Best Dovetail Alternatives in 2024

Dovetail is a popular UX research analysis & repository tool. It lets you organize research data, transcribe calls, and tag information.

Keep reading if you're looking for alternatives to Dovetail to:

• Centralize your research data in one place
• Streamline and analyzing user interviews faster

If you have no prior experience with repositories, check out our definitive guide! Sadly 80% of repositories fail. We've researched the reasons why and how to set yourself up for success in this whitepaper.

In this article we’ll cover an overview of what analysis & repository tools are, Dovetail’s key features, as well as the best Dovetail competitors to consider.

Looking for a great analysis & repository product? Try Looppanel for Free!

There are tons of research analysis & repository tools cropping up! In this article we'll cover the most popular and cutting edge Dovetail competitors in 2024.

To set yourself up for success, you should evaluate tools on these criteria:

1. High quality transcripts
2. Ability to create shareable video clips
3. AI-supported analysis features (e.g., how AI can help with coding / note-taking)
4. Collaboration capabilities (make sure there are easy ways to invite non-researchers)
5. Tagging / analysis capabilities that suit your workflow
6. Google-like search to find data across your projects
   

A quick note on searching in repositories: old-school repositories like Dovetail require your team to set up a complex tagging taxonomy and for every person to tag data perfectly. This is one of the reasons repositories most commonly fail. Teams don't have time to set up complex taxonomies, and it's really hard to ensure each person on every project tags perfectly.

New-age Dovetail competitors like Looppanel have Google-like search features instead, where you can type and question, keyword, or topic and find all the data you need.

This allows you to re-use research data across calls and projects without spending 50% of your time organizing data first.

Now that we know what a repository should include, let's jump into the most popular ones! So let’s dig in to a review of Dovetail and key Dovetail competitors.

‍Read More: Tips on repositories from researchers at Google & Razorpay

Before we jump into the alternatives, here’s a quick crash course on Dovetail.

Dovetail is a traditional user research analysis & repository tool. You can upload your recordings to Dovetail, have them transcribed and then tag your data for analysis.

What are the features of Dovetail?

Dovetail's core features include:

• Transcription in 28 languages
• Tagging taxonomies for a single project and across projects
• Ability to analyze data across a trello board, canvas, table and other views
• Filter / search across projects based on tags you've created

What is the Dovetail app used for? 

Teams use the Dovetail app to transcribe, manually tag, and analyze their interviews. They also use it for centralizing all their customer research in one place.

What is Dovetail good for?

Dovetail is really good for the manual analysis workflow. If speed is not a concern and you want to manually code your data, this can be a great fit. 

Especially on their lower-tier plans, they have accessible pricing that can help you get started quickly.

What is Dovetail bad at?

‍The backbone of Dovetail is a complex tagging taxonomy (a.k.a. a structure of tags). If you’re working under time pressure, or simply don’t have a dedicated research / insights librarian at your company, this can prove to be a nightmare to set up and maintain.

The tagging taxonomy requires a lot of work to define upfront—teams often spend weeks or months deciding which tags will encompass their projects comprehensively. Their Search is also powered by this taxonomy, which is a double edged sword—it means you have to anticipate what users will want to search for and ensure your taxonomy accounts for that as well.

This is all aside from the fact that every team member using Dovetail for analysis should adhere to this taxonomy across every project over time. This mammoth level of collaboration may only be possible in the army.

Dovetail is also notorious for doing a bad job integrating AI features into the researcher’s workflow. Features are often tacked on on top and not very useful to teams. If you want to stay on the cutting edge of what’s possible for research today, Dovetail is unlikely to be a good fit.

Lastly, with their change in pricing structure, a lot of large teams have had to pivot away from Dovetail. Their enterprise pricing plans are $$$ and often the new pricing information comes with no warning.

It's time to look for Dovetail alternatives if you're struggling with any of these issues:

1. You find Dovetail complex and confusing to navigate. It's got a significant learning curve for your team.
2. You do not have a dedicated research librarian who can create, maintain and ensure adoption of your tagging taxonomy.
3. Your team moves quickly and is interested in efficiency for analysis.
4. You don't have budget for Dovetail's latest $$$ enterprise plans.
5. You want to make use of the latest (AI) tech and what it can do to simplify the research workflow.

Does that sound like you? Or you're just curious about what's new?

Either way, let's jump into Dovetail alternatives!

Looppanel is an AI-powered research analysis & repository tool. It's built like a research assistant—to automate all the tedious parts of qualitative research you don't have time for.

