Jimdo Review

That ease of use still earns Jimdo a spot among the best website builders, but some issues hold it back from making the top tier. You’re going to spend a bit more on average for features that you may not need, making this a slightly higher cost solution depending on your plan.

Throughout the course of this Jimdo review, we’ll hit on the highlights and the downfalls of this service. We’ll talk about features, pricing, design, ease of use and support, diving deep into what it gets right and what it could work on.

If you would rather jump the gun and try out Jimdo for yourself, you can sign up for a free account and get right to building. Make sure to read through the end of this review, though, to learn about upgrading to paid plan.

Alternatives for Jimdo

Strengths & Weaknesses

Features

Jimdo is fairly straightforward in terms of features. Outside of the list of elements and the builder itself, some users won’t even know what else Jimdo has to offer. The features work mostly in the background and, while they aren’t flashy, they still offer plenty of value to your website.

All sites are encrypted with an SSL certificate, a huge plus especially for ecommerce outlets. An SSL certificate encrypts all information being sent to and from your website, a necessity if you plan on collecting anything personal. It gives your users peace of mind, but also helps Google rankings as many search engines and web browsers are warning users who land on non secure sites.

Even non-ecommerce sites will benefit from a certificate, though. Jimdo allows you to create contact forms on your website directly within the editor. A certificate will encrypt things like names and email addresses in addition to credit card numbers, meaning you’re protected from any information theft while that data is in-transit.

Blogging is a big part of any website builder and Jimdo is no exception to that. You can create a full-fledged blog or just tack one on to an existing site. However, Jimdo also allows you to create password-protected areas, meaning that other users can get in and blog if you want contributing writers.

Jimdo doesn’t offer an app center, but there are ways to integrate third-party applications with the builder. A variety of different services are compatible, including Tidio Live Chat, Eventbrite ticketing and Infogr.am infographics. That certainly brunts the hit of no app center, providing a few more tools for building out your site.

These integrations are the true selling point of Jimdo. The builder itself is extremely easy to use, but nothing special when put up against other website builders. However, access to this list of tools is what sets Jimdo apart, allowing you to use powerful pieces of software on your website. While other website builders may have tools that perform similar functions, few offer the ideal solutions for building your site like this.

Jimdo Features Overview

Price

Free SSL certificateAds Details 500 GB Storage Space 2 GB Bandwidth Domain Name	FREE
Pro Mobile optimization Details 5 GB Storage Space 10 GB Bandwidth 1 Domains Domain Name	$ 7.50/ month
Business Online storeSEO Details Unlimited GB Storage Space Unlimited GB Bandwidth 1 Domains Domain Name	$ 20.00/ month
Platinum Site reviewPremium support Details Unlimited GB Storage Space Unlimited GB Bandwidth 1 Domains Domain Name	$ 30.00/ month

Starting with the free plan, though, it’s just about what you’d expect. You get a free subdomain from Jimdo, limited storage and Jimdo ads on your site. In fact, you’re getting the exact same specs as a free plan at Weebly (read our Weebly review). It’s not exciting, but enough to get you up and running.

Pro plans are where you can come into your own with this website builder. The ads are cut, and you get a free domain for the first year. For the price, the specs are quite impressive too, offering up 10GB of bandwidth and 5GB of storage. Similar plans with other website builders generally sit $10 or more per month, so there are certainly savings.

After that, things begin to fall apart. Business plans offer plenty of value for your money, but don’t hold well spec wise against other builders. For instance, unlimited bandwidth and 10GB of storage at Wix (read our Wix review) comes in at only $14 per month. While you have less storage space, you gain the upside of free ad credits and additional applications.

Even so, the Business plan offers you an online store, making the price feel pretty fitting. An online store at GoDaddy GoCentral (read our GoDaddy GoCentral review) is the same price, in fact. The real issue here is the delta between Pro and Business plans.

If you want more storage and bandwidth, you’re forced to pay for an online store even if you don’t need it. Adding a plan in the middle that sits a few dollars cheaper per month would help round out this lineup quite a bit.

Finishing off the list are Premium plans. Most people should shy away from these as much as possible. For the extra $10 per month, you have access to VIP support and a free site review (if you could really call it free). There’s little to no incentive to fork over the extra coin for such little extra value.

Besides the Premium plan, all the prices feel fairly justified. Free and Pro plans are excellent and Business plans offer plenty of extra features. Even so, Jimdo is sorely missing a way to tie these two worlds together, and adding a fifth plan would go a long way in making the lineup feel more solid.

Design & Tools

Jimdo has quite an intuitive editor, one that earns it a perfect score in the next section. It’s quite powerful too, filled with different elements for building out your page. A lack of template options means you’re likely to have more leg work, but that’s not too disappointing with how easy Jimdo is to use.

The editor is completely interactive. Many website builders use the term “drag and drop” but that’s not exactly what’s going on here. You interact directly on the webpage, moving, resizing and adding elements right where you want them. Once you set your page up, you can then drag and drop different aspects of your site, but the build process itself lies within adding new elements from a list.

However, we had a few problems when using the editor. For example, we loaded up the Barcelona Store theme to try out making our own online t-shirt shop. The template uses images near the bottom of the page as one means of navigation. However, when we clicked to add a link, it didn’t connect and we got an error message.

