Top 5 Reasons Leading Companies Choose Amplitude Over Contentsquare

Hint: They’re ditching "Frankenstein" solutions for a unified analytics platform.

Perspectives
October 23, 2024
Headshot of Francis Wilson
Francis Wilson
Director, Competitive Strategy at Amplitude
Top 5 Reasons Leading Companies Choose Amplitude Over Contentsquare

In a highly digital and competitive market, analytics is essential to driving growth for modern businesses. Your customers engage with your product across countless digital touchpoints, creating a treasure trove of data.

But if you’re using the wrong tool, trying to get meaningful insights from this data can be a painful experience. As our CEO Spenser Skates pointed out in a recent blog post, these days, “it’s easier to ship new products than it is to measure them.” Analytics can be difficult for beginners due to the need for engineers to implement event tracking to get started. That’s why we recently launched Autocapture and visual tagging so that teams can get a wealth of insights from a single line of code.

Another obstacle is getting the full picture of user behavior. That’s why our customers asked us to build a full platform beyond product analytics, including experiment, Session Replay, and customer data platform (CDP). Amplitude has led the charge on this, and other analytics providers are making the “pivot to platform” through acquisitions and splashy announcements.

But it’s important to note that not all platforms are created equally. Companies like Contentsquare have been snapping up products like Heap and Hotjar to create “all-in-one” platforms, but these stitched-together solutions can feel like the monster from "Frankenstein"—expensive, clunky, and simply not built to play nice together. You end up spending more time double-checking data and juggling multiple interfaces than actually getting the insights you need.

At Amplitude, we believe there’s a better way. Our platform is built from the ground up to work as a seamless, unified solution. Whether you’re just starting with auto-tracking or ready for deep-dive insights, we’ve got you covered. No fuss, no mess—just reliable analytics that scales with you and helps your team make smarter decisions.

That’s why thousands of leading teams trust Amplitude with their digital strategy and, in many cases, switch from tools like Heap. In this blog, I’ll share the top five reasons that we hear the most when a customer chooses Amplitude over Contentsquare and Heap.

1. Fully unified platform

When it comes to digital analytics platforms, there’s a big difference between something fully unified and something that’s been cobbled together over time. Contentsquare, for instance, has stitched together eight separate acquisitions, from Heap to Hotjar, into what they call an "all-in-one" platform. The result? Customers report long integration times, clunky user experiences, and multiple logins.

Amplitude’s Digital Analytics Platform, on the other hand, was built natively from the ground up. Our analytics, Session Replay, experimentation, and CDP all work seamlessly together because they were designed to. You get a unified, consistent experience without the headache of trying to harmonize different systems. It’s like the difference between shopping at a mall full of separate stores versus one seamless online marketplace where everything just works.

Timeline of Amplitude’s native Digital Analytics Platform

Timeline of Amplitude’s native Digital Analytics Platform

2. Better flexibility

As companies grow and mature, their data needs evolve, especially when it comes to tracking and capturing insights. Contentsquare’s auto-tracking product analytics offering, Heap, is okay for getting started, but as organizations develop, they need more precision than what Heap gives them. That’s where manual event tracking comes in, enabling teams to collect exactly the data they need and ensuring accuracy across user journeys and events.

At Amplitude, we believe in meeting our customers where they are. That’s why we offer both auto-capture and precision tracking, so teams can start with what works for them and adapt as they grow.

3. Deeper analytics to understand the “why”

Optimizing your customer journey means getting deep, actionable insights into what customers are doing—and where they’re hitting roadblocks. It’s not just about knowing where customers are coming from; it’s about understanding why they stay or leave. To do that, you need real-time behavioral data that captures every interaction and the context behind that interaction. Without that context, you can’t answer key questions like, “What makes my users sticky?” or “Which channels bring in high-value users?” This level of insight drives acquisition and, more importantly, retention and customer loyalty.

