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20
Jan
2021

Paperform Review: Should You Choose This Form Builder in 2024?

Pretty much anytime you need to collect information from your visitors, you’ll need an online form – whether you need to convert leads into customers, or gather RSVPs for an event.

There’s one tool that goes a step further.

Paperform transcends the traditional form builder by letting you create more than a form, more than a landing page – we call it a “landing form”. Think sleek-looking, customizable user data input pages that can analyze form data to increase conversions!

In this detailed review, we will cover the ins and outs of Paperform and discuss the following questions:

  • 🦄What is unique about Paperform?
  • 📊How does it perform compared to alternatives?
  • 💰Which pricing options are available?
  • 👤Who should use Paperform and why?

Before we delve into the details of Paperform, let’s get a quick overview of the product:

What Is Paperform?

Paperform is all about allowing anyone to easily create online forms without any technical knowledge. Thanks to Paperform’s intuitive and visual editor, it makes creating forms as easy as writing an online doc.

Try Paperform for free ›

No matter the need, Paperform’s 300+ templates are versatile and dynamic enough to be used when you find yourself needing an all inclusive tool for the following situations:

  • Feedback and evaluation forms – gather feedback and aggregate the results with a range of integrations. Choose over 20 question types to maximise responses and use the Theme menu to change images, colours, and other UI elements to brand your form.
  • Bookings and appointment forms – use the special appointments question type to accept bookings and appointments and connect your calendar so there are no scheduling conflicts. Defaults like timezone are set for you, or you can use the Configure menu to customize the length of a booking, or, have it calculated automatically based upon respondents’ answers.
  • Lead generation forms – convert website visitors by keeping your leads focused and engaged from start to submission through creating a painless, aesthetic form. You can analyse views, completion rates and find out where your customer dropped off so you can learn from customer behaviour to improve your form and increase your conversions.
  • Safely accept payments – both one-off and recurring subscriptions in multiple currencies through over 1000+ integrations (!) including Stripe, PayPal and Square.
  • Collect data – seamlessly gather all types of data like images, text, files, phone numbers, and signatures. Then, export the data in PDF, CSV, or Word formats to easily manage — forget about the hassles of an excel sheet or legacy database.
  • Generate invoices and quotes – your forms are able to produce automatic purchase documents based on customers’ actions – which means you can email receipts and custom PDFs to your customers without lifting a finger.

How does Paperform deliver on these use cases? Let’s see if there’s anything that makes Paperform stand out from other form builders:

Paperform Features

Paperform makes it easy to create and personalize your online forms and and landing pages. Like most other similar tools, the Paperform builder doesn’t require you to know even the slightest bit of coding to use any of its features.

Conditional logic: forget about rigid forms that have customers exiting out of frustration before they can even submit it. No customer appreciates that, and you’ll definitely score some brownie points by making form-filling a breeze. Paperform’s conditional logic helps you do just that.

This form feature enables your forms to be dynamic and interactive, showing and hiding fields according to respondents’ answers. This means you can create a personalized conversation for a more engaging experience (and hence more form completions).

Paperform: conditional logic

If you want to customize your forms further to really wow your customer, you can opt to have your form pre-fill answers, automatically inserting information from the previous answers.

Third-party integrations: Paperform supports over 1000 of them, allowing you to automate workflows and reduce costs and bottlenecks.

The beauty of this feature is that you can integrate your apps directly so that you can improve the functionality of your forms and increase your productivity. Paperform integrations allow you to collect signatures, store and analyze volumes of data and generally simplify your workflows.

Advanced form analytics allows you to take one look and really gauge the behavior of not just your customers, but all the prospects who have viewed your forms.

You don’t have to churn your own butter, so why manually analyze data sets? Leave this to Paperform Analytics. The dashboard lets you view critical information like completion rates, drop-off questions and forms views at a click of a button.

Paperform analytics

Being able to view form submissions, sales figures and incomplete submissions allows you to better understand your customers and see exactly what question they were up to when they exited the form, meaning you can improve your design, questions or functionality exactly where it’s needed to improve response rates and increase conversions.

Export all this data to the destination of your choice. You can then manage it from Google Sheet, your favourite CRM software, or any one of the 25 analytics apps you can integrate on Paperform.

Calculations can be incorporated into your website, landing pages and forms in a matter of minutes to combine, transform and manipulate answers live on your forms. From simple sub-scores to complex displays of logic, “Calculations” is a special form field in Paperform that you can wield to do a range of things.

Complex price calculations are made easy, automatically calculating and updating costs and quotes in real time based on varying factors.

A form, for example, can use a calculation field to determine the price of a rental period. After choosing room size and length of stay, the calculation updates live on the form.

Document-style builder allows you to create a form with Papeform in much the same way as you would create a Microsoft Word document. Simply type free-text directly where you want it on the page. You can easily and intuitively add questions with logic and add payment/donation fields, or even use HTML/CSS if you’d like:

Paperform doc-style editor

Unlike most other form toolkits, Paperform makes the process of creating a form almost like writing a story. All you have to do is type anywhere onto the page and insert fields – quick and easy, once you get used to the idea.

Speaking of the form builder:

Form Builder, Templates, and Design

To start using the Paperform builder, you can sign up for a free 14 day trial. Simply enter a few details, and you can get creating interactive forms:

Sign up for a 14-day Paperform trial ›

The Paperform dashboard is where users can select create form and choose to either start from a blank canvas or one of the hundreds ready-made templates.

Paperform: start

The available design options range from a restaurant order form template to “What Kind Of Dragon Are You” quiz template… in other words – there will be a format for whatever you need.

After you’ve selected a template, you can customize it as little or as much as you like. Just as you would with a Word document, simply highlight the text you’ve entered to style your text in different headings and fonts.

Once you’ve selected a line of writing, you can insert different kinds of content using the panel that appears alongside it on the left:

Paperform: editor

While most other form builders feature a drag and drop interface, Paperform’s free form editor lets you type your questions wherever you want, just as you would on a Word document. You can click anywhere, type anywhere and easily add pictures, videos, products and more.

You can choose to insert images, embed videos and use breaks to divide the form into different sections of content.

Paperform have made adding questions super simple: select the line and choose the ‘add questions’ option.

From there, you can use any one of the 23 question types including multiple choice, email, and drop-downs. If you then head to the dashboard, you can configure the questions as well as duplicate, move, and delete them.

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You can also personalize your landing pages or forms in terms of visual style, using an interface that looks eerily familiar to anyone who’s ever used WordPress or a similar CMS:

Paperform styling

The ‘Theme’ menu is where you can pick the overall theme of your form or page, play with colours, and change the fonts, logos and buttons.

Paperform also has a feature allowing you to import themes which is a huge score if you want to create multiple forms with identical design and saves you from needlessly re-creating your favorite form.

Sounds great for far! Where can all this form goodness be used? The answer is: almost everywhere 🚀

Paperform Use Cases

Regardless of your field of activity, if you need to collect information from site visitors, Paperform has got your back:

Running a small business is hard work and you often have a finger in every pie. Paperform has made it super simple for anyone to kickstart their business online by creating forms and landing pages in a matter of minutes without having any technical skills.

Collecting information from your customers is a breeze through the generous selection of question types such as e-signature, eCommerce products and email. The forms are easily customizable to match your branding.

Convert more real estate leads by creating aesthetic, user-friendly forms that also have the ability to automatically send invoices and follow up emails, automating your workflow so you can spend more time doing the important things — selling houses.

Accepting payments and subscriptions is just as easy — Paperform integrates with popular payment services like Stripe, PayPal, and Square. After a purchase is made, a custom PDF receipt can then be automatically sent to your customer. Customers can select multiple products, and pricing can be calculated automatically based on certain criteria, helping to manage your inventory — so you don’t have to.

Organising events requires a lot of multitasking. With end-to-end automation available to manage registrations, vendors, ticketing and reporting, event management is made simple. Conditional logic allows a smooth registration process so you can collect important information all in the one place.

Don’t forget to check in on the success of your forms using the analytics dashboard 📈 Measure views, completion rates and see where your respondent dropped off answering their question.

Oh, and don’t worry, your forms look great on any device (well, maybe apart from a smart watch)

Marketing automation, i.e. any activity that deals with collecting leads and converting them into sales on a massive scale is another important field of application for Paperform.

Simple fact: easy to use, appealing forms and landing pages convert better. With Paperform, you can leverage the analytics dashboard to monitor performance and gain deeper insights into your customers’ behaviour. Create a seamless customer experience, tailored to the individual user to boost your conversion rate through using conditional logic.

Built-in email automation means you can easily set up automatic responses to be sent to everyone who interacts with your forms and landing pages. With over 25 messaging and email app integrations available, you can schedule your emails and SMS’ in advance — you’ll never have to manually send an email again.

As a cherry on top, a huge time-saving benefit is the ability to easily transfer form data and leads to any one of the 130+ CRM tools, including Hubspot and Marketo – no repeated manual work required.

Pricing: Should You Get Paperform?

As we mentioned earlier, Paperform is free for the first two weeks; after that, you can choose between one of the three available subscription plans:

The Essentials plan starts at $15 per month ($12.5 with early billing) and is ideal for businesses which want to create simple forms and don’t expect too many users or submissions.

If you use online forms on a regular basis and want the maximum benefit of all available features, the Pro and Agency plans allow you to take your form making to the next level with the ability to add fields such as calculations and scoring.

Paperform pricing

If you belong to a registered NPO or charity, you can apply to receive special discounted Paperform subscription prices. “Pay what you want” is offered on the Pro tier and the Agency tier is discounted at 50%.

Regardless of your needs, it is recommended to give Paperform a spin before committing to a subscription; the 14-day trial is definitely a good idea:

Try Paperform for free ›

In any case, now you have more information to decide whether Paperform is right for you. If you’re after a hassle-free, user-friendly form builder with serious extension and intergration options, this might be the one.

25
Jul
2020

Full JotForm Review (2024): Should You Use This Online Form Builder?

☑︎ This review was last updated in May 2024

Ah, online forms! One of those things you don’t know you need – until you need it really badly.

JotForm is one of the most popular solutions for this situation… but since you’re reading this, you are probably also wondering:

“Building and managing online forms sounds like a hassle! A great tool should be simple to use but also meet my specific needs and requirements. Should I trust JotForm to do the job?”

Let’s find out together. In this detailed review, we will analyze JotForm from every possible angle and cover the most popular questions –

  • 👶Is JotForm easy to use for beginners?
  • 🔒Security and privacy – should you trust JotForm?
  • 💸Which pricing plan should you choose?
  • 🏆Is JotForm better than the alternatives?

Before we discuss the unique features that distinguish JotFrom from alternative services, let’s get a quick overview of the service itself:

What Is JotForm?

Forms are everywhere! Every time an organization needs some kind of input from a large number of people – be it customers, employees, supporters, students, etc. – it uses some sort of form to collect this information.

The main idea behind JotForm is to make the entire process as easy as possible: from actually building the forms, to managing the gathered data.

…And it’s not just about surveys – the range of possible uses for JotForm also includes the following popular scenarios:

  • Applying or registering for events, jobs, scholarships, memberships – even loans or housing. Simplicity 🎯 is key here, since there’s typically a lot of information to be collected from a single person in such cases.
  • Giving feedback or evaluation, which also includes filing complaints, leaving reviews or ratings, or voting on a decision. Clarity 🔮 is critically important here, as well as the ability to analyze the data to form insights.
  • Getting in touch with an organization (or public figure) in order to ask a question, offer cooperation or simply share an idea. Since this type of form is often used by strangers first-time visitors, privacy 👁️‍🗨️ and data protection become additional concerns.
  • Making a reservation, which can mean anything from booking a table or scheduling an appointment, to hiring various services, to vacation rentals. Getting started with this type of form is much easier via ready-made templates 📑 that include all the necessary fields and interactions.
  • Obtaining new business prospects, both online and offline; the latter also implies the ability to use the forms on a variety of devices 📱 such as smartphones and tablets.
  • Ordering a product or service online is one of the use cases you wouldn’t typically expect from an online form builder, but JotForm possesses sufficient security 🔑 and payment integrations to build surprisingly efficient checkout forms.

…and we haven’t even mentioned niche cases and special requirements, such as collecting sensitive health data from patients! (e.g. under HIPAA in the United States)

JotForm promises to solve each of those challenges – but does it actually deliver? Let’s see what’s so special about this tool.

Unique Features of JotForm

Of course, JotForm is not the only way to build online forms – so are there any specific advantages to using it?

Actually, there are quite a few:

  • Conditional logic makes it possible to “teach” your form to react to the user’s inputs, automatically adding, removing, hiding, skipping or changing fields in response to specific answers.

You can also use any field the respondent completes as an input for the rest of the form – e.g. to alter the labels or recalculate values of other fields!

This opens up almost limitless possibilities for making your forms even more effective, e.g. easily building highly personalized thank-you pages:

JotForm: conditional logic

And yes, conditional rules are present (to some extent) in most form builders, even Google Forms – but none comes even close to JotForm in terms of flexibility.

  • Apps and integrations library is what really makes JotForm exponentially more powerful, by connecting your forms with hundreds of third-party services.

This allows you to add various cool things to your forms (like signatures or additional verification), export form data into your favorite project management or analytics tools, and even securely collect payments without the need for expensive e-commerce solutions!

Speaking of security:

  • Data protection and privacy features ensure safety both for the creators and the respondents: JotForm uses 256-bit SSL certificates on all forms and lets you decide exactly who can fill in the form and who can see the results.

You can also choose to additionally encrypt all form responses with an RSA-2048 key before they are submitted to you, which acts as a double insurance against anyone trying to intercept your users’ data.

In order to enable encryption, you will need to go to your form’s settings and click on the brown “Show more options” button.

In addition to these security features, we should mention several abbreviations that might sound familiar to you. Here goes:

JotForm is fully compliant with GDPR (European data protection laws) and PCI (for payment processing) – and if you need to collect health-related information from your respondents, you can upgrade for HIPAA compliance.

  • Advanced publishing options give you full freedom when it comes to delivering your forms to your audience. Again, JotForm really raises the bar here, compared to other similar tools:

There are numerous ways you can publish a form created in JotForm – as a direct link, a social media post, or even a fillable PDF document –

JotForm publishing

You can also email the form directly to your respondents or embed it into your website – the specific code for each popular web platform like WordPress or Shopify is generated for you automatically.

  • PDF constructor is another unique feature of JotForm that lets you easily convert form responses into professional-looking PDF documents – ideal for generating invoices, proposals, tickets, certificates, etc.

The best part here is that you don’t need to start from scratch: there are hundreds of ready-made PDF templates at your disposal.

…Which brings us to the next aspect of JotForm:

  • Template library contains thousands of pre-made forms for just about every situation, grouped by type and industry. A huge time-saver!

To better understand the role of templates in JotForm, let’s take a closer look at how the form builder itself works:

Form Builder and Templates

Getting started with JotForm is super simple: you can create a new account by filling in your name, email, username, and password – or even faster via the Facebook or Google sign-up:

Create a Free Account at JotForm ›

It takes about 30 seconds in total, and we’re ready to begin! Let’s click on the big green “Create Form” button and explore our options –

There are 3 ways to create a form: starting from a blank canvas, using a template, or importing an existing one (from a website, your JotForm account, or a PDF document).

In day-to-day situations you will most likely be using templates – they save so much time! – but for the sake of introduction it might be better to start with a clean slate 📖

The form builder has a simple interface that conceals a surprisingly rich array of tools and powerful features:

JotForm builder

You can add new fields and other elements by clicking on the dark-grey rounded button on the left on the screen [1] which opens an entire panel of various things you can use in your form.

Apart from the basic elements and payment gateways, take note of the third tab which contains a huge number of more advanced blocks, like automatic geolocation or taking a photo of the respondent.

If you click on an existing field, a circular cog button will appear [2] that opens the field settings panel. Here, you can change the label, size, and position of the field, as well as marking it as required.

The third important panel is for the overall form design – it’s opened by the blue paint-roll button [3] in the top right corner of the interface.

To be frank, this part of JotForm’s builder was the biggest positive surprise for us; the variety of options is far beyond anything we’ve seen in other form builders:

  • You can choose colors and backgrounds for every individual part of the form – or click on the button at the bottom to activate the advanced designer interface with a mind-blowing amount of additional granular settings.
  • You can adjust the form’s fonts, size, and position – and even add your own CSS code if you’re familiar with web development languages.
  • OR you can simply choose a ready-made visual template for your form! There are both free and premium themes available in JotForm’s store.

…While we’re still in the form builder, have you noticed the JotForm banner at the bottom of the screen? [4] It will appear on all forms published using the free account.

In order to remove the banner from your forms, you’ll need a subscription. How does it work? And is it worth the money? Here’s the gist:

JotForm Pricing

The nice thing about JotForm is that it’s a so-called freemium service – in other words, it has both a free and a paid version.

This means you can start building and using your forms without any financial commitments, and later upgrade if JotForm proves to be useful for your project.

What we particularly like about JotForm is that there is absolutely no difference in features between the free and the paid plans: you only need to pay for additional usage limits and for removing the branding below the forms.

With this in mind, the logic behind JotForm’s subscription plans is quite straightforward:

JotForm plan Free Bronze Silver Gold
Monthly cost $0 $24 $29 $79
Form limit 5 25 100 ∞
Responses per month 100 1,000 10,000 100,000
Available space 100 MB 10 GB 100 GB 1 TB
JotForm banners yes no no no

As you can see from our summary table above, JotForm scales together with your needs – while not putting any limits on the functionality.

Another thing worth noting is a 50% discount for registered non-profits and educational institutions, which is something you won’t find at other online form providers 🎓

Finally, JotForm offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on any paid plan, which means you can ask for a full refund during the first month, by contacting the support team using the contact form or via email (they reply 24/7).

Neat! By now we pretty much have all the information we need to answer our main question:

Should You Use JotForm?

There’s no doubt – JotForm is by far the most advanced form builder service we’ve laid our hands on (and we at Satori Webmaster Academy have tried them all).

Long-time readers of our blog will know that we especially like products which manage to stay simple and intuitive while packing powerful features that are good enough to satisfy even the most expert users

– JotForm is one such product. Its online builder is easy to use for beginners, but gradually reveals a huge variety of options and capabilities as you get to know it better.

Every single feature is available in the free version of the service, which means you don’t have to pay anything until you’re really sure JotForm is the right toolkit for your needs:

Start using JotForm for Free ›

We initially expected JotForm to be a complicated tool for the more demanding cases – now we’re using it across the board, even for the simplest, text-only forms (bye-bye, Google Forms!)

Regardless of whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or a part of a big team, JotForm makes it surprisingly easy to forget that online forms used to be a difficult and tedious task.

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We hope this review was helpful and answered more questions than it created! Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below – let’s help each other make a sensible choice 💬

09
Jun
2020

Ulasan Webflow Lengkap 2024 – Tool yang Bagus atau Site Builder Biasa?

☑︎ Ulasan ini terakhir diperbarui pada May 2024

UPDATE: Kami menambahkan penjelasan visual yang detail tentang paket harga Webflow. Kamu bisa membacanya di bagian ini. Kami harap kamu menyukainya, sama seperti saat kami mencobanya 🤓

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Kamu mungkin membaca artikel ini karena kamu berpikir, “Perlukah saya mempertimbangkan tool baru ini?” Dalam ulasan mendalam kami, kamu akan mengetahui semua yang kamu perlukan untuk mengambil keputusan.

Setelah mencoba berbagai komponen dari penawaran Webflow, termasuk Designer, CMS, Hosting, e-Commerce, dan lainnya – kami mengetahui apakah tool ini layak digunakan atau tidak, sekaligus menjawab beberapa pertanyaan penting lainnya untuk kamu yang sedang mempertimbangkan Webflow:

  • 📐Siapa seharusnya pengguna platform ini?
  • 💰Bagaimana paket harganya dibandingkan performanya?!
  • 🔌Bagaimana kompatibilitasnya dengan teknologi lainnya?
  • 🏆Haruskah saya memilih Webflow?

Prinsip utama dari filosofi Webflow adalah “smart codelessness” (cerdas tanpa kode) – tool ini diciptakan secara khusus agar orang-orang yang ingin membuat website bisa mengerjakan sebagian besar bagiannya tanpa menyentuh sumber situs mereka – selagi memiliki kode yang rapi dan ditulis dengan baik, tanpa terikat pada platform publikasi apa pun.

Coba Webflow Gratis ›

Ini adalah kabar bagus untuk kamu yang lebih menyukai visual karena pendekatan ini mendorong desainer untuk mewujudkan imajinasinya secara langsung di web, bahkan mungkin melampaui suite grafis seperti Photoshop atau Sketch.

Apakah ini hanya use case dari Webflow, ataukah strategi ini benar-benar bisa digunakan dalam praktiknya? Akan kita bahas:

Pertanyaan Umum

Sebelum kita mulai, inilah daftar pertanyaan terpopuler yang kami dapatkan tentang Webflow – disertai jawaban singkat yang mengarahkan ke bagian yang relevan dalam ulasan ini:

— Apa Itu Webflow? 🤔

Pada dasarnya, Webflow adalah online toolkit untuk membuat dan menjalankan website, perpaduan luar biasa antara pembuat situs tradisional seperti Wix, sistem manajemen konten klasik seperti WordPress, dan pemrograman website manual.

Bingung? Panduan ini telah disusun agar kamu lebih memahaminya! Langkah awal yang bagus: lihatlah bagian-bagian utama dari toolkit Webflow, termasuk Site Designer, CMS, dan deployment/hosting.

— Berapa Biaya Webflow? 💳

Pertanyaan ini rumit! Mungkin inilah pertanyaan yang paling sulit dijawab tentang Webflow. Jadi, daripada menggunakan banyak kata, kami akan menampilkan diagram. Lihatlah di bagian Harga menggunakan link ini.

Singkatnya, ada dua harga berbeda di Webflow – paket akun dan paket situs. Paket akun didasarkan pada jumlah anggota dalam tim yang bisa menggunakan Webflow dan jumlah proyek. Paket situs menawarkan traffic dan kemampuan e-commerce yang lebih tinggi.

— Apakah Webflow Mudah Digunakan? 🙉

Yah, jawabannya mungkin sudah bisa kamu tebak karena: “setelah kamu mempelajarinya, pengalaman penggunanya mulus”. Ya, memang untuk mempelajarinya butuh usaha lebih besar dibandingkan Wix atau Squarespace, tapi hasilnya adalah tool yang jauh lebih fleksibel, bisa disesuaikan, dan tangguh.

Kita akan membahas lebih detailnya di tiga bagian selanjutnya yang khusus menjelaskan tentang fitur-fitur utama dari Webflow:

Webflow Site Designer

Ada tiga komponen utama dari penawaran Webflow: tool desain web visual tanpa kode, sistem manajemen konten (CMS), dan hosting – komponen pertamanya merupakan keunggulan dari layanan ini. Di bagian ini, kita akan membahas lebih lanjut tentang Webflow Site Designer.

Yang tampak seperti jendela Photoshop ini sebenarnya adalah tool otomatisasi HTML/CSS, di mana pengguna bebas menambahkan, mengubah posisi dan style elemen sesuka hati, sementara sistem yang mendasarinya secara otomatis menghasilkan markup dan semua kode lain yang dibutuhkan. Antarmukanya cukup kompleks dan butuh waktu untuk membiasakan diri, tapi Webflow jelas merupakan salah satu website builder real-time yang paling tangguh dan serbaguna saat ini.

Ayo kita perjelas dari awal: kamu takkan bisa menggambar bentuk di tengah-tengah kanvas begitu saja. Alih-alih menawarkan cara naif untuk menampilkan visual dari sebuah halaman web, Webflow membuatnya terasa nyata dengan menunjukkan bahwa ada kode sungguhan di balik setiap elemen, dan kode itu bisa menjadi berantakan jika kamu tidak memperhatikan cara kerja HTML dan CSS.

Dengan kata lain, untuk menggambar persegi di tengah halaman, kamu harus menambahkan elemen <div> baru (“container” atau “section” dalam istilah Webflow), lalu mengatur posisinya menjadi “tetap” dan posisi atas-kanan-bawah-kirinya menjadi 0 – inilah kehidupan nyata!

Ya, panel builder Webflow terdiri dari properti CSS sungguhan. Jadi, untuk bisa memanfaatkan tool ini sepenuhnya, pengguna harus paham HTML/CSS. Tapi, jika kamu memilih opsi “I don’t write code” saat mendaftar, Webflow akan mengotomatiskan bagian-bagian penting dari builder – misalnya menangani breakpoint media untuk menjamin perilaku yang responsif (dengan cepat menghasilkan kode yang ramah seluler dan tablet untuk halamanmu).

