There’s no shortage of tools out there to build landing pages. But when I looked around, I couldn’t find any real analysis behind the tools besides a few review websites. In this head-to-head challenge, I’m going to pit Instapage and Leadpages up against each other and tell you which is the winner.

A little background. Instapage and Leadpages are landing page tools. That means that they make it easy for you to create web pages designed to convert visitors into prospects or leads.

Common functionality includes the ease of building a page, the inclusion of signup forms, redirecting to specific URLs on form completion, templates to get started, integration with 3rd party email platforms, customization, the inclusion of tracking pixels, analytics, and A|B testing.

Enough of about the features, how do these two stack up.

Instapage vs Leadpages

Let’s start with Leadpages.
First, it’s leadpages.net and not leadpages.com. Even as a past user, I would regularly go the wrong URL.

Let’s start with basic usability.

Leadpages has several templates to choose from and “drag and drop” templates for customization.

I found the templates to be very rigid and difficult to customize. If you wanted to just replace images and text, it works fine. But if you wanted to move things around, change image sizes for specific sections, then you’ll find it difficult or annoying to use.

Also, I found that the platform itself is incredibly slow. I would get frustrated trying to navigate and customize different sections of the page while waiting for it to load or catch up.

I do like the lightbox functionality of the forms, but being forced to use it in every situation seems a bit overkill.

My next big problem with Leadpages comes with the integration of other platforms. The connections were limited, and even integrating with their own spin-off tool Drip (drip.co) more complicated than expected to setup, and the form field integration wasn’t able to do things as simple as drop downs, selections, and other custom field types.

This was a big issue for me. When running multiple nurture campaigns based on company size, I needed to have the ability to incorporate those fields and create segmented campaigns.

For beginners, I would definitely not recommend Leadpages. You’ll get frustrated trying to get it to do what you want unless there’s a specific template that you’re planning to use with little to no customization.

For more experienced individuals who have used platforms like WordPress or Mailchimp, you’ll also hate Leadpages. The functionality isn’t going to be flexible enough for your needs and in terms of the UI, it will remind you of an even worse version of the Hubspot landing page tool (don’t get me started on that one).

Verdict: Run away. Do not use Leadpages.

Instapage

Spoiler alert: Instapage wins.

But that should have been obvious with how low of a bar Leadpages set. Don’t get it wrong, though, Instapage is an incredibly powerful tool. It leverages a true drag-and-drop interface where you can literally place any content where you want on the page. It’s not like Leadpages where there are strict zones on the page for the content.

Implementation of various HTML, javascript and tracking codes is as easy as pie with designated settings for each. You can even easily create a|b tests from the landing page and integrate the specific page to a number of different platforms. These include Aweber, MailChimp, Marketo, Infusionsoft, GoToWebinar, ZohoCRM, ConstantContact, GetResponse, Salesforce, Campaign Monitor, and Autopilot (my new favorite tool).

To top it off, they have a pretty large selection of templates that you can choose and customize. And Instapage is incredibly fast compared to Leadpages. Comparing the two is like putting a Ferrari up against a pack mule.

Regardless of skill, I recommend Instapage for your landing page tool. It’s easy to use for all skill levels and offers incredible flexibility for more design savvy users.

Verdict: Winner, winner, chicken dinner.