Looppanel's key features include:

• High quality transcripts
• Auto-tagging data
• Google-like smart search on any topic or theme across all your calls
• Automatic notes (better than your note-taker's) for rapid review
• Shareable video clips and insights (you can embed these into Jira tickets, Notion, etc.)
• Analysis across calls by question or tag

What is the difference between Looppanel and Dovetail?

Let's take a look...

• Transcription quality: Looppanel wins out when it comes to transcription. We tested the same clip from Forrest Gump 😌 and not to brag, but even the sentiment analysis was top-notch.
• Data types: Dovetail supports more data types, so if you're looking to store tons of surveys or support tickets, it may be a better fit.
• Analysis efficiency + AI features: Dovetail hasn't kept pace with the latest tech and you can tell from its AI features—reviews are poor. Looppanel has invested much more in cutting edge tech while making sure researchers can check and edit AI content. If you want to be on the cutting edge of what technology has to offer, Looppanel is a better bet.
• Collaboration: Dovetail charges per user, which can be prohibitive to easy collaboration. Dovetail's pricing becomes a barrier. If you want to invite PMs, Designers, the broader team to collaborate and add to your repository or analysis, you can hit a wall very quickly. In comparison, Looppanel offers unlimited collaborators and viewers for Pro plan onwards—the more users, the merrier.

Try Looppanel for Free!

Condens is basically ‘Dovetail lite’. It's a very similar product interms of workflows, but it has fewer features and a slightly lighter price tag.

Condens' core features include:

• Automated transcription
• Ability to tag transcripts with themes or topics
• Ability to analyze data across calls (including a digital whiteboard)
• Filter or search by tag across projects

• Transcription quality: We compared Dovetail vs Condens on transcript quality (with a clip from Forrest Gump 😌). Both transcripts captured the text correctly, but both struggled with identifying the number of speakers correctly. Condens struggled a bit more than Dovetail—picking up only 1 speaker, when there were 4.‍
• Pricing: Condens offers a far friendly pricing plan than Dovetail's $21,600 for business organizations, but if you're a small team Dovetail's starter plan may be a better fit for you.
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• Analysis efficiency + AI features: Similar to Dovetail in this respect, Condens hasn't invested heavily in cutting-edge AI features. Both tools offer a manual approach for qualitative data analysis. 

Read a more detailed analysis of Condens and it's alternatives here.

EnjoyHQ has been around for a while and was acquired by UserZoom (which has now been bought by UserTesting.com).

We'll be honest, we're yet to find a team that likes EnjoyHQ and their price hikes post acquisition haven't helped. It isn't the greatest Dovetail alternative to consider.

EnjoyHQ's core features include:

• Transcription
• Integrations with tons of tools, so you can import data across sources
• Tagging and taxonomy capabilities (it's a bit complex though!

What is the difference between EnjoyHQ and Dovetail?

Here's the tea:

• Transcription: EnjoyHQ's transcription is pretty decent. It distinguishes between speakers well enough, although it stumbled a bit with deciphering Forrest Gump's accent.
• Ease of Use: EnjoyHQ is a challenging tool to learn and to use. Most teams don't end up using it for analysis at all, but just as a dumping ground for reports and data points.‍
• Tagging efficiency: Although manual tagging is painful, EnjoyHQ has the ability to set tagging rules (E.g., all text mentioning "integration" should be tagged accordingly). This helps with large volumes of tagging, like when you're dealing with support tickets.
• Integrations: EnjoyHQ is most useful if you want to pull data in from 10s of sources. They have native integrations with everything from Jira, to UserTesting, to survey tools. Consider this Dovetail alternative if you're looking to gather data from many sources. If you are focused on analyzing interviews / usability tests, stick to Dovetail, Looppanel, or Condens.
• Pricing: As soon as your team scales to 2+ people, EnjoyHQ moves you to a custom pricing plan, which means we don't know what they'll charge you but it's probably a lot. Now that Dovetail's pricing plan is $21,600, Enjoy may offer some comparable options depending on your needs.

Aurelius is an old-school Dovetail alternative (and it shows). It has confusing, clunky UX and its analysis view seems lacking.

Aurelius' key features include:

• Transcription and tagging of data
• Keyword or tag-based searcha cross the repository

• Transcription: Aurelius' transcription quality and speaker identification was actually better than Dovetail's, but the way the transcript was visually shown left much to be desired. Each line of the transcript shows up as a separate card. An hour long call would generate 100s of these blocks that are visually painful to look at and process.

