ConfigCat or Split? Which one offers the best benefits for feature management?
Looking for feature flag services but don’t know which company would best suit your needs?
This article helps you make that decision easier by giving you an in-depth comparison between ConfigCat: https://configcat.com and Split: https://www.split.io, two companies that provide feature flag services.
As a young entrepreneur studying IT, marketing, and finances, my goal is to bring value to people by implementing solutions and strategies in these fields.
Feature flags are an excellent tool for companies and entrepreneurs alike — that’s precisely why I decided to raise awareness on this topic. Let’s dive into today’s subject.
What platforms do ConfigCat and Split support?
The good news is that both ConfigCat and Split provide open source SDK-s to support the most popular programming languages, and they provide very detailed documentation for all of them. If you’re looking for the actual code, check out the following links for the GitHub repositories of the open-source SDK-s:
• ConfigCat: https://github.com/configcat
• Split: https://github.com/splitio
To answer your question, the following platform categories are supported:
• Apps
• Mobile
• Desktop
• Microservices
• Server-side scripts
• Web Frontend
• Backend API’s
You can find extensive information about the platforms and the documentation at the following links:
• ConfigCat: https://configcat.com/docs/sdk-reference/overview
• Split: https://help.split.io/hc/en-us/articles/360033557092-SDK-overview
How convenient is the UI?
We all know that a good or bad onboarding experience can make or break a business.
• ConfigCat has a 10-minute trainable user interface, so even non-technical people will find it easy to use. The website is very intuitive, it takes less than 10 minutes to create a new account and start using feature flags. Creating flags is very easy; you can add different targeting rules, pretty much every aspect that you can think of can be customized. In fact, ConfigCat is so easy to use that even Iceland’s government services portal (island.is) started using ConfigCat in their public services. See for yourself what the developers and product owners of island.is had to say about ConfigCat here: https://docs.devland.is/technical-overview/adr/0013-feature-flags
Not sure if you relized, but Iceland’s digital goverment services software are open source and all their technical decisions are also completely public. https://github.com/island-is/island.is
• Split’s feature flags are also very user-friendly, and as you can see, in both cases, you simply toggle features on or off. It’s that easy. You can also adjust more complex configurations.
Both ConfigCat and Split support features such as:
Percentage based rollouts
You control the exact percentage of users it reaches, whether it’s 10, 30
or 50%. For example, if you are a large business and you start with 1%, then you go to 2%, 50%, and if everything works fine, you keep increasing the percentage of users that see the new version.
Big Bang rollouts
Releasing the new features to 100% of the users
User targeting
Targeting specific users. You can set different targeting rules depending on your objectives. For example, if you have a company and all employees have the same email format, a specific targeting rule can be
set that targets the users in the company. So, on their devices, they will see the new version with the new features, they will use it for 2 or 3 days and this way they will find for example 80% of the problems that might show up and they will fix them accordingly.
Exclusion rules
This is another targeting rule that you can use. For example
you can exclude your customers from seeing the new features that are being tested and this way you avoid a lot of problems in case something goes wrong, because you isolated the incident. Very specific exclusion rules can be created, and when all the problems are fixed you can safely release the new version to the whole world.
Rollbacks
Taking back the features that you rolled out.
A/B testing
Also known as experimenting, involves testing two different versions of a
product or feature to see which version brings better results. In order to do that, you need to set a targeting rule for a percentage of users and you need to use an analytics tool to track certain things that are important to you and then see the results.
When it comes to A/B testing, Split is much better than ConfigCat because it has its own analytics engine built in, whereas ConfigCat requires a separate product or service in the same exporting app, you should connect to Google analytics for example, and you need to set up your own charts so that you can see the results. So you can do A/B testing with ConfigCat, but Split is a first class A/B testing tool which doesn’t require that much work when it comes to this aspect.
Audit Logs
They provide detailed records of every change that took place and who made them.
