Optimizely tests pages.
Xi tests marketing.
Optimizely is the canonical A/B testing platform: variants, traffic splits, statistical lift on a single surface. Xi captures a different unit of work: the contract behind a marketing experiment, across any channel, with no SDK and no flags.
Why teams switch from Optimizely to Xi
Optimizely is built for product teams running on-page A/B tests at scale: SDK, flags, traffic splits, statistical engines. That is a lot of machinery if your experiments are mostly marketing — paid campaigns, pricing changes, outbound sequences, onboarding rewrites. Teams move to Xi for four reasons.
- No engineer in the loop. You write the contract in plain language and ship in five minutes. No SDK install, no flag wiring, no kickoff with engineering before the experiment starts.
- One archive across channels. A paid test, a content test, and a pricing test live as the same shape of object — same hypothesis, same kill threshold, same verdict format. Optimizely gives you separate dashboards per surface; Xi gives you one portfolio.
- A free plan that does not expire. Unlimited experiments, unlimited archive, no card. Optimizely is sales-led with no public pricing — fine if you are already a customer, blocking if you are still proving the practice.
- The agent runs it. Xi exposes a remote MCP server, so Claude or Cursor can commit experiments, log values on a cadence, and confirm ship-or-kill against the threshold. No native equivalent on Optimizely today.
If you run on-page A/B tests at high traffic, keep Optimizely. If you run marketing experiments, switch.
Where the two tools actually differ.
When each tool is the right call.
- You run on-page or in-app A/B tests at high traffic and need statistical rigor on a variant.
- You ship features behind flags and want gradual rollouts tied to experiments.
- You have a product engineering team that owns the experimentation stack.
- You need enterprise governance, SSO, and audit logs across a large org.
- Your experiments span channels: a paid test this week, an outbound test next, a pricing test next quarter.
- You want a single contract, a single verdict, and an archive you can reuse, without writing code.
- You want an agent (Claude, Cursor, Codex) to commit, log, and confirm experiments via MCP.
- You need to ship a real experiment in under five minutes, not after a kickoff with engineering.
Common questions, short answers.
How is Xi different from A/B testing tools?
A/B testing tools optimize one surface, usually a landing page or email. Xi runs experiments across any channel (paid, content, outbound, pricing, onboarding) by capturing the contract (hypothesis, metric, kill threshold, end date) instead of mounting a JavaScript test on a page.
Can I migrate Optimizely tests to Xi?
Xi does not run on-page A/B tests, so there is no direct migration. The pattern is the inverse: keep using Optimizely for on-page variants, use Xi for the experiments that do not fit a page (channel, pricing, outbound, onboarding, habits) and for the contract layer that records what you decided and why.
Is Xi cheaper than Optimizely?
Xi has a free plan with unlimited experiments and unlimited archive. Optimizely is sales-led with no public free tier. Pricing is not the right comparison axis: the tools solve different problems. Use both if you run high-traffic A/B tests and cross-channel marketing experiments.
Do I need an engineer to use Xi?
No. You write the contract in plain language, attach the metric you already track, and log values manually or via the Claude MCP integration. There is no SDK to install. Optimizely requires SDK integration and instrumentation by an engineer.
Take one idea. Turn it into an experiment.
Free plan, unlimited archive, no card required. See it in Claude / Cursor / Codex in 30 seconds.