Compare Condens to Dovetail

Condens and Dovetail are both tools for qualitative data analysis and building a research repository. If you are looking for a Dovetail alternative or are simply comparing the two tools we put together some information to help you choose the best fit for your organization.

The top 5 reasons why researchers choose Condens vs. Dovetail

1. Build findings on the go

As you analyze data in Condens you have the sidebar available on every page. Here, you can note early findings and connect evidence across sessions without having to switch screens. Simply connect the dots in a visual way and build your report on the go with drag&drop.
„With the split screen you can tag raw data and immediately connect it to findings. It makes things super quick.”
Photo of Merche Gómez Sánchez
Merche Gómez Sánchez
UX Designer at ShortCut Studio
„With the split screen you can tag raw data and immediately connect it to findings. It makes things super quick.”
Photo of Merche Gómez Sánchez
Merche Gómez Sánchez
UX Designer at ShortCut Studio

2. A comprehensive whiteboard

The whiteboard in Condens goes beyond affinity mapping. Lines, emoji’s, images, files and templates enable journey maps, empathy maps, SWOT analyses and more of you favorite research exercises. In addition, whiteboards in Condens support across-project analysis and can be used as a research result to be shared with stakeholders immediately.

3. Easy to learn - easy to use

To facilitate onboarding and daily use, Condens is designed with the minimal levels of hierarchy needed using terms and concepts people are familiar with. For example, projects follow a consistent structure:
  • Sessions for raw data
  • Highlights and Charts to make sense of evidence
  • Artifacts for the results
Another example: To connect data across studies you simply turn a project tag into a global tag - no big deal.
„The best thing is that Condens is usable with minimal onboarding of new users. I don’t have to spend a lot of time teaching people how to use it.”
Photo of Kayla Svoboda
Kayla Svoboda
UX Researcher at Freeletics
„The best thing is that Condens is usable with minimal onboarding of new users. I don’t have to spend a lot of time teaching people how to use it.”
Photo of Kayla Svoboda
Kayla Svoboda
UX Researcher at Freeletics

4. A Stakeholder-friendly experience

Maximize the impact of research by letting stakeholders discover research in a self-serve way. Condens’ Stakeholder Repository is a space specifically designed to let colleagues search for topics and browse research results - like a magazine curated by researchers. Since it contains findings and no raw data it helps to democratize access to research while keeping sensitive information private.
„After careful search, we picked Condens to help us democratize access to research and allow designers to look at ongoing research work as it was enveloping.”
Photo of Alya Naumova
Alya Naumova
UX Research Lead at Drop
„After careful search, we picked Condens to help us democratize access to research and allow designers to look at ongoing research work as it was enveloping.”
Photo of Alya Naumova
Alya Naumova
UX Research Lead at Drop
Screenshot of the Condens Research Magazine

5. Easily analyze across projects

Condens makes it easy to connect evidence from multiple studies to see overarching themes. The sidebar is your friend as you can pin any Artifact and then pull highlights from other projects into it. This way you can also quickly analyze the data from your global tag structure, for example, to identify the main feature request or usability issues.

6. Outstanding personal support with all plans

Whether you are a team of one or working for a large enterprise, all of our customers get personal, high-quality support and training be it via email or in a video call. In fact, great service and personal touch is what our customers value about Condens.
  • 9.9 out of 10 rating for Quality of Support based on G2 reviews

    Quality of Support

    User Research Repository Average: 9.1

    G2.com

  • The whole team at Condens are SO helpful! It's honestly been the best customer service I think I have ever received. They're helpful, responsive and knowledgeable.
    Picture of Katie Fischer, Senior UX Strategist at The User Story
    Katie Fischer, Senior UX Strategist at The User Story
  • We feel like the Condens team is always there to listen to our feedback and their support is just great and fast.
    Picture of Adéla Svoboda, Senior UX Researcher at Kentico Software
    Adéla Svoboda, Senior UX Researcher at Kentico Software
  • The Condens team is highly responsive to bugs and feedback.
    Picture of Tamara Oess, UX Researcher at Yokoy
    Tamara Oess, UX Researcher at Yokoy
  • The last thing I'll mention is the excellent customer support. My questions are answered within hours and often lead to software changes. It's great to be in touch with the makers of the tool — one of the benefits of a product supported by a small team.
    Picture of Brett Leber, Senior Manager UX Research at Angi
    Brett Leber, Senior Manager UX Research at Angi
  • [...] Also their support: questions are answered quickly and thoroughly, we even had some ad-hoc feature changes implemented: never experienced that before!
    Picture of Laurens van Lieshout, Senior Product Owner
    Laurens van Lieshout, Senior Product Owner

Switching from Dovetail?