More details can be found at https://configcat.com and https://www.split.io
What about the prices?
ConfigCat offers the following benefits:
Fixed prices
They are very transparent about the exact price for each one of their packages; they don’t charge by the number of users or by the size of your team: https://configcat.com/#pricing.
A free plan which contains all the features
Think of it as a trial version that is unlimited in time but limited in resources. You are allowed to have a maximum of 10 flags, and users can invite an unlimited number of teammates for free and can also create permission groups with different roles and assignments. If you have a large team, ConfigCat is a great option.
The price scales with the number of config.json downloads
You can use the following tool to get an estimate of the number of config.json downloads: https://configcat.com/calculator/
If you can estimate how many HTTP requests you will have, then ConfigCat pricing is more beneficial for you.
When it comes to Split:
They charge based on the number of users and the size of the team that each client has.
They don’t have fixed prices, and you need to plan the budget based on your numbers: https://www.split.io/pricing/
In this case, you should reach out to Split and ask them how to estimate the number of their MTK-s(Monthly Tracked Keys). In other words, Split-s price scales with MTK-s and user seats. If it’s easier for you to estimate the number of MTK-s, then Split might be better for you.
You can also enjoy the benefits of the 30-day free trial of the service
Compared to ConfigCat’s forever free plan, Split’s free version allows access to maximum 10 users, and you have access to unlimited flags.
API’s
Additionally, both ConfigCat and Split give you API access, workflow integrations, and many more in their free plan.
Now, if you prefer unlimited flags or unlimited users when it comes to the free version, it’s up to you to decide.
What about Data storage, Security, Privacy, and GDPR?
I’m glad you asked. Both ConfigCat and Split have strong systems when it comes to security, and they follow extensive practices to protect your data. More details regarding security can be found on their websites, but before you do the research yourself, let’s have a look at some features:
• At ConfigCat, feature flags are evaluated on the client-side, which means that your user’s data will never leave your system. Only feature flag values and targeting rules are stored in ConfigCat’s system. Also, all the services of this company rely on Microsoft Azure, Digital Ocean, and Linode cloud providers. They provide security measures to protect their infrastructure and are compliant with most certifications. ConfigCat has CDN servers globally, but users can opt-in to use an EU-only CDN. In that case your data will be distributed only to servers that are in the EU.
• Split has obtained the SOC 2 type 2 certificate, which means that Split’s Service Organization Control(SOC) Reports are certified by a third party. SOC 2 was developed by the American Institute of CPA-s and it defines criteria for managing customer data based on five “trust service principles”: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy. In other words, Split’s data centers and managed service providers undergo regular third-party audits.
If you care about security in general, then both ConfigCat and Split are good.
How is the support?
• At ConfigCat, you can chat or email directly with their dev team, forget about first-level support or a call center. If you want more details, then you can ask them through their Slack workspace: https://configcat.com/slack/
If you prefer to receive fast answers then go with ConfigCat. They typically answer within minutes in Slack.
• Their working hours overlap with both EU and US west coast working hours.
• Split can be contacted via email, phone, and if you want SLA for initial support response times then Split might be better: https://www.split.io/support/
• Depending on the package that you choose from them you can benefit from different resources, however you can only access chat support in their Platinum feature, which is the biggest package. This way it just feels like ConfigCat has a more direct approach and they are easier to reach directly, whether you are an independent freelancer or an enterprise.
Both ConfigCat and Split have amazing teams of professionals who will gladly provide 30-minute demos of the services. Here you’ll learn feature flagging basics, segmentation, targeting, percentage rollouts, and many more. They will give you their full attention so feel free to ask them anything you want to know about feature flags.
Conclusion
The takeaway is clear: feature flags save a lot of time and ensure the release of new features without affecting the clients or the performance of the service. Using feature flags will bring a positive impact in the process and when it comes to ConfigCat and Split, both companies deliver great results. Now it’s up to you to decide who you want to work with: ConfigCat or Split?
