Duda

Founded 2009 by Itai Sadan and Amir Glatt (originally as DudaMobile, a mobile-website builder); repositioned in 2014 as a platform for web professionals/agencies. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

Hosted, visual website builder with an editor, native CMS/blog/ecommerce, and client-management layer; not self-hosted or headless-only (though it exposes a JSON REST API usable in a more headless fashion).

Duda is explicitly built for web professionals (agencies, freelancers, SaaS platforms) rather than DIY end consumers; white-label branding, per-client permissions, and multi-site management are core to its positioning, not add-ons.

No permanent free plan; Duda offers a 14-day free trial instead (see pricing.free_trial).

Not applicable, no free plan exists (only a time-limited trial).

Basic plan, billed yearly ($19/mo effective; $25/mo if billed monthly). Includes 1 site with a connected custom domain. A limited-time promotional price of $9.50/mo was also shown on the pricing page at time of research; $19/mo is the standard annual-billing rate used here.

Agency plan (marked 'Best Value!' on the pricing page), billed yearly ($52/mo effective; $69/mo if billed monthly). Includes 4 sites, priority support, and the Custom Widget Builder.

Duda's ecommerce (native store) is a separate subscription layered on top of a site plan, priced on its own pricing page rather than as a single flat per-month figure disclosed on the main pricing page; exact entry ecommerce price was not confirmed from official sources reachable during this research pass.

No evidence of an intro-price-then-higher-renewal pattern; the main pricing lever is annual vs. monthly billing (annual plans are billed at a lower effective monthly rate) plus temporary promotional coupon pricing shown on the pricing page.

30-day money-back guarantee stated on the official pricing page.

DudaFlex Sections (built on CSS Grid/Flexbox) are the core building block, with a 'Dev Mode' offering direct HTML/CSS access for advanced users layered on top; not a fully freeform pixel-canvas like Webflow.

Duda describes its editor as 'easy-to-use and intuitive drag-and-drop.'

Client permission levels include an option that lets clients edit existing widget content directly in place without adding/removing widgets ('DIY Simple Editor' / restricted client editing mode).

Duda recommends backing up a site before adding custom code, and provides site-level backup/restore; standard in-editor undo is also present.

Standard behavior across Duda's editor for content/widget edits, consistent with its product documentation on editing and publishing workflow.

'Edit On the Go' lets users and clients build, edit, and republish sites from any mobile or tablet browser (touch-optimized dashboard), covering text, image, photo gallery, image slider, and click-to-action widgets; adding new pages is not supported from mobile. Separately, the eCommerce Store has a dedicated iOS/Android mobile app for store management.

Duda supports a partial template reset that swaps the template/design while leaving the site's content library, blog, and media library intact, rather than forcing a full content rebuild.

Editorial judgment: the core drag-and-drop/section editor is approachable for non-developers (and Duda offers a further-simplified 'DIY Simple Editor' client mode), but Dev Mode, dynamic pages/collections, and the Custom Widget Builder expose real HTML/CSS/JS complexity for agency power users - placing it between simple DIY builders and fully code-first tools.

Duda's official templates page ('Duda's Website Templates') does not publish a specific total count; it only references a 'rich selection' that grows over time. Third-party marketplaces cite inconsistent figures (54-120+) that are not official Duda numbers, so this is left unverified rather than reporting an unofficial estimate.

Duda's feature pages reference 100+ built-in font styles plus the ability to work with a site's own typography via Site Theme; custom font upload is standard functionality on the platform's design/features pages.

DudaFlex allows customizing elements individually per device (desktop/tablet/mobile) built on CSS Grid/Flexbox, going beyond pure automatic reflow, but this is device-preset-based editing rather than Webflow-style fully custom arbitrary breakpoints.

Dev Mode gives direct access to edit a site's CSS; available to users with Dev Mode access rather than restricted to a specific paid plan tier in the sources checked.

Custom JavaScript can be added via Site Wide HTML/header code and the Editor JavaScript API; PHP and other server-side languages are not supported (no server-side execution or filesystem access). Some support documentation notes HTML customization is being phased out on newer Editor 2.0 in favor of CSS-only Dev Mode edits, so JS support depth can vary by editor version.

Native animation/interaction features include a 'shrinking header' on scroll, hover effects on photo galleries, image/background sliders, and color-overlay/opacity controls on images and video.

'Site Theme' defines consistent site-wide settings for text, buttons, images, backgrounds, and colors, functioning as a global design-token system.

Editorial judgment: DudaFlex sections plus Dev Mode CSS/JS access give more control than a rigid template-bound builder like GoDaddy or Weebly, but the section/widget model and editor-version constraints on HTML customization keep it short of Webflow's fully unconstrained box-model canvas.

Duda sites run on Duda's own AWS-based infrastructure while live on the platform; the only path off-platform is a static site export you host yourself, not pointing Duda's editor/CMS at self-managed servers.

Hosting is on Amazon AWS with automated DDoS mitigation included at no additional cost for all published sites.

