Strikingly vs Hostpapa: guide for 2024

Final verdict

Strikingly vs Hostpapa: Both platforms offer unique strengths, but Strikingly edges out with a higher overall score of 6.6 compared to Hostpapa’s 5.4.

Strikingly (Overall Grade: 6.6/10)

is a user-friendly website builder ideal for individuals and small businesses. It excels in ease of use, offering a drag-and-drop interface and a variety of customizable templates. Strikingly also provides comprehensive ecommerce features, SEO tools, and social media integration, making it a versatile platform for building and managing websites. Its higher score in product testing options and marketing features further enhances its appeal.
Hostpapa (Overall Grade: 5.4/10)

is designed for small businesses and individuals looking to create a professional online presence. It offers a wide array of templates and customization options, along with basic ecommerce capabilities. Hostpapa stands out in hosting quality and customer support, providing 24/7 assistance and robust security measures. However, it falls short in advanced features and user management compared to Strikingly.

	Overall grade: 6.6	Overall grade: 5.4
Design functionalities & templates	7.2	8.2
Ease of use	8.1	7.8
Ecommerce	7.2	6.6
Website editors	7.5	6.8
Product testing options	7.1	0.5
Price	8.1	7.9
Hosting quality	7.2	7.5
Website speed optimization	7.9	6.6
Plugins/extensions and integrations	5.1	5.0
Marketing features	7.2	3.0
Customer support	7.2	8.0
Website security	7.5	8.2
AI capabilities	1.6	0
User management	7.3	2.2

Best for ecommerce

7.2

6.6

Verdict

: Strikingly is better suited for those looking for a more comprehensive ecommerce solution, while Hostpapa is ideal for basic ecommerce needs.

Strikingly

: Strikingly offers a robust set of ecommerce features, including product listings, inventory management, and SEO tools. It is designed for users who need a versatile platform to manage their online store effectively. When comparing Strikingly vs Hostpapa, Strikingly stands out with a score of 7.2 for its ecommerce capabilities.
Hostpapa

: Hostpapa provides essential ecommerce functionalities such as payment gateway integration and inventory management. It is a good choice for small businesses or individuals who need a straightforward ecommerce solution. However, it falls short in comparison to Strikingly, with a score of 6.6 for ecommerce.

Best for informational & business websites

7.4

7.5

Verdict

: Hostpapa slightly edges out Strikingly for informational and business websites, thanks to its extensive template library and robust customer support.

Strikingly

: Strikingly is a user-friendly platform ideal for individuals and small businesses looking to create professional websites without coding knowledge. Its drag-and-drop interface and customizable templates make it easy to design and manage websites. However, it may lack some advanced features needed for more complex sites. Strikingly scores 7.4 in this category.
Hostpapa

: Hostpapa offers a comprehensive website builder with a variety of templates and customization options, making it suitable for small businesses and individuals. Its intuitive drag-and-drop interface and robust customer support, including one-on-one video training, make it a strong contender. Hostpapa scores 7.5 in this category.

Detailed comparison

7.2

8.2

🏆

Winner: Hostpapa.

If you’re looking for a platform that offers more creative control and a wide array of design features, Hostpapa is the preferred choice.

Strikingly offers a wide variety of templates and designs for its website builder. With over 60 unique templates to choose from, users can find a design that suits their needs and preferences. The templates are modern, visually appealing, and customizable, allowing users to personalize their websites. Whether you’re creating a portfolio, blog, or online store, Strikingly has a template for every type of website. Additionally, the platform regularly adds new templates to keep up with the latest design trends.

Strikingly Themes

Compared to Strikingly, HostPapa offers a wide variety of templates and designs to cater to the diverse needs of its users, ensuring that there is something for everyone, regardless of their niche or industry. With hundreds of professionally designed templates available, users can easily find a style that perfectly matches their vision and brand identity. These templates are not only abundant in number but also highly customizable, allowing for a high degree of personalization. From sleek and modern designs to more traditional and classic looks, HostPapa’s extensive template library ensures that users can create a unique and appealing website with ease.