Menangani breakpoint media dan tampilan perangkat di Webflow

Yang jelas, kita tidak bisa memasukkan semua fitur CSS ke dalam Designer – itulah mengapa Webflow menyederhanakan parameter-parameter yang tidak terlalu bermanfaat atau jarang digunakan dan membuatnya lebih ramah pengguna. Misalnya, mulai dari pilihan yang sudah dibuat sebelumnya, hingga toggle untuk menampilkan atau menyembunyikan fitur “lanjut” dan kontrol yang lebih granular.

Kita bisa mulai dari kanvas kosong atau menggunakan template yang sudah dibuat sebelumnya, bahkan ada yang dilengkapi dengan struktur situs siap pakai. Ada lebih dari 30 template gratis dan 100 template premium, serta aset seperti style dan gambar di pustaka Webflow – perbedaan utamanya adalah tingkat detailnya. Tema berbayarnya berkisar antara $40 hingga $80 dan merupakan karya dari komunitas Webflow (desainer dan developer profesional di luar perusahaan).

Karena alasan-alasan di atas, memulai dari kanvas kosong biasanya disarankan untuk pengguna yang sudah memiliki pengalaman praktik dengan HTML/CSS dan nyaman menyusun building block dari nol. Jika kamu belum pernah menulis kode sebelumnya tapi ingin memahami toolkit Webflow lebih dulu, sangat disarankan untuk memodifikasi template yang sudah dibuat sebelumnya.

Selain konten statis, animasi adalah bagian penting dari tool desain Webflow. Menambahkan lapisan interaktif ekstra pada website yang sudah ada mungkin sulit dilakukan dan diuji menggunakan tool yang lebih tradisional. Pertama, kamu bisa menambahkan transisi dan transformasi secara langsung di elemen apa pun, menggunakan sidebar kanan yang sama seperti properti elemen. Ini sangat menghemat waktu karena kebanyakan aturan CSS sulit ditulis secara manual dan banyak developer menggunakan tool generasi otomatis.

Bagian menariknya adalah panel “Interactions”, yang bisa diakses dari tab dengan ikon petir di bagian atas side bar kanan. Di sini, kamu bisa menambahkan animasi berdasarkan kondisi halaman atau interaksi pengguna dengan elemen tertentu (misalnya klik atau ketika mouse diarahkan). Pada dasarnya, panel ini adalah tool otomatisasi Javascript, yang mungkin bisa menggantikan 80-90% file JS biasa untuk website standar – animasi menu, animasi keluar-masuk dari elemen, kondisi arah mouse, dan lainnya.

Menguji Webflow Site Designer ›

Tab sidebar lainnya berisi Navigator (HTML tree) dan Style Manager (hierarki CSS) yang bermanfaat sebagai tool ringkasan, tapi tidak terlalu bernilai dibandingkan dengan panel yang dibahas di atas.

Secara keseluruhan, tim Webflow berhasil menciptakan toolkit otomatisasi coding yang sangat komprehensif, sebagai editor semi-visual. Upayanya untuk menyederhanakan proses pembuatan halaman web yang menarik dengan kode rapi akan disambut oleh siapa pun yang pernah mencoba menulis kode websitenya sendiri secara manual.

Sistem Manajemen Konten (CMS)

Selain pengeditan on-site (mampu mengubah teks atau media apa pun secara langsung di halaman yang kamu desain), Webflow CMS memungkinkan pendefinisian manual dari jenis konten kustom (blog post, proyek, anggota tim, dan lainnya) dengan bidang-bidang yang bisa disesuaikan sepenuhnya. Ini sangat membantu pengguna yang mengelola proyek-proyek web lebih besar dengan struktur kompleks.

Kemudahan ini hadir dalam bentuk CMS Collections, yang bisa diakses dari tab dengan ikon tumpukan di sisi kiri tampilan editor utama. Setelah membuat koleksi (yang sebenarnya adalah jenis konten spesifik), kamu bisa mengatur bidang dan menambahkan item – untuk digunakan sebagai halaman individu atau daftar/grid halaman statis yang sudah ada. Misalnya, kamu bisa menambahkan koleksi “anggota tim” untuk membuat halaman yang menampilkan foto, nama, deskripsi, link media sosial, dan informasi lainnya dari karyawan perusahaanmu.

Selain back-end CMS, ada juga Webflow Editor – memungkinkan penambahan konten baru yang jenisnya sudah ada di website yang dipublikasikan. Fitur ini bermanfaat untuk pembuat website, kolaborator dan kliennya. Artinya, kamu mendapatkan website yang berfungsi sepenuhnya dengan halaman statis yang bisa diedit dan konten dinamis, seperti blog post, proyek portofolio, dan lainnya, tanpa perlu menginstal plugin apa pun.

Webflow menawarkan berbagai jenis konten blog post. Artinya, Webflow mengalahkan WordPress dan sistem open-source lainnya seperti Drupal dalam hal fleksibilitas CMS. Sisi buruknya – butuh waktu untuk membiasakan diri. Tapi, Webflow University bisa membantumu dalam kasus ini.

Satu hal yang sepertinya tidak tersedia dalam sistem CMS Webflow adalah pelokalan bahasa – membuat website multibahasa di Webflow memang sulit sebelum ada ekstensi pihak ketiga (yang terpopuler adalah Weglot).

Mungkin kelihatannya Webflow seperti berusaha membuat manajemen kontennya semulus mungkin agar tidak mencuri “perhatian” dari Site Designer – sebenarnya ini bagus karena proposisi nilai utamanya bagus. Apa pun alasannya, CMS Webflow masih jauh lebih fleksibel dan luas daripada core WordPress atau pembuat website populer lain seperti Wix.

Deployment dan Hosting

Mudah sekali memublikasikan kreasimu menjadi URL live di Webflow: cukup klik tombol yang sesuai di bagian atas layar Designer. Menu yang berisi pilihan deployment akan muncul, termasuk subdomain dari domain webflow.com (biasanya disarankan untuk tujuan pengujian) dan domain kustom. Dengan satu kali klik lagi, kamu bisa memublikasikannya ke salah satu atau kedua lokasi ini tanpa perlu mengkhawatirkan detailnya – semuanya diproses di latar belakang secara otomatis.

Layanan hosting Webflow mengikuti prinsip “mulai buat secara gratis, tambahkan hosting untuk live”: kamu bisa mendesain prototype (hingga 2 halaman statis) di lingkungan staging (di subdomain webflow.com), lalu menghubungkannya ke nama domainmu sendiri (tidak termasuk) dengan membeli salah satu paket hosting Webflow. Paket ini bervariasi dari Basic seharga $12 per bulan* dengan batas kunjungan bulanan 25,000, hingga Business seharga $36 per bulan* dengan lebih banyak fitur dan batas kunjungan bulanan 1 juta (*dengan tagihan tahunan).

Selain sebagai solusi terintegrasi, ada beberapa keuntungan dari Webflow Hosting yang bisa memberikan perbedaan besar dalam performa website dan alur kerja webmastermu:

  • Karena didasarkan pada infrastruktur-infrastruktur terdistribusi di beberapa penyedia cloud terbesar di dunia (Amazon Cloudfront dan Fastly), Webflow bisa ditingkatkan dengan mudah sesuai tuntutan trafficmu, tanpa perlu upgrade server hosting secara manual.
  • Jaringan pengiriman konten (CDN) bawaan tanpa biaya tambahan akan menjamin websitemu dilayani dari node yang dekat secara geografis dengan pengunjung, di mana pun lokasi mereka.
  • Infrastruktur terdistribusi lanjut memberikan waktu muat yang cepat dan uptime website yang hampir mendekati 100%, meskipun ada lonjakan traffic atau bahkan serangan berbahaya.
  • Sertifikat SSL (secure sockets layer) bawaan tanpa biaya tambahan akan menjamin websitemu sesuai dengan standar keamanan modern – tidak perlu pengaturan atau perpanjangan.

Dari faktor-faktor di atas, kita tahu bahwa Webflow Hosting adalah hosting yang siap digunakan dan bisa ditingkatkan, dengan CDN bawaan dan performa yang setara dengan solusi-solusi mandiri terbaik seperti Digital Ocean dan pembuat situs tradisional. Dengan harga yang terjangkau, online suite ini menjadi solusi yang lengkap untuk pembuat web dan bisa menghemat jutaan rupiah per tahun untuk CDN, SSL, dan ekstra lain yang biasanya harus dibeli secara terpisah.

Webflow e-Commerce

Salah satu tambahan terbaru (dan yang paling dinantikan) di Webflow adalah versi e-Commerce, yang menghadirkan kemampuan online shop dalam toolkitnya.

Webflow menawarkan beberapa paket harga untuk versi ini, dengan berbagai fitur penting yang menjual barang online – termasuk manajemen produk dan inventaris, kereta belanja kustom, checkout, endpoint lainnya, kontrol penuh atas email pelanggan, serta checkout dengan hosting mandiri.

Proposisi nilai utama dari Webflow e-Commerce adalah mampu menyesuaikan detail toko online sepenuhnya, mulai dari grid produk dan halaman pembayaran hingga tampilan notifikasi pembelian.

Ini bisa dibandingkan dengan software pembuat website e-commerce seperti Shopify, Wix, atau bahkan bundle WooCommerce + WordPress, di mana pengguna butuh upaya besar (dan keahlian dalam pemrograman) untuk mendapatkan kontrol granular seperti itu.

Fitur-fitur lain yang layak disebutkan adalah kupon atau diskon, serta langganan dan produk digital atau yang bisa diunduh.

Untuk ke depannya, tim Webflow berencana untuk menambahkan banyak fitur lanjut lainnya ke paket e-Commercenya, termasuk abandoned order recovery, dukungan berbagai mata uang, integrasi Amazon, dan akun pelanggan.

Seperti yang bisa kita lihat, versi yang dirilis saat ini masih dalam tahap pengembangan meskipun secara teknis sudah bukan Beta. Jadi, kalau kamu menginginkan toko online yang kompleks, Webflow e-Commerce masih terlalu dasar untuk penerapan lanjut seperti itu.

Tapi, jika semua fitur yang dijanjikan sudah diterapkan, Webflow e-Commerce akan menjadi kompetitor yang tangguh untuk solusi-solusi khusus seperti Shopify dan Instacart, dengan dukungan Webflow builder, CMS, dan hosting.

Harga Webflow

Webflow memiliki dua sistem premium yang berbeda untuk paket berbayarnya: paket untuk keseluruhan akun dan paket untuk setiap proyek individu (website yang kamu buat).

Ketika kamu mulai menggunakan Webflow, paket proyek mungkin terasa lebih penting dan topikal. Jadi, kita akan mulai dari paket proyek, yang sebenarnya adalah cloud hosting dari setiap websitemu.

Pertama, ada pilihan gratis selamanya, di mana kamu bisa menggunakan semua fitur Webflow dan melakukan deploy di subdomain name.webflow.com. Jika kamu ingin menggunakan domain normal (mungkin nantinya), ada beberapa pilihan berbayar:

Paket Basic ditawarkan seharga $12 per bulan (tagihan tahunan): membuka fitur SSL, CDN otomatis, serta deploy domain kustom yang mudah dibuat dan digunakan. Dengan paket CMS seharga $16 per bulan (tagihan tahunan), kamu bisa melakukan deploy untuk halaman-halaman statis dan item-item yang dibuat oleh sistem manajemen konten (blog post, proyek, dan lainnya). Paket Business seharga $36 per bulan (tagihan tahunan) adalah versi yang lebih bagus dari paket sebelumnya, cocok untuk website lebih besar dengan traffic besar.

Selain itu, ada beberapa pilihan paket akun yang menentukan jumlah proyek aktif maksimal yang diizinkan dan parameter profesional lainnya. Dengan paket akun Starter, kamu bisa menggarap 2 website dan menggunakan staging gratis. Paket Lite ($16 per bulan dengan tagihan tahunan) mencakup 10 proyek dan tool ekspor kode, sehingga kamu bisa menggunakan kode yang dibuat Webflow di platform lain pilihanmu. Paket Pro ($35 per bulan dengan tagihan tahunan) menambahkan pilihan white label dan perlindungan kata sandi situs – cocok untuk pengguna yang rutin mengerjakan proyek penuh untuk klien pihak ketiga.

Agar lebih mudah dipahami, kami sudah membuat diagram yang menjelaskan semua paket harga Webflow secara visual:

Webflow pricing

Saat mengunjungi halaman harga Webflow, kamu mungkin bingung karena mereka mengelompokkan paket berdasarkan jumlah situs yang kamu butuhkan (satu atau banyak) atau tim. Sebenarnya, pilihan “I just need one site” menawarkan hosting saja (paket per proyek yang kami bahas sebelumnya), sementara dua pilihan lainnya menawarkan paket Lite seharga $16 dan paket Pro/Team seharga $35, serta paket Custom untuk tim besar. Selain itu, masih ada versi gratis dan kustom.

Paket akun apa pun bisa digabungkan dengan paket hosting lainnya, termasuk versi gratisnya. Misalnya, kamu bisa membeli paket akun Starter dan hanya membayar untuk deploy proyek khusus di domain kustom – atau membeli paket akun berbayar dan hosting gratis untuk prototype cepat.

Kamu bisa memilih siklus tagihan bulanan dan tahunan untuk semua paket premium. Paket tahunan mendapatkan diskon 20% yang memberikan penghematan cukup besar, terutama untuk paket yang lebih lanjut.

Pilihan Kolaborasi

Kami sudah menjelaskan secara singkat tentang paket Team di bagian sebelumnya. Tapi, kami rasa target pengguna Webflow juga perlu dibahas secara terpisah.

Jika kamu bekerja dengan setidaknya satu orang dalam proyek web, kamu perlu mempertimbangkan paket Team dari Webflow. Sebenarnya paket ini sama seperti paket individu Pro, tapi ada mode dan fitur kolaborasi lainnya – seharga $35 per orang per bulan (tagihan tahunan).

Meskipun lingkungan Designer visual saat ini tidak mendukung kolaborasi real-time, semua bagian dalam proyek Webflowmu bisa diakses dan diedit oleh anggota tim lain kapan pun. Ini sangat berguna dalam tim lintas fungsi, di mana satu orang bertanggung jawab atas desain sementara yang lain bertanggung jawab atas konten.

Selain akses dan aset bersama, paket Team dari Webflow juga memiliki dasbor tim khusus yang mengumpulkan semua aspek kolaborasi dalam satu UI tunggal. Tim besar juga bisa menghubungi Webflow dan meminta harga khusus untuk paket Enterprise, sekaligus diskon untuk upgrade hosting.

Secara keseluruhan, Webflow sudah mempertimbangkan dengan baik kebutuhan klien individu, freelance, sekaligus tim dan agensi kecil atau sedang – detail yang menyenangkan selain beragam fitur dan pilihan yang bagus.

Kelebihan dan Kekurangan Webflow

Ringkasnya, inilah daftar kelebihan dan kekurangan dari penawaran Webflow dibandingkan dengan website builder serupa dan sistem manajemen konten populer lainnya:

  • Tool desain web real-time yang profesional, ramah seluler, dan dengan mudah menghasilkan kode rapi yang bisa diekspor
  • Mampu membuat desain sendiri dengan mengedit satu dari banyak template gratis dan premium, menggunakan wireframe atau mulai dari kanvas kosong
  • Manajer CSS dan JS lanjut yang memungkinkan kontrol granular atas style dan animasi, serta manajemen site-wide yang mudah
  • Deploy cepat dan mudah dengan dua kali klik ke lingkungan staging dan/atau domain kustom – langsung dari Webflow Designer
  • CMS terintegrasi dengan pembuat jenis konten kustom yang fleksibel dan bisa digunakan untuk membuat jenis konten statis atau dinamis apa pun, mulai dari halaman dan blog post hingga proyek, ulasan, anggota tim, dan lainnya
  • Hosting terdistribusi lanjut yang didukung oleh nama-nama besar seperti Amazon Cloudfront, yang menjamin kecepatan muat halaman tertinggi dan downtime terendah untuk pengunjung
  • Jaringan pengiriman konten (CDN) terintegrasi tanpa biaya tambahan, yang menjamin kecepatan dan keamanan website saat konten dilayani dari lokasi-lokasi geografis optimal dan mendapatkan keuntungan dari keamanan tambahan di lapisan CDN
  • Sertifikat SSL bawaan tanpa biaya tambahan (biaya umum $50-$100 per tahun), yang menjamin standar keamanan web terbaik
  • Butuh upaya belajar yang cukup besar untuk pengguna yang belum pernah menangani web development
  • Kemampuan multibahasa yang terbatas (bisa diatasi dengan mudah menggunakan ekstensi seperti Weglot)
  • Struktur harga rumit dengan skema terpisah untuk paket akun dan situs – butuh waktu untuk memahami dan memilihnya
  • Antarmuka web buildernya masih belum 100% kompatibel dengan Firefox dan Edge (Seriusan, Webflow, keduanya adalah browser yang diinstal cukup banyak!)
  • Dengan kit e-commerce Webflow yang masih dalam tahap pengembangan, kemampuan online shopnya masih perlu peningkatan minor sebelum bisa dianggap bagus

Wow, banyak sekali informasi yang harus kita cerna, ya! Jadi, apa kesimpulannya? Singkatnya –

Haruskah Saya Menggunakan Webflow?

Setelah menganalisis berbagai fiturnya, bisa disimpulkan bahwa Webflow berupaya menjadi toolkit terintegrasi lanjut untuk pembuat web yang menginginkan fleksibilitas dan efisiensi. Perpaduan dari Designer, Editor/CMS, Hosting, dan (kini juga) e-Commercenya mampu menyaingi pengaturan web development kustom terbaik, sekaligus membutuhkan biaya awal yang lebih rendah dan waktu pengaturan yang lebih singkat.

Coba Webflow Gratis ›

Dalam dunia produk yang didominasi oleh site builder sederhana dan CMS open-source yang tangguh, Webflow adalah solusi gabungan yang sangat cocok untuk pengguna yang siap menghabiskan waktu untuk membiasakan diri dengan fitur-fitur hebatnya demi mendapatkan perpaduan unik antara kemampuan dan otomatisasi.

Pendapatmu?

Terima kasih sudah membaca analisis kami untuk Webflow! Apakah ulasan ini bermanfaat untukmu? Adakah bagian yang kamu setujui atau tidak setujui? Ayo diskusikan di bagian komentar di bawah ini:

26
Mar
2020

La Recensione di Definitiva 2024 – un Valido Strumento o un Website Builder Qualunque?

☑︎ Questa recensione è stata aggiornata l’ultima volta a May 2024

AGGIORNAMENTO: abbiamo aggiunto una spiegazione grafica dettagliata di del listino prezzi di Webflow, puoi vederla nella rispettiva sezione sottostante; speriamo che la approfondirai tanto quanto abbiamo fatto noi nel crearla 🤓

***

Probabilmente sei qui perché stai pensando: “dovrei preoccuparmi di imparare questa nuova app?” Nella nostra recensione approfondita scoprirai tutto quello che c’è da sapere per fare questa decisione.

Come conseguenza di aver analizzato le varie componenti dell’offerta di Webflow, includendo Designer, CMS, Hosting, eCommerce, ecc…, saremo in grado di sapere se si tratta di uno strumento che vale la pena usare, e anche di rispondere ad alcune delle domande più pressanti per chiunque stia considerando Webflow:

  • 📐La piattaforma è utilizzabile, e chi dovrebbe usarla?
  • 💰Come funzionano realmente i loro listini prezzo?!
  • 🔌E riguardo la compatibilità con altre tecnologie popolari?
  • 🏆Dovresti scegliere Webflow al posto di altri strumenti?

Il caposaldo principale della filosofia di Webflow è “smart senza codici”; il programma è stato creato specificamente per permettere alle persone che vogliono un sito web di fare la maggior parte del lavoro senza mai toccare il codice sorgente del loro sito, pur lavorando comunque con un codice pulito e ben scritto, e non essere bloccati dentro ogni singola piattaforma di pubblicazione.

Prova Webflow Gratis ›

Questa è una buona notizia per i grafici là fuori, dato che un approccio simile potrebbe consentire ai designer di liberare la loro immaginazione direttamente sul web, possibilmente ignorando l’uso di programmi di grafica come Photoshop o Sketch.

Se questo sia l’unico caso d’uso di Webflow, e se questa sia una strategia che funzioni davvero nella pratica, ne discuteremo più sotto:

Blitz: Domande Frequenti

Prima di approfondire, ecco una lista delle domande più popolari che abbiamo ricevuto riguardo Webflow, con brevi risposte contenenti riferimenti alle sezioni relative di questa recensione:

— Cosa è Webflow? 🤔

Nella sua essenza, Webflow è uno strumento online per creare ed eseguire siti web, un ibrido glorioso fra tradizionali website builder come Wix, sistemi di gestione dei contenuti classici come WordPress e una codificazione effettivamente manuale del tuo sito.

Ancora confuso? La presente guida è stata creata con l’intenzione di risolvere questo dilemma! Il posto migliore da cui cominciare è guardare alle parti principali degli strumenti di Webflow, includendo i suoi Site Designer, CMS, e la distribuzione/hosting.

— Quanto costa Webflow? 💳

Questa è un po’ complicata! Infatti, è probabilmente la domanda più difficile alla quale rispondere riguardo a Webflow; quindi, invece di scrivere un sacco di parole, abbiamo deciso di creare un grafico. Puoi controllarlo nella sezione Prezzi usando questo link nel testo.

In breve, ci sono due livelli di Prezzo in Webflow: piani per account e piani per sito. I piani per account determinano quante persone del tuo team possono usare Webflow e per quanti progetti; i piani per sito, a loro volta, sbloccano un traffico più alto e opzioni di ecommerce.

— Webflow è facile da usare? 🙉

Be’, probabilmente la risposta non ti sorprenderà, perché è: “una volta imparato, l’esperienza utente è molto fluida”. Sì, una curva di apprendimento più ripida di, ad esempio, quella di Wix o Squarespace, ma la ricompensa è uno strumento molto più flessibile, personalizzabile e potente.

Parleremo di questo aspetto in maniera più dettagliata nelle tre sezioni seguenti, che trattano nello specifico della funzionalità centrale di Webflow:

Webflow Site Designer

Ci sono tre componenti principali nell’offerta di Webflow: lo strumento di design grafico, privo di codice, il sistema di gestione dei contenuti (CMS) e l’hosting; il primo si potrebbe dire che è la funzionalità cardine del servizio. In questa sezione, daremo un’occhiata approfondita al Webflow Site Designer.

Quello che sembra in qualche modo una finestra di Photoshop è in realtà più uno strumento di automazione HTML/CSS, dove l’utente è libero di aggiungere, posizionare e stilizzare elementi come preferisce, mentre il sistema sottostante genera automaticamente il markup e tutti gli altri codici necessari. L’interfaccia è abbastanza complessa e richiede un po’ di tempo per abituarcisi, ma ad oggi è innegabilmente uno dei website builder più potenti e versatili che esistano.

Facciamo subito chiarezza: non avrai semplicemente la possibilità di disegnare una forma in mezzo alla tela; invece di offrire un modo ingenuo di assemblare goffamente la grafica di una pagina web, Webflow si mantiene realista nell’ammettere che ci sia sempre del codice dietro ogni elemento, e che questo codice diventi esponenzialmente più confuso se non consideri il modo in cui funzionano HTML e CSS.

In altre parole, per disegnare un quadrato nel mezzo della pagina, avrai bisogno di aggiungere un nuovo <div> elemento (un “contenitore” o una “sezione” nel gergo di Webflow), impostare il suo posizionamento su “fisso” e le sue posizioni su-destra-giù-sinistra su 0; è proprio una vitaccia, ragazzi!

Sì, il pannello costruttore di Webflow consiste di vere proprietà CSS, quindi, per poter apprezzare a pieno il potere di questo strumento, uno dovrebbe essere familiare con HTML/CSS. Comunque, se selezioni l’opzione “Non scrivo codici” durante il processo di registrazione, Webflow renderà automatica una parte significativa del builder per te, per esempio gestendo i breakpoint dei media per assicurare un comportamento reattivo (ad es. generare al volo codici per tablet e mobile per la tua pagina).