SSL certificates are automatically provided and renewed for every published site at no extra charge.

Account owners/staff can export a .zip of the published site's HTML/JS/CSS/images/media. Limitations: exported files cannot be edited back in Duda's visual builder, the Store does not export into the HTML (though products export to CSV), the Blog exports as an .rss file rather than HTML, and an exported site cannot be re-imported into another Duda account.

May 2026 CrUX data via HTTP Archive CWV Technology Report API, technology 'Duda': combined = (desktop good 14,842 + mobile good 38,183) / (desktop tested 17,142 + mobile tested 44,494) x 100 = 86.0%. Split: desktop 86.6% (14,842/17,142 origins), mobile 85.8% (38,183/44,494 origins).

Automatic image optimization and resizing per device is listed among Duda's technical infrastructure features.

Server-side rendering and image/asset optimization are part of Duda's stated technical SEO/performance approach; lazy loading of images is standard platform behavior consistent with its performance claims.

No site-owner-configurable cache-control settings were found in official documentation checked; caching/CDN behavior is managed by Duda's infrastructure rather than exposed as an owner-tunable setting.

Per-page and site-wide meta title/description editing, with an AI Assistant able to generate metadata for all pages at once.

Page-level SEO/AEO settings include editable URL slugs as part of standard SEO configuration.

301 and 302 redirects are supported out-of-the-box, including bulk upload via CSV, with alerts when a site change may warrant a redirect.

Canonical tags are generated automatically by Duda; per its own SEO FAQ, 'there are some tags (like the canonical) that we do not currently allow you to alter.'

A default robots.txt is auto-generated per site and cannot be directly edited in place, but site owners can override it by uploading a custom robots.txt file through Site Configuration Files.

Sitemap is automatically generated per site, instantly updated on publish, and shared with search platforms via IndexNow protocol integration; pages marked noindex are excluded from it.

Duda automatically generates schema.org markup for Video, Blog, Article, Product, LocalBusiness, FAQ, and other page/widget types depending on site structure, with custom schema implementation also possible for advanced users.

Hreflang tag implementation is included as part of Duda's native multi-language feature (language subdirectories plus hreflang tags), though several third-party sources note limitations in coverage compared to dedicated translation apps like Weglot or Linguise, which some agencies use for more complete hreflang/sitemap handling.

Open Graph tag support for social media sharing optimization is listed as a native SEO feature.

Per-page noindex is set in a page's SEO settings; noindexed pages are automatically excluded from the sitemap.

Manual alt text editing is standard, and Duda's AI Stack adds bulk/automatic alt text generation across a whole site.

Native blog engine (not a third-party plugin), with its own settings, widgets, and management tools.

Dynamic Pages/Collections (Internal Collections, Google Sheets, Airtable, or External Collections on Custom plans) function as configurable custom content types used to generate multiple pages from structured data.

Blog posts support tags, with autofill tagging and the ability to filter post-listing widgets by multiple tags.

Unpublished blog posts can be scheduled to publish at a specific future date and time.

Site-level backups exist (recommended before custom code changes) and site restore is documented; this is a whole-site rollback capability rather than confirmed granular per-blog-post revision history.

Team members (organized into permission groups) and clients (granted per-site access) can collaborate on a site, including content/blog editing, consistent with Duda's team- and client-permissions system.

ATOM and RSS feeds are automatically generated and updated for every new blog post; the feed URL is available in blog settings. Duda also supports importing up to 300 posts from an external RSS feed when migrating a blog onto the platform.

The Collections JS API and REST API support both reading collection data (pagination, filtering, sorting) and writing/modifying collections (creating new collections, updating existing ones), alongside a broader Duda REST API for site/content management.

Native store functionality (product catalog, checkout, payments) is built into the platform as a separate add-on subscription on top of a site plan; third-party/'Composable eCommerce' integrations are also supported.

Official ecommerce pages describe supported product types (physical, digital, services/tickets/events, donations, variants) but do not state numeric per-plan product limits in the sources reachable during this research pass.

No Duda-imposed transaction fee was mentioned on the ecommerce overview page, but a definitive statement ('0% platform fee' or similar) was not located in the official sources reached during this research pass; standard payment processor fees (Stripe, Square, PayPal, etc.) apply regardless.

Digital downloads are listed as a supported product type alongside physical goods, services/tickets/events, and donations.

'Generate recurring revenue with fully automatic subscription payments' is listed as a native ecommerce capability.

The ecommerce overview page mentions multi-language SEO/AEO readiness for international sales but does not explicitly confirm native multi-currency display/conversion in the sources checked.

Point-of-sale integration details were not explicitly confirmed in official ecommerce documentation reached during this research pass, despite Duda's broader positioning as usable by 'point-of-sale systems' embedding its website capability.

Abandoned cart management is listed under the store's operations dashboard on the official ecommerce page.

Static HTML/CSS/JS/images/media export fully; Store products export only as CSV (not into site HTML), and the Blog exports as an .rss file rather than as HTML pages.

