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Moonfruit Review 2024 – Can It Compete with the Big Players?

Donna Moses Written by: Donna Moses

It is possible to build a functional, eCommerce-friendly website with Moonfruit. However, in many ways, this builder still lags behind its competitors and requires serious upgrading to make it more modern. For a more intuitive, and up-to-date builder, try Wix.1

Overview

Moonfruit-overview1

Moonfruit Has a Definite Learning Curve, but It Is a Good Starting Point for Anyone Looking for an Affordable Website Building Platform

Moonfruit is a decent website builder, but it won’t give you the full set of features you’ll get with the top website builders like Wix.

Founded in 2000, Moonfruit has been around longer than other well-known website builders, such as Strikingly and Squarespace. Just like other builders, Moonfruit lets you create a responsive website without any programming knowledge required.

While anyone can build a functional and good-looking website at very competitive rates using Moonfruit, this builder still lacks the ease of use and seamlessness exhibited by more modern site builders.

A major reason why Moonfruit looks and feels clunky is that the site editor is Flash-based, which the owners admitted to, and attempted to remedy, by introducing several new features, including a responsive editor.

While there is only a small number of responsive templates, these can be customized by fine-tuning individual elements or shifting entire content blocks around.

The editor itself is not the easiest to work with, but it does let you build functional pages onto which you can add maps, forms, galleries, embedded videos, social feeds, and more.

Moonfruit doesn’t offer a built-in eCommerce function. Instead, the Shoprocket engine provides a robust and impressive eCommerce platform that’s worth checking out.

All in all, this builder has a long way to go in terms of offering more modern features for user-friendly website building. For more intuitive options, check out our shortlist of top website builders for 2024.

4.2

Templates

Moonfruit-templates

Customizable Themes for Every Business

Industry-wide templates: Moonfruit has a decent number of templates catering to a wide array of industries. Not all its templates will sweep you off your feet, but with a little digging, you will find one that meets your needs.

Mobile responsive: Moonfruit has yet to catch up with advances made in mobile responsive technology. Its templates are not inherently responsive. Instead, you would need to toggle with a Mobile button on the main toolbar to format your site for mobile devices. Fortunately, mobile editing is possible, so you can tweak the basics including text and background colors.

Customizable: There is an array of basic customization options which allow you to bring your theme to life. However, I couldn’t find any HTML/CSS editing options, so it would be safe to say that advanced users might be disappointed by the lack of access to site code.

4.5

Features

Moonfruit-features

Standard Tools That Will Add Functionality to Your Site

Blog: While it is commendable that Moonfruit has an integrated blog, this function is not as advanced as it is on other builders such as Voog or Wix.  Yes, you will find the basic features including a comment box, drafts, and an RSS feed but that’s just about it. The blog feature is not available for responsive pages; it is only available on the old non-responsive editor. This makes Moonfruit a less desirable platform for any serious blogger. If you want to use the responsive editor, you would need to integrate the blog using a WordPress widget, which only increases the learning curve.

eCommerce: The Shoprocket engine does a good job of supporting the eCommerce function on Moonfruit. You would, however, need to upgrade to the eCommerce Lite or eCommerce Pro (for selling digital products) plan to set up an online storefront. The upside is that even as a third-party integration, the eCommerce platform lets you build a robust shop with product customization options, categories, and currencies. You can also set up a Facebook shop that links directly to your on-site store. Unfortunately, PayPal is currently the only payment option, which is limiting for customers.

Marketing tools: Moonfruit offers standard marketing features, and while there are no bells and whistles to speak of, the available tools do a good job of helping you optimize your site for the search engines. Key features include Google Analytics integration, access to Google Webmaster, and custom SEO for individual pages.

Other cool features that may come in handy as you set up your website include an app store, social media integration, and an image gallery.

4.2

Ease of use

Moonfruit-userfriendly1

Clunky Editor Increases Users’ Learning Curve

Moonfruit has two types of editors—the old non-responsive one and the new responsive editor. This be a bit confusing, especially for a beginner who is building a first website.

The non-responsive editor feels outdated and sluggish, but it does offer extensive customization options. However, beginners may face a steep learning curve as the tools in the editor can be complex to work with. Many of the tools and elements are hidden, requiring users to embark on a discovery mission to locate and apply them.

Bring Your Website to Life with Easy Customization.

Some of the functions are user-friendly. For example, there are many ways to customize elements, so you will spend less time figuring how to tweak things like text color and size, link type, animations, and button shape. Also, all changes you make can be previewed on desktop or mobile.

While modern site builders such as Squarespace limit how and where you can place objects, Moonfruit gives you complete freedom to drag and drop elements anywhere on a page. The Align and Gridline tools keep your creativity in check to ensure that elements are uniformly aligned throughout the website in keeping up with principles of good design.

Moonfruit-userfriendly2

4.2

Support

Moonfruit-support

More Needs to Be Done to Make Support More Responsive

Moonfruit has a searchable knowledge base that covers the basics and nothing much beyond that. The support team would certainly do a better job by beefing up the knowledge base to offer more value, especially to beginners.

