The 9 Best Interactive Demo Software For 2024 [Compared]

February 15, 2024
To help you decide which interactive demo software to buy for your business, we have pulled together this list of the nine best options to choose from.
Jessica Greene
Table of Contents

The word "demo" in the term "interactive demo software" can be somewhat misleading. 

In software, "demo" generally refers to a product demonstration delivered live by an AE or SE. However, the majority of the tools that fall into the interactive demo category aren't built for that use case. They're designed to create click-through product tours used at the top of the funnel.

That's why when you're shopping for interactive demo software, it's really important to understand the different types of software that fall into that category and which use cases each tool is designed for. Some are better for marketing teams, and some are better for solutions and sales teams.

So before we jump into our list of the best interactive demo software, let's take a look at the different types of tools in this category and what they're best for.

The different types of interactive demo software

Interactive demo software is a broad category with a number of tools that all work very differently. To help you decide which subcategory of tools you should be looking into, we've: 

  • Divided all of the interactive demo tools into four subcategories.
  • Listed some of the popular tools that fall into each subcategory.
  • Explained where those tools are best used in the buying journey.
  • Detailed which GTM team roles they're most useful for.

Video demo software

What distinguishes video demo software from simply recording yourself and your screen with a tool like Loom is that video demo tools have additional features that make the videos more dynamic for prospects.

For example, some tools in this category use natural language processing to make your videos searchable, making it easy for buyers to find the exact moment you demo something they care about in a longer video. Others allow you to show specific videos to buyers based on how they answer questions you ask in a pre-video questionnaire.

Popular tools in this subcategory include Consensus, Omedym, and Arcade.

Where it's best used:

Roles it's designed for:

  • Business Development Reps
  • Account Executives
  • Solutions Engineers
  • Customer Success

Product tour software

The largest interactive demo subcategory by far is product tour software. Product tour tools work by using a browser extension to capture your product's front-end code. This makes your captures more dynamic than a traditional screenshot because it allows you to do things like add hyperlinks and change copy after the screen is captured.

Product tours can be a great supplement to product and landing page copy, giving prospects a more in-depth look at your product before they commit to starting a trial or requesting a demo.

Popular tools in this subcategory include Navattic, Walnut, Storylane, Vivun, and Reprise.

Where it's best used:

Roles it's designed for:

  • Marketers
  • Business Development Reps

Live demonstration software

Live demonstration software lets AEs and SEs showcase live, data-preconfigured versions of their products during sales demos. These demo environments can be rinsed and reused to always be clean and ready for the next demonstration.

Tools in this subcategory are ideal for mid-market and enterprise companies that spend heavy employee hours managing demo environments for different industries and personas.

Popular tools in this subcategory include TestBox, Saleo, and Olto.

Where it's best used:

Roles it's designed for:

  • Account Executives
  • Solutions Engineers

Sandbox and proof of concept software

Software in this category is used to create functional sandboxes and proof of concepts (POCs) that can be sent to leads to let them get hands-on with a product. These tools use either a live version of your product or a clone of it to allow prospects to test-drive products before purchasing them. 

This subcategory is extremely powerful for mid-market and enterprise companies with complex product sets, personas, and demo environments, and it is very flexible for companies where evaluations are a heavy part of their sales cycles.

Popular tools in this subcategory include TestBox and Demostack.

Where it's best used:

Roles it's designed for:

  • Account Executives
  • Solutions Engineers
  • Customer Success

The 9 best interactive demo software

Now that you have a better understanding of which subcategory of tools is right for your team and needs, let's take a look at the nine best interactive demo software platforms on the market in 2024. Although some features overlap across tools, we have tried to list the specific things that make each tool unique.

1. TestBox

TestBox sits in both the live demonstration and sandbox/POC software categories. Teams use TestBox to demo their live products and send POCs to leads using a single tool.

What makes TestBox unique is that it sits on top of a live account of your product. That means it includes 100% of your product's features and functionality and always reflects the most up-to-date version of your product.

For the live demo use case, each sales rep gets their own unique demo environment that's preconfigured with realistic, PII-free data. Additionally, if you sell to different personas, industries, or verticals, reps can personalize the data and features shown in the environment to the specific buyer they're demoing to.

After a live demo, reps can use TestBox to send POCs to leads as leave-behinds. Like their demo environments, TestBox's POCs are preconfigured with sample data and functional integrations, so leads don't have to enter PII or connect to critical company systems to fully experience your product.

A quick links menu in the POC lists your top features, enabling leads to quickly navigate to the features they care about testing the most, and guided walkthroughs explain what each feature does and how to use it. This saves your team time and eliminates the need for sales reps to hand-hold leads as they test and evaluate your product.

Finally, using TestBox's analytics, reps can see which stakeholders accessed the sandbox, what features they tested, and how long they spent testing overall and on individual features. This helps them prioritize which deals to follow up on and gives them the information they need to create personalized follow-up communications.

Want to learn more? Schedule a demo to see how TestBox can help you create on-demand, personalized demo environments and POCs for every lead.

2. Walnut

Walnut is the first of several product tour tools in this list. It works by capturing your product's front-end code, which makes your captures more dynamic than a traditional screenshot because it allows you to do things like add hyperlinks and change copy.

