Duda Pros and Cons
Written by Andrew Goldman
Duda is a website builder aimed at professional designers, and it powers over 1 million websites around the world. Whether you’re a freelance professional, digital agency or large company with global online publishers, Duda has the capacity to be next level professional when compared to some of the other sites available.
Duda is responsive and mobile-friendly, and can be built to scale using an editor with drag and drop. It’s effective, fast, and can help establish you a professional online business right away. It performs particularly well as a leader in loading speeds, which adds greatly to the user experience.
4 Duda Pros
1. Templates
The templates on Duda have been described as stunning. There are over 120 to choose from and has a multitude of categories to suit your needs, such as business, events, portfolios and landing pages.
Duda also has 10 blank options that can be fully customised. Before publishing, they can be previewed on desktop, tablet or mobile. This approach gives designers the freedom to create something completely original for their audience.
A more recent addition are flex-only templates. They look great already, but you can only edit them with Duda‘s own flex mode. Although easy to navigate once set up, these are likely to require someone with more experience in web design, as they are more advanced and have a pixel-perfect editor.
Editing layers and complex layouts in flex mode, gives you more control over your CSS code. Doing this after you add elements is a feature that not many of its competitors have. Flex gives you full control over your site at any screen size.
2. Design
Duda has in-depth design features which enable it to support multiple websites. A really attractive proposition for those wanting variety when it comes to branding. It has a large selection of fonts, an accessible HTML editor, and a built-in photo editor. It’s also helpful that changes can easily be made on mobile as well as desktop devices.
As mentioned earlier, Duda has drag and drop. This makes it highly functional, giving you the freedom to move things where you want. Content, widgets, maps, forms or raw HTML can be moved around a grid system, lined up and sized to your preference.
Duda stores many pre-made sections, broken down into categories, to allow you to quickly add text and images for things like testimonials and picture galleries. The variety of the tools and the advanced design features are what makes Duda a stand-out choice for professional websites.
3. E-Commerce
It won’t take many clicks to set up a store on your website. There is an additional cost involved, however it’s worth it for the features. It has coupons and personalised gift cards, automated emails following abandoned baskets, delivery and collection scheduler, 100+ payment providers, ability to sell on Amazon, Ebay and Facebook, and it’s integrated with Square’s Point of Sale system for in-person transactions.
The Standard plan allows you to sell 100 products, the Advanced takes it to 2500, but there is no limit with the Unlimited plan. Just think carefully about what you need so you’re not overspending for no reason.
Another positive, particularly when it comes to selling internationally, is that it’s available in 55 different languages.
4. Tutorials and Support
Emails, FAQs, chat and telephone support are all available. Although you only get more of these options, the more expensive the plan you choose. However, the help centre is available on any level. In here you’ll find articles, and even video tutorials that should cover your needs at no extra cost.
4 Duda Cons
1. Blog Posts
Although Duda does have the capabilities to host your blogs, it’s quite basic. It may be enough to suit the needs of most, but if you’re forking out for something with advanced features and also want to blog, you might not be satisfied with what Duda offers. Saying that, you can still add metadata for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes, tag other posts, and schedule for publishing at later dates. Blog posts can also be imported from other sites.
2. Where are the Apps?
The simple answer is, there aren’t any. So adding the extra functions when needed isn’t perhaps as straightforward as you’d want. For experienced web builders, a workaround shouldn’t be difficult, due to the many templates and design features available, and can be done manually. In comparison, an alternative such as WordPress has 1000s of both free and paid plugins at the user’s fingertips.
3. SEO
With Duda being an advanced content management system, reviews show that the SEO does not match that standard, particularly when compared to other web builders like Wix and WordPress. Duda’s tools are quite basic, and probably won’t do enough to help your rankings through search engines. Aside from editing site titles, meta descriptions and page URLs, there isn’t much else, which is disappointing considering the rest of the capabilities of this site.
4. Pricing and Free Trials
Duda is aimed at the higher end, so it’s not surprising that the plans come across as a bit pricey. Obviously, the more you pay, the more features become available, and functionality improves. Many of the advanced features like widget builders, website export and API are reserved for the higher paid plans. However, if you don’t have a clear idea of what you need before signing up, make sure you do your research so you don’t overpay for things you don’t need.
With regards to the 30-day trial when you first get started, be mindful that you may lose some of your features and functions if choosing a basic plan after.
Conclusion.
Duda is a leader when it comes to professional freelancers and digital agencies. The advanced features on offer make it a difficult one to say no to if you’re experienced and like full control of the design. It’ll be too much and also expensive if you just want a personal website with basic e-commerce features. If you want basic functionality, to be able to just pick up and build without any previous experience or coding knowledge, web builders such as Squarespace, Wix or WordPress would be better.