Duda Website Builder Review Responsive Site Creation Made Easy?

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Robert Brandl

Robert Brandl

Author

Inka Wibowo

Inka Wibowo

Researcher

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When the first iPhone made its mark on the world, Duda’s founders had an idea of how important mobile websites might become as a result. Founded in 2008, this company has specialized in, you guessed it, mobile websites.

However, Duda’s Responsive Website Builder, the product we are going to focus on in this review, is not primarily about mobile websites. Obviously, responsive websites are part of the deal, meaning your website visitors will see an optimized site whether they are looking at it on a computer, a tablet, or a smartphone. But Duda wants to be much more than just another website builder.

Not only is there a feature that will help you create multilingual websites, there is also a unique website personalization tool (formerly called inSite). This enables you to send your visitors customized offers based, for example, on their browsing history or the city they live in.

All of this comes at a price, however – compared to their competitors, Duda’s Website Builder is not exactly cheap. Nevertheless, you can try it out risk free – there’s a 30-day trial period, which is completely free and comes with no strings attached.

Our overview will give you an idea of how the website builder did in general and whether it’s worth its price.

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Duda Pricing

$19

Basic

You can use your own domain and create multilingual websites.

$22

Team

To build online stores with more than 10 products.

$44

Agency

Create up to 8 websites with 10 team members.

All prices are per month with the yearly payment option. Domain not included.

Duda Pros & Cons

  • Pros
  • Cons

Pros

  • Multilingual websites

    In our view, Duda has the most powerful system to create a website in different languages. A pity blog articles and ecommerce products currently can’t be translated.

  • Website Personalization Tools

    This is surprisingly powerful! Send specific messages to your website visitors, for example, based on their location or on the time of the day.

  • Easy drag-and-drop editor

    If you are looking for an intuitive way to create a website, Duda should be on your list.

  • Backup and Restore feature

    Want to carry out a major change to your website? Simply create a backup and restore the site if something goes wrong.

Rating Details

Ease of use Info popup

The menu is simple and intuitively structured. The editor mode offers an immediate preview, including well-thought out previews for desktop, tablet, and mobile screens.

Choice and flexibility of design (templates) Info popup

A large number of modern designs are included. Advanced users can take an empty template and start from scratch. All designs are optimized for smartphones and tablets, making them responsive. The editor offers previews for every type of device.

Advertisement-free Info popup

No DudaMobile ads are shown in paid plans.

Languages Info popup

Additional languages can be added through the language feature: this is one of Duda’s greatest strengths! It uses a folder system and is SEO-friendly (unlike a lot of competing products). It supports all major languages (including Asian characters). Available in all plans.

Your own domain name (e.g. .com or .net) Info popup

Domain names and email hosting aren’t included. You can either register a domain through Duda or link an existing one to your Duda website as well. SSL encryption is available in all paid plans. Find more information in our FAQ.

Depth of navigation Info popup

You can go up to three levels deep. This should be sufficient for most use cases, but it may be restrictive for some projects.

Widgets (small tools to add extra functionality) Info popup

The editor offers a wide range of useful features. You can also use the Website Personalization Tool to add interactive elements: an information bar, pop-ups, special offers, etc. There’s also an app store now, but with a very limited selection of apps.

Mobile App Info popup

  • iOS
  • Android

Duda offers a mobile app for its online store (My e-Shop), however for non-ecommerce Duda websites, there is no native mobile app available. You can edit a mobile version via the browser of your smartphone or tablet, though.

E-Commerce Info popup

This ecommerce solution is based on Ecwid’s online shop system. Every plan comes with 10 products. If you need more, you can upgrade to 100 or 2500 articles.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Info popup

Any and all relevant settings can be adjusted to match your needs. Google will like the fact that Duda SSL-encrypts your website, which can benefit your rankings. Duda also pride themselves with fast loading pages.

Blog

Easy to use: Just a single click to add, and it automatically includes RSS. Unfortunately, comments are only available via Facebook.

Visitor statistics Info popup

An analysis tool is included. However, you can use Google Analytics just as well.

Contact form

A wide variety of customization options.

Password protection & member areas Info popup

While individual pages can be protected by a password, you cannot create user accounts.

