Driver.js vs Shepherd
Driver.js
driverjs.comShepherd
shepherdjs.devSide by side
| Figure | Driver.js | Shepherd |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 3 |
| Spec score · User Onboarding Software | 7.9 (#12) | 7.2 (#27) |
| Spec score · Product Adoption Software | 7.9 (#14) | 7.2 (#30) |
| Spec score · Onboarding Bots | 7.9 (#12) | 7.3 (#20) |
| Spec score · Customer Onboarding Software | 7.8 (#15) | 7.2 (#27) |
| Accessibility | The homepage lists accessibility and support for major browsers and mobile devices among the product characteristics. | Shepherd provides full keyboard navigation, focus trapping, and accessibility support through aria attributes. |
| Customization | Configuration can be set globally, per step, or while a tour is running. | Its minimal default styles are designed to make it easy to match the look and feel of an app. |
| Frameworks | The maker says Driver.js works with any framework or library, as well as vanilla JavaScript. | The library supports React, Ember, Angular, Vue.js, ES Modules, and plain JavaScript. |
| Installation | The package can be installed with npm, pnpm, or yarn, or loaded from a CDN. | The documentation provides installation instructions for npm, yarn, pnpm, and bun, plus GitHub releases and jsDelivr CDN usage. |
| License | Driver.js is open source under the MIT license. | Shepherd is free for open-source, personal, and non-commercial projects under AGPL-3.0; commercial projects require a commercial license. |
| Product | Driver.js is a lightweight JavaScript library for product tours, highlights, and contextual help. | Shepherd is an open-source JavaScript library for guiding users through an app with product tours, onboarding flows, trainings, and feature announcements. |
Plans
Shepherd
- Business Plan$50, paid once
- Enterprise Plan$300, paid once
- Shepherd ConsultingPriced on request
In their own words
Driver.js
Driver.js is a free JavaScript library for product tours, page highlights, and contextual help. It can guide users through a sequence of steps or draw attention to a single page element with a popover. Clickable hints appear as pulsing beacons and open popovers, optionally with a page overlay. Listed uses include onboarding, interactive tutorials, feature adoption, form guidance, and focusing attention. Configuration can be applied globally, to individual steps, or while a tour is running. The library works with any framework or library as well as vanilla JavaScript; it can be installed using npm, pnpm, or yarn, or loaded from a CDN. Its homepage describes it as dependency-free and about 5 KB. Driver.js is open source under the MIT license, with personal and commercial use and no attribution required. The maker also lists accessibility and support for major browsers and mobile devices. The listed platforms are Android, iOS, and web. One API constraint is that only one Driver.js instance can be active on screen at a time.