You can keep all your research data as you move from Dovetail to Condens.
Let us show you how.

Unique features

Honestly, we're no fans of comparing tools on a mere feature basis. At the same time we understand that a certain functionality can be critical for you. So we assembled a list of features that either of the tools has exclusively. But remember that there is so much more that shapes the experience of a tool than just its features and software changes rapidly nowadays.

Last updated: November, 2022

Exclusively with Condens

Microsoft Suite integrations
Directly import recordings, spreadsheets or files from Microsoft Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint Learn more
SSO with non-Enterprise plan
Get Single Sign-on for authentication with Condens even if you don’t choose the Enterprise plan. Learn more
AI-assisted tagging
Structure data by attaching tags to notes and files. AI-based suggestions ensure a smooth workflow. Learn more
Charts for structured data
Use charts to also visualize quantitative data like survey responses or meta information. Learn more
Media clips from recordings
Create media clips by directly selecting a sequence on the recording - great for sessions without a transcript. Learn more
Full project data export
Download all data of a project in readable formats at any time. Learn more

Exclusively with Dovetail

Custom theme color
Set a theme for your workspace by choosing a custom color.
Sentiment analysis
Automatic text analysis to determine whether it expresses positive or negative sentiment.
Detailed project access control
Set detailed permissions per project to control who can manage, view, and edit a specific project.
Automated tagging
Automatically assign tags based on keywords.

Privacy standards that make your legal team happy

We know user research means working with sensitive data and Condens offers a watertight concept for GDPR compliance. This includes:

  • EU-based data hosting
  • Condens’ legal entity and the entire team is based in the EU - no access of your data from outside the EU not even for support.
  • A DPA for every customer already incorporated in our terms
Read more about our GDPR commitment

What our customers say

  • We've developed a hashtag among our UX team at Moz, #BeLikeCondens, because dang if their commitment to swift, useful improvements isn't impressive. It's something to strive for.
    Picture of Tonya, UX Designer at Moz
    Tonya, UX Designer at Moz
  • As a designer doing ethnographic research I enjoy that Condens provides such a visual, colorful and intuitive user experience.
    Picture of Valentina de la Garza, Industrial Designer
    Valentina de la Garza, Industrial Designer
  • Condens allows me to keep track of even extensive user research data and not lose focus. The ability make references across participants has enabled me to work better and faster.
    Picture of Annika, Product Manager at Plantura
    Annika, Product Manager at Plantura
  • Normally tagging was the most painful part in research. Now I enjoyed that process for the first time.
    Picture of Harshada, Founder and Design Researcher at theObservatory
    Harshada, Founder and Design Researcher at theObservatory
  • A great research analysis tool. Easy to use and pretty complete.
    Picture of Raffaella, Head of Discovery at Fifthbeat
    Raffaella, Head of Discovery at Fifthbeat
  • I am a visual person - Condens helps me a lot to make sense of qualitative data and structure them in a fast way.
    Picture of Frauke, UX Design Consultant
    Frauke, UX Design Consultant
  • Condens is what I’ve been looking for as a user researcher for a long time.
    Picture of Thomas, User Researcher at WATTx
    Thomas, User Researcher at WATTx
  • Using Condens makes me much faster. I have all data in one view and don’t need to switch tabs.
    Picture of Simona, UX Researcher at Matmatch
    Simona, UX Researcher at Matmatch
  • In contrast to Word I can build my own structure while analyzing data. That helps me to find things faster and is a huge time saver.
    Picture of Lisa, Senior UX Researcher at Europace
    Lisa, Senior UX Researcher at Europace

Ready to try Condens yourself? Try Condens 15 days for free!