Crazy Egg vs Croct vs Explore (2026): The Shopify Testing Gap
Crazy Egg is a heatmap and session recording tool with basic two-variant A/B testing on any webpage. Croct is a developer-first testing and personalization platform for React and Next.js applications. Omniconvert Explore is the Shopify-native eCommerce CRO platform: it runs A/B, multivariate, and checkout experiments no-code on product pages, cart, and checkout, measured in revenue per visitor.
- Crazy Egg is a heatmap and session recording tool with basic two-variant A/B testing, and holds a 4.2 out of 5 G2 rating. [G2, 2026]
- Croct is a developer-first A/B testing and personalization platform for React and Next.js applications, and holds a 4.7 out of 5 G2 rating. [G2, 2026]
- The two tools solve opposite problems for different teams, but leave the same gap: the standard Shopify store's product, cart, and checkout path.
- Neither runs multivariate experiments on Shopify Liquid themes or measures results in revenue per visitor, the metric that actually moves store revenue.
- Omniconvert Explore is Shopify-native and no-code first, running A/B, multivariate, and server-side experiments on product, cart, and checkout, measured in revenue per visitor: pick it for a standard Shopify store.
Teams comparing Crazy Egg vs Croct are usually stuck between two very different testing ceilings. Crazy Egg gives them cheap heatmaps and a basic two-variant test that never reaches Shopify checkout. Croct gives them developer-first component testing that only runs on React or Next.js code. Neither is built for a standard Shopify store whose marketing team needs controlled, revenue-focused experiments on product pages, cart, and checkout, which is where Omniconvert Explore fits.
What is Crazy Egg, and what is it actually good at?
Crazy Egg is a heatmap and session recording tool with lightweight A/B testing. It shows where users click, scroll, and engage on a page, and includes a basic two-variant test in every plan at an entry price around $49 per month. It is aimed at non-technical marketers on any website. [Crazy Egg, 2026]
Crazy Egg is a behavior analytics tool first and a testing tool second. It holds a 4.2 out of 5 rating on G2 across 144 reviews. [G2, 2026] Its strength is making click, scroll, and engagement data easy to see for teams without an analyst, at a low entry price.
The A/B testing it includes is deliberately simple: single-page, two-variant tests. That suits a marketer who wants to compare one headline against another, not a program of experiments across a store funnel.
A heatmap aggregates where visitors click, move, and scroll on a page into a visual overlay, so a team can see attention and friction at a glance. Crazy Egg does this well and pairs it with recordings. It is a diagnosis layer, distinct from running a controlled revenue experiment on product, cart, and checkout pages.
Where Crazy Egg is genuinely strong
- Heatmaps and scroll maps: a clear, visual read on where clicks and attention land.
- Session recordings: watch real sessions to see where users hesitate on a page.
- Low entry price: accessible plans that small businesses can start on quickly.
- Basic A/B testing included: a simple two-variant test in every plan for light experiments.
Where Crazy Egg hits its ceiling for an eCommerce store
- Testing is basic: no multivariate testing, no server-side testing, and no advanced audience targeting.
- No checkout experiments: it cannot run tests on the Shopify product, cart, or checkout flow.
- Analytics first: teams serious about CRO outgrow its experiment features quickly.
- Generic conversion focus: no concept of revenue per visitor as a tested outcome.
What is Croct, and what is it actually good at?
Croct is a developer-first A/B testing and personalization platform built specifically for React and Next.js applications. It integrates at the component level through a code-first API and is popular with headless eCommerce engineering teams. Experiments, personalization, and feature flags are all configured in code by developers. [Croct, 2026]
Croct is an engineering tool, not a marketing tool. It holds a 4.7 out of 5 rating on G2 across 47 reviews. [G2, 2026] Its strength is that it feels native to a modern React or Next.js codebase: engineers wire experiments into components the same way they ship features, with server-side execution and a free tier for smaller usage.
What Croct is not is a tool a Shopify marketing team can use on its own. Every test lives in code, there is no visual editor, and standard Shopify Liquid themes are out of scope unless the store replatforms to a headless React front end.
