A Fresh Look at Saltfish.ai vs Appcues for Smarter User Onboarding

User onboarding can make or break a product’s success. As we enter 2025, businesses are looking for smarter, more engaging ways to introduce new users to their software. Traditional digital adoption platforms like Appcues have long helped teams create in-app tours and tooltips to guide users. Now, innovative AI onboarding tools such as Saltfish.ai are changing the game with interactive video and personalization. This article compares Saltfish.ai vs Appcues, examining why onboarding platforms matter and how these two solutions stack up in the evolving landscape of user onboarding software. We’ll explore each platform’s approach, features, and integrations, all to help you decide which user onboarding solution is best suited for 2025’s demands. In a world where excellent user experience drives retention, choosing the right onboarding platform (whether a familiar name like Appcues or a forward-thinking newcomer like Saltfish.ai) is more relevant than ever.

Saltfish.ai Overview

Saltfish.ai is a video-first, AI-powered onboarding platform designed to deliver a more human and interactive experience. Instead of static guides, Saltfish.ai uses AI-generated presenter videos to greet and guide users through products in a face-to-face style. Teams can quickly create these videos by simply writing text scripts. Saltfish’s AI video generator produces professional avatars speaking your script in seconds. The platform includes a no-code flow builder that lets you string videos into branching sequences with conditional logic. This means you can personalize the onboarding journey for different user segments or choices, giving each user a tailored experience. Embedding Saltfish into your product is simple, requiring just a single line of code to add the video widget into your app or website UI.

Once in place, Saltfish.ai’s interactive videos can engage users at key moments. Common use cases include welcoming new site visitors with a friendly face, capturing leads with video prompts, or walking new sign-ups through key features step-by-step. Unlike one-size-fits-all tutorials, Saltfish videos can branch based on user input, effectively creating a two-way conversation. For example, you might ask the user what their goal is, then show a relevant demo video segment next. This AI-powered personalization and interactivity keeps users engaged and reduces the time to value.

Saltfish.ai also provides built-in analytics to track engagement with your videos. The Starter plan includes basic analytics on views and interactions, while the Growth plan unlocks advanced analytics with exportable data and even session replays to see how users navigate through the video flow. This allows product teams to gain insights into where users might get stuck or drop off. 

Appcues Overview

Appcues is a well-established name in user onboarding and product adoption. Founded in 2013, Appcues pioneered the no-code approach to creating in-app guidance, allowing non-developers to craft onboarding flows and tutorials. Its platform enables you to overlay various UI elements onto your product  (things like tooltips, pop-up modals, slideouts, banners, checklists, and hotspots) to guide users through features or announce updates. All of this is done without writing code; Appcues provides a drag-and-drop visual editor that makes it easy to design product tours and messages in minutes. For example, you can design a sequence where a welcome modal introduces a new user to the dashboard, then tooltips highlight important buttons step-by-step. Appcues also supports embedding video or images within these flows, but its core strength is in-app text and UI components rather than video-based guidance.

One of Appcues’ standout features is its robust targeting and segmentation. You can show messages based on real user behavior, attributes, or events, ensuring the right users see the right guidance at the right time. For instance, you might trigger a tooltip only after a user has accessed a particular feature, or display a checklist for users on a certain pricing plan. Appcues integrates with many tools (Segment, Salesforce, HubSpot, Mixpanel, and others) so you can leverage existing user data and send event data back to your analytics or CRM. This makes it a powerful digital adoption platform for product-led teams who want to personalize onboarding without heavy development. Appcues’ in-app messaging works on both web and mobile apps (with appropriate SDK installation), covering multiple platforms for user engagement.

Comparing Saltfish.ai and Appcues on key aspects of onboarding

Onboarding Features and User Experience

Both tools aim to improve user activation, but with different techniques:

Saltfish.ai’s Onboarding Experience: Saltfish embeds an interactive AI video into your app interface to walk users through key steps. For example, a new user’s first session might prompt a personalized video presenter who greets them and visually highlights elements in the UI. Saltfish can overlay pointers or highlight UI elements during the video, triggered by user actions or “product signals” in real time. This provides a guided tour that feels like a one-on-one walkthrough. Because the videos are AI-generated, you can update the onboarding flow just by editing text scripts – no need to re-record videos. This makes it easy to keep content up-to-date with product changes. Saltfish supports branching: you can connect multiple video clips into a flow and use conditional logic to branch based on user choices or attributes. In short, Saltfish delivers a high-touch AI onboarding tool experience (simulating a personal guide for each user) in a scalable way.

