Smaply
Smaply is a visual journey mapping software that helps you centralize customer insights, create detailed personas, and map complex ecosystem maps to improve your overall customer experience strategy.
Whatfix
Whatfix is a digital adoption platform that helps you simplify software experiences by providing real-time, interactive guidance and automated support directly within your enterprise applications and websites.
Quick Comparison
| Feature | Smaply | Whatfix |
|---|---|---|
| Website | smaply.com | whatfix.com |
| Pricing Model | Freemium | Custom |
| Starting Price | Free | Custom Pricing |
| FREE Trial | ✓ 14 days free trial | ✓ 0 days free trial |
| Free Plan | ✓ Has free plan | ✘ No free plan |
| Product Demo | ✓ Request demo here | ✓ Request demo here |
| Deployment | ||
| Integrations | ||
| Target Users | ||
| Target Industries | ||
| Customer Count | 0 | 0 |
| Founded Year | 2012 | 2014 |
| Headquarters | Innsbruck, Austria | San Jose, USA |
Overview
Smaply
Smaply is a dedicated journey mapping tool designed to help you visualize and manage your customer experience in one central place. Instead of scattered spreadsheets or static slide decks, you get a dynamic environment where you can build detailed journey maps, develop rich user personas, and visualize stakeholder relationships through ecosystem maps.
You can use the platform to identify pain points in your current service delivery and collaborate with your team to design better future-state experiences. It is particularly effective for UX researchers, service designers, and CX managers in mid-market to enterprise organizations who need to transform raw qualitative data into actionable visual insights that stakeholders can actually understand.
Whatfix
Whatfix helps you overcome software complexity by layering interactive guides directly on top of your existing applications. Instead of toggling between tabs or reading long manuals, you get step-by-step instructions that lead you through tasks in real-time. This approach ensures your team masters new tools quickly and reduces the burden on your support desk by answering questions before they are even asked.
You can create personalized onboarding flows, deploy in-app announcements, and provide a self-service knowledge base that follows users wherever they go. The platform works across web, desktop, and mobile applications, making it a versatile choice for organizations looking to improve employee productivity or enhance customer self-service. By analyzing user behavior, you can identify exactly where people get stuck and deploy targeted fixes instantly.
Overview
Smaply Features
- Journey Map Editor Create multi-layered journey maps with text, images, and storyboard icons to visualize every step of your customer's experience.
- Persona Editor Build detailed profiles of your target users to ensure your team stays focused on real human needs and behaviors.
- Ecosystem Maps Visualize the complex relationships between stakeholders, processes, and technologies that happen behind the scenes of your service.
- Live Collaboration Invite your teammates to edit maps in real-time and leave comments to speed up your design and approval process.
- Dynamic Data Linking Link personas directly to your journey maps so you can see how different segments experience the same service differently.
- Export Options Generate high-resolution PDF, PNG, or Excel files of your maps to share professional reports with your stakeholders.
Whatfix Features
- Interactive Walkthroughs. Guide your users through complex tasks with step-by-step on-screen instructions that react to their specific actions.
- Self-Service Support. Provide a searchable help menu inside your app so you can find answers without leaving your current screen.
- Smart Content Aggregation. Pull your existing help docs, videos, and PDFs into one central in-app location for instant access.
- Task Lists. Create structured onboarding checklists for your new hires so they know exactly what to complete next.
- User Analytics. Track how people interact with your software to see where they struggle and how your guides perform.
- No-Code Content Creator. Build and update your guidance content using a simple browser extension without writing a single line of code.
Pricing Comparison
Smaply Pricing
- 1 active project
- 3 journey maps
- 3 personas
- 1 ecosystem map
- Basic export options
- Everything in Free, plus:
- 3 active projects
- Unlimited journey maps
- Unlimited personas
- Unlimited ecosystem maps
- Premium export formats
Whatfix Pricing
Pros & Cons
Smaply
Pros
- Intuitive drag-and-drop interface for quick mapping
- Professional export quality for stakeholder presentations
- Specialized tools for personas and ecosystem maps
- Generous free tier for individual practitioners
Cons
- Learning curve for complex multi-lane maps
- Limited integrations with external data sources
- Performance can slow down with very large maps
Whatfix
Pros
- Easy to create content without needing technical coding skills
- Excellent customer success team provides proactive implementation support
- Highly customizable UI matches your brand's look and feel
- Works across multiple applications for a unified user experience
Cons
- Initial setup requires significant time for complex workflows
- Analytics dashboard can feel overwhelming for first-time users
- Browser extension updates occasionally require manual troubleshooting