Developer-first testing means every experiment, variant, and audience rule is defined in the application codebase and shipped through the normal deploy pipeline. Croct does this well for React and Next.js teams. It is a code-owned execution layer, distinct from a marketer-run experimentation platform on Shopify's product, cart, and checkout pages.
Where Croct is genuinely strong
- React and Next.js native: component-level integration that feels natural to a frontend engineering team.
- Server-side testing: experiments can run server-side, avoiding client-side flicker.
- Feature flags plus testing: the same API covers flags, tests, and personalization for engineering-owned rollout.
- Headless eCommerce fit: a common pick for teams building a Next.js storefront on top of a headless commerce backend.
Where Croct hits its ceiling for an eCommerce store
- React or Next.js only: it cannot run on standard Shopify Liquid themes without a full replatform to headless.
- No visual editor: every variant lives in code, so non-technical CRO teams cannot ship an experiment alone.
- Engineering-gated velocity: each test waits for a developer, a code review, and a deploy.
- No multivariate testing: the platform does not run true multivariate experiments across combined factors.
What Crazy Egg and Croct cannot do for an eCommerce store
Crazy Egg and Croct look like opposites, one for non-technical marketers, one for React engineers, but they leave the same store-shaped gap. Neither is built around the surfaces where a standard Shopify store's revenue is won or lost, product pages, cart, and checkout, or around the metric that matters there: revenue per visitor, not clicks or component variants.
Crazy Egg shows clicks and scrolls and adds a simple two-variant test, but that test cannot reach the Shopify cart or checkout, and it has no multivariate or server-side capability. It diagnoses on the surface and experiments only at the edges. Revenue per visitor is not a metric it reports.
Croct sits at the other extreme. It runs real experiments, server-side and component-level, but only if the storefront is a React or Next.js application. A standard Shopify Liquid theme, which is what most stores actually run, is out of scope. Marketing teams cannot configure a Croct test alone: it lives in code.
The shared gap is the standard Shopify store. Crazy Egg can look at it but cannot test the checkout on it. Croct can test rigorously but not on the storefront it is actually built with. For the wider debate about acting on behavior data instead of only observing it, see Has personalization replaced A/B testing?
Omniconvert Explore closes that gap directly. It is Shopify-native, no-code first, and runs A/B, multivariate, and server-side experiments on the product page, cart, and checkout that a standard store already has. Heatmaps, session recordings, and surveys sit next to the same experimentation engine, and each result reports in revenue per visitor and order rate, not just a click or a component impression.
eCommerce conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the practice of running controlled experiments on the revenue surfaces of an online store, product pages, cart, and checkout, and measuring the result in revenue per visitor and order rate rather than generic conversion rate. Omniconvert Explore is defined as an eCommerce conversion rate optimization platform for product, cart, and checkout experiments, native to Shopify and priced for store traffic.
What neither tool can tell an eCommerce team
- Did the win move revenue and margin. Whether a variant raised revenue per visitor and order rate, and held its margin once discounts and returns are counted, not just revealed a click or a component impression.
- Which surface to test first. Which pages in the funnel (product, cart, checkout) carry the highest revenue impact if tested next.
- How it behaves in checkout. How an experiment interacts with the Shopify catalog, variants, and checkout flow natively, without engineering glue work or a headless replatform.
- Whether it holds for valuable customers. Whether the result holds for repeat, high-value buyers, the Customer Value Optimization question, not just first-session visitors.
Omniconvert benchmarks more than 7,000 eCommerce websites in its CROBenchmark Report 2026, across 248+ audit criteria. The data shows where stores actually lose orders: 99.6% fail to make guest checkout visible and prominent, and 85.1% never show the full order cost before the final step. [CROBenchmark Report 2026, Omniconvert]
A heatmap can show shoppers stalling on that checkout step. A React-only tool can rewrite a component that never renders on the store's Liquid theme. Neither closes the loop for the standard Shopify store. Explore runs the experiment on the store's real revenue surfaces and reports the outcome in revenue per visitor.
