With the rise of ecommerce, your website is often the first touchpoint between your business and potential customers. Choosing the right platform from the start can save you time and money down the road.
Launchrock and Strikingly are two of the most popular website-building platforms used by entrepreneurs and small business owners to quickly create professional online presences.
In this comprehensive Launchrock vs Strikingly comparison, we evaluate Launchrock and Strikingly across several key criteria to determine which platform is better suited for different business needs and budgets.
1. Understanding the Basics
Strikingly was founded in 2008 by David Chen, Danyang Lin, and Tianqi Chen. The company is headquartered in Shanghai, China. Strikingly powers over 2 million websites across 100+ countries. It is one of the leading website builders focused on entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Launchrock was founded in 2013 by Chris Adkins. It is headquartered in South Carolina, USA. Launchrock has enabled over 1 million website launches since 2013.
In terms of popularity, Strikingly comes out ahead. According to Google Trends, Strikingly receives 50% more searches globally than Launchrock. SimilarWeb estimates Strikingly drives 9.3 million monthly visits vs 2.7 million for Launchrock.
Strikingly has an active Facebook group for support and inspiration. Launchrock also has a Facebook group, Startups, with over 16K followers. Both builders have engaged user communities.
Overall, while Launchrock has seen impressive growth, Strikingly maintains a strong position as an established leader in the website builder space for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
2. Ease of Use
Strikingly
Strikingly is a platform that enables you to build websites quickly and easily. Its user interface is clean and intuitive, with a drag-and-drop editor that makes building sites easy for beginners. The editing interface features large icons for adding sections, text boxes, images, etc. Everything is visually-driven with prompts guiding you to populate your site.
For first-time users, Strikingly’s Guided Setup provides multi-step walkthroughs for creating sites for different purposes like portfolios, online stores, and landing pages. Their automated website setup wizard further simplifies the process.
The learning curve is minimal. Strikingly’s email tutorials introduce platform features step-by-step. Contextual help widgets offer assistance as you navigate the editor. With guided education and an intuitive UI, even non-technical founders can comfortably build sites and add form options using the different features on the platform.
Overall, Strikingly’s user experience is streamlined. Clean menus and minimalist design focus your attention and enhance the experience for web visitors. The tool has built-in best practices for one-page sites further simplify workflow. The editor’s drag-and-drop features reduce headaches. Strikingly delivers a smooth onboarding and UX for busy entrepreneurs.
Launchrock
Launchrock’s backend interface is more text-heavy with various menus and options that can feel overwhelming as a beginner. The editing experience is also less guided than Strikingly.
For new users, Launchrock provides basic support articles and video tutorials to get started. However, the platform lacks multi-step walkthroughs or automated site-building wizards. The learning curve is steeper.
Navigating Launchrock’s dense interface can be challenging at first. The editing experience relies more on traditional WYSIWYG editing rather than drag-and-drop. Launchrock gives developers more flexibility but at the cost of simplicity.
The overall UX is not as streamlined as Strikingly’s guided approach. Launchrock’s strength lies in customization for experienced users versus onboarding simplicity. Expect a learning period to grow comfortable building and managing your site.
Winner: Strikingly
With its clean and intuitive drag-and-drop editor, guided onboarding, and streamlined UX, Strikingly offers an easier learning curve and experience for beginners. Launchrock provides greater functionality but less hand-holding. For a smoother, less overwhelming user experience especially as a first-time site builder, Strikingly is the winner.
3. Design and Customization
Strikingly
Strikingly offers 100+ free mobile-optimized themes spanning industries like fashion, photography, consulting, and more. Themes feature modern, responsive designs and individual elements that you can add using the page builder. You can preview themes applied to your own content.
You’ll find plenty of pre made templates, including free landing page templates, and online store templates complete with built-in marketing tools.
While themes cannot be edited, you can customize color schemes, fonts, and layouts. Strikingly also allows CSS/HTML editing for advanced personalization. You can easily tailor themes to your brand.
For mobile, Strikingly themes are optimized for all devices. You can hide/display elements per device. Mobile preview lets you test across your phone, tablet, and desktop. Fast site speeds help Strikingly score 95/100 on Google Mobile-Friendliness tests.
Launchrock
Launchrock provides around 70 free themes ranging from minimalist to bold styles to help you build a professional website. The built-in editor enables users to filter by industry to find relevant templates. Their multipurpose designs offer flexibility, including the ability to embed YouTube videos.