One would expect the live chat support to be available around the clock, but this isn’t the case with Moonfruit. After asking a question, I waited over 24 hours to receive a response.

Moonfruit claims that the average response time is “pretty fast” but you will likely only get a quick response during office hours, which are Monday to Friday 9:30 am to 6 pm GMT.

The support team can also be reached by filling out a contact form, but there is no phone support. Overall, Moonfruit’s support is not always as responsive as one might expect.

4.5

Pricing

Affordable Prices to Help You Bring Your Business Online Inexpensively

The competitively priced plans are perhaps one of Moonfruit’s best features. If you are looking to build a simple website, the Basic plan is a good place to get started. This plan offers one website with unlimited pages that feature Moonfruit ads, a custom domain, and 500MB storage.

The Professional plan for small businesses is the most popular. This one lets you build up to 5 websites with unlimited, ad-free pages, 10GB storage, and support for a custom domain.

The eCommerce Lite plan is ideal for businesses that want to sell unlimited products online. It gives you access to one site with unlimited, ad-free pages, 20GB storage, support for a custom domain, and an option for product customization.

Upgrading to the eCommerce Pro packages gets you everything offered on the eCommerce Lite plan with the added capability of selling digital products.

Comparison

How does Moonfruit match up to the competition?

1WixCompareOur Score4.9Compare
1SquarespaceCompareOur Score4.8Compare
1CompareOur Score4.3Compare
1SimpleSiteCompareOur Score2.5Compare

Moonfruit REVIEW: BOTTOM LINE

It is possible to build a functional, eCommerce-friendly website with Moonfruit. However, in many ways, this builder still lags behind its competitors and requires serious upgrading to make it more modern.

Before you make a decision, read my colleague’s comparison of the best website builders to make sure you’re not missing out on better alternatives.
Donna Moses Donna Moses
Donna is a passionate writer who is all about creating engaging and thought-provoking content for the tech and online world. She is an avid lover of new technology and internet trends.
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DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES…USE MOONFRUIT.

As a result of this, so called team's, inability to properly deal with the "flash" migration, sites are no longer operable or have any ability to be edited. Yet, Moonfruit will continue to deny. They also continued to charge me even though I tried and tried to get them to cancel.. BAD NEWS! And a ton of hassle trying to get the charges reverse off of my card. Steer clear!

1 avatar
Weezon Music, USA
October 23, 2021
1
So disappointed

Had my website on Moonfruit for a very long time. Then now I could not edit my site. Could not pay for it. Nothing worked!! Guess they don't want anyone to use it any longer. a shame. I tried to close the site. But then saw it was written on my account it was the closed year 2030 !!!! But, still, they took my money each month. Had to change the card after that. Horrible !!!

1 avatar
Karin, Sweden
August 30, 2021
1
Moonfruit, more like Moonpoot

I used to love Moonfruit a couple of years ago. I ran my pet sitting business with my self-built site. It's a darn good thing my business had to shut down during Covid because now ALL of my self-built websites (I had 4) are completely gone. WTF! I can't even recover the hardwork from those former sites at all. Just completely GONE. And it looks like there's no hope going forward. I was paying a lot of money for the site-building capabilities. They really pulled the rug out from under many businesses.

1 avatar
Andi Graham, USA
June 07, 2021
1
Turned to crap

Have used Moonfruit for years, one day it all changed. They have lost the plot. Useless platform, useless service, useless website I can now not even edit. Now that Adobe Flash no longer works they can't seem to get it together fast enough, have been waiting since the new year to be able to use my site and it's now March. Not replying to messages. Giving them a 1star only because I have to. You used to be great, now you just suck!!!

1 avatar
Katrina Edwards, Australia
March 29, 2021
1
Poor platform that has not kept pace

I'm a web designer and used to build sites in Moonfruit. The platform is restrictive, clunky, and VERY out of pace with modern web standards. Don't even consider Moonfruit. Wix is doing amazing things for good prices. And one must consider future-proofing, Moonfruit seems like it might not be around much longer, with the way they've changed over the years.

1 avatar
anonymus, USA
February 10, 2021
1
Average editor in an above average market

Honestly I've used Moonfruit for over 4 years now and mainly due to price. The templates are all pretty similar... site building functions and features are lacking when compared to competitors. So its average but at an ok value if you just need a site or sites at a value. There are good features they just really need to step it up a notch...especially with the responsive editor.

1 avatar
C Harris, USA
April 05, 2019
3
The best

As a graphic designer, I've tried a few website builders and find Moonfruit the most flexible. I don't use any of the templates - I create something unique for each of my clients. I've designed about 75 websites so far using Moonfruit and the annual fee is more than fair. Highly recommended.

1 avatar
guest, Great Britain
September 07, 2018
5
Moonfruit good value

I have used Reg123, Weebly, 1&1 but by comparing I found Moonfruit the best value (I have 4 websites + shops within 1 dashboard) and hence one of the easiest to use. One downer is that I am now blogging and MF are not mobile or interacting with other bloggers.

1 avatar
Master Nunn, Great Britain
February 27, 2018
4
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