6 Better Alternatives to React Joyride for User Onboarding (Free & Paid)

React has changed the development environment, making it easier and faster.

And many tools and apps that are based on React work the same way. They are more accessible, and they are faster.

But nothing changes the fact that those tools didn't change anything for no-coders. 🤷🏻‍♀️

That's why today, I gathered the six best alternatives to React Joyride, both for old-school coders and for non-technical people.

In this article, I will: 

• Introduce React Joyride and talk about the reviews,
• Quickly go over why you might need an alternative to it,
• And list the six best alternatives to React Joyride, including libraries for product tours and tools that can be an alternative to product tours.

So without further ado, let's get right into it:

What is React Joyride?

React Joyride is one of the many React applications that helps you create excellent tours for better user onboarding and digital adoption.

React Joyride saves you from the Joyride plugin for jQuery problems. The tool also provides a simple product to easily create both static and dynamic content.

You can customize the product to some extent. For instance, you can change the selector labels and button colors, add a skip option or remove the skip button altogether.

But that's about all the customization you can do.

And here is a list of other React Libraries to compare.

Well, Joyride is not a product design company, so you might not expect all those.

So here's why you might actually need something better than this library:

React Joyride Pricing

React Joyride is an open-source library, and it's 100% free for everyone to use.

React Joyride Reviews

👍 Pros:

“With React Joyride, users can see your site features through an interactive tour which prompts them to explore certain points of interest and highlighted basic functionality.”

‍

👎 Cons:

“Is it even possible to implement react joyride across multiple pages as a continuos tour?”

Why you need a React Joyride Alternative

1- It requires technical knowledge

React Joyride is an open-source library to save you from the burden of details, not a complete 3rd party tool that can serve you a finished product. To use it, you need to have knowledge and experience in JavaScript and HTML coding.

2- It doesn't have enough features

The source serves basic tour functionality, but it doesn't have the other essential features to provide a complete product adoption experience. Some of those are Checklists, Resource Centers, No User Analytics.

3- It takes too long to create and maintain

React Joyride is a useful source, but the fact that you still have to develop the source, and it is tough to update or optimize product tours.

4- It can turn out to be costlier than adopting a tool

Hiring developers and getting them to build on top of React Joyride will be costlier than adopting an existing digital adoption solution if you aren't yourself a coder with a lot of time.

Top React Joyride Alternatives

Here are the top 6 alternatives to React Joyride:

1. UserGuiding
2. Intro.js
3. Shepherd.js
4. Reactour
5. Userlane
6. Appcues

I'll go over each tool, compare it to React Joyride, and discuss which cases you should prefer a specific one. So, without further ado, let’s start with our first product:

1- UserGuiding – No-code Interactive User Onboarding

UserGuiding is a no-code digital adoption program software, helping you onboard users easily with any custom feature.

As you can see, the UserGuiding walkthrough works smoother than React Joyride.

Need more to make sure? Okay.

Well, UserGuiding is not free of charge, but compared to the value it provides, it is definitely an affordable tool.

On top of that, adopting a ready-to-use tool can help you in many ways, such as:

• Saving you time, and everyone knows that time is money.
• Saving you effort and leaving you space to focus on the bigger picture.
• Saving you money by leaving all the development and maintenance processes to the 3rd party team.
• Provide you with more than step-by-step walkthroughs within a package, analytics included.

You can sign up for UserGuiding, and start using it right away with the Chrome Extension. The extension eliminates the need to run visual tests, and allows you to point each tooltip and modal right on the target element, on-screen.

UserGuiding Pricing

With scalable plans based on the number of active users you have, UserGuiding has an adjustable pricing. Here is how the plans look when billed annually:

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

UserGuiding Reviews

👍 Pros:

“A couple of things stand out for me: 1- The UI/UX is top-class. Easy & intuitive for non-technical users. 2-Prompt help from the customer support team.”

‍

👎 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.”

2- Intro.js

Intro.js is another basic product, similar to React Joyride, helping you create website walkthroughs through a library.

Intro.js is the most popular product walkthrough library on GitHub. It has 21k stars (React Joyride has 4k) and 679 closed issues.