Contentsquare, often described as “advanced Google Analytics,” has serious limitations in this arena. It’s great for basic questions but doesn’t dig deep into the “why” behind customer behaviors. With Amplitude, you get an advanced analytics toolbox including compass, lifecycle charts, and microscope, which empowers you to discover the root cause of behaviors and then take action on it.

4. Enterprise-ready collaboration, governance, and security

Delivering digital experiences requires cross-team collaboration, governance, and security, where Contentsquare and Heap fall short.

Collaboration: Heap lacks collaboration tools, forcing teams to context switch if they want to share insights or rely on insecure methods like exporting data to spreadsheets. In contrast, Amplitude’s Spaces, Notebooks, and automated alerting via Slack and Notion make it easy to share insights and collaborate. For many of our customers like Atlassian and NerdWallet, Amplitude is the cornerstone of their data-driven culture.

Amplitude’s analytics space

Amplitude’s analytics space

Governance: Heap’s governance is basic and manual, lacking automatic identity resolution and causing data fragmentation. Amplitude’s AI-powered governance tools, like Data Assistant, object deduplication, and in-app tracking plans, intelligently and proactively ensure data accuracy, keeping data clean and reliable.

Security: Heap’s auto-tracking can inadvertently collect personally identifiable information, posing security risks. Amplitude provides full control over data collection with built-in privacy safeguards, ensuring compliance with the GDPR and CCPA. With data centers in both the US and EU, Amplitude also offers flexibility for global operations, whereas Heap lacks an EU data center.

Amplitude’s collaboration, governance, and security features are built for enterprise needs, ensuring your teams work efficiently with safe, accurate data.

5. Industry-leading innovation

AI is transforming the analytics industry, enabling organizations to create better, self-improving products. Amplitude is leading this shift, integrating AI and machine learning across our platform to deliver proactive and predictive insights.

Here are a few of our AI-powered tools:

  • Ask Amplitude: Enables teams to ask questions in plain English and instantly get answers without relying on data analysts.
  • Data Assistant: Uses generative AI to provide smart recommendations and automate data governance.

Unlike Contentsquare and Heap, which are still catching up on AI capabilities, Amplitude already empowers teams to work smarter with advanced, reliable AI solutions.

Amplitude’s Data Assistant

Amplitude’s Data Assistant

“Ask Amplitude is as big of an innovation in analytics UX as Amplitude originally was. It helps me get to answers faster and enables everyone, regardless of experience, to ask questions.”

Phillip Wang, Co-Founder and CEO, Gather

The all-in-one platform Contentsquare wishes it could be

Let’s face it—who can afford to waste time and resources managing a disjointed patchwork of tools? With platforms like Contentsquare and Heap, you’re consistently battling inefficiencies, data inaccuracies, and limited insights—ultimately slowing down your decision-making.

Amplitude offers a different path: a truly unified solution designed from the ground up to meet the needs of growing companies. Whether it’s advanced AI, seamless collaboration, or flexible tracking options, Amplitude gives you everything you need in one place to make smarter, faster decisions.

So, leave the "Frankenstein" platforms behind and choose a partner that grows with your business, delivering accurate data and actionable insights every step of the way. Amplitude ensures your teams are always on the same page, focused on creating exceptional customer experiences, and driving real impact. Why settle for a platform that claims to be “all-in-one” when you can have one that actually is?

What you’ve read is only a few reasons leading companies choose Amplitude over Contentsquare and Heap. Learn more by reading our guide.

About the Author
Headshot of Francis Wilson
Francis Wilson
Director, Competitive Strategy at Amplitude
Francis Wilson is the Director of Competitive Strategy at Amplitude. He is a true believer in the power of data to enable a better-informed world, having spent his career before Amplitude as both a practitioner and an investor in the data and analytics space. Before taking on his role in Competitive Strategy, Francis served as Chief of Staff to Amplitude’s CEO, Spenser Skates.