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Microsoft IIS VS Usetiful

Compare Microsoft IIS VS Usetiful and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Microsoft IIS logo Microsoft IIS

Internet Information Services is a web server for Microsoft Windows

Usetiful logo Usetiful

Fight user churn with great user onboarding. Interactive product tours and smart tips significantly improve your user retention.
  • Microsoft IIS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-25
  • Usetiful Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-03-20

Usetiful bridges the gap between users and digital systems. Guided tours and smart tips allow users to master any software system from day one.

Usetiful provides interactive product tours and smart tips into your application, improving user adoption and conversions instantly.

Microsoft IIS features and specs

  • Integration with Windows Server
    Since IIS is developed by Microsoft, it offers seamless integration with Windows Server, leveraging features like Active Directory, .NET Framework, and PowerShell for enhanced performance and manageability.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    IIS features a graphical user interface (GUI) that simplifies the server setup and management process, making it easier for administrators to configure and maintain web applications.
  • Extensive Documentation and Support
    Being a product from Microsoft, IIS offers comprehensive documentation, extensive online resources, and professional technical support, which can be highly beneficial for enterprise users.
  • Security Features
    IIS includes various built-in security features, such as dynamic IP restrictions, request filtering, application pooling, and integration with Windows authentication, making it a secure choice for hosting web applications.
  • Performance and Scalability
    IIS is optimized for performance and can effectively handle multiple requests and high-traffic websites. It also supports load balancing and server farms to enhance scalability.

Possible disadvantages of Microsoft IIS

  • Cost Considerations
    Unlike some other web servers that are open-source and free, IIS may incur licensing costs as it requires a Windows Server license, making it potentially expensive for small-scale deployments.
  • Platform Dependency
    IIS runs exclusively on the Windows platform, which can be a limitation for organizations that use a diverse set of operating systems or prefer open-source ecosystems like Linux.
  • Complex Configuration for Advanced Features
    While IIS offers a user-friendly interface for basic setups, configuring advanced features may require considerable expertise and can become complex, particularly for those unfamiliar with Microsoft's environment.
  • Performance Overheads
    IIS may introduce performance overhead due to the multiple layers of abstraction and integration with Windows features, which can affect performance in some high-demand scenarios compared to lightweight, minimalist web servers.
  • Lower Community Support
    Open-source web servers like Apache and Nginx have large, active communities that contribute to continuous improvement and troubleshooting. IIS, being a proprietary product, has a smaller community in comparison.

Usetiful features and specs

  • Product Tours
    interactive guided tours
  • Checklists
    user onboarding checklists
  • Hotspot beacons
    pulsating elements to draw user's attention without being intrusive
  • Microsurveys
    gather user feedback seamlessly
  • Smart Tips
    contextual guidance and validation
  • Assistant widget
    customer self help
  • Easy to Set-up and use
    less than 5 min setup
  • Employee onboarding
    employee tutorials and checklist
  • Knowledge Base portal
    public self-help portal
  • Native mobile guides
    support for native mobile
  • Feature tracking
    tracking of feature adoption by user segments or individual users
  • Integrations
    connect onboarding flows to wider company operations

Analysis of Microsoft IIS

Overall verdict

  • Microsoft IIS is a good choice for businesses and developers who are already working within a Microsoft ecosystem or need close integration with Windows applications and services. It offers a solid balance of performance, security, and ease-of-management, making it a viable option for hosting a variety of web applications.

Why this product is good

  • Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Services) is a versatile and powerful web server that integrates seamlessly with Windows Server and other Microsoft technologies. It offers robust security features, efficient management tools, reliable performance, and strong support for .NET applications. IIS is known for its ease of use in Windows environments, offering a user-friendly graphical interface and a wide range of administrative tools, such as the IIS Manager. Additionally, it supports both static and dynamic content hosting and is capable of handling large volumes of traffic efficiently.

Recommended for

  • Organizations using Windows Server environments
  • .NET application developers
  • Businesses needing seamless integration with other Microsoft services
  • Companies looking for reliable security features
  • Web hosting providers serving enterprise-level clients

Analysis of Usetiful

Overall verdict

  • Usetiful is considered a good solution for businesses looking to optimize user onboarding and enhance the customer experience. Its features cater well to both small startups and larger organizations needing to provide seamless user guidance.

Why this product is good

  • Usetiful is a digital adoption platform designed to help users onboard, train, and guide through applications with ease. It is known for its intuitive interface, customizable onboarding flows, and interactive product tours. This tool can enhance user engagement, reduce churn, and improve the learning curve for new software users.

Recommended for

    Usetiful is recommended for product managers, customer success teams, and training departments in companies that deploy software applications and seek to improve user onboarding, reduce support requests, or boost user satisfaction and retention.

