I don't understand why developers are using tools to create landing pages

To put it bluntly, it's an opportunity cost. Developers are making use of existing software to help them build and rapidly prototype. Wouldn't you use service x to build feature y rapidly while you could focus and put more time into some other part of your product?

As most have said here, there is just a lot that goes into making something comparable. You have to take into consideration these things:

• Analytics
• Code to support the sign-up form
• Design work
• Hosting
• Domain name
• Deployment
• Bugs
• Testing on mobile
• Creating the copy and supporting graphics/audio/video (a monster in its own right)
• Do you want A/B testing? You gotta account for that too.

Now, if you use something like Unbounce you can focus on:

• Domain name (optional in some cases)
• Creating the copy and supporting graphics/audio/video

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It often just gets in the way of actually validating your idea. At least for me, it did. I've had my fair share of "saving money" and doing it in-house.

With that being said if you want to take the time to learn and see the inner workings of what makes a successful landing page (technically speaking) then, by all means, go for it!

Either route you go, I'm sure you'll create something cool!

Completely valid question and I used to be surprised by this too. Through my observation, experienced devs/indie hackers are more hesitant to write code because they have a deep understanding of technical expenses between the time necessary for development + maintenance. Devs /indie hackers with less experience are more likely to write code just because they can. I know I've been guilty of falling into this trap in the past. IH has helped me move away from that tendency. Often, the elegant solutions are the simplest. Using a service like Carrd saves you time and energy that you can use to validate a potential idea quickly. As Kelsey Hightower says, Nocode is the best way to go :)

I had this thought too when I started one of my recent side projects https://www.mydevportfol.io/.

As others have said, it's down to the time required and opportunity cost, as well as design being a common barrier to devs. Anything more complicated than a simple form and it gets tricky, and a lot of devs either don't want to fiddle with CSS or just can't because they know what looks bad, but couldn't tell you what to change to make it look good (I consider myself one of those, but I'm getting better).

In the end, a dev should be using the tools available to provide optimal value. You wouldn't rewrite jQuery. Just use jQuery. If there's tools available (like mine hopefully) that can save you a lot of effort and the most valuable resource of all, time, then it makes logical sense to use that tool...

So please use my tool... :P

I love what everyone else has shared. Let me add my succinct explanation to the chorus:

Use good tools/services/libraries when they exist; build a solution when they don't. Ruthlessly optimize what you're doing for best spend of time.

In the specific context of landing pages, no other person on earth will care how you produced the page. Even if you're creating something for other developers. The landing page is not the point: what you're pitching is the point.

...Unless what you're making is a new landing page tool. Then it's just bad form to use a competing product. :)

I agree with all comments. And there is one additional problem down the road: if a coder did the marketing site, then a coder is needed to update it/change it. This snowball quickly if you grow (especially if you want to delegate the marketing stuff in the future)

One example of this: every ad campaign should have its own landing page, tuned for that particular ad. You will slow down your marketing efforts if every change should be done in code. Even if you are working solo, you will get bored of creating landing pages manually.

Me too, about landing pages…the confusion over “why?” So it appears they are feelers, to see if there is any interest in an idea. Gather contact info from interested parties, and sometimes cash. Seems a little fly it up the flagpole and see who salutes.…but it is a “fail fast” technique. Not applicable to all ideas, I think. Sometimes you have to see a working model before you “get” it. I wonder if the Spanx lady would’ve gotten any takers if she looked for interest in footless pantyhose before deciding to run with her idea.

Typically, our inclination as developers is to build everything we can ourselves. But sometimes it just doesn't make sense to spend our time building things when we can use pre-existing solutions for free/cheap. When you're testing ideas and looking for quick validation, it makes more sense to do something quick and easy than try and reinvent the wheel every time. Plus, some of those tools are very good and would take quite a lot of effort to develop something comparable.

Time = Money.

I have a dozen profitable apps on the app store which I developed myself. I have a website which is Wordpress with the Enfold theme. It was so easy to build the website.
Your goal as a developer is to use the most efficient method to get something done, my apps are all coded by me, I use cocoapods and libraries where possible - someone has already written the code, why reinvent the wheel? My apps and my skills are in the unique way I link the libraries together to build my actual app functionality.
With the website landing page for the apps, why reinvent the wheel here? Someone has done all the hard work, I am just going to use that! I put together the bones of my website in an evening using Wordpress and a theme and users love it. That is all I ask. I am not going to take ages to develop something that someone has already done. Time is precious.

For the same reason why you use Dropbox and you don't "build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem" (cit. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224) :)

Because it took me around 2 weeks to make a nice looking landing page i was happy with.

Or i could've spent an hour using something like https://app.landen.co to make something that inevitable looks better than my own design

If i had a steadier income i'd probably rely a lot more on tools to create cookie cutter solutions for things i find to be less important / better achieved by using tools

I built https://rukidoo.com myself, it uses some basic JS and CSS.

While I learned (and gritted teeth) over CSS a lot, it also took like 10 hours, which with an optimistic moonlighting time of 1 hour per day takes... more than you want to spend on it maybe.

But if you have the time / existing skill, it's worth it. Also I discovered there are some really nice CSS documentation sites, almost all questions have an answer.

Yes developers develop. Developers also like to put time and focus on the core parts of their project.

Landing pages, unless you need something fancy and very out of the norm, has a standard flow to get your point across. You just need to get your point across, the next part is the actual product or service, which the developers rather spend more time developing.

Also having a neatly formatted and well designed page is harder than just saying “it’s just some html and css!”.

I spent way too much time trying to mess with the design of a form and html, to where it became a blocker for me. So I just bought a theme and have one less thing to worry about!