Just OK
I wanted to love this option since the deal seems great, but I'm not loving it. Here's why:
1.) The template selection is quite basic. What looks like several options is really a basic three or four just changed up a little to look like many.
2.) The UI to me seems a little clunky and not too intuitive. For example, when you add a new page, there’s no save button. I assumed it was because the page was autosaved, but it wasn’t. When I clicked to go to another page, it warned me that the page wasn’t saved and then gave me the option to save. If it’s not going to autosave, then shouldn’t there be a manual save somewhere? This is just one example. There are several issues with the UI that give it a moderate learning curve. Not a tragedy if one has or wants to take the time to learn the system. They aren't difficult things, just time-consuming because they aren't intuitive.
3.) White-label is not ready for prime time unless you have a basic .com/.net TLD that you’re all right with adding a wildcard CNAME to. I was using a .net domain, so that wasn’t an issue for me, but when I checked the support forum for solutions to a different error message I was receiving when trying to add whitelabel, I did note that others couldn’t get the whitelabel to work because they had double dot (like country-specific) domains. So, if you have one of those, maybe check with them before you buy if the whitelabel option is one you plan to use. Perhaps it's on the roadmap to fix or has been fixed.
For security reasons, I don’t like wildcards, so I was trying to get the CNAME to work without the wildcard. I contacted support about it, and they did offer a list their subdomains so I could add them specifically. When I did that, the whitelabel problem I’d been having *seemed* to fix (the error message disappeared and the page saved.) I just had to wait for DNS propagation. Unfortunately, even days after the propagation was complete and all DNS checks showed the CNAMEs were pointing to sitejet, the whitelabel still wasn’t working. Now, I want to say that I would praise support up to this point. They had been immediately responsive and helpful the couple times I’d messaged, and then, they had sent a follow-up message to see if I’d gotten the issue fixed. But when I replied to support’s message which asked me if all was working, and I told them it wasn’t, gave them my settings and screenshots, so I could make sure it wasn't an error on my part, they seemed to fall off the map. It’s been a week, and I've had no response – not even a message to say they’re working on it, are busy…that I should take a flying leap because the problem is user-error :) nothing. Silence. Maybe they just have a huge influx of support tickets, but a week seems like an awfully long time.
Bottom line is: I think Sitejet could be an asset for some people. The LTD options are generous enough, but the issues I’ve had so far are troubling. What if I'd been trying to please a customer?
Franzi_Sitejet
May 9, 2024Hey Sumo-ling,
1.) Thanks for sharing your input on our templates. We are always dropping new ones and are curious about what our community is looking for in new templates. So feel free to share your thoughts about specific templates you would like to see🙌
2.) This is obviously not the experience we want our users to have, but thanks for sharing your experience. We are currently working on a UI design overhaul and I will definitely place your input there! 🙏
About the saving: Once the website is live, all changes made and saved on the website will also be live. With an autosave functionality changes would be published permanently -maybe even when you're not quite done with the change. That is why we implemented a save button in the top menu of the website builder. It turns orange if you make changes and want them to be saved. You can also use keyboard shortcuts to work efficiently. I hope this explains where we are coming from with this feature.
3.) I'm very sorry to hear that your experience with our support hasn't been as satisfying as we would have liked it to be. We are doing our best to offer fast and high-quality support. The whitelabel feature is set up to work the way we explained it in our help article if all required DNS settings have been added. If you don't want to set up a wildcard CNAME we provide you with the subdomains that we - currently - use. (They may change over time, that is why a wildcard CNAME is normally used). If this however doesn't work, we will need to check your DNS settings and the setup of your domain to understand what's causing the issues. I hope you can understand that, from this moment on, our support and our solutions need to be tailored to the individual case and settings. It would be great if you could contact me via mail at [email protected] so I have the chance to take a look at your case.
Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Best,
Franzi