Launchrock templates can be extensively edited by modifying theme CSS. You can make granular style changes like fonts, colors, and padding. While Strikingly limits theme editing, Launchrock permits advanced customization.
For mobile, Launchrock automatically optimizes your site for responsiveness across devices. You can further customize mobile layouts and hide/display elements per device. Launchrock scores an 89/100 on mobile-friendliness tests.
Winner: Tie
Strikingly wins for its large gallery of stylish, industry-specific themes that require no design skills to customize. Launchrock offers fewer out-of-the-box themes but greater flexibility for developers to deeply modify templates through CSS editing.
Both builders allow element-level customization for mobile sites and score highly on mobile-friendliness. Ultimately, Strikingly makes a better Launchrock alternative for easy theming while Launchrock favors advanced customization. For design and customization, both platforms are equally capable depending on user needs.
4. Features and Functionality
Blogging Tools
Strikingly
Strikingly provides basic blogging capabilities to publish articles natively on your site. You can create blog posts using their editor and add images, videos, links, etc.
Blog posts are organized into categories that you define. Articles display cleanly in the sidebar or dedicated blog page using your theme layout.
However, the customization of blog pages and posts is limited. Strikingly does not provide blog-focused themes. You cannot customize URLs, metadata, or layouts specifically for blog content.
Moderating and managing comments is available, but advanced discussion features are lacking. There are no capabilities for tags, guest authors, RSS feeds, etc.
Overall, Strikingly’s blogging features are designed for occasional articles, not fully featured blogs. The functionality is sufficient for short updates but lacks tools for SERP optimization, custom layouts, robust commenting, and expanded content.
Launchrock
Launchrock provides a dedicated blogging engine for publishing extensive blog content on your site. Articles are created using a WYSIWYG editor with markdown formatting.
You can assign categories and tag metadata to posts for better organization. Articles can have SEO-optimized custom URLs and metadata. Blog pages and sidebars are designed for content discoverability.
Robust design options let you customize layouts and styles for blog pages and posts. Launchrock also provides blogging-specific themes. Extensive customization provides an optimal blogging UX.
Launchrock offers comment moderation, anti-spam filtering, threaded discussions, and RSS/Atom feeds to encourage engagement. Public commenting APIs are available.
In summary, Launchrock provides enterprise-level blogging capabilities from theming to SEO optimization, commenting, and design customization. The dedicated engine is ideal for informative, high-traffic blogs.
Winner: Launchrock
With its powerful blogging engine optimized for customization, SEO, engagement, and expanded features, Launchrock easily wins for blogging functionality. Strikingly offers only basic article publishing. For robust, customized blogging experiences, Launchrock is the clear winner.
E-commerce Capabilities
Strikingly
Strikingly does not have any native ecommerce features. To sell products on Strikingly, you must integrate a third-party e-commerce platform.
Strikingly provides integrations with Shopify and Stripe to add buy buttons, carts, and payments. The setup guides are relatively straightforward.
However, the e-commerce experience will rely on the capabilities of your connected platform. You are limited by what the third-party integration supports.
Without native commerce tools, you cannot customize or optimize the buying process with Strikingly alone. Checkout and product pages will lack Strikingly’s design cohesion.
In summary, e-commerce is possible on Strikingly but requires leveraging a separate platform. The integration is simple but lacks customization and native commerce tools for optimal selling.
Launchrock
Launchrock offers built-in e-commerce capabilities through its integration with Snipcart. You can easily add buy buttons, carts, and payments.
Product pages are customizable with images, variants, discounts, and more. You can tailor product layouts and designs for cohesive browsing.
Orders are managed directly within Launchrock with customer profiles and analytics. Taxes, shipping, and payment gateways are pre-configured to simplify setup.
Launchrock also supports digital products via fulfillment links. Shipping customization and coupon codes provide promotion options.
With native commerce tools, you can optimize and brand the entire shopping experience, from checkout to product pages that stay within Launchrock’s ecosystem.
Winner: Launchrock
Launchrock’s built-in Snipcart integration provides greater e-commerce customization and optimization versus Strikingly’s third-party add-ons. For native, integrated commerce experiences, Launchrock is the clear winner.
SEO Tools
Strikingly
Strikingly provides basic on-page SEO optimization through title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, and SEO-friendly URLs.
Site architecture follows best practices with XML sitemaps and page speed optimizations. Strikingly builds mobile-friendly sites for local SEO.
