concerns.

Fullstory

Ideal for: Enterprises focused on improving user experience through session replays, heat maps, and detailed analytics. Fullstory helps businesses pinpoint friction points to refine the customer journey.

Use cases:

• Customer success teams: Understand where users face challenges and resolve issues before they escalate.
• UX designers: Leverage heatmaps and session replays to optimize user interfaces.
• Enterprise businesses: Handle high-traffic websites and apps with robust tools for user journey analysis.

Scenario example: A SaaS company identifying onboarding frustrations through session analysis to boost activation rates.

Why it’s not always ideal:

Fullstory’s pricing model lacks transparency, often making it expensive for smaller teams or startups. While its UX tools are powerful, it doesn’t offer the comprehensive product and marketing analytics of Usermaven.

Usermaven

Ideal for: SaaS product owners, marketers, and agencies seeking a balanced mix of product, marketing, and user experience analytics, with AI-driven insights, privacy-first tracking, and transparent pricing. Usermaven empowers teams to make data-driven decisions efficiently.

Use cases:

• Product managers: Use detailed product analytics to track feature adoption, user engagement, and retention rates.
• Marketers: Gain clarity with multi-touch attribution, automatic event tracking, and AI-powered insights to optimize campaigns.
• Agencies: Manage analytics for multiple clients using lightweight, privacy-friendly tools.
• Businesses at any scale: Usermaven’s affordable, scalable plans accommodate startups, SMBs, and enterprises alike.

Scenario example: A SaaS business seeking an analytics tool that combines product and marketing data to optimize both user experience and campaign ROI.

Why it stands out:

• AI-powered insights: Unlike Heap or Fullstory, Usermaven uses AI to identify actionable trends and patterns in your data.
• Product and marketing analytics combined: It bridges the gap between understanding your product’s performance and your marketing campaigns’ success.
• Privacy-first approach: Cookieless tracking and ad-blocker bypassing ensure compliance with GDPR and other regulations while maintaining accuracy.
• Transparent pricing: Starting at just $14/month, Usermaven is an affordable choice for businesses of all sizes, with no hidden fees or opaque pricing.
• Ease of use: Lightweight and user-friendly, it offers intuitive dashboards and seamless integration into workflows, making analytics accessible for everyone.

Why choose Usermaven over Heap or Fullstory?

Heap and Fullstory cater to specific niches: Heap for automatic data tracking and Fullstory for UX-focused session analysis. However, Usermaven provides a more holistic solution, combining product analytics, marketing insights, and UX data into one platform. With AI-driven recommendations, privacy-first tracking, and transparent pricing, Usermaven is the ideal choice for growing businesses that need actionable analytics without overspending or sacrificing user privacy.

Whether you’re a startup looking for cost-effective yet powerful analytics or an established business in need of AI-powered insights, Usermaven adapts to your needs—helping you grow smarter and faster.

FAQs

What is the difference between Heap, Fullstory, and Usermaven?

Heap is great for automatic data capture, Fullstory focuses on session replays, and Usermaven combines product and marketing analytics with AI-driven insights.

Are these tools GDPR compliant?

Yes, all three tools comply with GDPR. Usermaven stands out with cookieless tracking for better privacy compliance.

Which tool should I choose?

Usermaven is the best choice if you’re looking for a comprehensive, user-friendly, and cost-effective analytics solution. It offers AI-powered insights, multi-touch attribution, privacy-first features like cookieless tracking, and transparent pricing starting at just $14/month. Whether you’re a SaaS product owner, marketer, or agency, Usermaven simplifies analytics and empowers you to make data-driven decisions with ease.

How much do these tools cost?

Heap has a free plan and custom-priced paid options. Fullstory requires you to request pricing. Usermaven offers plans starting at $14/month with a free trial.

Which tool is the easiest to use?

Usermaven has a user-friendly interface with seamless integration. Heap and Fullstory may require more setup to get started.

Do these tools provide real-time data?

Yes, all three platforms support real-time data tracking, though the level of detail varies.