5 Alternatives to Lemon Learning to Boost Digital Adoption

Every SaaS organization needs a learning experience, whether it is for employees or customers. The digital tools you use to implement an onboarding user experience can change a lot for your business.

You might already be using a digital adoption platform for your onboarding needs. Maybe it is Lemon Learning, or maybe you are considering using it.

What if I  told you that there might be better alternatives?

In this article, we will dive into:

• What Lemon Learning is and how it works,
• Why it may or may not be the best fit for your business,
• What alternatives there are out there and our experiences with them,
• Pricing and reviews for each of the alternatives from renowned websites like G2, Capterra, and Product Hunt,
• What use cases there are for each alternative, and how YOU can make use of them

Let me start by explaining what Lemon Learning does for a SaaS business. If it is for you, then good for you!

But if you think you need something else, read along. We've got a good batch of alternatives to it.

What is Lemon Learning?

Lemon Learning is a digital adoption solution that helps businesses onboard their users with a three-in-one tool, the three in question being training, engagement, and communication.

According to their webpage, rather than utilizing dry videos in onboarding users and employees, Lemon Learning makes use of interactive guides. Essentially promoting step-by-step onboarding, the online platform makes training material more digestible thanks to being a 3-in-1 tool, as they call it.

Lemon Learning Pricing

Lemon Learning does not provide a fixed list for pricing and requires customers to watch a demo or ask for custom quotations.

Lemon Learning Reviews

👍 Pros:

“I had a lot of training content, and Lemon Learning helped me all the way. The product is super easy to use.”

👎 Cons:

“when you always use the same form for all your steps you don't have the possibility to define a default look and you have to redefine it step by step.”

Why you need a Lemon Learning Alternative

Now don't get me wrong, I think Lemon Learning is a great tool.

The matter in hand is if it's great for everyone else.

It's actually so great from the surface that it leaves you confused seeing that it has only 13 reviews (almost all in French) and a barely not-so-niche place in the digital adoption market. 

We're talking about a market with thousands of users. Every tool has to do digital adoption, no?

When that's the case, it's almost suspicious that Lemon Learning doesn't have more market presence, especially when it says they serve thousands around the world (it turns out they mean the end-users, welp) 

But hey, there are actual reasons you might want an alternative to Lemon Learning.

1- Many great features - not advanced enough

Among Lemon Learning's features are super sought-after user experience and onboarding feats like analytics and interactive content. Stuff that a typical customer for a digital adoption solution would feast on.

Sadly, even though Lemon Learning offers no free trial and even their scheduled demo is only for watching, one can tell that there might not be much depth to these features.

From what they show to website visitors, they have recently started offering auto-triggers and condition-based guides. Feats some other digital tools have been using for years.

They just might need some more time to season into full-fledged features.

2- Simplistic design - too simple

The Lemon Learning demo shows glimpses of the dashboard and the app guides software users can create. The guides and tooltips look simple and nice, almost a little too simple and nice.

Using the sidebar on your designated app or website, content creation is quite simplistic and even basic.

There seem to be not many template choices for each in-app content, and the editing is done on the toolbar. The content can only be seen with a preview.

3- Available on several browsers - gets clunky

If you overextend yourself, there is nothing but trouble.

And you especially don't want to have too many irons in the fire when you are already dealing with bugs, which is one of the major problems people report to have with Lemon Learning.

Depending on the systems, browsers, and the server a typical user is using, Lemon LEarning gets clunky from time to time.

Sure, it is tech, and everything gets buggy from time to time. But it's onto us to stick to one browser and perfect it before trying our hands at others.

Top Lemon Learning Alternatives

Now we know that Lemon Learning is a pretty capable tool with a couple of cons that might make you want to look for an alternative just to be sure. Then it's a good thing I brought some together for you.

Here are the top 5 alternatives to Lemon Learning:

1. UserGuiding
2. Pendo
3. Shepherd.js (free)
4. Intercom
5. UserIQ

I'll go over each tool, how it compares to Lemon Learning, and in which cases they should be preferred. Without further ado, let’s start with our first product:

1- UserGuiding – No-code Interactive User Onboarding

UserGuiding is a leader among the user onboarding and digital adoption tools with its affordable price and advanced features that'll help elevate your user experience and onboarding flow.