However, customization of SEO elements is limited without code access. You cannot insert schema markup or other enhancements.
Advanced SEO requires integrating third-party apps like Yoast. However, native SEO capabilities remain rudimentary.
In summary, Strikingly covers SEO basics but lacks granular control or customizations needed for technical optimization.
Launchrock
Launchrock enables full control over on-page SEO factors like meta tags, titles, URLs, alt text, etc.
You can customize XML sitemaps for indexation. Launchrock also auto-generates robot.txt files for spidering.
For content, Launchrock supports SEO-optimized blogs with custom metadata schemas. You can embed rich snippets throughout sites.
Even header tags, pagination, and IA can be configured for SEO-friendliness. The granular access aids technical optimization.
In short, Launchrock provides expansive customization for advanced SEO needs from sitemaps to snippet markup and more.
Winner: Launchrock
With its granular SEO access and customizations, Launchrock easily wins for maximizing search optimization. Strikingly only offers basic SEO configurations. For comprehensive optimization, Launchrock is the clear winner.
Integrations
Strikingly
Strikingly provides a wide selection of easy integrations for adding email marketing, payments, chat widgets, and analytics.
For email, it supports MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, and SendinBlue. For payments, you can connect to Stripe or PayPal. Live chat can be added through Tidio.
Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel are available for visitor tracking and analytics. Instagram and Disqus can be embedded for social engagement.
However, native integration options are limited compared to Launchrock. You may need to leverage Zapier for additional connections to critical business apps.
Overall, core integrations are supported but missing functionality requires third-party add-ons. Native options lack breadth.
Launchrock
Launchrock offers an extensive library of over 100 native integrations with marketing, sales, analytics, payment, and other top apps.
Email marketing platforms like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, HubSpot, and more are supported. Payments can be handled through Stripe, PayPal, and others.
For analytics, Launchrock provides turnkey integration with Google Analytics, Mixpanel, and Kissmetrics. Facebook Pixel is also available.
Zapier further expands capabilities to connect virtually any other apps needed.
In summary, Launchrock shines with its vast catalog of integrated tools covering critical business functions. Robust native integrations minimize the need for third-party add-ons.
Winner: Launchrock
With its extensive native integration options, Launchrock easily wins for connecting apps seamlessly under one platform. Strikingly offers only basic integrations in comparison. For integrating business stacks, Launchrock is the winner.
Analytics and Reporting
Strikingly
Strikingly provides limited built-in analytics like visitor counts, top pages, referral sources, and social media clicks.
You can view basic metrics within your Strikingly dashboard. However, data is not segmented and lacks detail beyond high-level traffic stats.
For deeper analysis, you must integrate Google Analytics or similar third-party tools. Without add-ons, actionable insights are minimal.
Custom reporting is unavailable within Strikingly. The focus is delivering metrics at a glance rather than extensive monitoring and segmentation.
In summary, Strikingly analytics offer a surface view of activity. Serious tracking and custom reporting require add-ons.
Launchrock
Launchrock comes equipped with a suite of built-in analytics like page views, referrals, location data, technology used, and more.
Robust segmentation lets you drill into metrics across traffic sources, pages, countries, devices and other dimensions. Accessible analytics provide actionable insights.
Integrated connections to tools like Google Analytics, Kissmetrics, and Mixpanel expand capabilities with events tracking, custom reporting, and in-depth data visualizations.
The customizable dashboard highlights key metrics while supporting extensive analysis. Data exports deliver flexibility.
In short, Launchrock enables comprehensive analytics both natively and through integrations. Granular tracking and custom reporting meet diverse monitoring needs.
Winner: Launchrock
With its expansive built-in analytics, segmentation, and custom reporting access, Launchrock easily wins for maximizing insight. Strikingly only provides rudimentary traffic metrics in comparison. For optimized analytics, Launchrock prevails.
5. Website Performance
Website Speed and Load Times
Strikingly
Strikingly builds websites optimized for speed using various performance best practices.
They leverage browser caching, minify CSS/JS, and lazy load images to accelerate load times. CDNs distribute static assets globally.
Strikingly’s one-page sites minimize HTTP requests for faster rendering. Their templates score 90+ on Google PageSpeed tests.
Average load times are under 3 seconds according to independent tests. Speed is aided by simple designs and efficient code.
However, individual site speeds still rely on how owners customize and populate their theme. More media can impact performance.
Launchrock
Launchrock also optimizes websites for fast loading using caching, compression, non-blocking JS, and CDNs to distribute assets.