Lavorare con media breakpoint e dispositivi di visualizzazioni su Webflow

Inutile dire che sarebbe impossibile infilare ogni singola funzionalità di CSS dentro il Designer, che è il motivo per cui Webflow semplifica i parametri meno utili, o meno utilizzati, e rende la formulazione più user-friendly: dal fornire opzioni predefinite a introdurre meccanismi per mostrare o nascondere le funzionalità “avanzate” e un controllo più granulare.

È possibile partire da una pagina bianca o usare uno qualunque dei modelli preesistenti, alcuni dei quali hanno persino una struttura del sito già impostata. Ci sono più di 30 modelli gratuiti e 100 premium nella libreria di Webflow, dove la sostanziale differenza tra questi due gruppi è il livello di dettaglio e anche le risorse incluse, come stili e immagini. I temi a pagamento variano dai $40 agli $80 e sono creati dalla community di Webflow, ovvero designer professionisti e sviluppatori al di fuori della compagnia.

Per le ragioni sottolineate sopra, partire da una pagina bianca è per lo più raccomandato per quelli che già possiedono almeno un po’ di esperienza pratica con HTML/CSS e hanno confidenza nel gestire i blocchi di costruzione da zero. Se non hai mai programmato prima, e anche se lo hai fatto ma vuoi prima familiarizzare con Webflow, sistemare un modello preimpostato è altamente consigliabile.

Al di là dei contenuti statici, le animazioni sono una parte essenziale dello strumento di design di Webflow, aggiungere uno strato extra di interattività al sito web finale, che può essere scoraggiante da raggiungere e testare usando strumenti più tradizionali. Per prima cosa, puoi aggiungere transizioni e trasformazioni direttamente su qualsiasi elemento usando la stessa barra laterale destra con le proprietà dell’elemento, cosa che fa risparmiare molto tempo dato che la maggior parte dei codici di CSS sono noiose da scrivere a mano e in ogni caso molti sviluppatori usano altri strumenti di auto generazione.

Il divertimento vero e proprio inizia nel pannello delle “Interazioni”, accessibile dalla tabella con l’icona del fulmine in alto a destra della barra laterale: qui puoi aggiungere animazioni basate sullo stato della pagina o sulle interazioni degli utenti con un elemento specifico (ad es. fluttuamento, click). Essenzialmente è uno strumento di automazione Javascript, che potrebbe potenzialmente rimpiazzare l’80-90% dei tuoi file JS ordinari per un sito web standard; animazioni del menu, elementi di fly-in-out, hover state, e quant’altro.

Fai un Giro sul Webflow Site Designer ›

Il resto delle tabelle nella barra laterale contiene il Navigatore (un albero HTML) e lo Style Manager (gerarchia CSS) che sono utili come strumenti di panoramica ma aggiungono meno valore in paragone ai pannelli di cui abbiamo parlato sopra.

Nel complesso, il team di Webflow è riuscito a creare uno strumento di automazione del codice molto comprensibile che lavora quasi come un editor grafico; il grado in cui semplifica il processo di creare pagine web attraenti con codici puliti verrà apprezzato da chiunque abbia mai provato a scrivere il proprio sito web a mano.

Sistema di Gestione dei Contenuti

A parte le modifiche sul sito, ad es. la possibilità di cambiare qualsiasi testo o media direttamente sulla pagina che stai progettando, Webflow CMS ti permette di definire manualmente tipi di contenuti personalizzabili (blog post, progetti, membri del team, ecc…) con campi completamente modificabili, cosa che può migliorare grandemente la vita di quelli che gestiscono grandi progetti web con strutture complesse.

Ciò è presente nella forma di Raccolte CMS, accessibili dalla tabella con l’icona di una pila sul lato sinistro della finestra di modifica principale. Dopo aver creato una raccolta, che è essenzialmente un tipo di contenuto specifico, puoi impostare i campi e aggiungere le componenti per essere usate sia come pagine individuali o come liste/griglie riguardanti pagine statiche esistenti; per esempio, puoi aggiungere una raccolta “membri del team” per creare una pagina che mostri le foto delle persone della tua compagnia, i nomi, le descrizioni, gli indirizzi social, ecc…

Al di là del back-end del CMS, c’è anche l’Editor di Webflow, che ti consente di aggiungere nuovi contenuti a quelli esistenti su un sito web pubblicato, utile sia per i creatori del sito e i loro collaboratori, che per i loro clienti. Questo significa che ottieni un sito completamente funzionante sia con pagine statiche modificabili e contenuti dinamici come articoli di blog, progetti di portfolio, ecc… senza il bisogno di installare nessun plugin.

Il fatto che offra diversi tipi di contenuti, dei quali gli articoli dei blog sono solo un’opzione, significa che Webflow si mangia WordPress e altri sistemi open-source come Drupal per colazione, quando si parla di flessibilità del CMS. Dall’altro lato, ci vorrà un po’ di tempo per familiarizzarci; comunque l’Università di Webflow può aiutare davvero in questo caso.

Una cosa che non sembra far parte del Sistema CMS di Webflow fin dall’inizio è la localizzazione; creare un sito multilingue su Webflow era davvero frustrante prima che arrivassero estensioni di terze parti (il più rilevante Weglot).

Uno potrebbe pensare che Webflow fatichi a rendere la gestione dei contenuti una parte più fluida possibile, in modo da non rubare la scena al Site Designer, che non è una brutta cosa, considerando che è la sua proposta di valore principale. In ogni caso, il CMS di Webflow è comunque molto più flessibile e diversificato di quello centrale di WordPress o website builder popolari come Wix.

Distribuzione e Hosting

Pubblicare la tua creazione su un URL attivo è una passeggiata su Webflow: cliccare il pulsante corrispettivo in cima alla finestra del Designer farà comparire un menu a cascata con le opzioni di distribuzione disponibili, che include un sottodominio del dominio di webflow.com (tipicamente raccomandato per motivi di testing) e un dominio personalizzato. Con il click successivo puoi pubblicare su una qualunque di queste location o su entrambe, senza doverti preoccupare dei dettagli; tutto il resto è processato in background automaticamente.

I servizi di hosting di Webflow seguono il suo principio “comincia a costruire gratuitamente, aggiungi l’hosting per andare live”: puoi progettare un prototipo (fino a due pagine statiche) nel loro ambiente di prova, e cioè su un sottodominio di webflow.com, e poi connettere il nome del tuo dominio personale (non incluso) facendo l’upgrade a uno dei piani di hosting di Webflow. L’ultima opzione varia dal piano base, $12 al mese* con un limite di 25 mila visite mensili, fino alla versione business $36 al mese* con più funzionalità e un limite di 1 milione di visite mensili (* con fatturazione annuale).

In aggiunta ad essere una soluzione integrata, ci sono diversi vantaggi nell’Hosting di Webflow che possono davvero fare la differenza per le performance del tuo sito e del metodo di lavoro del tuo webmaster:

  • Dato che è basato sulle infrastrutture distribuite su alcuni dei più grandi gestori di cloud al mondo (Amazon Cloudfront e Fastly), può essere adattato senza problemi alle tue richieste di traffico, eliminando il bisogno di aggiornare manualmente il tuo server di hosting
  • Un network di distribuzione dei contenuti integrato (CDN) a zero costi addizionali, assicura che il tuo sito web sia servito dal nodo che è geograficamente più vicino ai tuoi visitatori, indipendentemente da dove sono localizzati
  • L’avanzata infrastruttura distribuita si traduce in tempi di caricamento veloci e vicini al 100% di attività di rete per il tuo sito, indipendentemente dai picchi di traffico o persino dagli attacchi malevoli
  • Un certificato SSL (secure sockets layer) a zero costi aggiuntivi assicura che il tuo sito web stia al passo con i moderni standard di sicurezza sin da subito; nessuna installazione richiesta o prolungamento

Considerando i fattori sopra, l’Hosting di Webflow è scalabile, pronto all’uso con un CDN integrato e ad un prezzo in linea con le migliori soluzioni di auto gestione come Digital Ocean e anche i website builder tradizionali. Il suo valore economico è un grande complemento alle altre capacità di questa suite online, rendendola una soluzione a tutto tondo per i creatori web e, potenzialmente, ti lascia risparmiare centinaia di dollari all’anno su CDN, SSL e altri extra che altrimenti avrebbero bisogno di essere comprati separatamente.

Webflow eCommerce

Una delle aggiunte più recenti (e più anticipate) su Webflow è la versione eCommerce, che porta opzioni complete di shopping online tra gli strumenti.

Arriva con un nuovo set di listini prezzo offrendo tutte le parti essenziali per progetti che vendono merce online, includendo la gestione di prodotti e inventario, carrelli personalizzati, checkout e altre estremità, controllo totale sulle e-mail dei clienti e anche self-hosted checkout.

La proposta più valida dell’eCommerce di Webflow è la possibilità di personalizzare completamente ogni dettaglio del tuo negozio online, dalle griglie dei prodotti e le pagine di pagamento a come vengono visualizzate le notifiche di acquisto.

Questo può essere contrastato con l’attuale stato degli affari nel software di costruzione dei siti ecommerce come Shopify, Wix, o persino il bundle WooCommerce + WordPress, dove uno ha bisogno di impiegare sforzi considerevoli (ed essere abili a programmare) per raggiungere un tale controllo naturale.

Altre caratteristiche che possiamo aspettarci al momento sono opzioni di coupon/sconto come anche iscrizioni e prodotti digitali/scaricabili.

Nel lungo termine, il team di Webflow sta pianificando di aggiungere un host di funzionalità più avanzate ai loro piani eCommerce, includendo il recupero di ordini abbandonati, supporto per più valute, integrazione di Amazon e anche account per i clienti.

Come puoi vedere, la versione corrente, sebbene tecnicamente non più in beta, è ancora in lavorazione, quindi se stai cercando di creare uno store online complesso, l’eCommerce di Webflow è ancora troppo acerbo per applicazioni così avanzate.

Tuttavia, se tutte le funzioni promesse verranno implementate, l’eCommerce di Webflow diventerà un competitor a pieno titolo per soluzioni specializzate come Shopify e Instacart, con tutti il seguito del Webflow builder, il CMS, e l’hosting a sostenerlo.

Webflow e Prezzi

In relazione ai piani a pagamento, è importante capire che Webflow ha due sistemi differenti di livelli premium: uno per il tuo account generale e uno per ogni progetto individuale (cioè i siti che costruisci).

Quando inizi a lavorare con Webflow, il secondo è probabilmente il più importante e topico, quindi inizieremo con il prezzo per livello di progetto, che è fondamentalmente un cloud hosting per ognuno dei tuoi siti web.

Per prima cosa, c’è una opzione forever-free che ti lascia usare tutte le funzioni di Webflow e impiegarle su un sottodominio name.webflow.com. Se vuoi usare un dominio normale (cosa che probabilmente farai alla fine), sono disponibili diverse opzioni a pagamento:

Il piano Base ti costerà $12 al mese (fatturazione annuale), sbloccando SSL automatico, CDN, e anche la distribuzione personalizzata del dominio che è facile da impostare e anche più facile da usare. Il piano CMS, a $16 al mese (fatturati annualmente) ti permetterà di pubblicare non solo pagine statiche ma anche ciò che viene creato dal sistema di gestione dei contenuti (blog post, progetti, ecc…). Il piano Business, prezzato a $36 al mese con fatturazione annuale, è per lo più una versione ampliata del piano precedente, ottima per siti più grandi con traffico significativo.

Poi ci sono i piani per account, che impostano il numero massimo consentito di progetti attivi e altri parametri professionali: tra questi il piano Starter ti permette di lavorare su 2 siti web e usare prove gratuite, mentre il piano Lite (a $16 al mese con fatturazione annuale) include 10 progetti e strumenti di esportazione dei codici, lasciandoti usare il codice generato da Webflow su qualsiasi altra piattaforma a tua scelta. Il piano Pro ($35 al mese, fatturati annualmente) aggiunge l’etichettatura bianca e opzioni di protezione della password, perfette per coloro che lavorano regolarmente su progetti a pieno regime per clienti di terze parti.

Per aiutare a capire meglio tutto ciò, abbiamo creato questo diagramma spiegando tutti i listini dei prezzi di Webflow in modo più visivo:

Webflow pricing

Quando visiti la pagina dei Prezzi di Webflow, può sembrare un po’ confusionaria a causa del modo in cui raggruppano i piani in base a se ti serve un sito, molti siti, o lavori come parte di un team; essenzialmente, l’opzione “ho bisogno di un solo sito” ti offrirà hosting puro (cioè i piani per progetto di cui abbiamo parlato prima) mentre gli altri due offriranno collettivamente un piano Lite a $16 e un piano Pro/Team a $35, come anche un piano Custom per team più ampi. Questo aggiunge ancora fino a due specifici livelli di piani per account descritti sopra, a parte le versioni gratuite e personalizzate.

Ogni piano di account può essere combinato con qualsiasi piano di hosting, includendo quelli gratuiti, per esempio puoi avere un piano Starter e pagare soltanto per pubblicare un progetto specifico sul tuo dominio personale, o usare un piano di account a pagamento e hosting gratuito per creare prototipi rapidi.

Puoi scegliere tra cicli di fatturazione mensile e annuale per tutti i piani premium, questi arrivano con un 20% di sconto, che può far accumulare rispiarmi significativi nel tempo, specialmente per i piani più avanzati.

Opzioni di Collaborazione

Abbiamo brevemente menzionato il piano dei team nella sezione precedente, ma visto il target di utenti di Webflow, si merita ugualmente una discussione a parte.

Se lavori assieme ad almeno un’altra persona su progetti web, vale decisamente la pena considerare il piano Webflow Teams. È essenzialmente lo stesso del piano Pro individuale, ma aggiunge anche più modi di collaborazione e funzioni per i $35 a persona che paghi al mese (fatturazione annuale).

Mentre il l’ambiente del visual Designer non supporta al momento collaborazioni in tempo reale tutte le parti dei tuoi progetti Webflow, qualunque membro del team può averne accesso e modificarli. Questo è utile specialmente per team che lavorano parallelamente, dove ad esempio una persona è responsabile della progettazione e un’altra per i contenuti.

A parte gli accessi e le risorse condivise, Webflow Teams aggiunge anche una dashboard specializzata per il gruppo, che porta tutti gli aspetti di collaborazione in una singola, unificata UI. Team più grandi possono anche contattare Webflow per offerte di prezzo personalizzate con piani per Imprese, come anche sconti per l’upgrade dell’hosting.

Nel complesso, tutto questo implica che Webflow ha attentamente considerato i bisogni non solo di clienti individuali/freelance, ma anche il gruppo più ampio di piccoli/medi team e agenzie; una bella ciliegina sulla cima di questa già magnifica torta di funzionalità e possibilità.

Pro e Contro di Webflow

Per riassumere, raggruppiamo tutti i vantaggi e lati non così forti dell’offerta utente di Webflow, comparati ad altri website builder simili e sistemi di gestione dei contenuti popolari:

  • Strumento di progettazione web in tempo reale di livello Pro con facilità d’uso mobile integrata che genera linearmente codice pulito ed esportabile mentre stai creando.
  • Crea il tuo design modificando uno o dozzine di modelli gratuiti e premium, lavorando con un quadro prestabilito o su una pagina bianca
  • Gestori avanzati di CSS e JS che permettono entrambi un controllo granulare sugli stili e le animazioni, e anche una facile e ampia gestione del sito
  • Distribuzione facile e veloce in due click su un ambiente di prova e/o sul tuo dominio personalizzato dal Webflow Designer
  • Un CMS integrato con costruttore di tipi di contenuti flessibile che può essere usato per creare qualsiasi tipo di contenuto statico o dinamico, da pagine e articoli di blog a progetti, recensioni, membri del team, ecc…
  • L’hosting avanzato distribuito da pezzi grossi come Amazon Cloudfront assicura la massima velocità di caricamento delle pagine e un downtime minimo per i tuoi visitatori
  • Content delivery network (CDN) integrato a nessun costo addizionale assicura sia velocità che sicurezza per il tuo sito web dato che i contenuti sono serviti da location geografiche ottimizzate e beneficiano della sicurezza aggiuntiva del CDN
  • Il certificato SSL integrato a zero costi aggiuntivi (di solito a $50-$100 all’anno) per assicurare il rispetto degli attuali standard di sicurezza sin dall’inizio
  • Una curva di apprendimento abbastanza difficile da aspettarsi per coloro che non hanno mai avuto a che fare con lo sviluppo web in precedenza
  • Opzioni multilingua limitate all’inizio (tuttavia facilmente risolvibile con estensioni come Weglot)
  • La struttura dei prezzi contorta con schemi separati per account singoli e siti richiede tempo per essere compresa
  • L’interfaccia del website builder non è ancora compatibile al 100% con Firefox ed Edge. Davvero, Webflow, si tratta di almeno un quarto di tutti i browser installati… datti da fare!
  • Con il kit ecommerce di Webflow in attivo sviluppo, le opzioni degli shop online richiedono una pulizia ulteriore e migliorie minori per poter essere definita una funziona spettacolare

Un sacco di informazioni da metabolizzare! Quindi, qual è il punto finale? In altre parole:

Dovrei Usare Webflow?

Dopo aver analizzato le sue varie caratteristiche, si può concludere che Webflow si impegna ad essere uno strumento integrato avanzato per creatori di siti web che danno valore sia alla flessibilità che all’efficienza. Il potere combinato delle sue offerte di Designer, Editor/CMS, Hosting, e (adesso anche) eCommerce è in linea con i migliori sistemi di sviluppo web personalizzati, pur richiedendo in anticipo costi e tempi di configurazione molto inferiori.

Prova Webflow Gratuitamente ›

In un paesaggio di prodotti dominato da website builder semplicistici e CMS open-source goffi, Webflow è una soluzione ibrida adatta specialmente per coloro che sono preparati a spendere un certo quantitative di tempo a familiarizzare con le sue potenti funzionalità in favore di un mix unico di opzioni e automazione.

La Tua Opinione?

Grazie per aver impiegato del tempo sulla nostra analisi di Webflow! Hai trovato utile questa recensione? Hai qualcosa da aggiungere o non sei d’accordo con certi punti? Discutiamone insieme nella sezione dei commenti sottostante:

07
Aug
2017

In Search of the Best Site Builder for 2024: Wix vs Squarespace vs Weebly

☑︎ this guide has been updated in: May 2024

Before we dive in, here’s something for those who don’t want to spend time on our in-depth review and comparative analysis of the most popular website builders:

TL;DR – Site Builder Choice Wizard

We’ve created a simple interactive wizard-thing which can help choose the right site-building tool in a couple of seconds – just go through several simple questions and check out the resulting recommendation –

In case you’d like to learn more about the similarities and differences between the most popular brands such as Wix, Weebly, Squarespace and others, as well as compare features and offers side by side, continue reading for more site builder goodness:

Why Does the Choice Matter?

You need to create a website, and you need it now. Instead of spending days to understand DIY-style content management systems like WordPress or Drupal, which do not include many important bits like hosting or domains and require getting used to, you’ve (understandably) decided to go for an all-in-one solution: website builder software.

The benefits are obvious: in a single account, you get everything you need to start a full-sledged online project – from a domain name to a built-in visual content composer to integrated e-commerce capabilities. You’re also happy to know that they offer dedicated support, in contrast to peer-driven public forums which are not always responsive, helpful and to the point.

However, once you set your sights on the website builder option, you quickly realize that now you’re facing a problem of choice: out of the numerous available builders, how do you pick the one that’s just right for your project – and not overpriced at the same time? This is where this guide comes in: we’ve conducted a comprehensive analysis of the largest and most popular website building services along various important dimensions, such as ease of use, reliability, versatility, pricing structure, and much more. Our analysis is based on observations from using real accounts in each of the services, in order to avoid superficial statements and pure guesswork.

We’ll first present our results in a condensed format, as a table of the most important comparative features, then discuss each of the brands in more detail; after that we will present one-on-one comparisons in case you’re stuck with choosing between two particular brands, and finally provide practical recommendations for making the actual choice based on your project’s needs and resources. Let’s get started!

Comparison Table

The table below contains certain important features of each of the three most popular website building services; we intentionally did not include such items as “presence of an ad-free version” or “possibility to add your own domain name” because those have been industry standards for quite a while now and are naturally offered by all major site builder brands. In other words, the table only focuses on real distinguishing features that vary from product to product – to help you make a more informed decision afterwards:

Website Builder Wix Squarespace Weebly
Year founded 2006 2004 2006
Free version yes no yes
Storage space (free) 500 MB N/A 500 MB
Extensions yes no yes
Backups yes no yes
Capabilities:
templates yes yes yes
start from scratch yes no no
analytics yes yes yes
SEO tools yes yes yes
e-commerce yes yes yes
multilingual yes yes via an app
email yes yes yes
Cheapest plan with:
adding own domains $5 $12 $8
ad-free website $10 $12 $8
online shop $17 $26 $8
Google Ads credit $10 $18 $8

While evaluating the dimensions which cannot be directly expressed as numbers or yes/no answers, such as “SEO toolbox” or “choice of templates”, we’ve aimed at being as objective as possible and using hard data where appropriate; still, those measures should be viewed on a relative scale used only to simplify comparison between the brands.

Now let’s dive deeper and look at each of the website builders separately, critically evaluating its pros and cons with respect to competition; after that we will compare each pair one on one to finally reveal the most worthy solutions.

Wix: the Veteran That Still Got It

Wix website builder, the most popular one on the market (based on self-claimed usage figures), has been around for more than a decade, which, in the fast-paced website creation market, is a lot. Surely enough to prove that their product is worth something. From its humble beginnings as a brainchild of three friends on the Israeli seaside, the company has grown to serve millions of users in 190+ countries and get listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

Wix is a classic example of a website builder that uses a freemium service model: the basic features, like the visual “what you see is what you get” type editor, as well as access to the template library and the app market, are free for anyone. For those wishing to test their online presence this is perfectly sufficient for a full-fledged website, with zero coding or design skills required – however, if you want to use the features which are essential for any self-respecting web project, such as using your own custom domain name instead of using a subdomain of wix.com (i.e. example.wix.com) and removing the ads, you’ll need to purchase one of the paid plans.

When it comes to Wix pricing, there are five premium plans, ranging from the basic ““Connect Domain” ($5 per month with yearly subscription), which essentially only allows connecting a proper domain name like example.com instead of the awkward username.wixsite.com/sitename, to the feature-packed “VIP” ($25 per month). More useful and value-for-money, however, is the “Combo” plan ($10 per month), which allows both linking a domain AND removing the ads – the two minimum ingredients to make your website stop looking unprofessional.

“Combo” is a good place to start if you’re serious about your online endeavor, yet if it gains traction, sooner or later you’ll most probably need to upgrade to the mid-priced “Unlimited” plan ($14 per month), to remove the visitor traffic limitation: the 2 Gb included in the former will only enable a couple thousand visits per month, based on the average web page size today. On the positive side, at the time when you’re in that situation your website will be well worth the upgrade.

It seems that Wix realizes that, being one of the older website builders, it needs to keep pace with the ever-advancing state of the art in website design and management – one example of this is the WIX ADI, or Artificial Design Intelligence. If you look closely, it’s just a more user-friendly and slightly stripped-down wizard which takes your data and mixes it into a template (which, of course, you can easily do with the standard Wix editor as well) – but it’s still arguably a step in the right direction and an indication that the company is not afraid to experiment and take on new challenges.

It will still be some time before Wix (or any other “AI web builder”) is able to create a ready-to-use website for you without you even taking part in the process, but even the current state of the primary Wix product is as close as it gets to an easy and seamless website-building experience.

Create a free website with Wix ›

Advantages of Wix:
  • The widest choice of visual templates on the market
  • Own domain plan competitively priced
  • Large extensions market with both free and premium addons
  • Machine learning powered helper for quick prototyping
  • The free plan never expires
Weaker sides:
  • Not possible to switch to another template after you choose one

Weebly: Simplicity and Value for Money

Founded as a Silicon Valley startup by three university students, Weebly has managed to grow into one of the most popular website builders in the world during its 10-year history. Over the years, the tool has changed almost constantly to keep up with the developing standards and trends, both in terms of design and features. One of the primary distinguishing traits of Weebly is its more intense focus on marketing, giving users an all-round solution to their website needs (creating – managing – promoting).

After creating an account by filling three simple fields (quite an onboarding!), Weebly asks you right away whether you need an online store or just a website – this will affect how the builder’s functionality is presented, but you can of course always activate the online store features afterwards. Still, this is a rather noteworthy detail since it hints that Weebly puts a significant focus on e-commerce compared with competing tools.

