As Google Optimize and Optimize 360 are to sunset on September 30, 2023, many users are hunting for an alternative experimentation platform to continue their A/B testing programs. For data-forward teams, this provides a great opportunity to modernize your A/B testing solution with GrowthBook, the most popular open-source experimentation platform. GrowthBook offers a number of benefits over its proprietary counterparts.
Data ownership and avoiding vendor lock-in
One of the main advantages of GrowthBook is its ability to use your own data and avoid vendor lock-in. GrowthBook supports 14 different data sources, such as Snowflake, Redshift, Postgres, and even Mixpanel. Since you own your own data, and since GrowthBook is open-source, you can avoid vendor lock-in and related issues that can arise from using proprietary software. Having a centralized location for all analytics data also avoids many of the pitfalls of other solutions where reconciling results across multiple vendors and data sources can become a headache and source of confusion.
Transparent data practices
GrowthBook also offers complete transparency into the data used for A/B testing. Users can view all the raw aggregate values and see the SQL that generated them. This ensures you have the ability to fully interrogate your results and have confidence in your decisions. Additionally, users have the option to export data as a Jupyter notebook or CSV file, which can provide even more flexibility and convenience in analyzing and utilizing the data.
Flexible integration with event trackers
If you already have event tracking across your application, integrating with GrowthBook is easy. GrowthBook supports 12 different event trackers, from Google Analytics 4, to Segment, Rudderstack, Firebase, and Mixpanel. Integration only requires using our lightweight SDKs (available in 13 languages) and one additional tracking vent.
A familiar statistics engine
Like Google Optimize, GrowthBook offers a Bayesian statistical engine. This means that the language and statistical results that you have gotten used to will be readily available in GrowthBook. In case you didn’t like the Bayesian approach preferred by Google Optimize, GrowthBook provides you with the flexibility to choose frequentist statistics as your engine of choice.
Easy to customize
Another benefit of GrowthBook is its flexibility and customization of how it integrates with your application. If you have custom targeting segments, metrics, or dimensional data, GrowthBook lets you adjust the queries to give teams ultimate customization in what data is used.
Improve your A/B testing
Google Optimize was a great tool for teams to start A/B testing and measuring the impact of product changes. However, there were some limitations with Optimize. Optimize was almost exclusively used for front-end experimentation on web applications. With a tool like GrowthBook, you can experiment on front-end, back-end, mobile, edge, etc. You can also run experiments that interact with multiple sides of your application and ensure that users will be assigned consistently across your stack. GrowthBook gives teams the power of a custom-built in-house platform without having to build it yourself.
Cost
Google Optimize users enjoyed a free product, and may be in for a shock when they get pricing of some of the proprietary alternatives. GrowthBook’s core product is open-source, and available self-hosted for free. More advanced features are available for a fraction of the cost of other platforms. Optimize 360 users could see a significant reduction in their costs by migrating to GrowthBook.
Conclusion
Companies will be scrambling to find alternatives to Google Optimize and Optimize 360 before all experiments end and all historical data is lost on September 30, 2023. GrowthBook is a strong contender, as the most popular open source experimentation platform, with modern services and features like being able to use your own data, complete customization, data transparency, and free or low cost. All in all, GrowthBook is a great alternative for users looking to continue and improve their A/B testing and optimization efforts after the sunset of Google Optimize and Optimize 360. Book a free demo with us to learn more.