Once you have your screengrabs, you tie them together using Walnut's no-code editor, adding tooltips, steps, and callouts that guide prospects through a tour of your product.

Walnut is unique among product tour tools because of its AI features. Writing all of the copy for a product tour can take a while, but Walnut helps speed that up with AI features that can assist you in creating content for your tours.

Related Reading: The Best Walnut.io Alternatives and Competitors

3. Navattic

Navattic is another product tour tool that works exactly the same way as Walnut — you capture screengrabs of your product's front-end code with a browser extension and then link them together using a no-code editor to create product walkthroughs.

Navattic tours can be gated or ungated, so teams can use them to capture lead contact info or move leads further down the purchasing funnel before asking for an email address. Analytics let you measure the impact of your product tours, such as tour completion and drop-off rates.

Price is really the big differentiator between Navattic and many of the other product tour tools on this list. It's one of the most affordable product tour tools in the space.

Related Reading: The Best Navattic Competitors and Alternatives

4. Reprise

Reprise is unique on this list because it offers multiple tools that each cater to different aspects of the purchasing journey. 

Reprise Replay is a product tour builder like Walnut and Navattic, but in addition to letting you capture screengrabs of your product one screen at a time, you can also use its application capture feature to grab all of the screens you need in one go.

Reprise Replicate can be used to capture your product's front- and back-end code. It works well for creating functional clones of your product that can be sent to leads after demo calls as leave-behinds.

Finally, Reprise Reveal uses a browser plugin to inject custom data into your existing demo environment, allowing your AEs to show personalized data to leads during live demos without requiring a sales engineer to build custom demo environments.

Related Reading: The Best Reprise Competitors and Alternatives

5. Consensus

Consensus is one of the more unique tools on this list. With it, teams can create interactive video demos for prospects and leads, stitching different videos together based on how a prospect answers a series of questions.

You can start the demo with a question about the buyer's role, then serve different videos based on the option they choose. After that video, you can ask another question about the features they're interested in and show them only videos related to those specific features.

An additional standout feature for Consensus is their “Buyer Board,” which allows your champion at the prospect’s company to see which of their colleagues have viewed the demo and how they've interacted with it.

6. Storylane

Storylane is another no-code product tour tool, similar to Walnut and Navattic. And while it's priced similarly to Navattic on the lower-cost end of the product tour subscription costs scale, it has a couple of features that make it a more compelling choice.

First, Storylane uses application capture to collect the screens you'll use to build your tour. Instead of collecting screens one by one, you can start the capture and click through your product naturally, and Storylane will collect all of the screens you viewed into its editor. This makes it faster to build new product tours.

Additionally, Storylane has collaboration features that let multiple teams and individuals collaborate on building tours at the same time.

7. Demostack

Demostack is a sandbox/POC tool that can be used to create more fully interactive demos of your product. Unlike product tour tools, Demostack's cloning bot captures your product's front- and back-end code, meaning elements like reports, filters, and drop-downs are functional.

This makes Demostack a bit more useful for the sales use case than the product tour tools that are more catered to marketing. Sales teams can clone their existing demo environment, personalize it, and then send the clone to leads as a leave-behind after a live sales demo.

Related Reading: The Best Demostack Competitors and Alternatives

8. Saleo

Saleo is built for a very specific use case: live demo personalization. It works via a browser extension that you turn on while viewing your existing demo environment to personalize the data leads see in your product while you demo to them.

Within the Saleo application, you can create custom datasets for as many use cases and verticals as you need. Then, you turn on the browser extension, select the dataset you want to display, and Saleo shows that data in your demo environment.

While you're demoing with the Saleo extension, you can change any of the data shown without impacting the core dataset, so AEs and sales engineers no longer have to go into the demo environment to clean it up before a demo call.

Related Reading: The Best Saleo Competitors and Alternatives

9. Arcade

Arcade is a video demo tool that lets you record your face and your screen to walk prospective customers through your product. Then, you can use its embed feature to attach the recording to an email follow-up or add it to your website so visitors can get a sneak peek of your tool.

While Arcade is not the most feature-rich interactive demo tool, it is the lowest-cost option, which makes it good for teams on a tight budget who need to prove the value of investing in demo software before purchasing a more fully featured tool with a higher price tag.

Choosing the right interactive demo software for your team

The most important thing you can do to ensure you're choosing the right interactive demo platform for your team is to understand which roles and use cases the tool is designed for. 

Something designed primarily for marketing teams is going to be too simplistic for sales and solutions teams, and something designed primarily for sales and solutions teams is likely to be too complicated for what marketers need from their software.

Additionally, it's important to understand the long-term effort that's required to use each of these tools. Most of the tools on this list require rework and/or maintenance after your product changes, so if your product is updated frequently, managing your demos and tours can quickly become someone's full-time job.

Make sure you're asking the right questions of any vendor you're evaluating to make sure that the product you ultimately purchase is going to meet your long-term needs.

Watch our Chief Solutions Officer, James Kaikis, talk about the future of solutions based organizations

Watch the presentation to learn about the change that you can make within your organization.

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