Indeed, their online shop plans start from $8 per month, which can be considered an aggressive pricing policy compared to other site builders: it’s twice as low as the cheapest Wix plan with e-commerce, and three (!) times less expensive than the Squarespace offer. For this price, you’re getting full online store capability, including specialized templates, inventory tracking, secure checkout, coupons, abandoned cart retargeting, and many more features. The choice of payment methods is also a pleasant surprise – Weebly currently allows you to accept transactions via Square, Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.net, which is significantly better than e.g. Squarespace.

The built-in marketing suite mentioned earlier is another example of Weebly taking a more diversified approach to the site builder experience: not only can you create email campaigns for the email lists captured with your website’s forms, you can also segment your audience, manage the acquired leads, and even create Facebook ads right inside the same interface after connecting your Facebook account.

Price-wise, Weebly can be considered one of the most affordable solutions among the market leaders: its cheapest plan that includes a custom domain costs $8 per month (with annual billing), which is more than the comparable Wix plan, until you consider that the former also includes $100 AdWords credit and removes all Weebly branding and ads – and you’ll have to upgrade to a $10 per month Wix plan to match those.

In summary, Weebly offers a great toolkit for anyone who values ease of use and doesn’t like to overpay (which is, supposedly, most of the people?) and at the same time those who dig the idea of having their website and most of their online marketing on the same convenient platform. The e-commerce solution is also worth considering, not only as a competitor of Wix or Squarespace, but also, more generally, as a worthy competitor even to such specialized suites as Shopify.

Create a free website with Weebly ›

Advantages of Weebly:
  • Competitive pricing for all categories of users
  • App market for additional functionality
  • Wide choice of payment options for online stores
  • Can change theme after creating the website
  • The free plan never expires
  • Integrated marketing capabilities
Weaker sides:
  • Template styling capabilities are rather basic

Squarespace: Minimalist to the Core

As one of the oldest website builders that are still thriving up to this day, Squarespace seems to know the secret to satisfying website owners around the world – be it sleek design, simplicity, or easy-to-understand pricing. Founded in 2004, this service has been steadily growing its user base (and fandom) ever since, having received numerous accolades as well as making it at #8 in last year’s Forbes Cloud 100 List.

Anyone signing up with Squarespace will get a full toolkit for creating and managing their website: from a free domain name and hosting, to a publishing engine and analytics suite. Most of these might not be as feature-rich or advanced as you might get by seeking services from separate, specialized providers – but the genius of Squarespace is exactly in stripping all that is less necessary and leaving in only the essentials, thereby making your entire website-building experience as smooth and seamless as possible. Less cognitive strain, more minimalism – that could be the motto of Squarespace.

Unlike most other website builders, this one does not offer a free version: you can try the service for 2 weeks (without entering your card details), but after that it’s pay to play. You can choose between two pricing plans: Personal, which will set you back $12 per month if billed annually ($16 for monthly billing) – and Business, which costs $18 per month ($26 with monthly billing). Most small online projects will do just fine with the Personal plan, as the only significant difference compared to the Business version are limitations on the number of static pages (20) and contributors (2), as well as a Gmail-powered branded email account (which in principle you can set up on your own).

The recently added e-commerce options are seen widely as a response to the growing number of competitive offers with built-in e-commerce capabilities; the Basic plan is priced at $26 per month ($30 with monthly billing) and includes everything from the above-mentioned Business plan, as well as all essentials for running an online store: order and inventory management, taxes, accounting, etc. The Advanced e-commerce plan ($40 per month or $46 with monthly billing) offers some nifty features, such as abandoned cart auto-recovery, checkouts on your own domain, as well as automatic discounts. Since all of these features are potentially significant money or time savers, it is sensible to switch to the Advanced plan as soon as you see at least some sales.

Squarespace is an example of a closed-ecosystem site builder – there is no extension community or an app marketplace; everything you need is built into the system, removing the need to search for, install and configure additional modules. While that is good news for the usability aspect, it also means that anyone requiring a specific new feature will need to rely solely on the discretion of the site builder itself to implement it.

Squarespace can be called a design-centric CMS: while other web builders have arrived at the importance of clean, streamlined, clutter-free visuals in the process of their evolution, Squarespace has embraced these guiding principles from day one. And at that time, it really, really did help stand out from the competition.

Nowadays, as the largest competitors have caught up with the design part and sometimes outstripped Squarespace in the features dimension, there’s not that much left to justify its premium pricing policy. Nevertheless, it’s still a beautiful website builder with timely minimalist templates and a wonderfully simple user interface – and as a creative type, do you really need anything else?

Create a website with Squarespace ›

Advantages of Squarespace:
  • Beautifully designed, minimalist templates
  • Advanced Style Editor with a vast choice of options
Weaker sides:
  • Free trial expires after 14 days
  • No extensions or apps
  • Only available in two languages
  • Higher transaction fees for the e-commerce

Head-to-Head Matchups

Each product described above can easily be called a full-fledged web presence management system in its own right. In other words, there is no sense in using two or three simultaneously, since their feature profiles largely overlap; with this in mind, the problem of choice becomes even more challenging once we take into account the fact that migrating between these platforms is almost impossible unless everything is transferred “by hand”, i.e. the entire website is re-created from scratch in the new platform.

So now that we’ve had a detailed look at each of the website builders, it’s time to compare them one on one to make sense of the available choices. Between the three of them, Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly form three pairs that can be contrasted in terms of available options, user experience, design quality, ecosystem size, and the general value for money. Let’s get started:

Wix vs Weebly

While being equally powerful site building toolkits, Weebly and Wix each have their individual differentiating points which can help choose among the two.

While Weebly’s focus on simplicity ensures a steep learning curve (i.e. fast learning) for any user of its drag-and-drop website editor, Wix offers more freedom for design-oriented users though more granular controls for each website element (fonts, colours, etc), while also allowing to start from a blank template and work your way up to a fully fleshed out website all by yourself if you don’t feel like using a pre-made template.

Wix also has a slight advantage in terms of the variety of templates and apps it offers, yet Weebly is very close with just marginally less choice in each of these categories. Given the sheer number of available alternatives in each cases (200+ apps and dozens of templates), the differences do not have a significant effect on the user experience or website’s capabilities whether you’re using Wix or Weebly.

Weebly, on the other hand, can boast a more comprehensive marketing toolkit built right into the platform: apart from emails and leads, at also allows segmenting your audience and creating targeted social media ads.

Both e-commerce solutions are quite potent and integrate beautifully into your website, while third-party apps and marketing tools can help boost sales and recover abandoning customers. It’s safe to say that this aspect is a close tie for Wix and Weebly.

In terms of price points, Weebly is slightly more competitive in this pair, since it offers a cheaper ad-free plan and more affordable advanced plans. There’s also the $100 Google AdWords credit bonus if you sign up for any of Weebly’s paid plans – Wix gives away the same coupon only starting with its second premium plan.

Winner: TIE (more details below)

Weebly vs Squarespace

As one of the more experienced market players, Squarespace has had plenty of time to perfect its design and layout engine, and it shows: the site-building part of the experience is superb, and can be said to surpass that of Weebly, which focuses more on simplicity and affordability.

The latter does win in terms of template variety, though – Weebly users can choose from hundreds of pre-designed layouts, and can switch between the themes after adding content to the website, which is not possible in Squarespace.

Weebly’s focus on marketing means more options for promoting your website right from the interface of your site builder, while Squarespace tends to concentrate on design and visuals. Some of the marketing features that are unique to Weebly in the context of this comparison are manual and automated mass email campaigns as well as Facebook ad engine that lets you create FB campaigns right inside the Weebly admin panel, tying them to the behaviour of your website’s visitors.

In addition to that, Weebly has a free version with no expiry date, and is priced considerably more affordably for almost any comparable feature set. The price advantage is especially evident for the e-commerce solutions, with Weebly’s being three times less expensive than the one from Squarespace.

Winner: WEEBLY

Wix vs Squarespace

If there’s one area where Squarespace can be considered almost unbeatable, it’s style and design: both the templates and the interface are sleek, minimalist, and well thought-though. It can be ideal for those who are planning to place a heavy emphasis on graphics and imagery, since most templates devote a significant part of their layout to photos. The pitfall here, though, is that your finished website won’t look nearly as sleek as the template demos if you don’t have access to extremely high-quality photography, or if you aren’t used to matching colours and shades.

Wix, on the other hand, wins in terms of template variety (almost twice as many available) as well as the editing capabilities: the sole fact that you can start from a blank canvas in Wix makes it a more flexible tool for a lot of potential users.

Another feature which is offered by Wix and is not currently present in Squarespace is site backups, which usually tends to stay underrated until one experiences a blackout or loses their website for one or another reason.

There’s also the App Market in Wix, an integrated extension marketplace allowing users to get free and paid plugins developed both in-house and by third parties. This creates an entire ecosystem around the core website builder, expanding the range of things your Wix-built website can do. While Squarespace does offer several pluggable modules with additional features, it’s nowhere near the diversity offered by Wix’s App Market.

Price-wise, Wix has the upper hand, both because all of its plans are less expensive than the comparable Squarespace plans, and because its free version, despite containing ads, does not expire after two weeks – there’s no time pressure to get everything ready for launch, and you can even stay on the free plan with Wix indefinitely, if you’re okay with the ads.

Winner: WIX

Other Notable Site Builders

There are many more website building toolkits on the market, of course – in this guide, we’ve focused on the most popular ones so far. However, it would be wrong not to mention other significant brands that offer good value for money along with some unique features and designs:

Zyro: the AI-Powered Site Builder

While the old guard like Wix are starting to flirt with Artificial Intelligence tech, newer brands like Zyro are fully invested in these trends, making then an integral part of their toolkit.

For example, every Zyro client can take advantage of the built-in Content Generator, which instantaneously creates unique paragraphs of text on a given topic (that actually make sense!). This seemingly magic widget is based on Open AI‘s latest language-processing models and can serve as a really quick way of seeding your website with initial content.

Zyro’s infrastructure is provided by Hostinger, one of the largest web hosting companies in the world (30M+ clients in 170 countries); for all Zyro-based websites, this implies stability and speed – both important for visitor satisfaction and search engine rankings.

In summary, Zyro is an interesting option for those who seek simplicity and value for money. It ticks all the boxes for a great site builder, while boasting extremely competitive pricing.

Site123: The No-Nonsense Builder

While some site builders keep increasing in complexity, others choose a different path – the one which focuses on speed and ease of use. This is exactly what Site123 does, with some impressive results. Let’s have a closer look.

The main difference between Site123 and other solutions described in this review is the central role of templates in the site building process: once you sign up and choose the website’s function, the system automatically generates a template and hands it over to you for customization.

It should be noted that Site123’s visual editor is not drag-and-drop: you are able to personalize each element, yet the process reminds more of the famous WordPress Customizer than other notable site builders. This doesn’t mean it’s less convenient, though: in fact, as your space of potential choices gets smartly limited to the most likely options, the cognitive strain of customizing your first website is significantly reduced.

Apart from the visuals, you can also add plugins, most of which require the Premium version to function (more on this later) – the only one that works out of the box is the Google Analytics tracking code. The premium integrations include several more analytics suites, live chats, social sharing and marketing automation.

Another notable feature of Site123 that helps it stand out is the multilingual option: you can easily choose the primary locale for your website as well as add any number of additional language versions with just a click. Definitely less clunky that most other site builders which focus on a single language for your website (I’m looking at you, Squarespace!).

Site123’s aim at simplicity is also clearly seen in its pricing strategy: just two plans – Free and Premium, the latter including all traditionally paid features such as the ability to deploy on your own custom domain instead of a subdomain of Site123, more bandwidth, no branding, and e-commerce functionality. The Premium version costs $9.80 per month, which is on par with the best value-for-money offers in the industry. Upgrading is a simple feat – clicking on the respective golden button at the bottom of your site editor’s left panel will initiate the payment sequence.

Overall, Site123 is a laid-back alternative for those seeking to minimize their site-building efforts through template-based customization. The premium plan includes all the features one would need for a fully functional small business / personal website, at a very reasonable price.

Jimdo: Simple, Stylish, Affordable

This is an interesting example of a site builder that started out as a classical hosting: the company had its first significant clientele back in 2009 when they accepted the former users of Yahoo’s discontinued GeoCities hosting service. Over time, Jimdo has aimed at providing the full spectrum of features a website owner needs, focusing more and more on the website building experience. The service currently hosts more than 20 million websites around the world.

Jimdo uses a freemium model similar to Wix and Weebly: there’s a permanently free version which displays branded ads and allows using a subdomain of the form example.jimdo.com for your website. The Pro and Business versions allow removing the ads and choosing your own custom domain name, which is already included in the price. It is worth noting that the basic e-commerce features are available starting with the Pro version, which, at $7.50, makes it the most affordable online store functionality among all existing website builders (cheaper even than Weebly).

The biggest advantages of Jimdo are its simplicity and pricing. The learning curve is extremely steep even for new users who have never seen a site builder before, while the $7.50 per month Pro plan includes all features that are usually priced considerably higher by other competing services like Wix and Squarespace.

When comparing Jimdo vs Wix, the templating system grabs attention: the former has made it very easy to not only choose a design from the pre-built library, but also edit the code of your template with a few clicks. In case of Jimdo vs Squarespace, the most important consideration is pricing: such features as adding own domain name, ad-free experience, and online sales are almost two times less expensive with the former. As for Jimdo vs Weebly, the former is still priced slightly more competitively – despite the difference being just $0.50, it can accrue to sizeable sums over time, e.g. the annual saving with Jimdo would be $6.

Sitebuilder: The Cheapest Option

When it comes to Sitebuilder.com, which is another tool closely resembling Wix, the most important aspect is its cost: it’s currently the most competitively priced website building tool out there. There is a (permanently) free and 3 primary premium plans, with the fourth, Personal, being a nice little marketing trick by Sitebuilder designed to make the more feature-rich AND cheaper Pro plan more attractive – which means we will disregard it for the purpose of clarity.

The free plan does not have an expiration term but is limited to 5 pages, which makes it less useful for any serious online project – it’s more like an advanced trial of the toolkit. The gem here is the Pro version: at $4.99 per month (billed annually) it offers a free domain name, free email and (more importantly) an ad-free experience, which means that in the Sitebuilder vs Wix comparison it is clearly a winner in terms of pricing. Even Weebly’s ad-free plan cannot compete with Sitebuilder’s Pro version: the annual savings on the former would be over $36.

In terms of features and usability, Sitebuilder.com is quite similar to Wix and Weebly; while the company boasts “over 10,000 templates” on its official homepage, the real amount is closer to 210+ when you are actually choosing one for your website inside your account. This discrepancy is most likely due to the fact that the company considers each template option and setting as a separate template, which, to our mind, is slightly misleading, to say the least; in any case, there’s plenty of templates to choose from, even given the two hundred real alternatives in the template library.

SEO settings and Analytics become available in the Pro version as well, while the e-commerce options are activated by upgrading to the eponymous plan (priced at $11.99 per month). This makes Sitebuilder one of the most affordable online shop toolkits from our comparison as well, beaten only by Weebly.

Overall, Sitebuilder.com is a rather powerful toolkit with a pleasant user experience and extremely competitive pricing for the first year of use.

uKit – the Up-and-Coming Contestant

Having evolved from uCoz, a free hosting with an integrated site builder, uKit is the modern iteration of that decade-old project. The new version offers extended features and options, including an online store and an automated tool that keeps track of the website’s “marketing-readiness”.

The visual builder has everything one could need for creating a clean-looking custom website: after choosing from over 300 available templates, the user can quickly define the structure, set up various elements, and tweak the design. There are no plugins or third-party apps to extend the functionality at the moment, yet all basic needs, including an online shop, are covered.

uKit does not offer a free version, only a 14-day trial (no credit card required) – after that you will need to choose one of its paid plans to continue managing the website. Pricing is extremely competitive, with the most affordable plan (uKit Premium) costing only $4 per month with annual billing. It is worth noting that, unlike with most other similar products, pricing here depends on the billing period, not unlike web hosting platforms: for example, the Premium+ plan can cost from $10 in the case of monthly payments to as low as $7 with biyearly billing.

In case you don’t want to allocate extra time for your website’s design or simply would like to have a professional do it for you, there’s a possibility to order a custom website from the uKit team for a $50 flat fee.

The combination of easy to use, basic functionality and aggressive pricing makes uKit a close competitor to Weebly and Jimdo. In a uKit vs Wix comparison the latter comes out a clear winner in terms of available features and design variety, yet the former offers an interesting alternative for the price-conscious cases without overly complex needs.

GoCentral – a Site Builder from the Domain Behemoth

Another worthy mention is GoCentral, offered by (surprise!) GoDaddy – one of the largest domain name registrars and hosting companies in the world. A site builder was arguably a very logical step in their path towards vertical integration which started with upselling hosting with domain names. In this case, we see a drag-and-drop visual composer bundled with a hosting, rather than the other way around found in all other site builders discussed in this review.

The slogans of the GoCentral, “Anyone can make a website now”, and “Build a better website in less than an hour” sound fair when applied to their product: the user interface is so simple it can be learned in minutes. All extras have been sacrificed in the name of ease of use – which allows putting together a basic website really quickly. There are 8 templates to choose from (by simply clicking through them you can preview each design instantly), each customized using color palettes. Each individual element, like buttons, images and text, can of course be edited on its own as well.

The best part of it all is pricing: the Personal plan costs only $5.99 per month and includes all necessary basics – significantly less expensive than even the most competitive classical site builder. Scaling up, there are Business ($9.99) and Business Plus ($14.99) plans, each unlocking more features like SSL, PayPal integration, and email marketing. The Online Store plan ($29.99) enables creating a fully functional ecommerce website, yet looks hardly competitive compared to similar offers from Wix, Weebly, or even Squarespace.

Overall, GoCentral might suit those who need a basic website quickly and with minimum hassle; the parent brand’s extensive hosting experience provides an additional guarantee of maximum uptime for the website.

Alright, we’ve now looked at the other widely used as well as up-and-coming site builders and compared them with Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace. At this point in time, however, you might be asking:

What About WordPress?

Indeed, while reading this analysis you might have had a reasonable question – how does this popular site engine stack up against these website builders? You might even have used WP before and experienced its simplicity firsthand. The difficulty in comparing WP with any of the discussed brands like Wix or Weebly is that it is based on a different philosophy: a free, open system which can be used out of the box, but most of the time requires numerous external additions (domain, hosting, themes, plugins) to realize its full potential.

Since WordPress core is free, it does not include a domain and a hosting – those will need to be purchased separately. And while it is possible to find hosting offers from respectable providers which include domains for as low as $3.95 per month (see Bluehost’s Basic plan), a certain amount of time and effort will need to be invested from your side to set things up – install WordPress on the hosting, configure the WP admin panel, find and install the necessary plugins and a suitable theme. This is why, when comparing, it is important to take into account the fact that a typical site builder is a fully integrated system, entirely created (and supported) by the same team, which allows for maximum compatibility and a smoother experience, whereas WordPress is an open-source project with voluntary (read – unpaid) contributors and community support.

Wix vs WordPress

As the most popular site builder, Wix gets compared with WP more often than its competitors. In terms of user experience and learning curve, Wix wins as an integrated solution to site-building: to get a first draft of a website in Wix, you’ll need 5-10 minutes, while setting up WordPress properly will take at least several days, based on our clients’ experience. The one aspect where WP outperforms Wix is the choice of visual templates and functional extensions: the WordPress ecosystem contains thousands of themes and plugins to choose from; the catch here, however, is that Wix strictly controls the quality of each of its add-ons and maintains a uniform level of aesthetics throughout its template library, while in case of WordPres the quality varies a lot (and we mean a Lot!) since anyone can contribute their own.

Weebly vs WordPress

Weebly comes closest to WP in terms of price competitiveness: with its $8 per month plans, this site builder offers the most sensible trade-off between cost and quality. The possibility to change templates after adding content to a website is also a feature that allows Weebly to compete successfully with the fee CMS giant. What really sets Weebly apart, though, is its e-commerce capabilities, which allow turning it into a fully functional online shop in a matter of minutes – while WordPress will require you to install several additional plugins, make sure your chosen WP theme is compatible with those plugins, and then spend some more time setting everything up.

Squarespace vs WordPress

For the lovers of sleek design, Squarespace is the solution that trumps WP any time: in order to get a theme that is at least closely as good-looking as Squarespace, you will need to turn to the premium WP theme markets – the free themes just won’t cut it. And a premium theme might set you back anywhere from $30 to $80 – and you will still need to pay for the hosting. However, it should be noted that WP themes are getting better, and as more and more designers take interest in the platform, the overall visual standards are rising steadily, even for the free WordPres themes; and, given the fact that even a premium theme is a one-off payment, Squarespace might need to up its game if it wants to stay competitive in the future.

Another aspect where the community vs organization philosophy is easily noticeable is user support: while in Wix or Weebly you can approach the support team directly and expect a fast and precise answer (after all, you’re paying for the product), in case of WordPress you are left with public forums where users like you answer each other’s questions – which obviously is less efficient when solving specific and time-sensitive issues. In other words, while WordPress has a vast knowledge base in the form of Q/A forum threads, your questions get answered by other users – who are obviously less motivated to help or reply faster.

Which One Should You Choose?

As we’ve seen above, each of the website builders has both stronger and weaker sides, and is able to carve out a niche on the market for itself thanks to specific features that appeal to certain user groups. This is therefore also a good starting point for deciding which site builder will best suit your needs: if you’re looking for a quick test of your idea and don’t care if the website will display ads, Weebly is the recommended solution – it allows you to go online very rapidly and change templates at the click of a button. If you have a very specific design in mind and would like granular control over every visual element of the website, go for Wix. If you’d like to start designing your website from a blank canvas, Wix is again your go-to solution. If you’re planning to sell products online, then Weebly might offer some of the best combination of pricing and features.

The Best Free Website Builder

Since most of the site builders we’ve discussed in this guide have free versions, one might raise a logical question: which of them is the best tool for creating a free website?

It should be noted right away that you won’t be able to avoid ads or choose your own domain using any of the free plans, making such a website only a temporary option for any online project with serious intentions – yet as a proof of concept this might be indispensable; later on, as you see traction, you can always upgrade to a more comprehensive plan with no ads and more features.

Moreover, since site builders like Squarespace and GoCentral do not offer permanently free versions (instead, they have free trials which expire after a fixed period), they will not be considered for the title of the best free website builder. The candidates will thus include: Wix, Weebly, and Jimdo.

Website Builder Wix Weebly Jimdo
Permanently free version yes yes yes
Available in free version:
Visitor statistics no yes no
Email marketing tools no yes no
Bandwidth limit 1 Gb – 2 Gb
Online store no no yes

Based on the availability of various features in the free version, Weebly stands out as the most flexible and feature-rich free website builder: unlike Wix and Jimdo, it doesn’t hide such useful items as visitor statistics and email marketing behind the paywall, while also imposing no limitations on the incoming bandwidth (Wix, for example, has a 1 Gb ceiling on the free plan).

Jimdo deserves an honorable mention as well, though, as a runner-up in our challenge – its 2 Gb traffic cap is quite enough for most new websites, and the online e-commerce capabilities in the free version are unique among other site builders.

WINNER: Weebly

The Easiest Website Builder

Creating a website might be a much easier task nowadays, thanks to the existence of the website building toolkits we’ve analysed in this review, yet user friendliness is still an important factor in how quickly you can master a particular site building tool. When talking about ease of use, it is worth looking at several broad areas: the onboarding process (i.e. creating an account and finding relevant information on the official website), the account admin panel, as well as the builder interface itself.

In terms of first-user experience, every major website builder’s homepage is quite well optimized: there’s a navigation menu with all necessary items such as pricing and features, as well as clearly distinguishable registration buttons on every page. Clicking on the latter opens a sign-up form which needs to be filled out; Jimdo is worth mentioning as the site builder having the simplest one (2 fields, while e.g. Weebly has 3 and Wix has 4, and Squarespace has 5).

As for the admin panel and the real-time website constructor, Jimdo doesn’t fare as well, though – the internal admin navigation tends to be either hidden or layered, while the editor tends to over-simplify things, hiding as much functionality as possible behind hovers and clicks. The real leader in these areas is Wix, which offers a logically organized and navigable admin panel, as well as a truly visual site editor with convenient settings overlays for each element and a host of quick links on the left side of the screen.

WINNER: Wix

The Best Website Builder for Photographers

Another common question we’re getting is about the most suitable site builder for photography professionals – the specifics of this niche dictates certain must-haves, including, foremost, image presentation and management capabilities, as well as e-commerce for licensing and appointment bookings.

