When comparing Localytics vs Mixpanel, the Slant community recommends Mixpanel for most people. In the question“What are the best cross-platform mobile analytics tools?” Mixpanel is ranked 1st while Localytics is ranked 11th. The most important reason people chose Mixpanel is:
On Mixpanel you can view live activity on the site from both streams of events or broken down into your actual users. This can be very practical for de-bugging and catching errors as they happen, especially for new, buggy products.
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Pros
Pro Each funnel step can have several conditions applied to it
Pro Push notifications to segments and individual users
You can send one time or recurring push notifications using segmentation and demographic data for personalization.
Pro Updates in real time
On Mixpanel you can view live activity on the site from both streams of events or broken down into your actual users. This can be very practical for de-bugging and catching errors as they happen, especially for new, buggy products.
Pro Behavioural messaging
Mixpanel allows you to send notifications based on users actions. For example, you can use it to improve customer retention by analyzing the conditions where your users decide to leave your product and then send targeted messages designed to bring them back. This is an amazingly powerful feature that really bridges the gap between analyzing the data and acting on it.
Pro Easy to use web interface
Online interface makes it simple to view events, and aggregate data.
Queries can be built by selecting actions and associated properties from a drop-down, and the corresponding data will be displayed. These queries can then be bookmarked for later use. A table view and CSV export option is also available. Multiple queries can be displayed together, making it easy to compare two sets of data, or to view the relationship between them.
The interface also features a "Live View", allowing you to watch events as they are sent, which is useful for testing, and viewing realtime events.
Pro Contact users directly through the people page
Mixpanel allows you to directly contact users from the people dashboard via push notifications, sms, and email. After viewing the user history, or filtering on events and metrics, you can send an individual user, or a segment direct messages.
Pro Automatic iOS event integration
Mixpanel can integrate with iOS, exposing app screen, and allowing you to set events through an online visual interface.
Pro Remote configuration of events on iOS
On iOS, you can change or add events reported through the web interface so you don't have to submit a new version of the app to alter events.
Pro Funnel analysis
Funnel analysis allows you to see how many people have performed certain sequence of actions. You can use this to understand what part of the sequence needs to be improved the most.
Pro People analysis
Events can be grouped on a per-user basis allowing you to view each user's event history. You can use that information to see how individual users use your product.
Pro Straightforward setup
It's very easy to set up.
Pro Cohort analysis
Cohort analysis allows you to compare things like user retention over time, what kind of progress has been made with that retention over time, how many people perform certain actions from a set starting point over time, etc.
Pro Successful companies use it
Cons
Con Lacks an external API
No API for sending information from a mobile application / web backend to analytics.
Con Built-in installation tracking is limited
Localytics can track installation from some ad networks, but requires a third-party service integration to track from other sources.
Con No change graph for funnels
Con Data is not provided in real time
Unlike many competing products, updating data for Localytics requires waiting multiple days.
Con Expensive
The smallest plan is $150 per month, and only gets you 500k events.
Con Only allows one filter per funnel step
Each funnel step can only include one filter, so you could have "browser" and "city" but not both.
Con Charts are not very configurable
For instance the retention charts are pretty static. You can change dates but not a lot of definitions.
Con Steep learning curve
Con Revenue tracking metrics won't work for advertising businesses
Because the revenue tracking doesn't allow for fractions of dollars per visit (at least not as of 2014) any site that makes money based on advertising won't be able to leverage the revenue metric features.
Con Limited public visitor and authenticated user merging
Con No built-in solution for installation tracking
It's possible to enable installation tracking by using third-party services like Adjust or AppsFlyer and routing their data to Mixpanel.