Appcues’ Onboarding Experience: Appcues uses a more conventional in-app guidance approach. It enables product managers to create tooltips, pop-ups, slideouts, banners, and checklists that appear within the product UI at the right time. For example, a first-time user might see a series of tooltip highlights or a modal welcome tour that points out important buttons. All of this is configured with a no-code visual editor – Appcues offers a Chrome extension and drag-and-drop builder to design these experiences directly on your app’s interface. Common patterns include product tour modals, hotspot beacons on new features, and task checklists for onboarding milestones. Appcues also provides a resource center widget (on higher plans) where users can self-serve help articles or walkthroughs inside the app. While Appcues does not use video or voice, it excels at contextual in-app messaging and can even trigger behavioral emails or push notifications as part of the onboarding sequence, giving a multi-channel guidance capability.

Which provides a better onboarding UX? It depends on your audience. Saltfish’s video-driven approach can be very engaging: “Nothing captures attention and builds trust like 1:1 video”. Users may find a friendly avatar guide more personal than static tooltips. It’s great for complex tasks where a human-like explanation helps. However, not everyone can always watch or listen to videos. Appcues’s tooltips and prompts are more lightweight and instantly interactive (users can click through at their own pace). Some companies might even use both styles, for instance, a quick video for the overview and tooltips for detailed steps.

Comparison: AI-Powered Personalization and Interactivity

Modern users respond to personalized, interactive experiences, and this is where Saltfish.ai really differentiates itself. Saltfish.ai leverages AI to create a personalized onboarding journey for each user. For example, you can generate multiple video variants addressing different user roles or goals, and Saltfish will automatically show the relevant one based on user input or profile. Its flow builder allows branching, so the path can change depending on what the user needs, essentially mimicking a conversation. The AI presenter can even answer product questions by assembling the right mini-tour on the fly. 

This level of adaptability feels futuristic: rather than a generic tutorial, each user effectively gets a concierge-like onboarding specialist guiding them. The interactivity goes beyond just clicking “Next”; users might click embedded buttons in the video (e.g. “Show me how” or “Skip this step”) which trigger different outcomes or ask the user a question to better tailor the guidance. All of this happens within the app, keeping users engaged and self-sufficient. In a world where attention spans are short, Saltfish’s face-to-face video approach can form a stronger personal connection with users, helping them reach “aha!” moments faster.

Appcues, while not AI-driven in content creation, excels at targeting and segmenting users for personalization. With Appcues, you define audience segments (e.g. new sign-ups in the last 7 days, users on the Pro plan, users who haven’t used Feature X) and deliver specific flows to those segments. Messages can also include placeholders for the user’s name or other properties, making them feel personal. 

So, an onboarding checklist might greet “Welcome John, let’s get started!” if that data is available. This rules-based personalization is powerful when you have clear user data and want to trigger guides contextually. However, it’s less dynamic than Saltfish’s AI-driven adaptation. Appcues shows pre-defined variations of content – it doesn’t generate new content on the fly. In terms of interactivity, Appcues flows are interactive in that users can click through multi-step tours, tick off checklist items, or input text in surveys. It also supports branching logic in flows to some extent (you can create different paths in an Appcues flow using conditions). But the interaction is generally limited to UI navigation (next step, dismiss, etc.) and perhaps form inputs for surveys. It lacks the rich conversational feel that Saltfish’s video Q&A can provide.

In summary, if your priority is delivering an immersive, personalized experience that adapts in real time to user needs, Saltfish.ai’s AI and interactive video capabilities have the edge. It feels like having a virtual onboarding assistant for each user. Appcues, on the other hand, provides targeted onboarding that is personalized based on segments and timing – ensuring users see relevant tips – but it doesn’t quite reach the level of individualized guidance that an AI-driven platform can achieve. For 2025, as AI becomes more prevalent, Saltfish.ai positions itself as a forward-thinking choice to deliver smart onboarding at scale.

Why Appcues Stands Out in Reviews

Appcues has built its reputation as one of the most recognized digital adoption platforms. It provides in-app tooltips, checklists, and product tours that help users get familiar quickly. Teams like its no-code setup and strong analytics.

However, many Appcues reviews note challenges: steep pricing, reliance on non-visual guidance, and complexity at scale. 

Why Saltfish.ai Feels Different

Saltfish.ai flips the model: instead of relying on static tooltips, it embeds personalized AI video flows right into the product. This makes onboarding feel like a conversation, not a manual.

If you need a proven digital adoption platform with tooltips, checklists, and established workflows, Appcues remains a safe choice.

But if you believe onboarding should delight, convert, and personalize at scale, Saltfish.ai is the better investment. Its AI-driven video approach, stronger support, and user-first design make it a compelling Appcues alternative for 2025 and beyond.