We should start with a suitable theme, though; from the most popular website builders, only Weebly does not offer specialized templates for photography websites, while Squarespace includes 10+ and Wix has more than 30. While themes from other categories can also be used, of course, the existence of pre-made designs tailored specifically to photographers can be a big plus for those who wish to go online as quickly as possible and with minimum hassle.

Once you’ve chosen your template, the issue of presenting and arranging your images comes into play; this is being addressed by specialized content blocks, such as galleries and carousels. Each major website builder offers gallery and slideshow tools that help create customized blocks in no time, yet Wix is worth a mention here as the one having over 40 different kinds of image representation formats, including 3D galleries – not even counting the specialized third-party apps you can install from the Wix App Market.

Regarding additional functionality, each site builder can boast a set of e-commerce features, which might be interesting to photographers who desire to sell their work online, yet Wix, again, goes several steps further by also including a booking engine for those who’d like to enable their prospective clients to make appointments right on the web page.

Overall, all three major site builder offer decent levels of support for photographer websites, Wix seems to consistently outperform in each considered dimension – its killer combination of template variety, image management options, as well as additional capabilities is a package that’s difficult to beat.

WINNER: Wix

Best Restaurant Website Builder

By popular demand, here’s a discussion of which site builder is best suited for a foodservice/catering web presence. Apart from the usual things like ease of use, content management, and image features, there are several specialized items that a restaurant website should be able to handle; the most important are arguably the menu and the table booking engine – the former facilitates research and aligns customer expectations about the restaurant’s offer, while the latter allows increasing efficiency and securing a more stable customer flow.

Out of the largest site builders, Wix and Squarespace currently offer the above features, taking different approaches to their integration: while Squarespace has the “menu” block built directly into its Layout Engine and the “calendar” content type available with any template as a core CMS feature, Wix has specialized extensions in its App Market which perform these functions: Wix Reservations, Wix Restaurant Orders, and Wix Menus. The plugin approach allows Wix to pack more relevant niche features into each of the above items, making it more versatile and user-friendly at the same time while still allowing its use with any chosen template.

Speaking of templates, both Squarespace and Wix have pre-designed specialized themes for the foodservice industry, covering everything from coffeeshops to restaurants and bars. Squarespace’s library counts 15 of those, while Wix offers more than 40.

Many restaurants and cafes tend to offer parts of their menu or their special ingredients to the public in the form of packaged goods, which is where the e-commerce functionality comes in. While most website builders offer the possibility to set up an online shop, out of our pair of close contenders Wix has a pricing advantage.

Just like foodservice business itself, this site builder niche has some of the toughest competition, and it can be said with confidence that both Wix and Squarespace are very high on our shortlist. However, due to the more versatile set of specialized features (available through the extension store) and niche templates we will go with Wix on this one.

WINNER: Wix

Apart from these niche analyses, you can try out our handy Website Builder Choice Wizard in the beginning of this review – just answer several simple questions, and the system will magically produce a recommendation tailored to your specific preferences.

Share Your Thoughts!

Got hands-on experience with any of the mentioned website builders that you’d like to share? Still have doubts about which one to choose? Want to recommend additions and improvements to this analysis? Don’t hesitate to drop us a line in the comments section below:

16
May
2017

The Ultimate Review 2024 – a Worthy Tool or Yet Another Site Builder?

☑︎ This review was last updated in May 2024

UPDATE: we’ve added a detailed visual explanation of Webflow’s pricing plans, you can see it in the respective section below; we hope you’ll geek out as much as we did when creating it 🤓

…Alright, let’s get straight to the point: you’re probably here because you’re also wondering –

Is it really worth it? Should I even bother spending the extra time in order to learn how to use Webflow?

This in-depth review will (hopefully) help you decide. We’ve been testing and using Webflow since 2016, so we do know a thing or two about the platform.

By untangling the various components of Webflow’s offer, including Designer, CMS, Hosting, and eCommerce – we will find out whether it’s really a tool worth using, or just another site builder with some fancy bits.

In the process, we will cover the most important questions for anyone considering Webflow:

  • 📐Is Webflow user-friendly – and who’s the intended user?
  • 💰How do their pricing plans really work, really?!
  • 🔌What about compatibility with other popular technologies?
  • 🏆Should you choose Webflow over more traditional tools?

The cornerstone principle of the Webflow philosophy is “smart codelessness” – this means creating beautiful websites without ever touching the source code – while still working with clean, well-written code:

Try Webflow for Free ›

This is good news for the visual types out there, since such approach empowers designers to unleash their imagination directly onto the web, possibly even skipping the graphics suites such as Sketch or Figma.

Is this the only use case of Webflow? Does this concept actually work in practice? We’ll find out soon. But first:

Blitz: Frequently Asked Questions

Before we dive in, here’s a compilation of the most popular questions we receive about Webflow – with brief answers containing references to the relevant sections of this review:

— What is Webflow? 🤔

In essence, Webflow is an online toolkit for creating and running websites, a glorious hybrid between traditional site builders like Wix, classical content management systems like WordPress, and actually coding your website by hand.

Confused yet? The current guide has been created with the intention to fix just that! The best place to start is to look at main parts of the Webflow toolkit, including its Site Designer, CMS, and deployment/hosting.

— How much is Webflow? 💳

This one’s a doozy! In fact, it’s probably the most difficult question to answer about Webflow – so instead of using a lot of words, we’ve decided to put together a graph. You can check it out in the Pricing section using this in-text link.

In short, there are two layers of pricing in Webflow – account plans and site plans, first of which determine how many people from your team can use Webflow and for how many projects; site plans, in turn, unlock higher traffic and ecommerce capabilities.

— Is Webflow easy to use? 🙉

Well, the answer will probably not surprise you, because it’s: “once you’ve learned it, the user experience is quite fluid”. Yes, there’s a steeper learning curve than, say, with Wix or Squarespace, but the reward is a much more flexible, customizable, and powerful tool.

We will discuss this matter in much more detail in the following three sections, which deal specifically with Webflow’s core components:

Webflow Site Designer

There are three main components to Webflow’s offer: the code-less, visual web design tool, the content management system (CMS), and the hosting – the first one arguably being the flagship feature of the service. In this section, we’ll take a deeper look at the Webflow Site Designer.

What looks somewhat like a Photoshop window is actually more of a HTML/CSS automation tool, where the user is free to add, position and style elements as they please, while the underlying system automatically generates the markup and all other necessary code. The interface is rather complex and takes some time to get used to, yet it’s undeniably one of the most powerful and versatile real-time website builders in existence today.

Let’s make it clear right from the start: you won’t be able to simply draw a shape in the middle of the canvas: instead of offering a naive way of slapping together a visual of a web page, Webflow keeps it real by acknowledging that there’s always actual code behind each element, and that such code gets exponentially messy if you don’t consider the way HTML and CSS work.

In other words, to draw a square in the middle of the page you’ll need to add a new <div> element (a “container” or a “section” in Webflow terms), set its positioning to “fixed” and its top-right-bottom-left positions to 0 – this is real life, kids!

Yes, the Webflow builder panel consists of actual CSS properties, so in order to fully appreciate the power of this tool, one should be familiar with HTML/CSS. However, if you mark the “I don’t write code” option during the sign-up process, Webflow will automate a significant part of the builder for you, for example handling the media breakpoints to ensure responsive behaviour (i.e. generate tablet- and mobile-friendly code for your page on the fly).

Working with media breakpoints and device views in Webflow

Needless to say, it wouldn’t be possible to cram every single CSS feature into the Designer – which is why Webflow simplifies most less-useful or less-frequently used parameters and makes the wording more user-friendly: from providing pre-defined options, to introducing toggles that show or hide “advanced” features and more granular control.

It is possible to start from a blank canvas or use any of the pre-made templates, some of which even come with ready-made site structure. There are over 30 free and 100 premium templates in the Webflow library, with the key difference between these two groups being the level of detail as well as included assets like styles and images. The paid themes range from $40 to $80 and are the creations of the Webflow community, i.e. professional designers and developers outside of the company.

For the reasons outlined above, starting from a blank canvas is mostly recommended for those who already possess at least some practical experience with HTML/CSS and are comfortable arranging the building blocks from scratch. If you haven’t coded before and also if you have but want to familiarize yourself with Webflow’s toolkit first, tweaking a pre-made template is highly advisable.

Apart from static content, animations are an essential part of the Webflow design tool, adding an extra layer of interactivity to the resulting websites which can be daunting to achieve and test using more traditional tools. Firstly, you can add transitions and transforms directly to any element using the same right sidebar with element properties – which is a real time-saver as most of such CSS rules are tedious to write by hand and many developers use one or another auto-generation tool in any case.

The real fun stuff starts in the “Interactions” panel, accessible from the tab with the lightning icon at the top of the right sidebar: there you can add animations based on the page’s state or the user’s interactions with a specific element (e.g. hover, click). Essentially it’s a Javascript automation tool, which can potentially replace 80-90% of your ordinary JS file for a standard website – menu animations, element fly-in-outs, hover states, and what not.

Take Webflow Site Designer for a Spin ›

The remaining sidebar tabs contain the Navigator (a HTML tree) and the Style Manager (CSS hierarchy) which are useful as overview tools but add less value compared with the panels discussed above.

Overall, the Webflow team have managed to create a very comprehensive coding automation toolkit which works as a semi-visual editor; the degree to which it simplifies the process of creating attractive web pages with clean code will be appreciated by anyone who has ever tried writing their website by hand.

Content Management System

Apart from on-site editing, i.e. the possibility to change any text or media right on the page you’re designing, Webflow CMS allows manually defining custom content types (blog posts, projects, team members, etc) with fully customizable fields, which can greatly improve the life of those who manage larger web projects with complex structures.

This comes in the form of CMS Collections, accessible from the tab with a stack icon on the left side of the main editor view. After creating a collection, which is essentially a specific content type, you can set the fields and add items – to be used both as individual pages or as lists / grids on existing static pages; for example, you can add a “team members” collection to create a page showing your company’s people’s photos, names, descriptions, social links, etc.

Apart from the CMS back-end, there’s also the Webflow Editor, which allows adding new content of the existing type on a published website – useful both to the creators of the website and their collaborators, as well as to their clients. What this means is that you get a fully functional website with both editable static pages and dynamic content like blog posts, portfolio projects, etc, without the need to install any plugins.

The fact that it offers multiple content types, of which blog posts are just one option, means that Webflow eats WordPress and other open-source systems like Drupal for breakfast when it comes to CMS flexibility. The flip side – it will take some time to get used to; however, the Webflow University (which we’ll discuss in detail below) can help here.

One thing that doesn’t seem to be a part of Webflow’s CMS system from the get-go is localization – creating a multilingual website on Webflow used to be a real headache before third-party extensions (most notably Weglot) came along.

One might get a feeling that Webflow strives to make the content management part as seamless as possible, in order not to steal the spotlight from the Site Designer – which is not a bad thing, considering its primary value proposition. In any case, Webflow’s CMS is still much more flexible and diverse than that of WordPress core or popular site builders like Wix.

Deployment and Hosting

Publishing your creation to a live URL is a breeze in Webflow: clicking the corresponding button on top of the Designer screen will call a drop-down of available deployment options, which include a subdomain of the webflow.com domain (typically recommended for testing purposes) and a custom domain. With the next click you can publish to any or both of these locations without having to worry about the details – everything else is processed in the background, automatically.

Webflow’s hosting services follow its “start building for free, add hosting to go live” principle: you can design a prototype (up to 2 static pages) in their staging environment, i.e. on a webflow.com subdomain, and then connect your own domain name (not included) by upgrading to one of Webflow’s hosting plans. The latter range from the basic, $12 per month* option with a 25k monthly visit limit, to the $36 per month* business version with more features and a 1m monthly visit limit (* with annual billing).

In addition to being an integrated solution, there are several advantages to Webflow Hosting that can really make a difference for your website’s performance and your webmaster workflow:

  • Since it is based on the distributed infrastructures on some of the largest cloud providers in the world (Amazon Cloudfront and Fastly), it can scale seamlessly with your traffic demands, removing the need to manually upgrade your hosting server
  • A built-in content delivery network (CDN) at no additional cost ensures that your website gets served from the node that is geographically close to your visitors, no matter where they are located
  • The advanced distributed infrastructure means fast loading times and close to 100% uptime for your website, regardless of traffic spikes or even malicious attacks
  • A built-in SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate at no additional cost ensures that your website complies with the modern security standards out of the box – no setup or prolongation required

Considering the above factors, Webflow Hosting is a scalable, ready-to-use hosting with a built-in CDN, priced on par with the best self-managed solutions like Digital Ocean as well as traditional website builders. Its value-for-money is a great complement to the other capabilities of this online suite, making it a full-cycle solution for web creators and potentially letting you save hundreds of dollars per year on CDN, SSL and other extras which otherwise need to be purchased separately.

Webflow eCommerce

One of the most recent (and most awaited) additions to Webflow is the eCommerce version, which brings full online shopping capabilities to the toolkit.

It comes with a new set of pricing plans offering all the essentials for projects which sell things online – including product and inventory management, custom carts, checkout, and other endpoints, full control over customer emails, as well as self-hosted checkout.

The main value proposition of Webflow eCommerce is the possibility to fully customize your online store’s every detail, from product grids and payment pages to how the purchase notifications look like.

This can be contrasted with the current state of affairs in the e-commerce website building software like Shopify, Wix, or even the WooCommerce + WordPress bundle, where one needs to exert considerable effort (and be skilled in coding) to achieve such granular control.

Other features that we can look forward to at the moment are coupon/discount capabilities as well as subscriptions and digital/downloadable products.

In the longer term, Webflow team is planning to add a host of more advanced features to its eCommerce plans, including abandoned order recovery, multi-currency support, Amazon integration, as well as customer accounts.

As you can see, the current release, although technically not beta anymore, is still a work in progress – so if you’re looking to create a complicated online store, Webflow eCommerce is still a bit too basic for such advanced applications.

If all of the promised features get implemented though, Webflow eCommerce will become a full-fledged competitor to such specialized solutions as Shopify and Instacart, with the whole shebang of Webflow builder, CMS, and hosting to back it up.

Webflow Pricing

With regards to paid plans, it is important to understand that Webflow has two different systems of premium tiers: one for your overall account and one for each individual project (i.e. websites you build).

When you begin working with Webflow, the latter will probably be more important and topical, so we’ll start with project-level pricing, which is basically cloud hosting for each of your websites:

First, there’s the forever-free option which lets you use all the features of Webflow and deploy on a name.webflow.com subdomain. If you want to use a normal domain (which you probably will, eventually), several paid options are available:

The Basic plan will cost you $12 per month (annual billing), unlocking automatic SSL, CDN, as well as custom domain deployment which is easy to set up and even easier to use. The CMS plan, at $16 per month (billed annually) will allow you to deploy not only static pages but also items created by the content management system (blog posts, projects, etc). The Business plan, priced at $36/mo with yearly billing, is mostly a scaled-up version of the previous plan, suitable for larger websites with significant traffic.

Then there are account plans, which set the maximum allowed number of active projects and other professional parameters: while the free Starter account plan allows you to work on 2 websites and use free staging, the Lite plan (at $16 per month with annual billing) includes 10 projects and code export tools, letting you use the Webflow-generated code on any other platform of your choice. The Pro plan ($35 per month, billed annually) adds white labelling and site password protection options – suitable for those who regularly work on full-fledged projects for third-party clients.

To help make sense of all this, we’ve created this diagram explaining all of Webflow’s pricing plans in a more visual way:

Webflow pricing

When you visit Webflow’s Pricing page, it can get a bit confusing because of the way they group plans based on whether you need one site, many sites, or work as part of a team – essentially, the “I just need one site” option will offer you pure hosting (i.e. the per-project plans we discussed earlier) while the other two will collectively offer a Lite plan for $16 and a Pro/Team plan for $35, as well as a Custom plan for large teams. This still adds up to just two specific account-level plans described above, apart from the free and the custom version.

Any account plan can be combined with any hosting plan, including free ones, e.g. you can be on a Starter account plan and only pay for deploying a particular project on your custom domain – or use a paid account plan and free hosting for rapid prototyping.

You can choose between monthly and annual billing cycles for all premium plans, the latter coming at a 20% discount, which can add up to significant savings over time, especially for the more advanced plans.

Collaboration Options

We’ve mentioned the team plan briefly in the previous section when we talked about pricing, but given the target users of Webflow it just as well deserves its own discussion.

If you work together with at least one more other person on web projects, it is definitely worth considering the Webflow Teams plan. It is essentially the same as the Pro individual plan, but it also adds more collaboration modes and features for the $35 per person per month you pay (annual billing).

While the visual Designer environment does not currently support real-time collaboration, all parts of your Webflow projects can be accessed and edited by any team member at any time. This is especially useful for cross-functional teams, where e.g. one person is responsible for design and another for the content.

Apart from shared access and assets, Webflow Teams also adds a specialized team dashboard which brings all your collaboration aspects into a single, unified UI. Larger teams can also contact Webflow for custom pricing offers for the Enterprise plan, as well as discounts for the hosting upgrades.

Overall, all of the above implies that Webflow has carefully considered the needs of not only its freelance/individual clients, but also the broader group of small/medium teams and agencies – a nice little cherry on top of its already magnificent cake of features and possibilities.

Pros and Cons of Webflow

To recap, let’s list the advantages and the not-so-strong sides of Webflow’s user offer, as compared to other similar website builders and popular content management systems:

  • Pro-grade real-time web design tool with built-in mobile friendliness that seamlessly generates clean, exportable code as you create
  • Create your design by editing one of dozens of free and premium templates, working with a wireframe or starting from blank canvas
  • Advanced CSS and JS managers allowing for both granular control over styles and animations as well as easy site-wide management
  • Fast and easy two-click deployment to a staging environment and/or your custom domain right from the Webflow Designer
  • An integrated CMS with a flexible custom content type constructor which can be used to create any type of static or dynamic content, from pages and blog posts to projects, reviews, team members, etc
  • Advanced distributed hosting powered by the big names such as Amazon Cloudfront ensures maximum page load speed and minimum downtime for your visitors
  • Integrated content delivery network (CDN) at no additional cost ensures both speed and security for your website as the content gets served from the optimal geographic locations and benefits from the added security of the CDN layer
  • Built-in SSL certificate at no additional cost (usual expenses $50-$100 per year) to ensure compliance with current web safety standards out of the box
  • A rather steep learning curve expected from those who have never dealt with web development previously
  • Limited multilingual capabilities out of the box (easily fixed with extensions such as Weglot, though)
  • Convoluted pricing structure with separate schemes for account and site level – takes time to comprehend
  • The website builder interface is still not 100% compatible with Firefox and Edge. Seriously, Webflow, that’s almost a quarter of all installed browsers.. get your act together!
  • With the Webflow’s e-commerce kit still in active development, online shop capabilities require additional polish and minor improvements to be called an outstanding feature

Webflow vs WordPress

Before comparing Webflow with the most popular content management system in the world, we first need to make an important distinction: there are two separate “types” of WordPress available: the free, open-source, self-hosted, community-driven wordpress.org, and the paid version on wordpress.com with integrated hosting and dedicated support. While they both use pretty much the same codebase, there are significant differences in most other areas. For the purposes of this review, we will consider wordpress.org since it is the (by far) more popular WP flavour.

Despite all the differences, at their core both Webflow and WordPress have been created for making websites – however, each approaches this task with a different philosophy. While they both feature a content management system and a rendering engine (without which it is impossible to create a website at all), WordPress goes the way of modularity, while Webflow aims at making the entire experience as integrated and seamless and possible.

What this means is that WordPress is famous for offering thousands of free and premium plugins as well as visual templates (themes), making it almost infinitely flexible and customizable. The flip side of this abundance, though, is the problem of choice as well as a high proportion of poorly made and insecure extensions.

Webflow, on the other hand, is not as versatile, but can help achieve almost any conceivable setup and feature by providing built-in capabilities. Some of them are even beyond what wordpress.org can offer, e.g. integrated hosting with custom domains and two-click deployment, built-in SSL certificates for added security, or a fast CDN. Compared to a WordPress + third party hosting bundle, this is a much smoother experience.

Ease of use Medium/hard Easy/medium
Extensions Dozens Thousands
Integrated hosting Yes No
Automatic deployment Yes No
Custom content types Yes Via plugins
Content builder Powerful built-in Content Designer Free built-in Gutenberg or paid plugins
eCommerce options Still being actively built Abundant, via e.g. free WooCommerce
Community Relatively small Huge but dispersed
Support Dedicated in-house team By fellow enthusiasts

Where Webflow really shines, though, is the visual builder (Webflow Designer) – there’s little point to even trying to describe how vastly superior it is to any WP content builder plugin (such as WPBakery’s Visual Composer available from ThemeForest), let alone the core WordPress capabilities via the ambiguously-successful Gutenberg.

Another important advantage of Webflow is support and education: being run by a dedicated company rather than a loose community of volunteers, it can afford to offer a customer support guarantee WordPress will never be able to provide, by definition. Webflow’s knowledge base is consistent and easy to digest, as opposed to a rather patchy one in case of wordpress.org.

Overall, while WordPress might be a more advisable idea for complete beginners, Webflow looks like a more well-rounded solution for anyone who is serious about creating websites and values smooth workflows and seamless experiences.

The all-in-one structure lets you forget about the unnecessary details and focus on what really matters – designing and developing beautiful, solid web pages.

Alright… that was lot of information to take in! So what’s the bottom line? In other words –

Should I Use Webflow?

After analyzing its various features, one can conclude that Webflow strives to be an advanced integrated toolkit for web creators who value both flexibility and efficiency.

The combined power of its Designer, Editor/CMS, Hosting, and (now also) eCommerce offers, is on par with the best custom web development setups, while requiring much less upfront costs and setup time as well as ensuring constant support and issue resolution.

Try Webflow for Free ›

In a product landscape dominated by simplistic site builders and clunky open-source CMS’es, Webflow is a hybrid solution especially well-suited for those who are prepared to spend a certain amount of time getting used to its powerful features for the sake of a unique mix of capability and automation.

Your Opinion?

Thank you for taking your time to read our analysis of Webflow! Have you found this review helpful? Got something to add or disagree with certain points? Let’s discuss in the comment section below:

13
Dec
2018

Recensione (1&1) nel 2024: Vale la pena spendere i tuoi soldi nel più grande hosting europeo?

Ionos? No, non è una remota isola greca. Si tratta del nuovo nome di 1&1 (chiamato anche 1and1), uno dei più grandi hosting provider del mondo. Mentre l’azienda festeggia il suo trentesimo compleanno con un /leggero/ simpatico rebranding, noi ci siamo presi tempo ad andare ad esaminare attentamente 1&1 Ionos dal punto di vista del cliente e rispondere alla seguente domanda:

Dovresti scegliere Ionos per ospitare i tuoi siti web, domini e altre risorse online o ci sono alternative migliori?

A parte questo, leggendo fino in fondo questa recensione otterrai un’immagine più chiara della gamma di prodotti offerta da 1&1, consentendoti di fare una scelta migliore in caso decidessi di diventare un loro cliente. In altre parole, imparerai

  • 👍Quale è il miglio piano di hosting per i nuovi clienti Ionos?
  • 🔧Quali sono gli extra che vale la pena usare ae quali no?
  • 💳Ci sono degli costi nascosti ai quali devo fare attenzione?
  • 💬Quale è la qualità del supporto e dei consulenti personali?

Sveleremo insieme anche alcuni dei “misteri” che magari ti avranno lasciato perplesso dopo aver visitato il sito web di Ionos. Per esempio, quale è la differenza tra “WordPress Hosting” e un semplice “Web Hosting” nel quale possiamo anche installare WordPress?

Un’altra cosa prima di addentrarci: pensiamo che sia giusto informarti che alcuni dei link (non necessariamente quelli verso Ionos) presenti in questo articolo sono dei link di affiliazione, il che significa che potremmo ottenere una commissione quando una persona fa clic su tale link e fa poi un acquisto. Tuttavia, la buona notizia è che –

– a) questo non aumenta il prezzo da pagare su Ionos o altrove (al contrario, grazie alla partnership possiamo offrire prezzi migliori ai nostri visitatori), e b) più che a facili guadagni teniamo alla nostra reputazione guadagnata nel tempo, dunque non ti andremo a consigliare qualcosa di scadente solo per guadagnare qualche centesimo in più.

