5 Best Vue.js Product Tour Libraries for User Onboarding

Are you using Vue.js for your web application? Do you need to create an onboarding tour (or more!) for your product? If you’ve answered yes to both of those questions, you’ve come to the right place. 

User onboarding tours are a must for SaaS organizations that need to drive product adoption in-app. These powerful flows increase trial conversion, user retention, and also reduce churn rates. 

But it can be tricky to find tools to effectively launch onboarding flows on apps built with JS-based frameworks like Vue.js or React due to technical specifications. One unique thing about Vue.js is that it uses virtual DOMs.

Web apps built with Vue.js use a virtual representation of the DOM to make changes instead of directly changing the actual DOM. This allows apps built with Vue.js to be much faster, but it means that the onboarding solution has to be compatible with such a framework. 

This is why third-party onboarding libraries that are built to accommodate for Vue.js product tours could be better.

If you’re looking to make DIY solutions, you can start with open-source libraries that are built as Vue.js components, with which you can create your own onboarding tours. These five below will give you a great grounding to build customized onboarding flows for your Vue.js app.

Intro.js is a JavaScript library that allows developers to create user onboarding tours for various JavaScript-based apps; that includes Vue.js. The library provides an easy-to-use interface for highlighting and describing specific elements on a web page and guiding users through a series of steps to complete a task. 

The library is customizable and can be styled to match the look and feel of the application. It's also lightweight and fast, making it an ideal solution for creating user onboarding experiences in Vue.js applications.

One caveat here though is that it’s not completely free. If you want to use it for commercial purposes, you need to purchase a license starting at $9.99 for lifetime use.

To use Intro.js for Vue.js, get the Vue bindings. 

Shepherd.js is another JavaScript library that provides a highly customizable, and flexible set of UX patterns for building user onboarding tours in web applications. It is designed to work with a variety of JavaScript front-end frameworks, including Vue.js, and can be used to guide users through the key features and functionality of an application. 

The library includes a variety of features and options, such as the ability to add custom CSS for styling, use different types of modal windows, and set up tour triggers based on specific events. If you’re looking for a robust DIY solution for your Vue.js onboarding tour, this could be it. 

In order to use Shepherd.js for Vue.js, get the Vue Wrapper. 

Vue Tour is a Vue.js plugin for creating user onboarding tours in web applications. It provides a simple and intuitive interface for highlighting specific elements on a web page, describing what they do, and guiding users through a series of steps to complete a task. 

Like any onboarding library should be, the plugin is highly customizable, allowing developers to set up tour steps, add custom styles, and define triggers for starting the tour. It is also lightweight and fast, which is always a plus. 

You can get started with Vue Tour by installing via npm or downloading the GitHub build.

v-onboarding is another Vue.js plugin for creating onboarding tours. It provides a minimal yet flexible interface for highlighting specific elements on a web page and guiding users. The UI is fully customizable and it supports TypeScript. 

You can install v-onboarding through npm or Yarn.

Vue Page Guide is a component that allows you to create a visual guide for users. It’s quite similar to other Vue.js onboarding components, but unlike other tools, Vue Page Guide’s specialty seems to be in highlighting all features at once, like below. If this is something you prefer to do, check it out. 

Installation is similar to v-onboarding, through npm or Yarn.

If you don’t want to build your own onboarding tour for your Vue.js app, the other option is to buy dedicated, user onboarding software. 

There are pros and cons to both approaches. On one hand, if you do have dev resources to spare, and you want to have a customized onboarding experience that you can own and control, then building one from scratch with one of these open-source libraries might be the way to go.

Here's a brief table that summarizes it.

But even aside from saving dev time, buying onboarding software has many benefits when it comes to ROI. 

For instance, just look at all the features that Chameleon comes with other than its robust onboarding tools: 

• Native A/B testing 

• Fully customizable styling 

• Integration with best-in-class analytics tools e.g. Mixpanel, Heap, Amplitude

• Ability to contextually trigger tours and target users

• Create self-serve onboarding flows

And most importantly, Chameleon is fully compatible with Vue.js. Installation is super easy, with a step-by-step guide that shows you how to get Chameleon up and running with npm. 

Interested? Try Chameleon for free and see for yourself!