In essence, Saltfish.ai differentiates itself by making user onboarding feel like a personalized, human interaction through AI videos, while Appcues takes a traditional but proven route of guided UI experiences. If you compare them directly, Saltfish is like having a friendly virtual product expert inside your app, whereas Appcues is like a well-crafted tour guide that points things out. Many organizations in 2025 are intrigued by Saltfish’s ability to reduce the learning curve with an AI-driven, face-to-face approach – something users might find more approachable than text bubbles. Appcues remains a strong choice for a broad, feature-rich onboarding toolkit. The right choice depends on whether you want to embrace the new AI/video-driven paradigm (Saltfish.ai) or stick with the conventional and widely-tested method (Appcues).

Experience Next-Gen Onboarding

Ready to elevate your onboarding process? Try Saltfish.ai and see how an AI-powered, video-first approach can transform your user engagement. Whether you’re frustrated with static tooltips or just eager to provide a more human touch in your product, Saltfish.ai lets you do it with ease. You can get started for free and witness the impact of interactive AI video onboarding on your conversion and activation metrics. Don’t settle for ordinary when you can onboard users in a smarter, more memorable way, give Saltfish.ai a test drive today and lead your users to success from the moment they sign up.

FAQ

Q: What is Saltfish.ai?
A: Saltfish.ai is an AI-powered interactive video platform for user onboarding and engagement. In simple terms, it lets you embed short, face-to-face AI-generated videos into your product to guide and educate users. Instead of static guides or text, Saltfish uses lifelike video avatars to walk users through your product, answer common questions, and personalize the experience. The goal is to onboard users faster and more effectively by providing a friendly, human-like touch. For example, when a new user signs up, Saltfish.ai can greet them with a welcome video and then lead them through key features step by step – all directly inside your app. This video-first approach helps reduce bounce rates and increase user adoption. Saltfish.ai includes a no-code flow builder to create these onboarding video tours and an AI video generator that turns your text instructions into narrated videos in seconds. Overall, it’s a tool that combines the power of video, AI, and interactivity to make onboarding more engaging and tailored for each user.

Q: What makes Saltfish.ai different from Appcues?
A: Saltfish.ai and Appcues are both tools for user onboarding, but they take very different approaches:

• Content Format: Saltfish.ai uses interactive AI videos to onboard users, whereas Appcues uses in-app UI elements like tooltips and modals. This means Saltfish feels like a human guide talking to the user (via video), making the experience more engaging and personal. Appcues, on the other hand, feels like guided navigation through the app with pop-up tips. Neither is inherently “better” universally, but Saltfish’s format is more novel and can capture attention in ways tooltips might not. It’s the difference between watching a short helpful video versus reading through a walkthrough dialog – many users find video more appealing.
  
  
  

• Personalization & AI: Saltfish.ai is built with AI at its core. It can generate guides on the fly and even answer user questions by stitching together the right video segments. It’s like having an on-demand virtual product specialist for your users. Appcues doesn’t generate content with AI; all content is manually created (though Appcues recently introduced some AI assistance for writing text, it’s not generating experiences dynamically for each user). Appcues personalizes via targeting rules (showing pre-made flows to certain segments), which is powerful but not as “adaptive” in real time as Saltfish.
  
  
  

• No-Code Implementation: Both are no-code in usage, but Saltfish’s integration is extremely light (a snippet to embed videos). Appcues requires installing their SDK and identifying users in it, which is still fairly easy but a bit more involved than Saltfish’s one-liner embed. Once set up, both let non-tech folks build content. Saltfish’s builder focuses on video scripting and branching, while Appcues has a visual editor for UI steps.
  
  
  

• Analytics: Appcues provides extensive in-app behavior analytics and goals, whereas Saltfish provides engagement metrics and session replays focused on the videos. For instance, Appcues can track a wider range of events (like clicking a certain button in your app, completing a checklist, etc.) as part of its analytics. Saltfish’s analytics are more about how users interact with the video guidance (views, clicks on video CTAs, etc.). Depending on what insights you need, this could be a differentiator.
  
  
  

• Use Cases: Saltfish.ai’s video approach lends itself not only to onboarding but also to things like marketing demos and user engagement on a website. You could use Saltfish to greet a website visitor with “Hi, here’s what our product can do for you” in a way that might increase conversion, something Appcues is not designed for (Appcues is mainly used once users sign up or log in). Appcues is very strong for ongoing in-app user education – beyond initial onboarding, you can use it for feature announcements, collecting feedback, etc., inside the product. 

• Pricing: As detailed above, Saltfish is generally more affordable and even has a free tier, whereas Appcues is a larger investment. This often is a deciding factor for small companies.
  
  
  

• Support and Company: Appcues is a more established company with a larger customer base and years of development. Saltfish.ai is a newer entrant. This means Appcues has a lot of learning resources, community forums, and probably a bigger support team. Saltfish, being newer, might give you more personalized attention (you might even interact with the founding team for support or new feature requests), but it won’t have the same volume of community content yet.