Newsletter tool Info popup

Not included. You will have to use another provider – more information on that can be found here.

Add HTML code Info popup

You can always add HTML code. Beyond that, you can edit the template itself in the developer mode.

Storage space

Unlimited

Duda offers unlimited storage space.

Backups & Restore Info popup

It is possible to backup and restore your Duda website. Every time your site is published, a backup gets created automatically.

Support

  • FAQ
  • Chat
  • Email
  • Telephone

Depending on your plan, comprehensive FAQ, chat, email and telephone support are available. There are also a few videos you can check out.

Fun Factor Info popup

The editing process is flexible and fast. It doesn’t take long to figure out how everything works.

Overall Rating

3.5

Duda have put together a well-engineered website builder with a wide variety of features. Especially interesting for anyone with a multilingual project. Unfortunately their prices are very high in comparison to Ionos MyWebsite.

Conclusion

From our perspective, Duda is ideal for small and medium-sized website projects. The design templates are not only nice to look at, but anyone can customize them – even without programming skills. The only thing that we don’t like is that you cannot pick a different theme once you have made your initial choice. However, if you want more control than that, Duda has you covered: Just switch into “Developer Mode” and start experimenting!

The layout and visual style remind us of Weebly a lot. And, similar to Wix, you can add animations to, perhaps, breathe a bit of life into your site.

Duda’s Website Personalization Tool is especially interesting. It lets you customize your visitors’ user experience even further – you can show first-time visitors a welcome video, for example, or provide offers tailored specifically to visitors from certain cities. The possibilities are almost endless because you can create your own actions.

We do have to deduct some points for the shop. When compared to Shopify or Weebly, the prices are just a bit too high.

Where Duda truly shines is languages: it’s our top recommendation for multi-lingual websites. No other site builder makes it as easy (and SEO-friendly) to serve international visitors.

Try Duda for free

Example Sites

DudaOne-winterdistributing

Winter Distributing

Online store

DudaOne-Tom-Ditchfield

Tom Ditchfield

Panelbeating

DudaOne-Nothern-Soul

Northern Soul

Restaurant

FAQ

Duda offers a free trial you can check out with no strings attached. Should you be using a paid plan, you can cancel it within the first 30 days in order to get your money back. Should you cancel the plan after the first 30 days, it will terminate as detailed in your contract.

Yes! Instead of signing up with Google Domains, you can also opt for a plan at Namecheap that already includes email hosting. Namecheap is 100% compatible with Duda.

Yes, you can insert advertising (e.g. banners), affiliate links and Google Adwords, for example.

DudaPro is for agencies, developers, and resellers who want to offer their clients fully customized websites as a product. It gives them full control over a website project. Each website created with a DudaPro account will receive a rebate.

Duda Alternatives

Not sure what site builder is best for your project? Let our smart finder decide for you in 2 minutes.

The authors

Learn more about us

Robert Brandl

Founder and CEO

Hi, my name is Robert Brandl! I used to work in a digital marketing agency where I managed website and email marketing projects. To optimize my client's campaigns, I always had to find the optimal web tools. Tooltester offers this knowledge to you, hopefully saving you endless hours of research.

Inka Wibowo

Content Manager

Hi, I'm Inka! I started using website builders and content management systems over 10 years ago, when I managed websites for clients in my first marketing role. Since then, I've worked on hundreds of web and digital projects. Now, at Tooltester, I'm happy to be able to use my experience to help users like you find the right website builder for your needs.

Learn more about us

We keep our content up to date

17 Dec 2021 - Mobile app rating added.
08 Jan 2020 – Pricing update. Duda now has an App Store.
08 Mar 2019 – New rating.
29 Jan 2019 – Smaller updates.
20 Aug 2018 – Duda has updated their pricing. 10 products are included in any plan.
17 Jan 2017 – Backup & Restore category added to the table
09 Jan 2017 – Duda updated its editor. It’s faster and has a new interface now.
05 Jan 2017 – Name change: DudaOne is now called Duda Responsive Website Builder.
11 Nov 2016 – Review added.

THE BEHIND THE SCENES OF THIS REVIEW

This article has been written and researched following a precise methodology.

Our methodology

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