A user onboarding flow created with UserGuiding for Vieworks

 UserGuiding is not only the most affordable choice in the market with the best set of features, but it is also highly user-friendly, as it makes excellent user guiding its main goal.

And this includes the users of UserGuiding.

With an easy-to-use dashboard and features like:

• Interactive product tours and walkthroughs,
• Hotspots and tooltips,
• Interactive checklists,
• Resource centers,
• Analytics and customization,
• Segmentation and targeting, and more;

UserGuiding offers a smooth user experience with the best insight into your user base, all as in-depth as can be.

What makes UserGuiding better than Lemon Learning?

• UserGuiding lets users customize each in-app modal and time, trigger, launch them on condition or automatically. While Lemon Learning seems to have similar offers, being newly launched features, it is for sure that UserGuiding will be more stable.
• UserGuiding has a free trial and other tiers starting from $66, making it possible for even startups to use the tool. Lemon Learning is less affordable for businesses other than enterprises.
• While UserGuiding and Lemon Learning have similar features like UserGuiding's resource center and Lemon Learning's in-app bubble, UserGuiding executes the functions of these features better. While Lemon Learning's bubble is like a drop-down menu one needs to go through and learn, UserGuiding's resource center is used for customer support reasons and has a search option for a better user experience.
• Lemon Learning has solutions for using its tool in apps like Oracle, Salesforce, and Dynamics 365; meanwhile, with UserGuiding, all you need to do to create an onboarding flow on an app you don't have the container code for is use UserGuiding Now, a new extension of UserGuiding.

So if you are looking for a comprehensive and more stable alternative with advanced features and high customization, you might wanna go for UserGuiding.

UserGuiding Pricing

UserGuiding offers scalable pricing plans that grow with your business, charging based on the number of active users you have. When billed yearly:

• Basic Plan: Starting from $69/month.
• Professional Plan: Starting from $199/month.
• Corporate Plan: Custom quote.

UserGuiding Reviews

👍 Pros:

“Userguiding provides an impressive feature set that can do more than it seems. From simple step-basis guided tours to almost seamless splash pages that look product branded. 10/10 customer support.”

👎 Cons:

“Frankly, we have never faced such a problem rather than some technical points. Even if, it had been a few days to correct it. They have a great and focused customer success team.”

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2- Pendo - onboarding with UX insight

Pendo is a product experience platform designed to help users get highly informative insight on their product's performance and create in-app content accordingly.

Knowing Pendo's popularity and the many companies utilizing it to improve their users' experiences, it surely is a good alternative to Lemon Learning.

Given that you got the patience for a complex setup and general use.

Pendo is one of those tools that require you to have a product manager with you at all times. The learning curve sure is steep.

Moreover, Pendo isn't the most affordable choice either. 

Then why Pendo?

What makes Pendo better than Lemon Learning?

• Pendo is easily one of the best user experience and onboarding tools when it comes to user insight, something Lemon Learning cannot provide to the same extent as Pendo's segments and targeting.
• Both in UI design and in analytics, Pendo is way more customizable, while Lemon Learning tends to keep it to a manageable amount for a simple tool.
• Pendo has a huge userbase as well as a professional team that's been around for a while. Good customer support is a higher possibility with Pendo.

So, if you are looking for an advanced option that will empower you through reliable analytics and help you turn your data into in-app guides, Pendo is a great alternative.

Pendo Pricing

Pendo offers customers four different tiers, one of which is free.

These tiers are Free, Team, Pro, and Enterprise. Sadly, Pendo offers no pricing information apart from the plans, and customers looking to use Pendo need to contact sales.

Pendo Reviews

👍 Pros:

“It's easy to create in-app customer communications. You can have an announcement ready in a few minutes. Basic feature walkthroughs and tooltips are also pretty simple. Their support team, Git repo, and Slack community are useful resources if you're trying to do something that's not delivered out-of-the-box or a custom guide function.”

👎 Cons:

“While easy to use, the UI is a bit clunky and can run slow. When launching the design, it will open multiple tabs and won't allow you to navigate between your design window and your existing content. In addition, there is no auto-save, so if your application has a time limit before logging out, you have to be sure you click save, or you will lose your work.”