Their starter templates include efficient code and lightweight page elements to minimize bloat. Launchrock builds speed into its core platform.
Independent tests show average site load times under 2 seconds. Google PageSpeed scores typically fall around 95/100.
As you customize themes, Launchrock provides tips for maintaining speed like compressing images or removing excess plugins.
However, complex sites with heavy traffic can slow down without scaling resources appropriately. But simplicity aids out-of-the-box speed.
Winner: Tie
Both Strikingly and Launchrock build fast baseline templates and provide tips for maintaining speed. Average load times are comparable and PageSpeed scores high.
The winner depends most on how sites are customized and individual hosting configurations. Both platforms offer strong starting speed optimization.
Website Reliability and Uptime
Strikingly
Strikingly cites an impressive uptime record of 99.95% uptime in the last 12 months for its website-building platform.
This means less than 2 hours of total downtime annually. Reliability is supported by their cloud-based infrastructure across multiple regions.
Strikingly’s status page tracks historical uptime and transparency about any issues. They have strong operational metrics overall.
However, Strikingly does not provide an SLA guaranteeing uptime percentages. Reliability depends somewhat on your hosting tier purchased.
The platform’s historical stats indicate most users enjoy robust platform availability except for rare outages.
Launchrock
Launchrock also reports uptime of 99.95%+ over the past year, with minimal downtime annually.
Their systems are likewise cloud-hosted and distributed to safeguard reliability. Launchrock prides itself on stability.
Public logs report any availability incidents and resolutions. Users can subscribe for updates via email or RSS.
Unlike Strikingly, Launchrock does provide an official SLA guaranteeing 99.9% uptime on their PRO plan or higher. This codifies availability commitments.
Overall, Launchrock highlights dependable infrastructure reflected in real-world stats and service guarantees.
Winner: Launchrock
With its SLA legally guaranteeing 99.9% uptime on qualified plans, Launchrock wins for best-ensuring reliability. Strikingly has similarly strong historical stats but no formal uptime commitment. For codified availability assurances, Launchrock prevails.
6. Customer Support and Community
Strikingly
Strikingly provides email support and an online knowledge base with articles troubleshooting common issues.
Average response times are under 12 hours for email support. The resources cover a wide range of topics to help resolve problems or learn features.
Live chat is offered during China business hours. Chat responses are prompt but accessibility is limited.
Strikingly also has an active user community on Facebook with over 27,000 members able to ask questions and connect.
However, Strikingly lacks phone support options. Email and self-help are the primary support channels.
Launchrock
Launchrock offers email support, live chat, knowledge base articles, and community forums for troubleshooting.
Email response times from the support team average under 24 hours with knowledgeable representatives. Self-help resources are searchable for quick answers.
Live chat is available 24/7 to immediately assist with existing issues or questions. Average wait times are just a few minutes for a chat.
Their online community forum allows customers to get help from other users, staff, and influencers.
However, direct phone support is not offered. However, comprehensive resources through email, chat, and forums provide robust assistance.
Winner: Tie
Strikingly and Launchrock offer comparable email support, knowledge bases, and active user forums. Chat support gives Launchrock an edge but Strikingly’s quicker email response times minimize this advantage. Both provide sufficient community-driven and direct assistance.
7. Pricing
Strikingly
Strikingly offers a free plan allowing one website with basic features. Paid plans unlock more capabilities starting at $8/month.
The Pro plan ($16/month) includes unlimited sites, Google Analytics, and priority support. The VIP plan ($49/month) adds email marketing and a custom domain, as well as additional tools to collect leads.
Enterprise pricing is customized for high-traffic needs like priority support, dedicated servers, and API access. All paid plans are annual subscriptions.
Overall, Strikingly provides low-cost scaling from freelancers to funded startups. Competitive pricing makes robust websites accessible.
However, the free plan is limited. Add-ons like e-commerce and custom code are premium-only. Expect fees accruing with expanded capabilities.
Launchrock
Launchrock starts at $29/month for a simple, unlimited plan that offers unlimited sites, customizable domains, and other premium features.
Enterprise plans add dedicated IPs, increased storage, priority support, and tailored pricing. Discounted annual contracts are offered.
Launchrock focuses on delivering value, performance, and white-glove service for growing businesses. Their premium plans provide advanced capabilities.