Exported files can be hosted on any server but cannot be re-edited in Duda's visual builder (manual HTML/CSS editing only going forward), and cannot be re-imported into another Duda account - a one-way, partial snapshot rather than a fully portable live copy of the CMS-backed site.

Custom domains are connected via DNS from the customer's own registrar (e.g., GoDaddy, Namecheap); Duda is not the registrar of record for a domain a user brings to the platform.

Only in the limited sense of the static export described above (ownership.design_export) - the live CMS/editor-backed site cannot itself run off Duda's infrastructure; only the exported static shell can be rehosted elsewhere.

REST API and Collections JS API expose site content, dynamic pages/collections, and store/blog data programmatically.

Editorial judgment: static export exists (unlike Wix/Squarespace/GoDaddy, which offer none), giving Duda more exit flexibility than fully closed builders, but the export is a one-way static snapshot that breaks the Store and converts the Blog to RSS-only, and the site cannot be re-imported into Duda or run live off-platform - meaningfully more lock-in than a portable, standards-based CMS.

REST-based JSON API covering site management, content injection, domain management, dynamic pages, collections, ecommerce, and user/team management, authenticated via API credentials under Business Tools > API Access.

Webhooks are supported for site lifecycle/content changes, collections/data modifications, native ecommerce and booking events, membership, and blog updates.

HTML widgets and Site Wide HTML/header code allow embedding custom code; available to users with Dev Mode access rather than gated to a single specific paid tier per the documentation checked.

No official standalone CLI tool was identified in the developer documentation reached during this research pass; development is centered on in-browser Dev Mode and JS/REST APIs rather than a command-line toolchain.

Native Duda app on Zapier connecting to roughly 9,000 other apps (triggers include new form response, publish blog post, new comment; actions include creating sites at scale). No official native Make/Integromat app was confirmed in the sources checked.

AI Sections tool auto-generates new site sections (design, layout, copy, images) from a short prompt; AI Copilot conversational assistant can also help create new sites from the dashboard.

AI content creation tool generates contextual web copy, can adjust length/tone, translate, and fix grammar/spelling directly in the platform; powered via an OpenAI partnership, supporting 50+ languages with strongest performance in English.

Official AI feature pages emphasize copy generation, SEO metadata, alt text, and section generation; a dedicated native AI image-generation/editing tool (as distinct from stock image libraries like Unsplash/Shutterstock) was not clearly confirmed in the sources checked during this pass.

AI SEO Assistant generates SEO metadata (titles/descriptions) for all site pages at once, plus AI-generated bulk image alt text and an 'AI Visibility' scoring feature for AEO/AI-search readiness.

Two-tier system: Team members are organized into permission groups (predefined or custom) with dependency-aware permission toggles (e.g., SEO access requires Editor access); Client accounts are granted access per-site with granular permission levels ranging from full editing to restricted widget-content-only editing to HTML/CSS access.

No explicit statement of real-time simultaneous multi-user editing (as opposed to sequential access and commenting) was found in the official documentation reached during this research pass.

Clients can be granted access to review sites before publishing, and can leave in-line comments directly in the editor for feedback, with email or Zapier notifications on new comments - a built-in review/approval loop between agency and client.

Clients can be given pre-publish access to review and comment on a live-editable preview of their site; this is presented as client review access to the unpublished site rather than a separately named, isolated staging environment distinct from production.

Site Comments let clients and team members leave in-line feedback directly within the editor, with notifications via email or custom Zapier routines.

No dedicated site-activity/audit-log feature (recording who changed what and when, with API access) was confirmed in the official documentation reached during this research pass, unlike some competitors that explicitly advertise this at higher tiers.

24/7 support is listed specifically as a Custom/Enterprise-plan feature, not included on the self-serve Basic, Team, Agency, or White Label plans per the official pricing page.

Editorial judgment: Duda maintains a structured support Help Center, a separate developer documentation site (developer.duda.co) with API references, and Duda Academy training content - solid and agency-oriented, though less unified/exhaustive than Webflow University's single-destination course library.

No current official member/post count for a Duda community forum was found in the sources checked during this research pass.

Site and customer data are physically dispersed across multiple cloud-computing zones and automatically backed up, per Duda's official security page.

No dedicated built-in accessibility checker/audit tool was found described on the official pages reached during this research pass.

Native multi-language site creation with automatic Google Translate-based translation; adding a language creates a duplicate, editable translated version of the site under a language subdirectory.

Automatic machine translation (Google Translate) generates the initial translated copy, which is then manually editable per language; third-party apps (Weglot, Linguise) offer deeper translation-management workflows via integration.

Automatic language subdirectories (e.g., /es/) for geo-targeted URLs plus hreflang tag implementation are native; several third-party sources note the native hreflang implementation has limitations compared to dedicated translation-SEO apps, which is reflected as a caveat under seo.hreflang.

Right-to-left language layout support was not explicitly confirmed in the official multi-language documentation reached during this research pass (unlike Webflow, which explicitly documents automatic RTL support).