Bene, ora che questo è stato chiarito, facciamo un breve viaggio con la macchina del tempo per capire le origini e il background di 1&1 Ionos –

Dalle pubblicità all’Hosting: Il viaggio nei trent’anni di 1&1

Con oltre tre decenni alle spalle, Ionos può essere considerato un vero mastodonte del settore dei servizi online. Ammettiamolo, anche solo sopravvivere così a lungo in un mercato di tale rapida evoluzione è un risultato di per sé, per non parlare dell’essere diventato uno tra i più rinomati fornitori globali.

Dai suoi umili inizi nel 1988 come venditore di annunci online chiamato 1&1 EDV Marketing, la società ha fatto nel corso degli anni molti cambi strategici, espandendosi infine sull’arena internazionale e concentrandosi quasi interamente sui servizi di web hosting.

Solo esaminando brevemente il sito web ufficiale, ci si può fare una buona idea sulle origini dell’azienda: fedele alle sue radici tedesche, 1&1 Ionos presta molta attenzione a trasparenza, a privacy e alla qualità. Difficilmente troverai note a piè di pagina o scritte in piccolo: tutti i dettagli sono chiaramente visibili dove ci si aspetterebbe di trovare tale informazione.

Vista l’ampia gamma di servizi disponibili potresti sentirti un pò disorientato: troviamo web hosting, cloud hosting, hosting dedicato, “online starter kits”, website builders, HiDrive storage, Kubernetes as a Service… cioé cosa ?!

Per non mandarti completamente in stato confusionale con tutta questa marea di opzioni, facciamo un passo indietro e concentriamoci sulle principali categorie di utenti che ci interessano: un privato, una piccola-media impresa ed uno sviluppatore/libero professionista. Nei prossimi capitoli di questa guida discuteremo quali dei servizi di Ionos sono più adatti per ciascuna di queste categorie.

Avrai notato che non abbiamo incluso le grandi aziende tra le nostre categorie di utenti, e le abbiamo tralasciate intenzionalmente. Se sei una grande azienda affermata, probabilmente sai già quello che vuoi o puoi permetterti di assumere costosi consulenti che diranno al posto tuo quello che vuoi. In ogni caso, discutere di questa categoria non aggiungerebbe alcun valore a questa umile recensione :)

Scegliere un piano hosting di Ionos, basandoti sulle tue esigenze

Se stai creando un sito web per te stesso (tuo zio, un amico, ecc.) oppure per la tua azienda di piccola-media dimensione, ci sono fondamentalmente due gamme di prodotti per te su 1and1 Ionos: lo standard hosting condiviso (che loro chiamano semplicemente “Web Hosting”) oppure l’hosting WordPress.

Questa differenza ti potrebbe sembrare un pò tirata, perché è altrettanto facile installare WordPress (chiamato in seguito anche WP) sul loro hosting condiviso. C’è persino un sistema
automatizzato incluso in qualsiasi pacchetto di Web Hosting che fa proprio questo.

Per aiutarti (e per aiutare noi stessi) a capirlo, abbiamo creato una tabella con le differenze più importanti tra le linee di prodotto Web Hosting e WordPress Hosting su Ionos:

Web Hosting WordPress Hosting
Archiviazione file HDD (lento) SSD (veloce)
Numero di siti Nessuna restrizione Limitati per account
Aggiornamenti WP automatici Devi impostarli da solo Inclusi
Installazione WP automatica Di base Avanzata
Prezzo dopo il periodo promozionale di 12 mesi Leggermente meno costoso Leggermente più costoso

Vale la pena sottolineare che queste sono le uniche reali differenze che abbiamo identificato. In altre parole, non abbiamo incluso nessuna delle funzionalità che sono menzionate come vantaggi nella loro pagina che promuove il WP hosting, ma che in realtà sono disponibili anche per il pacchetto Web Hosting.

Puoi impostare aggiornamenti automatici tu stesso? Ma certo. Hai davvero bisogno di un installatore automatico avanzato che ti aggiunge subito temi e plugin aggiuntivi? Probabilmente no. Ma c’è una cosa nel pacchetto WordPress Hosting che tu vuoi però!

L’SSD (Solid State Drive) è una tipologia di archiviazione relativamente nuova che funziona come una flash memory stick piuttosto che il disco di alluminio che ruota nei tradizionali dischi fissi (HDD). Grazie al suo design, l’SSD è molto, ma molto più veloce di un HDD e questa differenza è di enorme importanza per la velocità del tuo sito internet.

Per essere chiari, non c’è alcun particolare vantaggio nell’usare un SSD specificatamente per WordPress, come potrebbe farti credere il sito di Ionos, ma aiuta a rendere il sito internet più veloce, indipendentemente dal sistema di gestione dei contenuti (CMS) che stai utilizzando.

Per riassumere, se hai bisogno di uno o due siti e hai già considerato di utilizzare WP, allora scegli il WordPress Hosting, selezionando il pacchetto in base al numero di siti web che necessiti. Qui vale la pena avere il vantaggio di velocità dato dall’SSD.

Se hai intenzione di utilizzare un altro sistema per il tuo sito o se devi metter su dozzine di siti WP in un singolo account, allora i pacchetti Web Hosting potrebbero essere una migliore alternativa.

Ora ti verrà da chiedermi qualcosa sul loro website builder (costruttore sito web), sembra più facile che non imparare ad usare un sistema di content management. Ti basta scegliere un template e semplicemente sostituire poi il testo con il tuo, giusto?

Sebbene offra in qualche modo un sistema più veloce per completare un sito, se ci pensi, ci sono alcuni elementi che lo rendono meno attraente di quel che sembra:

  • Se usi WordPress, la tua scelta sarà molto, ma molto più ampia sotto ogni aspetto. Sebbene il numero di template (oltre 400) offerti nel Ionos Site Builder è di certo impressionante, molti di essi hanno un aspetto molto datato in termini di design e di funzionalità, almeno rispetto alla maggior parte degli attuali temi di WordPress (anche quelli gratuiti come Bento, per non parlare dei temi iper-avanzati a pagamento come Avada).
  • Come sopra, la scelta di funzionalità ed extra nel Site Builder è nulla a confronto con gli oltre 50.000 plugin disponibili per WP. E ho contato solo quelli gratuiti! Poiché lo sviluppo di un website builder non è l’obiettivo principale di Ionos (e con molta probabilità non lo sarà mai), questo prodotto non è in grado di competere con piattaforme specializzate come WordPress o Wix in termini di potenza e flessibilità.
  • Se stai usando il Ionos Site Builder, sarai costretto a lavorare attraverso questa piattaforma per tutto il tempo di vita del tuo sito, migrando poi ad un altro sistema di content manager, magari anche uno open-source. Questo significa che se Ionos decide di cambiare qualcosa in futuro o di aumentare i prezzi, tu non avrai altre alternative se non quella di ricreare completamente il tuo sito da zero da qualche altra parte.

A differenza di altri fornitori, come ad esempio Hostinger, Ionos non permette di provare il website builder prima di pagarlo, quindi abbi fiducia nelle mie parole su questo: non ne vale la pena. Prendendo in considerazione gli argomenti appena detti, non vedo proprio perché qualcuno dovrebbe scegliere il site builder proprietario di Ionos, al posto di un WordPress completo.

Va bene, va bene, ma che mi dici del Kit online di base? Beh, in sostanza si tratta di una versione semplificata del website builder che cerca di fare ulteriori vendite ad ignari clienti. Dopo tutto quello che ti ho detto sopra, sarebbe incoerente ora raccomandare questo.

Questa è stata una lunga spiegazione, sono d’accordo. E non è ancora finita, perché abbiamo promesso di guardare ai prodotti Ionos per gli utenti più esperti! Quindi striracchiati, prendi magari un caffè, e torna per la seconda parte. Oppure se hai già visto tutto quello che ti serviva, puoi usare questo link in pagina per scorrere già alla prossima sezione, che riassume di pro e contro di 1&1 Ionos.
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Se siti web ed applicazioni per internet sono quello che fai di mestiere (sei un libero professionista, uno sviluppatore, un imprenditore online, ecc.), potresti aver bisogno di qualcosa di più potente e personalizzabile del semplice hosting condiviso. Questo significa che hai la scelta tra queste offerte di Ionos:

  • Server Virtuali (VPS), o vServer, offre risorse dedicate e accesso di root al server, così da poter configurare ogni dettaglio esattamente come lo desideri. Qui è dove brillando tutti i vantaggi di Ionos nell’essere un gigante internazionale: una infrastruttura solida con sicurezza integrata, storage SSD al 100%, così come un supporto personalizzato 24/7, rendono questo pacchetto davvero interessante. Come bonus aggiuntivo avrai prestazioni ottimali potendo scegliere tra data center in Europa, Inghilterra e Stati Uniti.
  • Cloud Hosting lo si trova in diversi formati in Ionos, il che può essere piuttosto confuso fino a che non ti accorgi che le offerte Cloud Hosting sono esattamente le stesse di IONOS Cloud, incluso un dominio gratuito. In ogni caso, le specifiche sembrano buone, fino a che non inizi a confrontarle con quelle offerte da aziende che sono specializzate in cloud hosting: piani molto simili costano molto meno su Digital Ocean, che ha più data center e probabilmente molte più funzionalità per gli utenti professionali.
  • Server dedicato, adatto per i progetti più esigenti, è un altro esempio di prodotto che utilizza i competitivi vantaggi e la grandezza di Ionos in misura più ampia. Se sei sicuro di aver bisogno di un hardware dedicato, non c’è ragione per non scegliere uno dei pacchetti di Ionos (magari se non sei proprio sicuro, diciamo che allora non lo sei e un VPS potrebbe essere la soluzione più adatta per te).

Riassumiamo quello che abbiamo discusso sopra: se hai bisogno di un hosting più potente e flessibile, prendi il Ionos vServer, che ha offerte che sfruttano appieno l’infrastruttura all’avanguardia e una dimensione internazionale.

Per ribadire, gli altri tipi di hosting valgono la pena di essere considerati solo se sai specificatamente che hai bisogno di cloud o di dedicato.

Rispetto al primo, raccomanderei di andare dal leader del settore piuttosto che con Ionos, perché il cloud hosting è il cavallo di battaglia di Digital Ocean e investono chiaramente molto più tempo e denaro per migliorarlo continuamente. Per lo stesso motivo sono in grado di offrire una qualità di cloud superiore ma a prezzi inferiori.

Per quanto riguarda l’hosting dedicato, Ionos è una scelta perfetta, considerando la loro attenzione su hardware di qualità e sicurezza.

Bene, quello che sta dietro alla loro gamma di prodotti sembra più chiaro. Nel prossimo capitolo condivideremo le nostre impressioni generali nell’uso di 1&1 Ionos, prima di concludere con i pro e contro ed anche con un verdetto finale.

Le nostre impressioni su Ionos

Oltre alle caratteristiche e alle specifiche, l’assistenza clienti è una parte vitale di ogni offerta di hosting. Indipendentemente dal tuo livello di competenza, prima o poi avrai delle domande, sia che si tratti di stupidi errori da principiante o di qualcosa che non funziona da loro.

Da quello che abbiamo visto, Ionos prende sul serio il supporto. A giudicare dal loro passaggio verso un concetto di consulente personale, un rappresentante dell’azienda che funge da principale punto di contatto con l’hosting, che conosce la tua situazione in modo più dettagliato di un addetto al supporto.

Questo consulente personale funziona così: dopo che hai creato un account su Ionos, puoi “attivare” questa funzione dal tuo pannello di amministrazione hosting. Dopo aver fatto clic sul pulsante di attivazione, vedrai il nome e il numero di telefono diretto del tuo contatto diretto su Ionos.

Si potrebbe pensare che un’azienda con diversi milioni di clienti non sia fisicamente in grado di metterlo in atto, ma facciamo un rapido calcolo:

Ionos afferma di avere oltre 8 milioni di clienti e 7000 dipendenti in totale. Anche se solo la metà di questi lavora al supporto al cliente, e assumiamo che ogni cliente fa 3 richieste di supporto all’anno, per ogni anno, arriviamo ad una stima di 25 richieste di supporto per specialista al giorno, o 3 all’ora, che sono una quantità abbastanza gestibile.

Detto questo, ovviamente non è ancora possibile garantirti che parlerai sempre con il tuo manager quando contatti Ionos (senza considerare che i server possono anche avere problemi di sera o di notte, ad esempio), ma ad ogni modo è un bel tocco e un lodevole tentativo, in particolare in un settore che sembra per lo più andare nella direzione contraria quando si tratta di assistenza ai clienti (vale a dire che cercano di sbarazzarsi dell’interazione umana il più possibile).

D’altra parte, non c’è ancora nessuna opzione di live chat su Ionos come ad esempio su GoDaddy. Questo è un peccato perché poter scrivere in tempo reale ad una persona, a volte può essere un vero risparmio di tempo. Pensiamo che una chat (o un sistema ibrido di chat-email) sarebbe una aggiunta gradita alla già forte assistenza di Ionos, anche se il più delle volte non sarà possibile chattare direttamente con il tuo consulente personale.

Oltre al supporto diretto, Ionos si è assicurato che il maggior numero possibile di domande frequenti trovino risposta delle guide scritte. Infatti l’hanno preso così sul serio da aver creato per questo tre guide separate: la Community, che è una raccolta di articoli relativi all’hosting in generale, la Startup Guide specificatamente creata per le nuove imprese, ed infine anche una Digital Guide che copre un’ampia gamma di argomenti che vanno dalla promozione del tuo sito web alle leggi e ai regolamenti digitali.

Sono davvero utili? Assolutamente. Perché Ionos abbia avuto bisogno di creare tre guide informative separate invece di un unico grande archivio di informazioni utili? Non riesco proprio a capirlo.

Dal momento che non è la prima volta che osserviamo qualcosa del genere (ricordate la moltitudine di site builders riproposti ed il cloud hosting?), forse è proprio quello che Ionos ama fare. Gonfiarsi come un piccione alfa-maschio per sembrare grande e serio.

Anche se è una pulsione assolutamente ragionevole per una multinazionale con milioni di clienti (e anche molti degli altri grandi provider di hosting lo fanno, ovviamente), sento che di questi tempi sia trendy concentrarsi sull’essere più semplici e snelli. Ma è solo un’opinione personale.

Ma sto divagando!

Avrai notato che Ionos ha anche un app mobile che permette di gestire il tuo account di hosting da qualsiasi dispositivo Android o iOS:

Ed è un’app decente, da qualsiasi punto di vista. Puoi usarla per verificare che tutto vada bene con il tuo server, chiedere supporto, visualizzare fatture, modificare i dettagli del tuo account e persino ricevere consigli automatici per migliorare il tuo sito web.

Detto questo, non sembra ancora una componente essenziale, voglio dire, se la gestione di un sito web non è la tua occupazione principale, non utilizzerai spesso il pannello di hosting in nessun modo. Se, d’altra parte, la maggior parte del tuo lavoro ruota attorno ai siti web, sei già online la maggior parte del tuo tempo dal tuo dispositivo principale.

O forse sono solo io che sono di vecchia scuola, chi lo sa. Ad ogni modo, una app per il pannello di hosting non è qualcosa che installerei nel mio telefono, perché mi è perfettamente sufficiente il pannello di hosting online.

I pro e contro di 1&1 Ionos

Bene, ora che abbiamo esaminato Ionos da varie prospettive, è tempo di riassumere i suoi vantaggi e i suoi punti deboli. Non menzioneremo le cose ovvie e ci concentreremo solo sulle reali differenze rispetto ad altri hosting provider:

  • Hardware all’avanguardia: oltre 90.000 potenti server in 10 data center in Europa e negli Stati Uniti. Installati e gestiti da Ionos, nessun outsourcing.
  • Elevati standard di sicurezza su entrambi i livelli di hardware e di software. Tutti i data center Europei di 1&1 Ionos hanno i certificati ISO 27001:2013.
  • Uptime del tuo sito web che sfiora il 100% grazie all’architettura georidondante ed alte velocità grazie ai data center con 360 Gbit/s di connettività.
  • Sistema di ridimensionamento flessibile per le prestazioni del server: è possibile aggiungere più potenza di elaborazione o più memoria in un clic e pagare giornalmente. Se poi vedi che che le risorse extra non sono più necessarie, anche un downgrade è sorprendentemente facile.
  • In questo momento offrono alcuni dei migliori pacchetti di hosting WordPress, con archiviazione dei file su veloci SSD, che puoi ottenere sul web.
  • Ogni cliente Ionos ha un assistente personale per rispondere a domande e problemi. Con la qualità del supporto che potrebbe essere migliorata ancora un pò, questo è sicuramente un approccio positivo per un grande fornitore internazionale di hosting.
  • Un certificato SSL (Secure Socket Layer) incluso in ogni piano di hosting, che consente di rendere il sito web più sicuro per i visitatori crittografando il traffico. I siti con SSL utilizzano https:// davanti ai loro indirizzi e visualizzano un amichevole lucchetto verde nella barra degli indirizzi del browser.
  • Un CDN (Content Delivery Network) integrato con alcuni piani di hosting: il tuo sito web viene automaticamente distribuito tra diversi data center in diverse parti del mondo, massimizzando così la velocità di caricamento della pagina indipendentemente da dove si trovano fisicamente i tuoi visitatori.
  • Anche se il loro site builder sembra più moderno di altri offerti da altre società di hosting, è ancora molto indietro rispetto anche ai content builder gratuiti per WordPress o altri popolari site engines.
  • Il pannello di controllo hosting personalizzato di Ionos appare pulito, pratico e funziona abbastanza bene, ma non è cPanel o Plesk, quindi se hai già avuto a che fare con i più popolare pannelli amministrativi di hosting, dovrai abituarti ad usarne uno completamente nuovo.
  • Il processo di creazione di un nuovo account potrebbe essere reso più agevole, in particolare il modulo dei dettagli personali costituito principalmente da campi di testo in formato libero come per il codice postale e l’indirizzo che vengono convalidati solo dopo aver inviato il modulo.
  • Una chat in tempo reale potrebbe probabilmente essere una aggiunta gradita alle opzioni di supporto, anche se il più delle volte non potresti parlare con tuo consulente personale.
  • La gamma di prodotti al momento sembra gonfiata, con alcune offerte quasi identiche rielaborate come prodotti diversi, ad esempio il Website Builder per il Website Starter Kit o il Cloud Hosting per il Ionos Cloud.

Wow, quanto da digerire! Quindi qual è il morale della favola? L’hosting con 30 anni alle spalle è ancora in prima linea o è meglio che vai a spendere i tuoi soldi da un altra parte?

Il nostro verdetto su Ionos + opinioni degli utenti

Come avrai notato, non abbiamo ancora provato a valutare 1&1 Ionos nel suo insieme. Questa è stata una scelta consapevole: quando un’azienda diventa così grande, inevitabilmente ci saranno dei prodotti che vanno davvero forte, così come altre offerte che sono pensate solo per riempire i buchi nel ventaglio dei prodotti.

Quindi potremmo naturalmente dire che Ionos è un gigante internazionale di tutto rispetto nell’hosting, con un’infrastruttura ed un supporto di prim’ordine, che probabilmente continuerà ad offrire servizi affidabili per altri 30 anni (e probabilmente altri 30)…

… ma questa caratteristica superficiale, anche se vera, non potrà aiutarti molto nel decidere se spendere i tuoi soldi su Ionos o portarli altrove. Perché ognuno è interessato a risolvere un suo problema specifico, da qui la necessità di guardare con più attenzione.

Con questo in mente, ecco i principali aspetti riassunti dalla più dettagliata analisi fatta sopra:

  • Se vuoi creare un sito web relativamente semplice (1-50 pagine) per un uso personale o come piccola-media impresa, la loro offerta di WordPress Hosting è la soluzione migliore, con l’archiviazione veloce su SSD e altre ottimizzazioni che possono significare una maggiore velocità di caricamento e quindi visitatori più soddisfatti.
  • Se il tuo lavoro è strettamente connesso con siti web e app web (ad esempio sei un freelancer o parte di un team di sviluppatori), scegli uno dei pacchetti Ionos vServer VPS. Questi riescono a utilizzare tutti i punti forti di questo hosting provider multinazionale e ben capitalizzato.
  • La pletora di servizi cloud di Ionos sembra più un tentativo di recupero da parte loro che un prodotto di punta, quindi potresti invece considerare l’hosting di Digital Ocean. Almeno per ora, DO è molto più avanti in termini di funzionalità e rapporto qualità-prezzo.

Ancora perplesso? Non sei sicuro se uno dei prodotti Ionos sia adatto al tuo progetto? Sai cosa fare! Scorri verso il basso fino alla sezione commenti sottostante e dicci cosa ti dà fastidio. Le opinioni personali e le esperienze di vita reale con Ionos sono ovviamente le benvenute. Discutiamone!

07
Dec
2018

(1&1) Expertenbewertung 2024: Ist Europas Größter Hosting-Anbieter Ihr Geld Wert?

Ionos? Nein, das ist keine abgelegene griechische Insel – es ist der neue Name von 1&1 (auch 1und1 geschrieben), einem der größten Hosting-Anbieter weltweit. Während das Unternehmen seinen 30. Geburtstag mit einem /leicht/ flippigen Rebranding feiert, nehmen wir uns die Zeit, um 1&1 Ionos aus der Kundenperspektive zu begutachten und folgende Frage zu beantworten:

Sollten Sie Ionos wählen, um Ihre Website, Domains und anderen Online Ressourcen zu hosten – oder gibt es bessere Alternativen?

Abgesehen davon werden Sie am Ende dieser Review eine klare Übersicht über das Produktangebot von 1&1 haben, sodass Sie informierte Entscheidungen treffen können, falls Sie ein Kunde von Ionos werden möchten. Folgende Fragen werden wir uns im Detail anschauen:

  • 👍Was ist das beste Hosting-Angebot für neue Ionos Kunden?
  • 🔧Welche Extras lohnen sich und welche nicht?
  • 💳Gibt es versteckte Kosten, von denen Sie wissen sollten?
  • 💬Wie gut sind der Kundendienst und die persönlichen Berater?

Wir werden also einige der „Rätsel“ lösen, die bei Ihnen bestimmt Fragezeichen im Kopf hinterlassen haben, nachdem Sie sich die Ionos Website angeschaut haben. Zum Beispiel: Was ist der Unterschied zwischen “WordPress Hosting” und dem einfachen “Web Hosting“, bei dem Sie auch WordPress installieren können?

Noch eine Sache bevor es losgeht: Wir denken es ist nur fair Sie darüber zu informieren, dass einige der Links (nicht zwangsläufig zu Ionos) in diesem Artikel Affiliate-Links sind, wir also eine Kommission erhalten, wenn eine Person auf solch einen Link klickt und einen Einkauf tätigt. Die guten Neuigkeiten sind jedoch, dass –

– a) dies nicht den Preis erhöht, den Sie bei Ionos oder woanders zahlen (tatsächlich können wir unseren Lesern aufgrund von Partnerschaften bessere Angebote bieten) und b) uns unser langfristiger Ruf wichtiger ist als kurzfristige Gewinne und wir keine unzureichenden Produkte empfehlen, nur um ein paar zusätzliche Cents zu verdienen.

So, lassen Sie uns nun eine kurze Reise mit der Zeitmaschine unternehmen, um die Ursprünge und den Hintergrund von 1&1 Ionos zu verstehen –

Von Anzeigen zum Hosting: Die 30-jährige Reise von 1&1

Mit mehr als drei Jahrzehnten Erfahrung ist Ionos ein wahrer Dinosaurier der Onlinedienstbranche. Wenn wir ehrlich sind: das schlichte Überleben in einem sich so schnell entwickelnden Markt ist eine Leistung an sich ¬– sich währenddessen zu einem der weltweit größten Player zu entwickeln verdient Respekt.

Seit seinen bescheidenen Anfängen in 1988 als Online Anzeigenverkäufer mit dem Namen 1&1 EDV Marketing hat das Unternehmen in den Jahren viele strategische Richtungswechsel vorgenommen und sich schließlich auf der internationalen Arena ausgebreitet, wo es sich fast ausschließlich auf Webhosting-Dienste konzentriert.

Bereits ein kurzer Blick auf die offizielle Website reicht, um einen guten Eindruck von den Ursprüngen des Unternehmens bekommen: Gemäß seiner deutschen Wurzeln stehen Transparenz, Privatsphäre und Qualität an oberster Stelle. Es gibt kaum Fußnoten oder Kleingedrucktes – alle Details stehen genau dort, wo man diese Informationen erwarten würde.

Die schiere Anzahl an verfügbaren Diensten kann jedoch erschlagend wirken: es gibt Domains, Webhosting, WordPress Hosting, Cloudhosting, Enterprise Cloud, Website Baukasten, Dedicated Server… ähem, wie bitte?!