Wix Themes

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8.1

7.8

🏆 Winner: Strikingly

. Scoring 8.1, Strikingly is slightly easier to use than Hostpapa, which scores 7.8. Strikingly’s user-friendly interface and intuitive drag-and-drop functionality make it ideal for individuals and small businesses. While Hostpapa also offers a user-friendly platform, it may lack the flexibility and advanced features required for more complex websites.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Strikingly

. Both platforms offer learning resources, but Strikingly provides a more comprehensive support center with written and video resources, ensuring users can navigate the platform effectively.

Learn Strikingly

Learn Hostpapa

7.2

6.6

Strikingly and Hostpapa both offer ecommerce capabilities, but they cater to different needs. Strikingly’s ecommerce features are more comprehensive, offering product listings, inventory management, coupons and discounts, SEO tools, analytics, and social media integration. On the other hand, Hostpapa’s ecommerce features are more basic, focusing on payment gateway integration, inventory management, and ecommerce specific templates.


Ecommerce themes and templates	6.5	5.5
Product page customization	6.0	6.0
Payment processing and commissions	6.8	7.0
POS capabilities	5.0	0.0
Payment gateways	7.0	7.5
Product numbers	5.5	5.0
Additional ecommerce features	6.5	4.5

Strikingly ecommerce features:

Product Listings
Inventory Management
Coupons and Discounts
SEO tools
Analytics
Social Media Integration

Strikingly add a product

Hostpapa ecommerce features:

Payment Gateways integration
Inventory management
Ecommerce specific templates

Ecommerce themes & templates

Strikingly offers a variety of ecommerce website templates tailored to meet various website building needs. These templates are designed by a world-class team of website designers and developers, focusing on modern trends and best practices to ensure your ecommerce site stands out. HostPapa offers a user-friendly website builder with over 230 templates, catering to individuals and small businesses seeking to establish an online presence. However, its ecommerce capabilities are only available with the Enterprise plan.

Product page customization

Customizing product pages on Strikingly involves showcasing your products with high-quality images in the “Portfolio” or “Product Catalog” section, emphasizing a premium feel to attract buyers. Adding products is streamlined through the “Simple Store” section, where you can detail product types, names, descriptions, and manage inventory and pricing. HostPapa provides a suite of product page customization features for online stores. Users can tailor product offerings by adding various options such as size and color, set product availability, and manage inventory with detailed controls.

Payment processing

When it comes to payment processing, Strikingly supports secure payment processing through Stripe, Square, and other gateways like PayPal, offering a range of options for ecommerce sites. The transaction fees for using these services vary depending on the payment gateway and user location. HostPapa supports a variety of payment gateways, including popular services like PayPal, Square, and Stripe, catering to both online and offline payment methods for businesses. The platform does not charge transaction fees itself, the fees primarily depend on the chosen payment gateway.

7.5

6.8

🏆

Winner: Strikingly

. Strikingly, with a score of 7.5, is a user-friendly website editor designed to help individuals and businesses create professional websites quickly and easily, without the need for coding knowledge. It features a drag-and-drop interface for easy customization of website elements, such as text, images, and videos. Users can choose from a variety of templates that can be personalized to fit their brand, making it possible to launch a unique online presence swiftly. Strikingly also emphasizes mobile responsiveness, ensuring websites look great on any device, and offers SEO tools and social media integration to enhance online visibility and engagement.

Strikingly editor

HostPapa’s website editor, scoring 6.8, is designed to be user-friendly, featuring a drag-and-drop interface for easy web page construction without the need for coding. It offers a variety of responsive and mobile-friendly templates that cater to different needs and preferences, allowing for significant customization. HostPapa’s service is enhanced by its robust customer support, including 24/7 access to the PapaSquad for assistance. Additionally, for those preferring a hands-off approach, HostPapa provides a Do-It-For-Me service, taking care of all aspects of website building from design to content creation. However, it lacks in-depth marketing tools and advanced SEO capabilities.