It turns out that the links are dead when you load up the theme and you have to edit the element to actually add a link in. This isn’t an ease of use problem as much as it is a design problem. The themes look great, so much so that it’s pretty easy to take them for functional websites. They’re not, however, meaning you’re going to have a lot of work to make the site work the way you want.

Perhaps that’s why there’s a limited selection of these. Jimdo offers around 15 or so out of the gate, with the option to start from scratch as well. As the Jimdo editor is so easy to use, starting with a blank template may be the best option. You’ll avoid issues like the one described above and get your site looking the way you want it to.

Jimdo has quite a few things going on within the editor that make it quite useful. Features like a built-in image editor, contact form integration and resizable columns make for plenty of tools to build out. Even so, the lack of an app center closes off the usefulness for more niche needs.

This is a trend we’ve seen from a few website builders, such as SquareSpace (read our SquareSpace review) that locks off a lot of flexibility. What you see is what you get and, while there are plenty of options, you won’t be able to build into something outside of the limits set by Jimdo. Any website builder has restrictions to some degree, but the level here far outweighs other choices like WordPress.

For most sites, there should be little problem. Personal portfolios, musicians, photographers and local businesses will all be able to create a functional and good looking site with Jimdo. However, if you’re looking for something a little more intensive, you may not have the tools to properly execute it.

All third party applications come through POWr Plugins, a service that offers a variety of tools, but not on the same level as WordPress. You’ll find things like a countdown timer, PayPal button and popup landing pages which are all useful, but not on the same level as some other website builders.

Ease of Use

You can create a website with Jimdo in a single click. That sounds like just a cheesy phrase, but it’s actually true here. From the homepage, you simply click “start now” and you’re off to the races. The surprising start actually took us off guard during this review and we had to backtrack for screenshots.

There are three options to start building: a website, a store or a blog. After you’ve picked the right one, you can allow Jimdo to create the site based off of a few questions or dive straight into the tools for yourself. The automated system (known as Jimdo Dolphin) will ask you a few questions about the content of your site and generate a starting point for you to work off of.

You’ll get a completely functional website from Dolphin, but it’s still best to make further tweaks within the editor. Admittedly, Dolphin is a little creepy, as it’ll search for your name online and try to gather all the information about you. It’s helpful, but also pretty unsettling.

In fact, it’s probably best to avoid Dolphin altogether as designing your site is plenty easy on its own. As mentioned in the section above, Jimdo is a completely interactive interface, so much so that all design elements of your site are configured on the web page itself.

In some ways, it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. Having so many editable elements in such a small space makes the initial use of Jimdo quite overwhelming. Even so, after spending a bit of time with the editor, it’s hard to imagine using anything else. There’s no question about where a particular feature is because you can literally just mouse over it directly on the webpage.

If there’s any question about what a particular feature does, Jimdo includes a quick reference for each tool. It’ll provide a short description of what the element does, as well as link to a more encompassing article within the support center.

Jimdo can be a bit difficult to use when you jump in. However, it becomes one of the more intuitive interfaces out there as time progresses. While any website builder has a learning curve, this one feels particularly low, paying off far quicker than most competitors. There is certainly room for improvement, but it’s clear that Jimdo is one of the easiest builders out there.

Support

Jimdo has one of the better support centers we’ve seen out of these website builders. It’s a clean, easy to use interface packed with information on starting and maintaining your site. However, getting a hold of Jimdo has a few complications.

Starting with the support center, though, you have access to a smorgasbord of articles, mostly focused on using the Jimdo builder. There are very few topics revolving around support, such as increasing memory limit. The support center is more like a tutorial center, hitting on the major parts of running a website such as Google indexing.

That’s not too much of a problem, though. Unlike typical web hosting, Jimdo and all other website builders are closed systems, meaning there’s very little to mess with in the way of the technical side of a website. Most of the problems that come up on this end will be on Jimdo’s side, and you’re unlikely to even know they’re happening.

The majority of what you’ll need will come through the support center, even if the name is a bit misleading. Articles are very detailed, fit with screenshots and step-by-step instruction. Many of the topics have accompanying videos as well which makes complex tutorials like setting up an “under construction” page a lot simpler.

For any technical issues, you’ll need to contact Jimdo. However, it’s certainly not an ideal process. The website builder only offers email support via a contact form, making for a clunky support process. That’s the only way to get a hold of Jimdo, with the exception of those with Premium plans who get a direct line to support.

The support center itself is quite good, but focuses more on building and growing your site instead of troubleshooting it. For any problems, contacting Jimdo is necessary, but the cumbersome process means that your issues will likely stick around longer than you’d like.

A simple live chat would alleviate this whole problem. In its current state, it’s difficult to overlook the clunky process Jimdo has in place. A better form of contact would make the support center look better, but, as it stands, neither are ideal.

The Verdict

Jimdo is a great choice for a website builder. You have access to a large list of tools from the onset, with integration into applications like Google Calendar and Eventbrite. The initial upgrade is pretty cheap, but you’ll pay slightly more than other builders if you need a more powerful plan.

Those looking for a quick website builder that can get you online in a matter of minutes should definitely consider Jimdo. It’s easy to use if you’re starting from scratch, but the Dolphin AI ensures you can get online with little to no leg work.

Additionally, you could venture into a CMS like WordPress using a web host. Check out our list of the best web hosting providers to learn more about going this route.

What do you think of Jimdo? Let us know in the comments below and, as always, thanks for reading.