Um bei dieser Menge an Optionen nicht komplett die Übersicht zu verlieren, sollten wir zunächst einen Schritt zurück machen und uns darauf einigen, dass uns die folgenden Nutzerkategorien am meisten interessieren: eine Privatperson, ein kleines/mittelgroßes Unternehmen, und ein Entwickler/Freelancer. In den nächsten Kapiteln dieser Review werden wir besprechen, welche Ionos Dienste für jeden dieser Anwendungsfälle am geeignetsten ist.

Sie haben wahrscheinlich gemerkt, dass wir große Unternehmen nicht bei unseren Nutzergruppen mitgezählt haben und das ist so gewollt – als großes und etabliertes Unternehmen wissen Sie wahrscheinlich, was Sie wollen oder Sie können teure Berater anstellen, die Ihnen sagen können, was Sie wollen. In jedem Fall bringt es für diese Review keinen Mehrwert, dieses Segment zu besprechen. :)

Ein Hostinganbot bei Ionos wählen – Basierend auf Ihren Bedürfnissen

Wenn Sie eine Website für sich selbst (Ihren Onkel, Freund etc.) oder Ihr kleines oder mittleres Unternehmen erstellen, dann gibt es quasi zwei Produktangebote für Sie von 1und1 Ionos: das standard Shared Hosting (sie nennen es einfach “Webhosting”) sowie WordPress Hosting.

Diese Unterteilung mag auf den ersten Blick etwas künstlich wirken, schließlich ist es relativ einfach WordPress (unten auch WP genannt) mit Shared Hosting zu installieren – es gibt hierfür sogar ein automatisiertes System, das Teil eines jeden Webhosting Pakets ist.

Um Ihnen (uns uns) zu helfen, die Unterschiede zu verstehen, haben wir eine Tabelle mit den wichtigsten Unterschieden zwischen den Produktlinien Webhosting und WordPress Hosting bei Ionos zusammengestellt:

Webhosting WordPress Hosting
Dateispeicherung HDD (langsamer) SSD (schneller)
Anzahl der Websites Keine Begrenzung Begrenzung pro Konto
Automatische WP Updates Muss selber eingerichtet werden Enthalten
WP Auto-Installer Einfach Fortgeschritten
Preis nach der 12-monatigen Werbeperiode Etwas günstiger Etwas teurer

Es ist wichtig zu betonen, dass dies die einzigen wirklichen Unterschiede sind, die wir gefunden haben. Anders ausgedrückt: wir haben keine Funktionen einbezogen, die auf der WP Hosting Werbeseite als Vorteile genannt werden, aber die auch für Webhosting Pakete verfügbar sind.

Können Sie die automatischen Updates selber einstellen? Natürlich. Benötigen Sie wirklich einen fortgeschrittenen Auto-Installer, der zusätzliche Plug-Ins und Themen unmittelbar hinzufügt? Wahrscheinlich nicht. Es gibt jedoch eine Sache in dem WordPress Hostingpaket, die Sie definitiv haben möchten!

SSD (Solid State Drive) ist eine relativ neue Speicherungsform, die eher wie ein Flash-Speicher-Stick funktioniert als eine rotierende Aluminiumscheibe, die in den traditionellen Festplatten (HDD) genutzt wird. Aufgrund dieses Designs ist SSD viel, viel schneller als HDD und dieser Unterschied ist relevant für die Geschwindigkeit Ihrer Website.

Um ganz deutlich zu sein – es gibt keinen besonderen Vorteil, wenn man SSD spezifisch mit WordPress nutzt (so wie Ionos’ Website das vermitteln könnte) – aber es hilft dabei, Ihre Website schneller zu machen, ganz egal welches Content Management System Sie verwenden.

Zusammenfassend: Wenn Sie eine oder zwei Websites benötigen und sich bereits für WP entschieden haben, dann sollten Sie WordPress Hosting nehmen und das passende Paket auswählen für die Anzahl der benötigten Websites. Der Geschwindigkeitsvorteil von SSD lohnt sich.

Wenn Sie eine andere Site-Engine verwenden möchten oder wenn Sie auf einem einzigen Hosting-Konto Dutzende WP Websites erstellen müssen, dann sind die Webhosting Pakete wahrscheinlich die bessere Alternative.

Sie fragen sich vielleicht, wie es mit dem Website-Builder aussieht – das scheint einfacher zu sein, als zu lernen, wie man ein Content Management System bedient – man wählt eine Vorlage aus und fügt seinen eigenen Text ein, richtig?

Während man mit dem Website-Builder in gewisser Weise schneller zu einer vollständigen Website kommt, gibt es bei näherer Betrachtung viele Aspekte, die ihn weniger attraktiv machen:

  • Wenn Sie sich für WordPress entscheiden, haben Sie in so ziemlich jedem Bereich mehr Auswahlmöglichkeiten. Zwar ist die Anzahl der verfügbaren Vorlagen (über 400) bei dem Ionos Site-Builder ziemlich beeindruckend, aber die meisten Vorlagen sehen in Bezug auf Design und Funktionen veraltet aus, zumindest im Vergleich zu den modernen WordPress Themen (sogar die kostenlosen Themen wie Bento, von den hyper-fortgeschrittenen Themen wie Avada sprechen wir erst gar nicht).
  • Ebenso ist die Auswahl an Funktionen und Extras in dem Site-Builder nicht vergleichbar mit den 50,000+ Plug-Ins, die für WP verfügbar sind. Und das sind bloß die kostenlosen Plug-Ins! Da die Entwicklung von Website-Buildern nicht der Hauptfokus von Ionos ist (und wahrscheinlich auch nie sein wird), kann dieses Produkt in Bezug auf Leistung und Flexibilität einfach nicht mit spezialisierten Plattformen wie WordPress oder sogar WIX mithalten.
  • Wenn Sie den Ionos Site-Builder verwenden, sind Sie für so lange an diese Plattform gebunden, wie Ihre Website existiert – später zu einen anderen Content Management System zu wechseln, selbst zu den Open Source Systemen, ist nicht möglich. Das bedeutet konkret: Sollte Ionos später entscheiden Veränderungen vorzunehmen oder seine Preise zu erhöhen, haben Sie keine andere Alternative, als Ihre Website woanders komplett neu zu erstellen.

Im Gegensatz zu anderen Anbietern, wie z.B. Hostinger, erlaubt Ionos Ihnen nicht, den Website-Builder auszuprobieren, bevor Sie Ihn bezahlen. Daher müssen Sie mir hier einfach vertrauen: Er ist Ihr Geld nicht wert. Wenn man sich die obengenannten Argumente anschaut, verstehe ich nicht, warum irgendjemand den Ionos Site-Builder statt dem vollwertigen WordPress System wählen würde.

Ok, verstanden. Wie sieht es mit dem Online-Schnellstart aus? Tja, das ist im Wesentlichen eine vereinfachte Version des Website-Builders, der während der Anwendung noch zusätzliche Kaufoptionen bietet. Nachdem, was ich im vorherigen Paragraphen gesagt habe, wäre es widersprüchlich diesen nun zu empfehlen.

Ich gebe zu, das war eine etwas längere Erklärung. Und wir sind noch nicht am Ende, denn wie versprochen werden wir uns auch die Ionos Produkte für fortgeschrittene Nutzer anschauen! Also los, einmal aufstehen und dehnen, machen Sie sich einen Kaffee und kommen Sie zurück für den zweiten Teil der Review. Falls Sie schon alles gesehen haben, was Sie brauchen, können Sie auch diesen Textlink nutzen, um zum nächsten Bereich zu gelangen, in dem die Vor- und Nachteile von 1&1 Ionos zusammengefasst werden.
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Wenn Sie mit dem Erstellen von Websites und Webanwendungen Ihr Geld verdienen (z.B. als Freelancer, Entwickler oder Online-Unternehmer) – dann benötigen Sie wahrscheinlich mehr Leistung und Individualisierbarkeit als das einfache Shared Hosting. Das bedeutet, dass Sie aus den folgenden Ionos Angeboten wählen können:

  • Virtual Private Server (VPS), oder vServer, bietet dedizierte Ressourcen und Root-Zugriff, sodass Sie alle Details genauso konfigurieren können, wie Sie möchten. Hier kommen alle Vorteile des internationalen Giganten Ionos zum Vorschein: solide Infrastruktur und integrierte Sicherheit, 100% SSD Speicher und 24/7 personalisierter Kundenservice sorgen für ein ziemlich attraktives Angebot. Als zusätzliches Angebot können Sie für eine optimale Leistung zwischen Rechenzentren in Europa, Großbritannien oder den USA wählen.
  • Cloud Hosting gibt es bei Ionos in verschiedenen Ausführungen, was etwas verwirrend sein kann, bis Sie feststellen, dass die Cloud Hosting Angebote genau dasselbe sind wie IONOS Cloud, plus zusätzliche kostenlose Domains. In jedem Fall sehen die Spezifikationen gut aus, bis Sie die Angebote mit Firmen vergleichen, die sich auf Cloud Hosting spezialisieren: sehr ähnliche Angebote kosten deutlich weniger bei Digital Ocean, die über mehr Rechenzentren verfügen und professionellen Nutzern weitaus mehr Funktionen bieten.
  • Dedicated Hosting, geeignet für die anspruchsvollsten Projekte, ist ein weiteres Beispiel für ein Produkt, das den Wettbewerbsvorteil und die schiere Größe von Ionos in vollstem Umfang ausnutzt. Wenn Sie dedizierte Hardware benötigen, gibt es keinen Grund nicht eines von Ionos’ Paketen zu wählen (und wenn Sie sich nicht sicher sind, ob sie diese brauchen, dann brauchen Sie sie wahrscheinlich nicht; ein VPS ist dann sehr wahrscheinlich die bessere Lösung).

Lassen Sie uns kurz zusammenfassen, was wir bisher besprochen haben: Wenn Sie ein leistungsfähiges und flexibles Hosting benötigen, dann ist der Ionos vServer genau richtig für Sie. Es gibt hier sehr gute Angebote, die die modernste Infrastruktur und internationale Reichweite voll ausnutzen.

Ich wiederhole noch einmal – die anderen Hosting-Typen lohnen sich in der Regel nur, wenn Sie wissen, dass Sie insbesondere Cloud oder Dedicated benötigen.

Bei Cloud empfehle ich, dass Sie den Branchenführer statt Ionos wählen, denn Cloud Hosting ist das Aushängeschild von Digital Ocean und sie investieren daher sehr viel Zeit und Geld in die Weiterentwicklung und Verbesserung der Angebote. Aus diesem Grund können Sie eine bessere Cloud Qualität zu günstigeren Preisen anbieten.

Für Dedicated Hosting ist Ionos die richtige Wahl, denn der Fokus des Unternehmens liegt auf Hardware Qualität und Sicherheit.

So, die Logik hinter dem Produktangebot scheint nur klarer geworden zu sein. Im nächsten Kapitel teilen wir unseren allgemeinen Eindruck von 1&1 Ionos, bevor wir die Vor- und Nachteile zusammenfassen und unser finales Urteil fällen.

Unsere Erfahrung mit Ionos

Abgesehen von den Funktionen und Spezifikationen ist der Kundenservice ein wichtiger Bestanteil eines jeden Hosting-Angebots. Ganz egal welchen Kenntnisstand Sie haben, früher oder später werden Sie Fragen haben, sei es zu dummen Anfängerfehlern oder Dingen, die am anderen Ende nicht funktionieren.

Unser Eindruck ist, dass Ionos den Kundenservice sehr ernst nimmt. Das zeigt sich an dem neu eingeführten Konzept des Persönlichen Kundenberaters – ein Unternehmensvertreter, der als Ihr primärer Ansprechpartner fungiert und Ihre Situation besser kennt als ein beliebiger Service-Mitarbeiter.

Die Sache mit dem persönlichen Berater funktioniert wie folgt: Sobald Sie ein Konto bei Ionos anmelden, können Sie diese Funktion in Ihrem Hosting Admin Panel „aktivieren“. Sobald Sie auf den Aktivierungs-Button klicken, sehen Sie den Namen und die Telefondurchwahl Ihres direkten Kontakts bei Ionos.

Man könnte meinen, dass ein Unternehmen mit ein paar Millionen Kunden so einen Service unmöglich stemmen kann, aber lassen Sie uns das einmal kurz durchrechnen:

Ionos gibt an, insgesamt mehr als 8 Millionen Kunden und 7000 Mitarbeiter zu haben. Wenn wir nun annehmen, dass nur die Hälfte der Mitarbeiter im Kundenservice arbeiten und wir weiter annehmen, dass jeder Kunde 3 Anfragen pro Jahr stellt, dann kommen wir auf 25 Kundenanfragen pro Kundenberater pro Tag, oder 3 pro Stunde – das ist machbar.

Natürlich kann dennoch nicht sichergestellt werden, dass Sie immer mit Ihrem persönlichen Kundenberater sprechen, wenn Sie Ionos kontaktieren (ganz abgesehen davon, dass sich Server auch abends oder nachts danebenbenehmen können) – aber es ist dennoch eine nette Geste und ein löblicher Versuch – insbesondere in einer Industrie, die beim Thema Kundenservice normalerweise in die andere Richtung schaut (und z.B. versucht die menschliche Interaktion so weit wie möglich zu reduzieren).

Auf der anderen Seite bietet Ionos keine Live Chat Option, wie z.B. GoDaddy, was wirklich schade ist, denn manchmal kann es eine wirkliche Zeitersparnis sein, wenn man jemandem in Echtzeit schreiben kann. Wir haben das Gefühl, dass ein Chat (oder ein Hybrid Chat-Email-System) ein wertvoller Zusatz für Ionos’ starken Kundenservice sein würde (auch wenn man meistens nicht mit seinem persönlichen Berater chatten würde).

Abgesehen von dem persönlichen Kundensupport hat Ionos sichergestellt, dass so viele Standardfragen wie möglich in den geschriebenen Leitfäden beantwortet werden. Tatsächlich haben sie das Thema so ernst genommen, dass sie drei voneinander getrennte Umgebungen hierfür geschaffen haben: Die Community, eine Sammlung an allgemeinen Hosting bezogenen Artikeln, den Startup Guide für neue Unternehmen, sowie den Digital Guide, der eine größere Auswahl an Themen abdeckt, von Website promoten bis hin zu digitalen Gesetzen und Regularien.

Sind diese Ressourcen wirklich hilfreich? Absolut! Warum hat Ionos drei verschiedene Ressourcensammlungen geschaffen, statt ein großes Archiv mit nützlichen Materialien? Keine Ahnung.

Da dies nicht das erste Mal ist, dass wir etwas in dieser Art beobachten (denken Sie an die Vielzahl an neu-verpackten Site Buildern und Cloud Hosting Optionen), ist es vielleicht einfach etwas, was Ionos macht – sich aufblasen wie ein Alpha-Männchen, um groß auszusehen und ernst genommen zu werden.

Und obwohl dies für ein multinationales Unternehmen mit Millionen von Kunden wohl ein komplett normaler Drang ist (und die meisten anderen Hosting-Anbieter dies ebenfalls tun), finde ich, dass es in unserer heutigen Zeit um einiges cooler ist, schlank und einfach zu sein. Aber das ist nur eine persönliche Meinung.

Ich schweife ab!

Sie haben vielleicht schon gemerkt, dass Ionos sogar eine Mobile App hat, mit der Sie Ihren Hosting Account von jedem Android oder iOS Gerät verwalten können:

Und es ist sogar eine ziemlich anständige App – Sie können überprüfen, ob Ihr Server einwandfrei funktioniert, nach Hilfe fragen, Rechnungen ansehen, Ihre Kontoinformationen ändern und sogar automatische Ratschläge erhalten, um Ihre Website zu verbessern.

Allerdings bin ich mir nicht sicher, ob die App wirklich von großer Relevanz ist – wenn Sie sich nicht primär mit der Verwaltung von Websites beschäftigen, werden Sie das Hosting Panel nicht besonders häufig nutzen. Wenn Sie sich auf der anderen Seite hauptsächlich mit Websites beschäftigen, dann sind Sie eh die meiste Zeit mit Ihrem primären Gerät online und brauchen nicht unbedingt eine App.

Vielleicht bin ich hier aber auch ein bisschen old-school, wer weiß. Eine Hosting Panel App würde ich jedoch nicht nutzen, denn ich bin voll und ganz zufrieden mit dem Online Hosting Panel.

Vor- und Nachteile von 1&1 Ionos

So, nachdem wir Ionos aus verschiedenen Perspektiven betrachtet haben, wird es nun Zeit, die Vor- und Nachteile zusammenzufassen. Wir werden hierbei nicht auf die offensichtlichen Dinge eingehen, sondern uns auf die wirklichen Unterschiede zu anderen Hosting-Anbietern konzentrieren:

  • Modernste Hardware: mehr als 90,000 leistungsstarke Server in 10 Rechenzentren in Europa und den USA. Installiert und verwaltet bei Ionos, kein Outsourcing.
  • Hohe Sicherheitsstandards und Softwareebenen. Alle EU Rechenzentren von 1&1 Ionos haben ISO 27001:2013 Zertifikate.
  • Nahezu 100% Verfügbarkeit für Ihre Website dank der geographisch redundanten Architektur, sowie hohe Geschwindigkeiten aufgrund der 360 Gbit/s Rechenzentrum Verbindung.
  • Flexibles Skalierungssystem für Serverleistung: Sie können mit einem Klick mehr Rechenleistung oder Speicher hinzufügen und noch am selben Tag die Rechnung erhalten. Wenn Sie später das Gefühl haben, dass Sie die zusätzlichen Ressourcen nicht mehr benötigen, ist auch die Herabstufung erstaunlich einfach.
  • Bestes Preis/Leistungs-Verhältnis auf dem Markt für WordPress Hosting Angebote mit schnellem SSD Datenspeicher.
  • Jeder Ionos Kunde bekommt einen persönlichen Kundenberater für Fragen und mögliche Probleme. Auch wenn die Qualität des Kundenservice weiter verbessert werden kann, ist das definitiv ein positiver Ansatz für große internationale Hosting-Anbieter.
  • SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Zertifikat als fester Bestandteil jedes Hosting-Angebots, damit Ihre Website durch die Verschlüsselung von Traffic sicherer für Ihre Besucher wird. Seiten mit SSL nutzen das https:// Handle vor ihrer Adresse und zeigen ein freundliches grünes Schloss in der Browser-Adresszeile.
  • Ein eingebautes CDN (Content Delivery Network) bei einigen Hosting-Angeboten: Ihre Website wird automatisch zwischen verschiedenen Rechenzentren in unterschiedlichen Teilen der Welt verteilt. Dadurch wird die Ladegeschwindigkeit der Seite maximiert, ganz egal wo sich Ihre Besucher befinden.
  • Der Ionos Site Builder sieht zwar moderner aus als vergleichbare Angebote anderer Hosting Firmen, bleibt aber dennoch weit hinter den kostenlosen Content Buildern zurück, die für WordPress und andere beliebte Site-Engines verfügbar sind.
  • Ionos’ kundenspezifische Systemsteuerung sieht gut aus und funktioniert einwandfrei, ist aber immer noch nicht vergleichbar mit cPanel oder Plesk. Wenn Sie also bereits mit einer dieser beliebten Hosting Systemsteuerungen gearbeitet haben, müssen Sie sich an ein komplett neues System gewöhnen.
  • Der Prozess einen neuen Account zu erstellen könnte einfacher gestaltet werden, insbesondere das Formular mit den persönlichen Daten, das hauptsächlich aus freien Textflächen besteht wie Postleitzahl und Adresse. Die Informationen werden erst validiert, wenn man versucht, das Formular einzureichen.
  • Ein Live Chat wäre ein willkommener Zusatz beim Kundenservice, auch wenn man meistens nicht mit dem persönlichen Berater sprechen würde, den man zugeteilt bekommen hat.
  • Das Produktangebot erscheint im Moment aufgebläht und es gibt fast identische Angebote, die als unterschiedliche Produkte angeboten werden, zum Beispiel Website Builder vs Website Starter Kit, oder Cloud Hosting vs Ionos Cloud.

Puh, das waren ganz schön viele Informationen! Was ist nun also das Fazit? Ist der 30-jährige Hosting-Anbieter seinen Wettbewerbern immer noch einen Schritt voraus? Oder geben Sie Ihr Geld besser woanders aus?

Unser Urteil zu Ionos + Diskussion

Wie Sie vielleicht gemerkt haben, haben wir nicht versucht 1&1 Ionos als Ganzes zu evaluieren. Und das war eine bewusste Entscheidung: Wenn ein Unternehmen so groß wird, gibt es automatisch einige wirklich starke Produkte und einige Angebote, die nur als Lückenfüller im Portfolio agieren.

Wir könnten natürlich sagen, dass Ionos ein respektabler internationaler Hosting-Gigant mit erstklassiger Infrastruktur und fantastischem Service ist, und dass er wahrscheinlich für weitere 30 Jahre (und länger) zuverlässige Services anbieten wird…

aber so eine oberflächliche Beschreibung, wenn auch wahr, würde Ihnen nicht wirklich bei der Entscheidung helfen, ob Sie Ihr Geld bei Ionos ausgeben sollten oder besser woanders. Da jeder daran interessiert ist, ein ganz spezifisches Problem zu lösen, müssen wir genauer hinschauen.

Das vorausgeschickt, sind hier die wesentlichen Punkte aus unserer detaillierten Analyse:

  • Wenn Sie eine relativ einfache Website (1-50 Seiten) für den persönlichen Gebrauch oder als kleine/mittlere Firma erstellen möchten, dann ist das WordPress Hosting Angebot von Ionos die beste Lösung mit dem schnellen SSD Speicher und anderen Optimierungen, die zu einer höheren Ladegeschwindigkeit und daher zu zufriedenen Besuchern führen.
  • Wenn Sie viel mit Websites und Web Apps arbeiten (z.B. als Freelancer oder Teil eines Entwicklerteams), dann wählen Sie eines von Ionos VPS Paketen. Diese nutzen erfolgreich alle Vorteile dieses kapitalkräftigen multinationalen Hosting-Anbieters.
  • Die Fülle an Cloud-Diensten wirkt bei Ionos eher wie der Versuch etwas aufzuholen, als ein Kernprodukt, daher sollten Sie stattdessen Digital Ocean Hosting in Erwägung ziehen – zumindest zurzeit ist DO Ionos weit voraus in Bezug auf Funktionen und Preis/Leistungs-Verhältnis.

Sie sind immer noch verwirrt und wissen nicht genau, welches Ionos Produkt am geeignetsten für Ihr Projekt ist? Sie wissen, was Sie zu tun haben! Scrollen Sie einfach nach unten zu den Kommentaren und erzählen Sie uns, was Ihnen auf dem Herzen liegt. Persönliche Meinungen und reale Erfahrungen mit Ionos sind natürlich auch sehr willkommen. Lassen Sie uns diskutieren!

23
Nov
2018

Ionos (1&1) Review 2024: Is the Largest European Hosting Provider Worth Your Money?

Ionos? No, that’s not some remote Greek island – it’s the new name of 1&1 (also spelled 1and1), one of the biggest hosting providers in the world. As the company celebrates its 30th birthday with a /slightly/ funky rebranding, we will take our time to thoroughly examine 1&1 Ionos from a customer’s perspective and answer the following question:

Should you choose Ionos to host your websites, domains, and other online assets – or are there better alternatives?

Apart from that, by the end of this review you will get a clearer picture of 1&1’s product range, allowing you to make a better choice if you do decide to become their client. In other words, you will learn..

  • 👍What is the best hosting plan for new Ionos clients?
  • 🔧Which extras are worth using and which aren’t?
  • 💳Are there any hidden fees you should know about?
  • 💬How good is 1&1 support and personal consultants?

We will also solve some of the “mysteries” which might have left you puzzled after exploring the Ionos website. For example, what’s the difference between “WordPress Hosting” and a simple “Web Hosting” where you can also install WordPress. But first, a summary for those who are in a hurry:

TLDR;

1&1 Ionos is a relatively unremarkable hosting company when it comes to product range, pricing, or support – complicated offerings, prices that can change in subsequent billing cycles, client service that near-impossible to get through.

If you’re after value-for-money hosting, we recommend other options, like Warpgate (for non-professionals) and Digital Ocean (for developers).