Mobile editor/app

2.0

🏆

Winner: Strikingly

. Both Strikingly and Hostpapa lack dedicated mobile editor apps, which can be a significant drawback for users who need to make quick changes on the go. However, Strikingly allows users to edit their websites using a mobile browser, although the interface is noted to be very inconvenient. Hostpapa, on the other hand, does not offer any mobile editing capabilities.

In summary, while neither platform excels in mobile editing, Strikingly provides a minimal level of functionality through mobile browsers, giving it a slight edge over Hostpapa, which lacks mobile editing options entirely.

7.1

0.5

Overall Result

:

Strikingly wins

. Strikingly scores 7.1, offering a free version and a 14-day free trial with access to all features. Hostpapa, scoring only 0.5, does not offer a free or trial version and does not allow testing of premium features before purchase, although it does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.


Free Plan	Yes	No
Trial Duration	14 days	No trial
Testing Premium Features	All features during free trial	Not possible before purchase
Money Back Guarantee	No	30-day money back guarantee

8.1

7.9

Strikingly and HostPapa offer a range of pricing plans to suit different needs, with Strikingly scoring slightly higher in terms of price.

	Offerings	Offerings
Free	Free ($0/month): Includes Strikingly.com subdomain, unlimited free sites, 5 GB monthly bandwidth, 500 MB total storage per site, simple store with 1 product per site, and 5 pages per site and 24/7 support.	No offering at this amount.
$0-$10	No offering at this amount.	Starter ($3.99/month): Free domain registration, Up to 2 pages, Mobile-friendly, responsive design templates. This plan allows to manage 1 website. Value for Price: 4.0
$10-$20	Limited ($12/month): Allows connection to custom domain, includes 2 limited sites, unlimited free sites, 50 GB monthly bandwidth, 1 GB total storage per site, free domain with yearly plans, and allows selling a single product and 5 page per site. Value for Price: 6.5	Business ($10.99/month): Free domain registration, Up to 1000 pages, Mobile-friendly, responsive design templates. This plan allows to manage 1 website. Value for Price: 6.5
$20-$30	Pro ($20/month): Offers 3 pro sites, unlimited free sites, unlimited bandwidth, 3 GB total storage per site, simple store with 300 products per site and up to 100 pages per site, site membership, custom forms, multiple pages, and removal of Strikingly branding, among other advanced features. Value for Price: 8.5	Premium ($20.99/month): Free domain registration, Up to 1000 pages, Mobile-friendly, responsive design templates, Advanced HTML & CSS editing, Header/footer code injection. This plan allows to manage 1 website. Value for Price: 7.5
$40+	VIP ($59/month): Includes all Pro features plus 5 pro sites, 10 GB total storage per site, priority customer service, English phone support, account management, and allows selling unlimited products. Value for Price: 9.0	Enterprise ($40.99/month): Free domain registration, Up to 1000 pages, Mobile-friendly, responsive design templates, Advanced HTML & CSS editing, Header/footer code injection, eCommerce enabled, 45+ payment gateways, No additional transaction fees, Digital goods functionality, Inventory tracking, Sell on Facebook. This plan allows to manage 1 website. Value for Price: 9.0

In some cases companies have different prices based on various components like a
location. As a result in rare cases the prices displayed here can differ from the ones you see on their
websites.

7.2

7.5

🏆

Winner: Hostpapa

Both Strikingly and Hostpapa offer reliable hosting services with a 99.9% uptime guarantee. However, Hostpapa edges out with its shared hosting and three disclosed data centers, providing a more transparent and potentially more robust hosting solution. Strikingly’s managed hosting and undisclosed data center locations may not meet the needs of users requiring high data storage or robust data protection.


Do they offer hosting?	Yes, included in all paid plans	Yes, included in all paid plans
Data Centers:	Multiple data centers (exact locations not disclosed)	3 Data Centers: California(US), Burlington(Ontario, Canada) and one in the Netherlands
Type of hosting:	Managed Hosting	Shared Hosting
Uptime:	99.9%	99.9%
Uptime Guarantee:	Yes, 99.9%	Yes, 99.9%

7.9

6.6

🏆 Winner: Strikingly

Both Strikingly and Hostpapa prioritize website speed optimization, but Strikingly’s comprehensive approach gives it an edge.


