Right after I had started to explore online site builders, I noticed that these tools had standardized ways of creating sites.

However, I soon realized that some of these builders were providing new and innovative ways to let their users create their websites. More specifically, these builders were Wix and Jimdo.

After registering my accounts with these builders, I learned more about these new tools. With Wix, the site building tool was called Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence), and Jimdo’s tool was called Jimdo Dolphin (cute name, by the way ).

These tools had been around for a relatively short amount of time: Wix had released its ADI tool back on June 8^th, 2016, while Jimdo had announced their Dolphin on October 17^th, 2017.

 When I looked through the sales pages of these products, they seemed too good to be true: you could build a stunning website with few clicks, sometimes in just minutes. Still, I was bit skeptic towards these claims, and I had to test these tools myself, to see if they were any good.

In specific scenarios, neither one of these tools is a good fit for you. In particular, when …

• You like more control over the design process (especially with Jimdo Dolphin).
• You feel suspicious that a machine can build a nice-looking site for you.
• You’d like to build a blog (not possible with Jimdo Dolphin).

Both tools, Wix ADI and Jimdo Dolphin, promise you to build your next website easily.

Also, Wix ADI, it promises to build stunning websites every time:

On the other hand, Jimdo Dolphin says: “Your website in 3 minutes”.

As always, you should be a bit skeptic towards what the sales page is telling you.

First, with Wix ADI, what a stunning website is, depends on whom you ask. A website that is stunning to someone won’t necessarily be stunning for someone else.

Wix ADI seems to be a more comprehensive tool to build your site. It doesn’t just allow you to create a website, but also other types of sites, too:

Wix also relies on the traditional UI approach in data collection, by asking questions through wizard-style pages:

You can also locate your business online (considering that you have an existing business), by typing your address on the business locator:

Once you have gone through all the data gathering pages, it’s time for the ADI to create the page for you.

Even though data gathering and website creation happen quickly, I would probably change the UI a bit. What is a bit confusing is to know when the ADI starts creating your site.

For instance, you would expect that this is the start button for ADI:

However, you still have to go one screen (picking a style for your site) and click Next (arrow pointing to the right), and only then you get to the page where the ADI gets started:

After this screen, the ADI starts creating your site.

I think that Wix should change the end part of the process a bit, so that you’d only have to click once (on one page), to get started with the site creation.

 Also, I don’t necessarily see the point of asking my business location, if I’m building a blog. In most cases, if you just run a blog (even if it’s a business), you still don’t necessarily have any physical location to choose from.

Jimdo Dolphin

Jimdo Dolphin reminds me of Wix ADI in many ways: The system asks you a couple of questions related to your site, and it then creates the site quickly for you, based on your answers.

The UI is for most parts clear, but at first, I was a bit confused. When you first enter the screen where you pick the type of site you want to create, it doesn’t tell you whether Jimdo Dolphin is enabled or not:

When you click the Websites button, you only then learn that you can create a site with Dolphin (it’s the only type of site you can create with the tool):

Once the data gathering wizard starts, things move on smoothly. In fact, the Jimdo interface reminds me of text messaging, and all the options are visible on the screen, without having to hop to another page:

During the data gathering process, you can even hook your account with Instagram. With this step, you get to grab your images from your Instagram account, to be displayed on your site:

Finally, you get to hook your domain to your new site if you have one. Alternatively, you can also buy a new domain through Jimdo, if you wish.

Both tools are easy to use, although I would perhaps clarify their workflow a bit. However, once you have created your first site with either of these tools, you know how to deal with these issues.

In general, I liked Jimdo’s UI better, since it lets me stay on the same page while gathering data. However, I didn’t quite understand why the female face (Flora character) was chosen to the wizard. Perhaps it was meant to make the process feel more like a human.

Still, the whole process, from start to finish, is more comprehensive with Wix ADI: you can different types of sites with it, not just blogs. That’s why it’s the winner of this section.

It’s evident that both site builders create different types of sites. For instance, this is how the site built with Wix ADI looks like:

After creating a site with Jimdo Dolphin, here is how it looks:

Although both Jimdo Dolphin and Wix ADI produce decent looking sites, in some ways, they do look like the same.

While both sites produce decent looking sites, I would still do some work, before I would publish them. In other words, just keep these tool-generated sites as starting points in your web building project.

There are significant differences between the editing tools, whether you use Wix ADI or Jimdo Dolphin.

With the latter, you do have some design options, but they are more limited when compared to Wix ADI or the regular Jimdo editor.

Some of the editing options work inline, like the text tools:

You can also access the tools by choosing the vertical box on the right, or by clicking the gear icon when you hover your mouse over a particular area of the page:

With Wix ADI, you have more tools to choose from. You get to access them by either choosing the options bar on the right or by clicking the horizontal bar at the top:

What’s even better, you can move your site to Wix Editor if you wish:

However, there is something to know when moving back from Wix Editor to Wix ADI.

In other words, once you save your site using the Editor, you can still go back to ADI by using the site history. However, you lose all the changes you made on the editor side.

While both tools help you to adjust your site further, Wix ADI’s toolbox is more comprehensive than Jimdo Dolphin’s.

Also, if you find the ADI’s tools too limiting, you can always hop over to Wix Editor, which gives you the power of regular Wix Editor.

After testing the tools many times and tweaking the generated sites, I chose Wix ADI as my “quick site builder.”

While both tools can create a decent looking site for you, Wix ADI is more flexible. For instance, you can create blogs or stores with it, while Jimdo Dolphin is (for now) limited to building websites.

Also, there are many more design options for you with Wix ADI. It integrates well with the traditional editor, although you have to be aware that moving back to ADI is not so straightforward.

Overall, Wix ADI is a more mature product, but I tend to believe that Jimdo Dolphin will catch up at some point. Also, I’m guessing that, as the quick site builders become more common, they won’t be advantageous for Jimdo or Wix only.