You can use Warpgate for 30 days free of charge, without entering any credit card details – it takes just a couple of seconds to create a new WordPress website using their official Warp Wizard:

Get 30 days free at Warpgate ›

Want to know more details about Ionos and understand exactly why we don’t recommend getting a hosting account with this provider? Read on in our detailed review:

The 30-Year Journey of 1&1

Before we go on to evaluate Ionos, let’s take a short trip in a time machine to understand the origins and background of 1&1 –

With more than three decades under its belt, Ionos can be considered a true mastodon of the online services industry. Let’s admit it: even just surviving for that long in such a rapidly changing market is an achievement in itself, let alone growing into one of the largest global players.

From its humble beginnings in 1988 as an online ad seller called 1&1 EDV Marketing, the company has made many strategic switches over the years, eventually expanding on the international arena and focusing almost entirely on web hosting services.

Just by briefly examining the official website, one can make a good guess about the origins of the company: true to its German roots, 1&1 Ionos pays a great deal of attention to transparency, privacy, and quality. There are hardly any footnotes or extra-fine print – all details are made clear right where you’d expect to see that information.

The sheer range of available services might get overwhelming, though: there’s web hosting, cloud hosting, dedicated hosting, “online starter kits”, website builders, HiDrive storage, Kubernetes as a service.. Say what?!

In order to not go into stupor over this abundance of options, let’s take a step back and agree on the major user categories we’re interested in: a private person, a small/medium business, and a developer/freelancer. In the next chapters of this guide we will discuss which Ionos services are most suitable for each of these use cases.

You might have noticed we didn’t mention large businesses among our user groups, and that’s intentional – if you are a big, established enterprise, you probably know what you want or can afford to hire expensive consultants to tell you what you want. In any case, discussing this segment is unlikely to add value to this humble review :)

Choosing a Hosting Plan at Ionos, Based on Your Needs

If you’re making a website for yourself (your uncle, your friend, etc) or for your moderately sized business, there are basically two product ranges for you at 1&1 Ionos: the standard shared hosting (they call it simply “Web Hosting”) as well as WordPress Hosting.

This division might seem a bit artificial, because it’s also quite easy to install WordPress (below also WP) on their shared hosting – there’s even an automated system for doing just that included with any Web Hosting package.

To help you (and ourselves) figure this out, we have put together a table of the most important differences between the Web Hosting and WordPress Hosting product lines at Ionos:

Web Hosting WordPress Hosting
File storage HDD (slower) SSD (faster)
Number of websites No restrictions Limited per account
Automatic WP updates Need to set up yourself Included
WP auto-installer Basic Advanced
Pricing after the 12-month promo period Slightly less expensive Slightly more expensive

It’s worth stressing that these are the only real differences we could identify. In other words, we did not include any features that are mentioned as advantages on their WP hosting promo page but which are actually also available for Web Hosting packages.

Can you set up automatic updates on your own? Of course. Do you really need an advanced auto-installer which adds extra plugins and themes right away? Probably not. There’s one thing in the WordPress Hosting packages that you do want, though!

SSD (Solid State Drive) is a relatively new type of storage which works like a flash memory stick rather than a rotating aluminium disk used in the traditional hard drives (HDD). Thanks to its design SSD is way, way faster than HDD, and this difference matters quite a lot for your website speed.

To be clear – there’s no particular advantage to using SSD specifically with WordPress, as Ionos’ website might lead to believe – but it does help to make your website faster, regardless of which content management system you are using.

To sum up, if you need one or two websites and have already considered using WP, go for the WordPress Hosting, choosing the package according to how many websites you need. The speed advantage of SSD is worth it.

If you’re planning to use another site engine or if you need to spin up dozens of WP websites on a single hosting account, the Web Hosting packages might be a better alternative.

What about their website builder, you might ask – seems easier than learning to use a content management system – just choose a template and replace the text with your own, right?

While it does offer a somewhat faster way to a completed website, there are a couple of things that make it less attractive if you think about it:

  • If you go with WordPress, your choice will be much, much wider in just about every aspect. While the number of available templates (over 400) in the Ionos Site Builder is quite impressive, most of them look dated in terms of both design and features, at least in comparison to most of the modern WordPress themes (even the free ones like Bento, we’re not even talking about hyper-advanced paid themes like Avada).
  • On the same note, the choice of features and extras in the Site Builder is incomparable with the 50,000+ plugins available for WP. And those are only the free ones! Since developing website builders is not the main focus of Ionos (and probably never will be), this product is just unable to compete with specialized platforms like WordPress or even Wix in terms of power and flexibility.
  • If you’re using Ionos Site Builder, you are bound to that platform for as long as your website exists – there’s no option of migrating to another content management system later on, even the open-source ones. This means that if Ionos decides to change something later on or increase prices, you won’t have any alternatives other than completely re-creating your website from scratch somewhere else.

Unlike other providers like e.g. Hostinger, Ionos does not allow you to actually try the website builder before you pay for it, so you’ll have to just trust me on this one: it’s not worth your time. Taking into account the above arguments, I don’t see why anyone would choose the Ionos proprietary site builder over a full-fledged WordPress.

Alright, alright. What about the Website Starter Kit? Well, it’s essentially a simplified version of the website builder which tries to make additional upsells along the way. After what I’ve stated in the previous paragraph it would be inconsistent to recommend this one.

This was a long explainer, I agree. And it’s still not over, because we promised to also look at Ionos products for more advanced users! So go stretch, grab a coffee maybe, and come back for the second part. Or, if you’ve seen everything you need already, you can use this in-text link to scroll down to the next section which summarizes the pros and cons of 1&1 Ionos.
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If websites and web applications is what you do for a living (i.e. you’re a freelancer, a developer, an online entrepreneur, etc) – you might need something more powerful and customizable than simple shared hosting. Which means you have the following Ionos offers to choose from:

  • Virtual Private Server (VPS), or vServer, offering dedicated resources and root-level access so that you can configure each detail exactly as you need. Here’s where all the advantages of Ionos as an international giant really shine: solid infrastructure and built-in security, 100% SSD storage, as well as 24/7 personalized support make for a fairly attractive package. As an added bonus, you can choose between European, UK, and US data centers for optimal performance.
  • Cloud Hosting comes in various flavours at Ionos, which can be rather confusing until you realize that the Cloud Hosting offers are exactly the same as IONOS Cloud, plus free domains on top. In any case, the specs look good until you start comparing the offers with companies which actually specialize on cloud hosting: very similar plans cost significantly less at Digital Ocean, which has more data centers and arguably more features for professional users.
  • Dedicated Servers, suitable for the most demanding projects, is another example of a product which uses the competitive advantages and the sheer scale of Ionos to the fullest extent. If you’re sure you need dedicated hardware, there’s no reason not to choose one of Ionos’ packages (also, if you’re not sure, then probably you don’t; a VPS might be a more suitable solution).

By the way, if you’re still a bit confused about the differences between shared, VPS, cloud, and dedicated – or just want to refresh your memory, there’s a summary table in our in-depth guide on choosing hosting in the Satori Webmaster Academy.

Let’s summarize what we’ve discussed above: if you just need a more powerful and flexible hosting, go for Ionos vServer, they have very decent offers which fully take advantage of the state-of-the-art infrastructure and international scale.

To reiterate – the other hosting types are usually worth considering only if you know that you specifically need cloud or dedicated.

Regarding the first one, I’d recommend going with the industry leader rather than Ionos, because cloud hosting is Digital Ocean’s flagship product and they clearly invest more time and money into continuously improving it. For the same reason, they are able to offer superior cloud quality for lower prices.

As for dedicated hosting, Ionos is a perfectly fine choice, considering their focus on hardware quality and security.

Alright, the logic behind their product range seems clearer now. In the next chapter we will share our overall impressions from using 1&1 Ionos, before wrapping up with pros and cons as well as the final verdict.

Our Impressions Of Ionos

Apart from features and specs, customer support is a vital part of any hosting offer. Regardless of your proficiency level, you will have questions sooner or later, be it silly rookie mistakes or something not working fine on their end.

From what we’ve seen, Ionos does take support seriously, judging by their move towards the concept of a personal consultant – a company representative who acts as your primary point of contact with the hosting, and knows your situation in more detail than a random support officer.

The personal consultant thing works like this: once you register an account at Ionos, you are able to “activate” this feature from your hosting admin panel. Once you click the activation button, you will see the name and the direct phone number of your direct contact at Ionos.

One might think that a company with several million clients is just physically unable to pull this off, but let’s do a quick calculation:

Ionos claims to have over 8 million clients and 7000 employees in total. Even if just half of them work in the client support function, and assuming each client makes 3 support requests per year, every year, we arrive at an estimate of 25 support requests per specialist per day, or 3 per hour – quite manageable.

Having said that, of course it’s still not possible to ensure you’ll always be talking to your manager when you contact Ionos (not even mentioning that servers can also misbehave in the evening or at night, for example) – but it’s a nice touch and a laudable attempt nevertheless – especially in an industry which mostly looks the opposite way when it comes to support (i.e. trying to get rid of human interaction as much as possible).

On the other hand, there’s no live chat option at Ionos like e.g. at GoDaddy, which is a pity because being able to write in real time, to a real person, can sometimes be a real time-saver. We feel like a chat (or a hybrid chat-email system) would be a welcome addition to Ionos’ already strong support offer, even if you won’t be chatting with your personal consultant most of the time.

Apart from tete-a-tete support, Ionos has made sure that as many standard questions as possible are covered by its written guides. In fact, they took it so seriously that they’ve created three separate environments for that: the Community, which is a collection of general hosting-related articles, the Startup Guide specifically for new businesses, as well as the Digital Guide which covers a wider range of topics from promoting your website to digital laws and regulations.

Are those really useful? Absolutely. Why did Ionos need three separate knowledge bases instead of a single massive archive of useful materials? Beats me.

Since it’s not the first time we’re observing something like that (remember the multitude of re-packaged site builders and cloud hosting?), maybe it’s just what Ionos likes to do – puffing up like an alpha-male pigeon to look big and serious.

While it’s a perfectly reasonable compulsion for a multinational company with millions of clients (and most other large hosting providers do that too, of course), I still feel like in this day and age, focussing on being lean and easy to use is even cooler. Just a personal opinion.

But I digress!

You might have noticed that Ionos even has a mobile app which allows managing your hosting account from any Android or iOS device:

And it’s a pretty decent app, by any standard – you can use it to check if everything’s alright with your server, ask for support, view invoices, change your account details, and even get automated advice for improving your website.

With that being said, it still doesn’t feel like a very essential component – I mean, if managing a website is not your primary occupation, you won’t be using the hosting admin panel too often in any form. If, on the other hand, most of your work revolves around websites, you are already online most of the time from your primary device.

Or maybe it’s just me being old-school, who knows. In any case – a hosting panel app is not something I would download on my phone, because I’m totally fine with the online hosting panel.

Pros and Cons of 1&1 Ionos

Alright, now that we’ve examined Ionos from various perspectives, it’s time to summarize its advantages and weaker points. We will not mention the obvious things and only focus on the real differences compared to other hosting providers:

  • State-of-the-art hardware: over 90,000 powerful servers in 10 data centers in Europe and the US. Installed and managed by Ionos, no outsourcing.
  • High security standards on both hardware and software levels. All EU data centers of 1&1 Ionos have ISO 27001:2013 certificates.
  • Close to 100% availability for your website thanks to geographically redundant architecture, as well as high speeds thanks to 360 Gbit/s data center connectivity.
  • Flexible scaling system for server performance: you can add more processing power or memory in a click and get billed by the day. If you afterwards feel that the extra resources are not needed anymore, downgrading is also surprisingly easy.
  • Some of the best value for money WordPress hosting packages with fast SSD file storage you can get anywhere on the web right now.
  • Each Ionos client gets a personal assistant to help with any questions and issues. While the quality of support can still be improved, this is definitely a positive approach for a large international hosting provider.
  • SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate included with each hosting plan, allowing you to make your website safer for visitors by encrypting traffic. Sites with SSL use the https:// handle in front of their addresses and display a friendly green lock in the browser address bar.
  • A built-in CDN (Content Delivery Network) with some hosting plans: your website automatically gets distributed between several data centers in different parts of the world, thus maximizing page load speed regardless of where your visitors are physically located.
  • While their site builder looks more modern than other similar offers by hosting companies, it’s still far behind even the free content builders available for WordPress or other popular site engines.
  • Ionos’ custom-built hosting control panel looks clean and works smoothly enough, but it’s still not cPanel or Plesk, so if you’ve already dealt with any of the popular hosting admins, you’ll need to get used to a completely new one.
  • The process of creating a new account could be made smoother, especially the personal details form which consists mostly of free-form text fields like postal index and street address which only get validated after you try to submit the form.
  • Live chat could arguably be a welcome addition to the support options, even if you wouldn’t be talking to your personal consultant most of the time.
  • The product range seems bloated at the moment, with some near-identical offers re-packaged as different products, for example Website Builder vs Website Starter Kit, or Cloud Hosting vs Ionos Cloud.

Whew, that’s a lot to take in! So what’s the bottom line? Is the 30-year-old hosting provider still on top of its game – or is your money better spent elsewhere?

Our Verdict on Ionos + Discussion

As you might have noticed, we haven’t tried to evaluate 1&1 Ionos as a whole so far. And that’s a conscious choice: when a company gets as large as that, there will inevitably be some really strong products as well as some offers which are meant to just pluck holes in the product portfolio.

So we could, of course, say that Ionos is a respectable international hosting giant which top-notch infrastructure and support, and that it will probably keep offering reliable services for another 30 years (and probably 30 more)..

..but such superficial characteristic, albeit true, would not help you much in deciding whether to spend your actual money at Ionos or take it elsewhere. Because everyone is interested in solving their specific problem, hence the need to look deeper.

With that in mind, here are the main takeaways from the more detailed analysis above:

  • If you want to build a relatively simple website (1-50 pages) for personal use or as a small/medium organization, you’d better off creating a WordPress website with the likes of Warpgate – faster, easier, and at a lower cost.
  • If your work is tightly connected with websites and web apps (e.g. you’re a freelancer or a part of a developer team), go for one of Ionos VPS packages. These successfully leverage all the strong sides of this well-capitalized multinational hosting provider.
  • The plethora of cloud services at Ionos seems more like a catching-up attempt on their part than a flagship product, so you might consider Digital Ocean hosting instead – at least for the time being, DO is way ahead in terms of both features and value for money.

Still perplexed? Not sure if one of Ionos products is a good fit with your project? You know what to do! Just scroll down to the comments section below and tell us what’s bothering you. Personal opinions and real-life experiences with Ionos are also very welcome, of course. Let’s discuss!

26
Jun
2017

How to Choose a WordPress Theme for Your Website

If you’re running a WordPress blog or a company website, its design is largely determined by the theme you are using. In this article, we will discuss what a theme actually is, why you need it, and how to make the right choice that will make you a happy website owner.

What is a Theme?

Let’s start with the basics: a website template is a set of visual styles and page layouts that users can upload/install to their websites and customize up to their needs. A stand-alone template includes HTML and CSS3 files, and often some JavaScript; even though adding content is up to the template user, some bundles also include pre-made images, audio and video.

Website templates are usually created for a specific website engine, or CMS (content management system): a Joomla template won’t work for WordPress, and a template that is meant for Wix will is usually not portable to Drupal or Ghost. Summarizing the above, a WordPress theme is a web template made specifically for WordPress-powered websites.

If you’ve already tried looking for a WP theme, you’ve surely noticed that scarcity is definitely not a problem: rather, one can quickly get overwhelmed by the sheer variety of hundreds and thousands of template options all over the web. To help you choose, we’ve compiled a list of the most important factors to consider; before we get to that, however, let’s quickly answer the question:

Why Do You Need a Theme?

To understand the implications of using a website template, let’s look at the alternatives. First of all, you may hire a freelancer (or an agency) and order a custom website design – this is a suitable option if have several thousand dollars to spare, as high-quality, personalized web design is not a cheap product these days. Moreover, you will need to choose a knowledgeable developer to implement the design, or you’ll end up with a product of poor quality that might be ridden with bugs and security glitches.

If you don’t feel like paying that much for your website, you may think of creating your website yourself. This is a viable option if you already know the basics of web design and development, yet if you’re new to both of these fields AND you need a website now, this option may be ruled out with easy heart.

The third way to launch your website is by using a content management system (CMS) and a template. As you might have probably guessed, this option combines the speed of the first approach with the low cost of the second option:

  • Using a website template is a good solution for small businesses, even if you’re on a budget. The template’s average price is $40 – $80, which is way less than for a custom design from an agency.
  • Website templates help you save massive amounts of time as you don’t have to start from scratch with your designs. Templates not only come with pre-made layouts and styles, but also frequently with sample data that contains diverse content, pre-made for you by template developers. Using sample data, you can simply change the text and images to the ones you need.
  • With many templates, you save on acquiring paid plugins as authors tend to equip their themes with premium plugins, such as sliders or content builders, at no additional cost.
  • High-quality website templates are usually well-documented and many of them come with customer support so help you solve any configuration issues.
  • You can easily check which theme an established website is using with the help of our WordPress detector.

Things to Take into Account When Choosing a WP Theme

To fully reap the advantages listed above, it is worth while keeping certain things in mind while choosing the right WordPress template for your future website:

  1. Who is behind the theme? To end up with a high-quality template that is built with valid, well-structured code, you are better off searching for it on the websites of the leading template providers, such as ThemeForest, TemplateMonster, or Elegant Themes. By doing so, you can be sure that you’ll get a product free of security vulnerabilities, glitches and bugs. Moreover, due to the severe competition, well-established template providers are motivated to deliver designs that follow the latest trends and bring you the most powerful features.
  2. Does the theme look modern? If you want your website to be taken seriously, you’ll need a theme that looks current and professionally designed. Some of the most prominent features of modern web design include clean, clear lines, plenty of white space, bold, easily readable typography, absence of obtrusive, noisy or too detail-rich elements. It is also a given nowadays that a website looks good on all types of screens, from large HD monitors to the smallest smartphones – so be sure to check out how the theme looks and behaves on various devices.
  3. Does the visual style match your needs? Your website’s design and content should go hand in hand – depending on what you’re offering and who your target audience is, you might want to adjust your requirements. For examples, if the site is meant to showcase your creative works, a more minimalist and bold theme with an emphasis on imagery could be suitable, while a more text-focused theme is a good fit with an information-heavy website, such as a blog or a news portal.
  4. Do you need a niche template? Keep your specific needs in mind when looking for a specialized theme – be it fashion, photography, car repair, sports, education, consulting or food industry, you’ll be able to find a number of options that offer niche-specific features and design elements.

    Niche templates include features that provide for specific needs of your visitors and clients. For example, you’ll find an extended real estate search plugin in a real estate template, an appointment booking plugin in a healthcare or beauty salon template, a timetable plugin in education or sports template, etc.

  5. Does it load fast? Load speed is one of the most important visitor retention factors for any web page – so make sure the theme you’ve chosen does not take too long to fully render a page. Among the factors that most commonly influence website speed are the scripts, stylesheets, and other files loaded by the theme and bundled plugins. You can check a theme’s demo page in Pingdom’s Speed Test or using the GTMetrix engine to make sure everything is running smoothly.

    It’s an additional bonus if your chosen template comes with an animated pre-loader which clearly indicates to your guests that the page is in the process of being loaded. Be mindful, however, that it’s not a substitute for lean, optimized code, as Google and other search engines will still prefer pages which load faster.

  6. Does it include a content builder? Most theme users prefer creating pages using content builders nowadays; a content builder is a visual system that offers pre-designed elements as drag-and-drop blocks for your content. Such a tool helps you add varied content (such as tabs, dividers, counters, progress bars, timelines, blurbs, diagrams, tables, etc.), as well as create and reuse entire custom layouts.

    It’s not a big deal if your chosen theme doesn’t include a page builder out of the box, though – you can always purchase and install one by your own, e.g. the Visual Composer, one of the most popular plugins from the CodeCanyon marketplace.

  7. Is it search engine optimized? Look for a template that is built in accordance with recommendations of major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. You use free tools such as the SEO Site Checkup to perform an SEO audit of the chosen theme’s demo website or other existing pages that use the theme.

    Despite the fact that there are numerous specialized (free) SEO plugins for WordPress out there, it’s always a plus if a theme allows at least defining meta titles and descriptions for individual pages, as this alone might even be enough to avoid using yet another third-party plugin that would potentially slow down your website.

  8. Is it compatible with major plugins? It’s also worth checking whether a template is compatible with popular WordPress plugins such as WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, BuddyPress, bbPress, etc. Most good themes will offer pre-built features and styling for the most widely used plugins, while the best theme authors will also offer their help in ensuring that a given less popular plugin also plays nicely with the theme.

Premium or Free?

The web is a pretty competitive and largely frictionless market – which means that in most cases, you truly get what you pay for; even if what you paid was zero dollars. Having said that, it would be unjust to claim that only premium WP themes are worth your while: there are numerous free templates that offer most (if not all) of the important features of paid ones (you can check out our free Bento theme for example).

With the free themes getting more and more advanced, it can be argued that the real value of premium templates stems from three thigs these days: pre-built layouts, more detailed documentation, and faster, dedicated support. The former saves you massive amounts of time by allowing to start from entire websites pre-designed on top of a specific theme and just fill them with your content; the latter will come handy if you’re on a tight schedule.

Overall, it all boils down to your personal requirements: in case you’re okay with getting into the nuts and bolts of it, and do not have significant time constraints, a free theme might be a good fit; if, though, you value top quality visuals, abundance of options and quick support, going for a paid theme might be a sensible idea.

Over to You!

Have questions about any of the above tips? Still can’t choose between two or more WP themes after reading this? Drop us a line in the comments section below, we’ll be happy to help!

03
Jun
2017

X Theme vs Avada: the Fierce Battle for ThemeForest Domination

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, things just got serious! We’re not here to ramble over some niche themes this time: it’s giant versus giant. Two of the best-selling ThemeForest items of all time, and also top premium WordPress themes ever to exist on the face of this planet, Avada and X Theme are competing for your web projects. Let’s do it!

A Close-up View

Never in the history of WP theme comparisons have we had such a close match: both themes are so well-built, well-designed and well-supported (and their user ratings diverge by just 0.02!) that one really needs to seek out the differences with a magnifying glass. First, let’s summarize some of the comparable parameters in a table:

Avada X Theme
Year created 2012 2013
Content builder Fusion (custom) Cornerstone (custom)
Builder elements 55 42
Pre-built styles 1 4
One-click demos 27 12
ThemeForest sales 300,000+ 150,000+
Average rating 4.77 4.75
Price $60 $39

Avada as well as X Theme strive to be the “ultimate WordPress theme” – in order words, be able to support any style and type of website one could possible wish to build. The most important components of this capability are theme options, or the customization settings which allow changing the color, size, and other properties of website elements – as well as a content builder, a visual tool enabling creating complex page layouts from pre-coded and pre-styled functional elements, such as text, images, buttons, etc.

Both themes contain a enormous number of settings in their custom-built options panels, and each uses a proprietary content builder: Fusion for Avada and Cornerstone for X Theme. The former offers a wider choice of building blocks, at 55 compared to 42 for the Cornerstone. All frequently used one are still thoroughly covered in both, though.

As if that wasn’t enough, both Avada and X Theme go further by introducing one-click demos and stacks. One-click demos are full website designs prefabricated by the theme authors, focusing on a specific niche, like corporate, agency, or nonprofit. They are easy to import and apply, giving you a fleshed-out sample to work from, instead of a black canvas: simply add your text and images, and tweak the part that need to be adjusted – and voila, you’ve got a website in under an hour! Avada is clearly more diverse when it comes to demos, providing 27 for its users.

X Theme currently has only 12, but they’re adding new ones every now and then, so the tally might shift in the future. The creators of the X Theme have another ace up their sleeves, though: the so-called stacks, or pre-made visual systems which effectively mean that you get 4 themes instead of one. Each stack has its own distinctive style, while still adhering to the theme’s overarching aim at simplicity, clarity and minimalism. While Avada is theoretically also capable of producing distinct visual styles, this requires altering multiple theme settings to achieve, while X Theme provides this functionality with a single click.

The Winner?

Looking at the capabilities reveals that Avada is still a more diverse product, while X Theme does everything to make it as simple as possible to use. One more important component that we can’t leave out is the pricing. In this area, X Theme is an undisputable winner: providing most of the same features for $39, which is a 35% difference with Avada, priced at $60.

In the end, it all boils down to your needs and preferences, of course, but here’s the gist: if you want a high-quality website fast, and at a minimum price – go for X Theme. If you like to have as many options and features as possible and appreciate a coherent design system, then Avada is what you’re after.