Strella vs. UserTesting: which research platform delivers deeper insights, faster?

If your team is deciding between Strella and UserTesting, you’re likely weighing speed, depth, and how well each tool fits into your existing workflow. While both can help you capture customer feedback, they take fundamentally different approaches.

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Strella’s AI-moderated interviewer lets teams run always-on qualitative research, uncover rich customer insights in hours (not weeks), and instantly synthesize findings.

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UserTesting focuses on structured usability tests and task-based studies, delivering quick-hit metrics and participant recordings that require manual review before insights are ready.

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Let’s dig deeper to see which research platform is right for your team.

Key Feature Comparison

Study Setup & Interview Guide
Can launch a study in minutes: AI-generated, expert-level guides built for you, fully customizable
Requires more setup and planning for test creation
Interview Moderation
Flexible: both human-moderated and AI-moderated interviews with 24/7 availability, multilingual capabilities, and dynamic probing to keep users on track
Self-guided, remote tests & human-moderated, easy for users to get lost in self-guided
Qualitative Depth & Customization
Highly customizable study design and AI probes deeper into responses dynamically
Users follow a fixed script with limited adaptability
Speed to Insights
Instant AI-generated synthesis, highlight reels, themes, and reports
Provides very basic synthesis, requires a lot of manual work and time
Audience access
Allows for external and internal participants. Unlimited scale with global, multi-language recruitment
Primarily relies on UserTesting’s panel. Large, US-heavy participant panel; international coverage limited
Insight Sharing
Instant insights for easy embedding into reports, slack, or presentations
Requires manual report creation and video editing
Team Usability & Accessibility
Built for every skill level—research accessible beyond trained researchers
More complex to scale across non-research roles
Pricing
Flexible, scalable pricing that works for growing teams and enterprises
Enterprise-oriented pricing with annual contracts

Why Teams
Choose Strella

Always-On, AI-Led Interviews

Strella’s AI moderators run research 24/7, adapting in real time to your participants and stimuli—so you capture richer feedback without slowing down.

Instant Synthesis for Immediate Action

No more waiting days to share results. Strella gives you highlight reels, dashboards, and searchable insights as soon as your sessions end.

Built for How Teams Actually Work

Integrate past research, run studies alongside existing workflows, and empower anyone on your team to uncover insights—not just trained researchers.

Find your perfect
research platform

When Strella Is Your Best Choice

  • You want research that’s continuous, not constrained by calendar invites
  • You need to make faster decisions without sacrificing qualitative depth
  • You’re tired of skipping research due to budget or bandwidth
  • You want to integrate what you’ve already learned into what you’re learning now

When UserTesting Could Work for You

  • You primarily need usability tests, task completion data, or first-click insights
  • You’re focused on quick-turn quantitative metrics over deep qualitative analysis
  • You already have a separate synthesis process and don’t need real-time results

Customer success

Hear it from the voice of our customers

Flexible enough to meet any team's customer research needs, and drive real & measurable impact

"We were blown away by how much benefit we saw from using Strella. It enables us to run tests more efficiently & frequently - it’s as if we’ve added a member to our team focused solely on UX."
Seth Stephan
Director of Experience Design
“I was amazed by the speed to insights, how seamless it is to build discussion guides, and the AI moderator's ability to ask thoughtful follow up questions based on responses!”
Sarika Patel
Senior Researcher, Consumer Insights
"Compared to other user research tools I’ve used, Strella is smarter at uncovering the insights that truly matter. It was a mic drop moment when I played the highlight reel - hearing the insights surfaced from real users has been a game changer for us."
Bret Dennis
Director of SEO & Organic Growth
"Strella has enabled me to increase my research output, and the quality of insights have been accurate and actionable."
Becca Flores
UX Researcher
"Strella's multilingual AI moderator has allows us to connect with and gather feedback from customers we couldn't reach before. Having those insights get instantly translated and included in the synthesis and report is hugely valuable"
Joe Sioufi
Lead Product Designer
“Strella makes it effortless for our team to gather continuous user feedback at a scale and frequency that was previously impossible.”
James Evans
Co-Founder & CEO
“Strella has enabled me to do fast, continuous research - I was especially impressed with how adaptive and dynamic the AI moderator was.”
Luke Armstrong
Founder, Design Agency
“Before Strella, we only had the bandwidth and budget for 1-2 qual research projects a year. Now, our qual capabilities are fully unlocked. The change in our speed to insight has been nothing short of groundbreaking.”
Casey Greulich
Senior Director, Consumer Insights
"With Strella, I can streamline the entire process of planning, conducting, and reporting on a moderated test from weeks to just a few days—sometimes even just a couple of hours. It’s a game-changer!"
Adeel Fahimullah
Head of Product Design
"Strella saved us weeks of work on our new onboarding flow. We gathered actionable insights and were able to make fast changes in just 24 hours!"
Jack Jundanian
GM of New Verticals
"The best UX research isn’t AI vs. Humans—it’s AI + Humans. Specifically AI + Strella. With Strella I was able to create a better analysis than on my own... In 1/10th the time."
Adam Root
Chief Product Officer
"Before Strella, studies took weeks. Now we get insights in a day — sometimes in just a few hours. And because participants open up more with the AI moderator, the feedback is deeper and more honest. Research is now faster, richer, and easier to access across our team."
Brian Santiago
Senior Product Design Manager
"Using Strella has significantly accelerated our research timeline! Without Strella it has taken our team a month to schedule and complete 6 interviews. With Strella we were able to run 15 interviews in less than 48 hours!"
Julie Griffin
Product Designer
"We were blown away by how much benefit we saw from using Strella. It enables us to run tests more efficiently & frequently - it’s as if we’ve added a member to our team focused solely on UX."
Seth Stephan
Director of Experience Design
“I was amazed by the speed to insights, how seamless it is to build discussion guides, and the AI moderator's ability to ask thoughtful follow up questions based on responses!”
Sarika Patel
Senior Researcher, Consumer Insights
"Strella has enabled me to increase my research output, and the quality of insights have been accurate and actionable."
Becca Flores
UX Researcher
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