What to expect when you migrate from Optimizely Web Experimentation to Optimizely Feature Experimentation

Choosing the right Optimizely Experimentation product requires knowing the differences between Optimizely Web Experimentation and Optimizely Feature Experimentation. Transitioning from Optimizely Web Experimentation to Optimizely Feature Experimentation can impact your company's experimentation program. Here are some differences between the two products.

Optimizely Web ExperimentationOptimizely Web Experimentation is a client-side experimentation tool for marketing or growth teams. It is accessible even without strong technical skills. Optimizely Web Experimentation experiments often focus on goals like optimizing conversion rates in marketing or purchasing funnels.

Optimizely Feature ExperimentationOptimizely Feature Experimentation is an experimentation tool for any device with an internet connectionexperimentation tool for any device with an internet connection. It is for product development teams who want to experiment with their product and its features without incurring any performance degradation. Optimizely Feature Experimentation users are less concerned with conversion rate optimization and work to optimize productsoptimize products for metrics like engagement, retention, usage, and lifetime value.

Optimizely Web Experimentation does not require users to have high technical knowledge. It allows users with a WYSIWYG visual editorvisual editor to build experiments. You can take your idea from hypothesis to completed experiment without writing a single line of code.

Optimizely Feature Experimentation is more complex. You set up server-side and client-side experiments by writing new code and deploying it on your organization's servers or clients. These tasks are preferred for skilled developers.

Optimizely Web Experimentation's implementation is straightforward. You add a single line of code—the snippetthe snippet—to the code of any page where you want to run an experiment.

Optimizely Feature Experimentation has no snippet. Instead, it relies on SDKsSDKs in a variety of popular development languages.

If you focus on optimizing various aspects of your site's interfaces, you should use Optimizely Web Experimentation. It is the fastest way to test the look and feel (layouts, messaging, and colors) of your site's user experience with no required code or releases.

By contrast, Optimizely Feature Experimentation makes it easy to test underlying features, business transactions, and complex algorithms—how your product works. Deploying an experiment in Optimizely Feature Experimentation is not as fast as in Optimizely Web Experimentation; you must adhere to code release standard practices, like code reviews and testing.

The experiments you build with Optimizely Web Experimentation usually run in one channel, such as your organization's website. Optimizely Feature Experimentation lets you experiment across multiple channels simultaneously, like web, mobile, SMS, and email.

Despite its complexity, you may get better performance from Optimizely Feature Experimentation than from Optimizely Web Experimentation. You may find server-side experimentation is more efficient than experimenting in the browser, which can affect page load times or induce a slight flickeringflickering effect. 

See the developer documentationdeveloper documentation or Optimizely's blog posts to find out more about Optimizely Feature Experimentation.