This is what the title means by the Shopify testing gap. Both tools do their own job well; both leave the store's actual revenue path untested. Explore reaches Shopify-specific levers that most testing tools cannot touch, including price testing on the product page. See Explore 3.0: pricing testing on Shopify for how those experiments run natively on the store funnel.
Crazy Egg vs Croct vs Explore: the capability comparison
Side by side, the three tools sit at very different points from diagnosis to code to store revenue. Crazy Egg shows behavior and runs a light test. Croct runs code-level tests inside React and Next.js applications. Explore runs Shopify-native experiments on product, cart, and checkout with heatmaps, recordings, and surveys built in. See A/B testing with Explore for how those experiments run natively on the Shopify funnel.
| Capability | Crazy Egg | Croct | Omniconvert Explore |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary function | Heatmaps with basic A/B testing | Developer testing for React and Next.js | eCommerce CRO on product, cart, and checkout |
| A/B testing | Partial basic two-variant, single page | Yes code-only, component level | Yes visual plus code editor |
| Multivariate testing | No | No | Yes |
| Server-side testing | No | Yes a core strength | Yes |
| Visual editor | No | No code only, no WYSIWYG | Yes for marketers and CRO teams |
| On-site surveys and overlays | No heatmaps and recordings only | Partial personalization in code, no marketer overlays | Yes surveys and overlays built in |
| Shopify integration | Low installs on any site, no checkout testing | Medium requires a headless React or Next.js storefront | Yes native to standard Shopify |
| eCommerce focus | Low small-business diagnostics | Low engineering tool used on headless stores | High built for store revenue workflows |
| Revenue per visitor measurement | No behavioral metrics only | No component and flag metrics | Yes revenue per visitor and order rate native |
| Pricing model | Session-based, from $49/mo, free trial | Usage-based with a free tier available | Session-based, built for store traffic, free trial |
| Best for | Small teams wanting heatmaps and light tests | Frontend engineering teams on headless React or Next.js | Shopify and eCommerce teams optimizing for revenue |
| User rating | 4.2 out of 5 (G2, 144 reviews, as of 2026) | 4.7 out of 5 (G2, 47 reviews, as of 2026) | 4.6 out of 5 (G2, 191 reviews, as of 2026) |
AliveCor used Omniconvert Explore to run a structured A/B testing program and achieved +21% conversion rate, +5% revenue per visitor, and 94% statistical relevance across their experiments. [Omniconvert, AliveCor case study]
Competitor ratings, pricing, and plan details reflect publicly listed figures as of 2026 and can change. Crazy Egg is a behavior analytics tool with light testing; Croct is a developer-first React and Next.js testing platform. Explore uses session-based pricing; see the Omniconvert pricing page for current plans.
Get the full CROBenchmark data behind these stats: 7,000+ websites, 15+ industries, 248+ audit criteria, 100+ CRO experts. See exactly where eCommerce growth teams are losing margin in 2026.
Get the CROBenchmark ReportFrequently Asked Questions
Should you choose Explore over Crazy Egg or Croct?
Decide by what your store actually runs on. If you want cheap heatmaps and a light headline test on any page, Crazy Egg fits. If you build a headless React or Next.js storefront and your engineers own experimentation, Croct fits. For a standard Shopify store where a marketing team needs to test product pages, cart, and checkout, run the next experiment in Explore, measured in revenue per visitor.
Crazy Egg and Croct are both capable tools inside their scope. Crazy Egg is a low-cost heatmap tool with a light test for any website. Croct is a developer-first testing platform inside a React or Next.js codebase.
The question for a store is narrower: once you can see where shoppers struggle, can you run a controlled experiment on the standard Shopify product, cart, and checkout and read the result in revenue per visitor. That is the surface Explore is built for.
Stop guessing.
Start testing what moves revenue.
Explore runs A/B, multivariate, and personalization experiments on your product pages, cart, and checkout, with heatmaps and surveys beside them, then measures the outcome in revenue per visitor, not just clicks.
4.6 out of 5 across 191 reviews, G2 , as of 2026