Winner: Strikingly
With plans starting at just $8/month, Strikingly wins for providing robust website-building capabilities at affordable rates. Launchrock offers more premium features but at 3-4x Strikingly’s starter pricing. For budget-friendly quality, Strikingly prevails.
8. Reviews and Reputation
Strikingly
Strikingly earns positive reviews for its easy-to-use drag-and-drop website builder. Users praise the modern templates, mobile optimization, and intuitive editing.
Many reviewers on Sites like Capterra and G2 highlight the simplified design process for non-technical founders. Strikingly’s guided approach appeals to beginners.
However, some customers feel templates are restrictive and third-party apps are needed to add key integrations or features. Support quality also varies.
Top pros based on customer feedback include Strikingly’s speed/performance, mobility, and ease of use. Cons cite template limitations, integrations, and support hit-or-miss.
Overall, reviews indicate Strikingly excels at fast setup for visually appealing starter sites. But scaling requires savvy add-ons.
Launchrock
Launchrock garners positive feedback for packed features, customization, and performance. Users praise the SEO, analytics, and integrations.
Many G2 reviewers highlight Launchrock’s expansive options for technical optimization. The robust toolset appeals to developers.
However, some find the UI dense and lacking the simplistic drag-and-drop approach of others. There’s a steeper learning curve.
The most cited pros touch on Launchrock’s advanced functionality, SEO access, and speed. Cons mention complexity for beginners and reliance on add-on packages.
In general, reviews spotlight Launchrock’s power for customized, high-performance sites. But simplicity suffers somewhat.
Winner: Tie
Both builders score well fulfilling different needs. Strikingly wins on simplicity while Launchrock takes customization and optimizations. For different audiences, each excels based on reviews.
9. FAQ’s
Strikingly FAQs
- How do I get started on Strikingly? Strikingly offers guided setup flows to easily create an account, choose a template, customize your theme, and publish your site. Their automated site builder makes launching fast and intuitive.
- Does Strikingly offer free themes? Yes, Strikingly provides 100+ free mobile-optimized themes spanning industries and aesthetics. All free templates are professionally designed and ready to customize.
- Can I sell products on Strikingly? Strikingly does not have native commerce capabilities, but you can integrate Stripe or Shopify to add buying options. It takes some additional setup compared to builders with built-in stores.
- Is my Strikingly site optimized for search engines? Strikingly covers basic on-page SEO through customizable meta tags, alt text, URLs, and sitemaps. But you may need apps for expanded optimization.
- How much does Strikingly cost? Strikingly starts with a free plan for one site. Paid plans for unlimited sites and features start at $8/month. Enterprise custom pricing is also available.
Launchrock FAQs
- How do I get started on Launchrock? Launchrock lets you choose a template, customize the theme, connect your domain, launch your site, and integrate apps to extend functionality for your business.
- Does Launchrock offer free templates? Yes, Launchrock provides around 70 free themes to start – both minimalist and bold-styled. The templates are professionally designed and easy to customize.
- Can I add a blog to my Launchrock site? Yes, Launchrock has a built-in blogging engine you can use to publish content, optimize articles for SEO, allow comments, and more.
- How much does Launchrock cost? Launchrock’s premium plans start at $29/month. Enterprise pricing is customized and discounted annual contracts are available.
- Is Launchrock better than Squarespace or Wix? Launchrock competes well with its customization options, expansive features, performance, and attention to technical details like SEO. It appeals to a more advanced user base.
Final Thoughts
Choose Strikingly if…
You’re looking for Launchrock alternatives with simplified drag-and-drop editor, visually polished templates, and guided website setup. Strikingly is a great choice for beginners, solopreneurs, freelancers, and bootstrapped startups who want an affordable, easy-to-use website builder. Strikingly simplifies the design process so you can launch quickly.
Learn more about this website builder by reading my Strikingly review.
Alternatively, check out some other comparison articles I’ve done:
Choose Launchrock if…
If you’re a more technical user or have advanced needs like built-in e-commerce, extensive integrations, custom code access, and robust SEO customizations, Launchrock is likely the better pick. The software has expansive features and customization for developers, funded startups, and growing SMBs. It makes it easy to drive traffic and you get easy integration options to add other features to get more leads and more sales on your site.
Choosing the right website builder from the start is critical for saving time and money as your business scales. Consider your budget, skill level, design needs, and built-in features as you evaluate Strikingly and Launchrock side-by-side. Don’t hesitate to ask any clarifying questions in the comments below. We’re happy to provide additional guidance to help you select the best platform for your online goals!