UXPressia Alternative

Key differences

Both platforms are strong choices for customer journey work. Here's a quick summary of key differences:

Enterprise readiness: Smaply holds ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II certifications with a dedicated Trust Center; UXPressia offers standard security practices without independent certification

Prioritization: Smaply provides structured portfolio management with custom scoring, multiple views, and relationship tracking; UXPressia offers effort/value scoring through CX Chunks

Research workflow: Smaply's Research Hub gives teams a dedicated synthesis space with AI assistance and full traceability; UXPressia relies on manual insight capture

Journey management: Smaply includes governance features like journey ownership, health tracking, and relational linking; UXPressia focuses on visual mapping with a diagrammatic hierarchy view

Read on to learn which best suits your needs.

Quick comparison

Security and enterprise readiness

For teams in regulated industries or with formal procurement processes, security certifications are often the first filter.

Smaply holds both ISO 27001:2022 and SOC 2 Type II certifications, independently audited by third parties. As a European company headquartered in Austria, Smaply is GDPR compliant by design. A dedicated Trust Center (trust.smaply.app) gives procurement teams self-service access to compliance documentation.

UXPressia follows reasonable security practices (encryption, annual penetration testing, SSO on Enterprise), but holds no ISO 27001 or SOC 2 certification. Its GDPR compliance is self-declared without independent audit.

For enterprise buyers where independent certification is a procurement requirement, Smaply meets that bar. UXPressia does not.

Prioritization and portfolio management

Mapping a journey surfaces pain points and opportunities. The question is what happens next.

Smaply treats portfolio items as structured entities with custom types, scoring dimensions, and statuses. Three views serve different needs: a summary dashboard for leadership, a detailed table for working sessions, and a visual matrix for collaborative prioritization. Items are reusable across journeys and link to each other to trace relationships from pain point to opportunity to solution.

UXPressia's CX Chunks layer captures insights with effort/value scoring and cross-document occurrence tracking. It surfaces patterns, but the scoring model is simpler and reporting requires the Business plan. Forrester scored UXPressia 1/5 on prioritization in its Q4 2025 evaluation.

For teams that need to move from insights to ranked, tracked decisions, Smaply's portfolio system is built for that workflow.

Research synthesis and insight management

Research only creates value when it connects to decisions. Without a clear path, insights get lost between workshops and roadmaps.

Smaply's Research Hub provides a dedicated space for AI-assisted analysis, quote extraction, and insight organization before anything enters the system. Insights convert to new portfolio items or merge with existing ones, enriching them with fresh evidence over time. Full traceability is maintained from raw source to portfolio item to journey map.

UXPressia does not offer native research management. Insights are captured manually into CX Chunks, which provides tagging and traceability but no structured synthesis pipeline.

For teams where research rigor matters, Smaply's Research Hub keeps synthesis separate from mapping, so evidence is reviewed before it shapes decisions.

Journey management at scale

As journey programs grow, teams need more than maps. They need governance, ownership, and connected delivery data.

Smaply supports flexible journey linking with user-defined structure conventions. Journey Coordinator assigns ownership. Journey Performance Indicator (JPI) tracks health with a key metric. Planning cards bring live status from tools like Jira and Asana directly onto the map, and metrics cards pull data from analytics and BI tools, creating a connected view from customer experience to work in progress.

UXPressia's Design View (Business plan and up) provides a visual three-level hierarchy with connection arrows, but relationships are visual rather than relational, and changes do not propagate between maps. UXPressia has no equivalent to journey ownership or health tracking. Forrester scored UXPressia 1/5 on scalability.

For teams building a sustained journey management practice, Smaply provides the governance layer that keeps programs organized as they grow.

Mapping, collaboration, and AI

Both platforms are strong at journey mapping. Forrester scored UXPressia 5/5 on journey map creation, and Capterra reviewers rate its ease of use at 4.7/5. UXPressia's template library is extensive, and its AI Persona Chat (letting teams converse with documented personas) is an innovative feature not common in CX tools.

Smaply's mapping is intuitive with flexible lane and card options, persona filtering, saved views, and custom branding. Where Smaply's maps differ is in what they connect to: portfolio items, planning cards with live delivery status, and metrics cards create a working surface rather than a static artifact. G2 rates Smaply's Quality of Support at 10.0/10.

On collaboration, both offer real-time editing. UXPressia allows co-editing via shared links without account creation. Smaply offers granular permissions at account, workspace, and journey level, plus filtered view sharing for different audiences.

On AI, UXPressia embeds AI broadly across persona generation, text assistance, and journey creation. Smaply focuses AI on research synthesis with a human-in-the-loop workflow where teams review and refine before anything enters the system.

Pricing

Smaply offers four tiers from Free to Governance. Paid plans start at $38/editor/month (annual) with unlimited journeys. Self-serve or sales-supported. Integrations accessible from the Free plan.

UXPressia offers Free, Pro ($36/user/month), Business ($95/user/month), and Enterprise (custom). Integrations, reporting, and custom branding require the Business plan. Multiple workspaces require separate subscriptions.

Pricing subject to change. Check vendor websites for current details.

How to choose

Smaply is the better fit if:

• You need ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II certifications for procurement
• You want structured portfolio management with custom scoring and prioritization views
• You need a dedicated research synthesis workflow with full traceability
• You want journey governance with ownership, health tracking, and connected delivery
• You want integrations accessible at lower price points

UXPressia may be better if:

• You want a polished mapping tool with a large template library to get started quickly
• AI persona simulation (Persona Chat) is valuable for your workflow
• You need co-editing via shared links without requiring accounts
• Your priority is journey creation and presentation rather than ongoing management

Want to explore Smaply further?

If Smaply feels like a better fit for your approach to journey management, try it free or talk to our team about your needs.

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