Focus	CDN, Code Minification, Caching, Optimized Server Response Time, Image Optimization and Compression, Responsive Design	Image optimization, Caching, HTTP requests minimization
Performance Tools	Google Lighthouse, PageSpeed Insights	Google PageSpeed Insights Integration
Key Strategies	CDN, Code Minification, Caching, Optimized Server Response Time, Image Optimization and Compression, Responsive Design	Image optimization, Caching, HTTP requests minimization
Load Times	Can vary depending on different factors	Varies widely, depending on the optimization, website complexity
Page Speed Scores Range	80-90/100 average	Varies widely, depending on the optimization, website complexity
Core Web Vitals Improvement	Not disclosed	Implementing various performance optimization techniques

Strikingly’s approach to website speed optimization is comprehensive, focusing on CDN, code minification, caching, optimized server response time, image optimization and compression, and responsive design. This results in an average PageSpeed score range of 80-90/100. However, Strikingly does not disclose any specific information about Core Web Vitals improvements.

On the other hand, Hostpapa’s strategies for speed optimization include image optimization, caching, and minimizing HTTP requests. The load times and PageSpeed scores can vary widely, depending on the optimization and website complexity. Hostpapa is working on improving Core Web Vitals by implementing various performance optimization techniques.

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5.1

5.0

🏆 Winner: Strikingly.

Strikingly scores slightly higher with a 5.1, offering a wider range of plugins and extensions to enhance website functionality. HostPapa, scoring 5.0, provides essential integrations but lacks the broad spectrum of advanced third-party integrations seen with other builders.

Strikingly’s plugins serve to expand a range of features and functionalities, including design elements, social media integration, and ecommerce. On the other hand, HostPapa’s integrations are more basic, focusing on simplicity and ease of use.

Strikingly offers a wide array of free apps and integrations, including Instagram Feed, Google Reviews, WhatsApp Chat, and more. HostPapa’s website builder offers essential integrations and functionalities, including Google Maps for location display and social media icons for easy profile linkage.

7.2

3.0

🏆

Overall Winner: Strikingly

. Strikingly offers a more comprehensive set of marketing tools, including SEO optimization, email marketing, social media integration, analytics and reporting, and ads and promotions. Hostpapa, on the other hand, offers basic SEO tools, blogging, and analytics, but lacks email marketing and ads and promotions features.


SEO Tools	✓	✓ (Basic)
Email Marketing	✓	✗
Blogging	✓	✓ (Basic)
Social Media Integration	Embedding and linking to social media platforms	Limited to adding icons
Analytics and Reporting	Basic site performance tracking with options for integration	Basic in-built features with Google Analytics integration
Ads and Promotions	Offers essential tools like discount codes and coupons	✗

7.2

8.0

🏆 Winner: Hostpapa

. In the Strikingly vs Hostpapa comparison, Hostpapa takes the lead with its comprehensive 24/7/365 customer support, including phone, email, and live chat options. Hostpapa’s unique offering of 30-minute one-on-one video training sessions with their experts provides an extra layer of personalized support, which can be incredibly beneficial for users needing additional assistance.

Strikingly also offers 24/7 customer support via email and live chat, with phone support available for VIP users. While Strikingly is praised for its quick and friendly responses, it falls short compared to Hostpapa’s more extensive support options and the added benefit of personalized training sessions.

7.5

8.2

🏆

Winner: Hostpapa

. Hostpapa’s security measures are comprehensive, offering automatic SSL certification, server firewalls and monitoring, DDoS attack prevention, and the Protection Power Security Software. This software includes a web application firewall (WAF), malware detection, and more. Hostpapa also encourages best security practices, such as regular website backups and the use of reputable themes and plugins.

Strikingly also emphasizes the importance of website security, offering features like two-factor authentication and DDoS protection. However, it falls slightly short in comparison to Hostpapa’s extensive security measures.