3- Shepherd.js - the free, open-source option

Shepherd.js is the top free, open-source option and a great alternative for Lemon Learning if you're on a budget.

If you don't need a fancy onboarding flow with many steps, checklists, and whatnot, or if your main concern is somehow making sure you can train your users, then Shepherd.js is the best Lemon Learning alternative for you.

What makes Shepherd.js better than Lemon Learning?

• Lemon Learning doesn't provide a pricing list and might be pretty pricey, while Shepherd.js is free to use.
• Shepherd.js is maintained by a big community of volunteers from around the world; you are sure to get help when something goes wrong.

Shepherd.js Pricing

Shepherd.js is absolutely free to use and is an open-source library.

Shepherd.js Reviews

👍 Pros:

“great library, it does everything I want and it's pretty easy to use. Far better than others I tried before finding shepherd (your demo actually originally put me off due to its styling).”

👎 Cons:

“Some steps in a tour benefit more than others from the modal highlight. After migrating from ngx-tour over to Shepherd.js (via angular-shepherd) I greatly miss the ability to set the highlight/modal mode on a per-step basis.”

4- Intercom - the true three in one

Intercom is a prominent user-communication tool that has been among the leaders in the market for a while now.

If the reason you are looking for a Lemon Learning alternative is that you don't need an advanced onboarding flow but a better way to communicate with your users and customers, you've hit the jackpot with Intercom.

What makes Intercom better than Lemon Learning?

• Intercom offers an all-around solution for support, engagement, and marketing and actually follows through with help centers, live chat messengers, and product tours while Lemon Learning's forté is training.
• Intercom is a great solution if you need to improve customer support within your app; as Lemon Learning focuses on in-app messaging, the former is a better option if you don't need a perfect onboarding flow.

Intercom Pricing

Intercom offers a Starter tier for "very small businesses," starting from $74 a month, and yes, you can try it for free.

The regular pricing for the main solutions, however, doesn't have a fixed pricing list, and the product tours add-on costs another $199/month.

Intercom Reviews

👍 Pros:

“Everything in one place to address your customer needs immediately where they are--the website, email, text etc. splendid! I really have not used others, so I would say this experience is not rushing me into another product. I am quite enjoying the simplicity and functionality”

👎 Cons:

“I've experienced some delays from the support team when I've asked for help, and one instance where I didn't really hear back at all about an issue I had so I believe there might be some room for improvement there in terms of response times.”

5- UserIQ - a better look at your software users

UserIQ is a customer success platform that focuses on user behavior and UX, which include user onboarding as well.

Among the alternatives Lemon Learning has on this list, UserIQ is the only one marketed as a customer success tool, but of course, it has customer onboarding software capabilities as well.

What makes UserIQ better than Lemon Learning?

• UserIQ offers a free trial and is less expensive than the average for mid-market companies, while Lemon Learning doesn't have a public pricing or a free trial.
• UserIQ has health score features as well as account snapshots and in-depth account data insight capabilities, Lemon Learning focuses more on software adoption statistics.
• While not being much of a complex tool is among the advantages of Lemon Learning, UserIQ has a similar toolbar that makes content creation as simple as can be with some more options.

UserIQ Pricing

UserIQ doesn't have a public pricing list, however, according to reviews, it is less expensive than the average for mid-market businesses.

UserIQ Reviews

👍 Pros:

“The product offers extensive functionality, including site tours, walkthroughs, tooltips, user analytics, announcements, etc. Great customer service.”

👎 Cons:

“Set up is easy but still time consuming. You need brief help from an tech engineer but after the script is placed on site you can start to customize and track your campaigns.”

Conclusion

As you can see, the three-in-one tool Lemon Learning has a lot of competition when it comes to well, each of the three things they have.

• Go for UserGuiding if you want to do everything you can do with Lemon Learning with a more advanced set of features at the best price in the market.
• Go for Pendo if your top priority is not onboarding your users right the first time but rather making sure their user experience is smooth.
• Go for Shepherd.js  if you have a good developer in your team that has the time and skills to create a good onboarding flow free of charge.
• Go for Intercom if you can make compromises on your onboarding because you know you can provide perfect support with in-app live chat and great help centers.
• Go for UserIQ if you want to take your steps according to your users' health scores and account data and lean on the analytics to make an impression on your users with your onboarding flow.

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