# Croct vs. Optimizely

Croct and Optimizely both run A/B tests and personalize content. Croct does it server-side, with
segmentation, user profiles and analytics built in, on a platform a marketing team operates
without developers. It starts free, installs in one command, and is designed to sit inside a
headless stack rather than replace it.

## How they compare

| Capability                                     | Croct | Optimizely |
|------------------------------------------------|:-----:|:----------:|
| Forever-free plan                              |  Yes  |     No     |
| Fast load times with no flickering             |  Yes  |     No     |
| Server-side personalization and A/B testing    |  Yes  |     No     |
| Runs without developer or support involvement  |  Yes  |     No     |
| Component-based CMS rather than document-based |  Yes  |     No     |
| Advanced segmentation with no third-party CDP  |  Yes  |     No     |
| Real-time user data processing                 |  Yes  |     No     |
| User data structuring and unification          |  Yes  |     No     |
| Bayesian A/B testing engine                    |  Yes  |     No     |
| Integration in hours rather than weeks         |  Yes  |     No     |
| First-class developer experience               |  Yes  |     No     |

## Why teams choose Croct

- **Server-side by design.** Content is resolved before the page is sent, so experiences
  arrive personalized with no flicker and no anti-flicker snippet blanking the page.
- **One platform, no extra vendors.** Segmentation, user profiles, experimentation and
  analytics are built in, so there is no separate CDP, feature-flag tool or analytics
  contract to buy and wire together.
- **Built for headless stacks.** Croct sits alongside Storyblok, Sanity, Strapi, Contentful
  or Shopify Hydrogen and makes the content they hold contextual, instead of replacing them.
- **Marketers ship without developers.** After setup, audiences, experiences, A/B tests,
  scheduling and preview all happen in the Croct interface.
- **Bayesian experimentation on unsampled data.** A/B, A/B/n and multivariate tests with
  cross-device consistency for identified users and bot traffic filtered out.

Against Optimizely specifically, the difference shows up first in rendering. Croct decides
content on the server, so the page arrives personalized. Client-side tools swap content after
load, which is what makes an anti-flicker snippet necessary in the first place.

## Adopting Croct

Croct runs alongside your current CMS, so adoption is incremental rather than a rewrite.

Setup is one command, `npx croct@latest init`, which installs the SDK, wires the provider
and generates TypeScript types for every slot. Official SDKs cover Next.js, React, Vue,
Nuxt, JavaScript, PHP, Laravel, Symfony, Drupal, and Shopify Hydrogen. Most teams are live
the same day, and the forever-free plan needs no credit card or commitment.

Define slots where content should become dynamic, then move experiments across one at a time.
Existing profile data can be imported, and enriched profiles export to your warehouse or to any
tool you already run.

## Frequently asked questions

### Does Croct replace my CMS?

No. It sits alongside Storyblok, Sanity, Strapi, Contentful and others, turning the content they
hold into something that adapts per visitor.

### Does personalization slow the page down?

No. Content resolves on the server before the response is sent, with end-to-end response times
under 90 milliseconds at the 95th percentile.

### What statistics does the A/B testing use?

Bayesian, computed on unsampled data, with A/B, A/B/n and multivariate tests, cross-device
consistency for identified users, and bot traffic filtered out.

### How long does it take to get running?

One command to install, and most teams are live the same day. Marketers run experiments
afterwards without further development work.

### What does it cost?

The forever-free plan covers 10,000 monthly active users with 3 content slots and 1
experience or experiment, and needs no credit card. Growth starts at $100 per month billed
annually for 20,000 monthly active users. Scale is custom.