Unlike React Joyride, Intro.js provides you with additional support and code review for an affordable price.

Intro.js also helps you create announcement modals apart from product tours, which almost no other open-source allows you to do.

Intro.js Pricing

Intro.js is completely free for those who do not use it for commercial projects.

When the project is commercial, a lifetime license is required to be purchased:

• Starter Pack without any official support for $9.99,
• Business Pack with a month of official support and code review for $49.99,
• Premium Pack with a year of official support, code review, and unlimited projects for $299.99.

Intro.js Reviews

👍 Pros:

“I really like the Intro.js plugin because documentation is straightforward and easy to understand. This can work in almost any webpage using jQuery as an included library.”

‍

👎 Cons:

“The library is definitely open source and free software, but at the same time if I want to use it for commercial use it seems I need to pay a license fee. Why is this required if the code is open source?”

3- Shepherd

Shepherd is an online open-source library, helping users create step-by-step product tours to engage users easily.

Shepherd is one other of the free-of-charge open-source libraries on our list.

If you want to keep working on React, you can use ReactShepperd to create your guides.

But again, the library only helps you create step-by-step tours, and no other cool feature is essential for better user onboarding.

Shepherd Pricing

Shepherd is an open-source library, and it's 100% free for everyone to use.

4- Reactour

Reactour, mostly referred to as React Tour, is another open-source library to help you create website walkthroughs.

What makes Reactour unique is its playground to see how different coding combinations work.

Hence, it will be a bit more challenging to install Reactour on your website.

And also, it's not possible to use Reactour on React Native currently, but the developers announced to be working on it.

Reactour Pricing

React tour is an open-source library, and it's 100% free for everyone to use.

5- Userlane

Userlane is a simple website onboarding tool, helping you create interactive product tours and announcement banners.

Userlane is just like the SaaS version of Intro.js but without the coding.

The tool has an appealing interface that welcomes you. You can sign up for it, get the chrome extension, and build product walkthroughs.

You can also create separate announcement modals, but that's about all of the features that Userlane provides you.

You would still have to hard-code or adopt other tools to complete the onboarding process and analyze your data.

Userlane Pricing

Userlane doesn’t have fixed price plans. However, you can contact their team to get a custom quotation.

Userlane Reviews

👍 Pros:

“Userlane is an easy-to-use tool for building engaging digital adoption assets like e.g. guided tours through our software or notifications about new features.”

‍

👎 Cons:

“Userlane currently doesn't support standalone beacons or hotspots that can be placed on top of a software, but mainly focuses on click-guides for whole workflows.”

6- Appcues

Appcues is one of the leading companies to introduce third-party no-code SaaS onboarding tools to the market.

Appcues has a lot of clients and a lot of expertise with what they do because they've been in the business for about ten years. Being an elder member in this sector, on the other hand, generally means higher pricing and not being entirely no-code.

If you want your product tour to be more flexible, Appcues is an excellent solution to use. For example, you may add personalized buttons or code into the tool to make it seem different.

Still, keep in mind that Appcues costs 2,5 times higher than other competitors that provide the same value.

Appcues Pricing

• Appcues Essentials Package starts at $249/month when billed annually with 2500 MAU.
• Appcues Growth Package starts at $879/month when billed annually, again at 2500 MAU.
• Appcues Enterprise Package doesn’t have a set pricing; you need to get a custom quotation.

Appcues Reviews

👍 Pros:

“One of my favourite things about Appcues for new users is that it's SUPER easy to share with other stakeholders - installing the builder via a Chrome extension means that there are almost zero barriers to entry for newcomers!”

‍

👎 Cons:

“Sometimes I can't get my targeting quite right, and that can be a challenge to figure out and I can't trigger off of specific actions being taken (at least not with my current plan.).”

Conclusion

As Tom Barragry said:

”Implementing a third-party tool can be a daunting task! Convincing the teams who would usually look to 'hard-code' something that your solution will be quicker, more efficient, more flexible and bug-free, is not easy.”

But once you get through that barrier, you will see the wonders of not having to do everything yourself from scratch.

It is for sure that React Joyride is an excellent source for those who need an open-source, but for businesses, the options aren't limited.