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• Usability: While Dovetail gets complaints for being confusing and hard to navigate, it's nothing near the usability issues that Aurelius has. The product is clunky and painful to navigate and use.‍
• Tagging: One feature Aurelius offers that stands out: bulk tagging. You can select mulitple notes at once and tag them, saving many clicks. But bulk tagging doesn't make up for the painful UI of the transcript.
• Pricing: Aurelius doesn't come cheap, especially if you want to try their monthly plan. If you're a small team, Dovetail's starter plan is probably a better fit. If you're a large team with enterprise requirements, you'll need to contact Aurelius to get a custom quote. Aurelius is also a bit vague about how collaborators are priced on the product.

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Would you like to recommend any other analysis and repository tools for review? Reach out to us at support@looppanel.com!

Ready to start testing Dovetail alternatives? Sign up for Looppanel today!

Dovetail Reviews on G2 and Reddit 

We'd taken a look at Dovetail reviews across popular platforms like G2, and Reddit—because after all, you shouldn’t have to take our word for it. 

Here’s a summary of what customers think Dovetail.

G2 Dovetail Review: 4.4/5 Stars

We also fed user reviews in Claude.ai (of course) for a quick summary of reviews of Dovetail and Dovetail competitors.

TLDR: While Dovetail seems to be widely used, opinions on it vary greatly. The choice of platform seems to depend heavily on specific needs and use cases.

Dovetail received mixed reviews, with users appreciating its organization and tagging capabilities but criticizing its learning curve and some UX issues.

Positive Dovetail reviews:

- Efficient organization of research data

- Easy tagging and sorting

- Good for collaboration

- Powerful search tool

Negative Dovetail reviews:

- Expensive for small projects

- Steep learning curve

- Complex user interface

- Limited text formatting options

- Basic people management features

Notable quotes:

"I like Dovetail because it organizes research data very well. It's easy to tag and sort information, making analysis quick and efficient." (G2)

“Their AI functions are just not there yet. Switching between chatGPT and DT gets old fast. I wish they were build in (they are, but they don't work that well).” (G2)

We'd taken a look at Dovetail reviews across popular platforms like G2, and Reddit—because after all, you shouldn’t have to take our word for it. 

Here’s a summary of what customers think Dovetail.

G2 Dovetail Review: 4.4/5 Stars

We also fed user reviews in Claude.ai (of course) for a quick summary of reviews of Dovetail and Dovetail competitors.

TLDR: While Dovetail seems to be widely used, opinions on it vary greatly. The choice of platform seems to depend heavily on specific needs and use cases.

Dovetail received mixed reviews, with users appreciating its organization and tagging capabilities but criticizing its learning curve and some UX issues.

Positive Dovetail reviews:

- Efficient organization of research data

- Easy tagging and sorting

- Good for collaboration

- Powerful search tool

Negative Dovetail reviews:

- Expensive for small projects

- Steep learning curve

- Complex user interface

- Limited text formatting options

- Basic people management features

Notable quotes:

"I like Dovetail because it organizes research data very well. It's easy to tag and sort information, making analysis quick and efficient." (G2)

“Their AI functions are just not there yet. Switching between chatGPT and DT gets old fast. I wish they were build in (they are, but they don't work that well).” (G2)

FAQs

Does Dovetail use AI?

Yes, Dovetail uses AI for transcription and some analysis / call summarization features. But based on user feedback, Dovetail's AI features aren't very useful.

“Their AI functions are just not there yet. Switching between chatGPT and DT gets old fast. I wish they were build in (they are, but they don't work that well).” - G2

For a more robust AI-powered solution for research analysis & repository, check out Looppanel.

What is similar to dovetail?

Tools similar to Dovetail include Looppanel, EnjoyHQ, Condens, and Aurelius. These tools all have research analysis and repository features like transcription, tagging, and global search.

What is Dovetail research repository?

Dovetail Research Repository is a tool that helps UX researchers store and analyze their data. It lets you save interviews, surveys, and other research materials in one place. You can tag important parts, search through your data, and share findings with your team. 

Is Dovetail free? 

Dovetail isn't free, but it does offer a free trial for one project. After that, it costs $39 per user each month. 

Is Dovetail legit?

Yes, it's a real, widely-used tool in the UX world. Many big companies use it for their research. But like any tool, it has both fans and critics. Some love its organization features, while others find it hard to use. It's smart to try it yourself and see if it fits your needs.

What does the company Dovetail do?

Dovetail is a User research analysis & repository product. The product is built to make it easier and faster for teams to make research-backed decisions. Alternatives to Dovetail include Looppanel, Condens, EnjoyHQ, and Aurelius.

For a more robust AI-powered solution for research analysis & repository, check out Looppanel.