Microsoft IIS videos

Analyzing Microsoft IIS Web Logs - Part 1

More videos:

  • Review - My SEO Video 2017 Microsoft IIS SEO Toolkit

Usetiful videos

Embedded Banners

More videos:

  • Demo - Create product tours without coding with Usetiful
  • Tutorial - User Onboarding Checklists by Usetiful
  • Demo - Usetiful - Visual Editor Demo
  • Demo - Usetiful Introduction Video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Microsoft IIS and Usetiful)
Web And Application Servers
Digital Adoption
0 0%
100% 100
Web Servers
100 100%
0% 0
User Onboarding And Engagement

Questions and Answers

As answered by people managing Microsoft IIS and Usetiful.

What makes your product unique?

Usetiful's answer:

  • Usetiful works with native mobile - serving clients on all of their platforms
  • Usetiful is affordable - offering a free-forever plan and scalable business offerings
  • Usetiful "just works" - supporting wide range of corner cases, including exotic Single Page Applications or iFrames
  • Usetiful is secure - not only ISO27001 certified, HIPAA and GDPR compliant. But also able to run on-premise for security-intense clients

Who are some of the biggest customers of your product?

Usetiful's answer:

-Audi -DHL -DPD -Konica Minolta -Foodora -e27 -Nanyang Technological University -iChef

User comments

Share your experience with using Microsoft IIS and Usetiful. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Microsoft IIS and Usetiful

Microsoft IIS Reviews

Apache, IIS, NGINX, GWS : What’s Your Choice?
Utilizing a specific type of virtual or physical server determines the type of web server software you use. If you prefer Microsoft, then you will prefer to use IIS (Internet Information Services / Server) by Microsoft as your primary web server application solution. If you use Linux distribution, you have other alternatives like Apache, NGINX and LiteSpeed.
Source: www.milesweb.in
What Is the Most Popular Web Server Application in 2021?
Despite being bundled with most modern Microsoft software, IIS loses out to Apache on its own devices. The main selling point here is performance. While IIS has kept up with Apache in recent times, Apache has historically been performing much better, which still gives it an edge over IIS.

Usetiful Reviews

  1. Marek Albrecht
    · Portal Admin at LARP Slovakia ·
    Convenient and free

    It was easy to get started - I have registered the free plan and created the first tour in approximately 15 minutes. Since then I have been improving on the experience.

    Part of my application is a single-page app. It was quite techy to get this part running. Kudos for the customer support that walked me through!

    🏁 Competitors: WalkMe
    👍 Pros:    Free basic plan|Easy to use|Great customer support
    👎 Cons:    Single page app support
  2. Martin Novak
    · Front end manager at Netwits Company ·
    A nice simple tool for user onboarding

    I use Usetiful for various clients' projects that require product tours. Everyone was satisfied so far. Web editor allows me to quickly update the content and browser extension to preview the tours. Reports provide enough detail.

    🏁 Competitors: Appcues
    👍 Pros:    Easy to use|Easy user interface|Preview function|Good price
    👎 Cons:    Nothing, so far

15 best user onboarding software you need to try in 2023
Usetiful is one of the best-value onboarding tools we’ve found — it’s premium version is just $99/month for up to 20,000 users.
8 Best Usetiful Alternatives and Competitors That Are More Professional
For non-technical people, Usetiful’s integration and setup can be extremely confusing. While it’s still possible for a person who doesn’t know how to code to integrate the tool into their website, figuring out how to do it will be difficult for sure. In order to get to the required information, the user needs to dig deep into help center articles and cherry-pick the...
Source: userguiding.com
The 7 Best WalkMe Alternatives in 2023
Its customizable onboarding solutions make it a strong contender for organizations focused on data-driven decision-making. If you're looking for an easy-to-use platform with robust analytics capabilities, Usetiful is worth considering.
Source: helpjuice.com
Top alternatives to UserGuiding
If you are looking for high customizability and excellent customer service all while maintaining a reasonable pricing - Usetiful is the best alternative. At the same time, no onboarding software works exactly the same in every use case. Also make sure to consider the other two alternatives to make an educated decision.
3 free tools for Product Managers to improve product adoption
Product Tours by Usetiful allow you to guide users within your product. You can for example point out interesting parts by well placed smart tips or guide new users with end-to-end walkthrough. Keeping users in direct conversation allows you to get more feedback.
Source: medium.com

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Microsoft IIS and Usetiful, you can also consider the following products

Apache HTTP Server - Apache httpd has been the most popular web server on the Internet since April 1996

UserGuiding - Create in-app experiences with the most straightforward product adoption platform — quick implementation, lasting user engagement.

Apache Tomcat - An open source software implementation of the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages technologies

Appcues - Improve user onboarding, feature activation & more — no code required! Stop waiting on dev and start increasing customer engagement today. Try it for free.

LiteSpeed Web Server - LiteSpeed Web Server (LSWS) is a high-performance Apache drop-in replacement.

Userlane - Digital adoption platform with interactive guidance for software applications allowing anyone to understand and master any software from the get-go.