1.6


AI Builder	Limited AI-powered features for website creation	No AI capabilities
AI Ecommerce features	No AI ecommerce features	No AI ecommerce features
AI Content Generation	No AI content generation tools	No AI content generation tools
Additional AI features	No additional AI features	No additional AI features

🏆 Winner: Strikingly

. Although both Strikingly and Hostpapa have limited AI capabilities, Strikingly has a slight edge with a score of 1.6, indicating some AI-powered features for website creation. However, it’s important to note that neither platform offers AI ecommerce features, AI content generation tools, or additional AI features.

7.3

2.2

🏆 Winner: Strikingly

. Strikingly offers a more comprehensive user management system compared to Hostpapa.

Strikingly allows you to invite up to 10 teammates to edit and manage your site, with different roles such as Admin, Editor, Store Manager, Blogger, and Agent, each with specific levels of access and permissions.
Hostpapa does not provide detailed information about its user management capabilities.

Strikingly User Roles and Access Levels:

Role	Description	Access Highlights
Admin	Has access similar to the site owner but with specific limitations.	Can edit content, manage store and events, and view analytics, but cannot add/remove teammates.
Editor	Can make changes to the site with some restrictions.	Edits site content but lacks access to store management, settings panel, or analytics.
Store Manager	Primarily focused on e-commerce functionalities of the site.	Manages products, orders, and store settings, with no capabilities to edit non-store content.
Blogger	Specialized in writing and managing blog posts.	Can write and manage blog posts, with optional publishing rights.
Agent	Dedicated to managing audience interactions, primarily through live chat.	Has access to audience data, can respond to live chats, and send individual messages, with no site editing access.

Hostpapa does not provide detailed information about its user roles and access levels.

Additional Features


SSL Certificate	✓	✓
Custom Domain	✓	✓
Free Custom Domain Included	✓	✓
International Domains	✓	✓
Mobile Responsive	✓	✓
Page Speed	✓	✓
Website Builder Mobile App	X	X
Convert a Website To An App	X	X
Website Analytics	✓	✓
Multilingual Sites	✓	✓
Multiple Users	✓	X

User Feedback

Strikingly

39 reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars

Hostpapa

0 reviews

0 out of 5 stars

Users appreciate Strikingly for its ability to import data from LinkedIn, a variety of attractive templates, and responsive customer service. However, some users have reported issues such as unexpected subscription renewals and limitations in customization options. Despite these drawbacks, Strikingly is valued for its ability to quickly create professional-looking websites, making it suitable for personal projects, startups, and small businesses. While pricing and customer service options may not appeal to everyone, those seeking an uncomplicated website building experience with diverse design choices may find Strikingly to be a suitable solution for their needs.

Hostpapa, on the other hand, does not have any reviews on the G2 platform. This lack of user feedback makes it challenging to gauge user satisfaction and experiences with Hostpapa’s website builder. Potential users may need to rely on other sources or personal trials to determine if Hostpapa meets their specific needs when comparing Strikingly vs Hostpapa.

The making of this blog

We followed a clear, step-by-step process to write and research this article.

Our Ranking Criteria

FAQ

Which platform is easier to use, Strikingly or Hostpapa?

Strikingly is generally easier to use due to its user-friendly interface and intuitive drag-and-drop functionality, making it ideal for individuals and small businesses. Hostpapa also offers a user-friendly platform but may lack the flexibility and advanced features required for more complex websites.

Can I use both Strikingly and Hostpapa for ecommerce?

Yes, both platforms support ecommerce. Strikingly offers more comprehensive ecommerce tools, ideal for businesses that need versatile and user-friendly solutions. Hostpapa provides essential ecommerce functionalities, suitable for smaller operations or those just starting out.

How do Strikingly and Hostpapa differ in terms of customization and design flexibility?

Hostpapa offers more creative control and a wide array of design features, making it the preferred choice for users seeking extensive customization options. Strikingly provides a variety of modern and visually appealing templates that are customizable but may not offer as much design freedom as Hostpapa.

What are the major differences in pricing between Strikingly and Hostpapa?

Strikingly and HostPapa offer various pricing plans, with Strikingly generally being slightly more affordable in terms of entry-level options. Hostpapa’s plans are competitively priced and offer good value, especially for users looking for robust hosting solutions combined with website building.