Business

The Best UK Property Portals in 2025

Jitty Team
June 23, 2025

The Best UK Property Portals in 2025

We tested the top property portals with real buyer searches. Here’s what we found.

Everyone knows about Rightmove. Most have heard of Zoopla and OnTheMarket. But are they still the best places to search for a home in the UK in 2025?

To find out, we ran real search briefs through each portal - the same kinds of queries serious homebuyers use every day. We tested whether each site could actually help users:

  1. Find homes that match specific criteria (i.e. the power of their Search)
  2. Understand whether those homes are a good fit once they click through (i.e. the data on their Property Pages).

And yes, we’re Jitty. But we’ve tried to keep this fair, even when it stung a little.

The Briefs We Tested

To figure out how useful these platforms really are, we ran a set of common-but-challenging buyer briefs through them. We kept these grounded in our own knowledge of buyers, the kind of practical briefs real buyers wrestle with every day.

1. Bath 3-bed near centre
"3-bed property within 1 mile of Bath city centre, budget £700k."
Many buyers are focused on specific areas. This tests geographic search accuracy and basic relevance.

2. Commute to Old Street
"2-bed flat under £650k within 45 minutes of Old Street station."
For commuters, travel time between their work and home matters more than the specific postcode. This tests whether portals support commute-based search.

3. Price per square foot
“Homes under £500/sqft in London."
Value-conscious buyers often benchmark £/sqft. This tests whether platforms surface that data and let you filter by it.

4. Equestrian or rural property
"Equestrian or countryside property within 90 minutes of London."
Buyers looking for something niche need tagging that goes beyond the basics. This tests support for unique property needs.

5. Period with potential
"Period home with natural light and renovation potential."
This one’s about the vibe. Can the platform handle subjective, lifestyle-led search ?

Search Power Comparison

This table compares the features that matter when it comes to search - not just beds, baths and price, but how each platform helps you filter, refine and explore in smarter ways.

Feature Rightmove Zoopla OnTheMarket Jitty
Natural-language search ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅
Map or draw-based search ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌
Travel time search (in core search) ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅
Filter by price per square foot ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅
Filter by condition or renovation ❌ ✅ ❌ ✅
Filter by EPC rating ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅
Filter by exterior style (e.g. period) ❌ ✅ ❌ ✅
Subjective filters (e.g. natural light) ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅

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Who Performs Best — By Search Brief

1. Bath 3-bed near centre

🏆 Winner: Rightmove
All platforms have location-based search, so the winner comes down to the portal with the most listings...and that's Rightmove. When it comes to straightforward location-based searches, sheer volume still wins.

2. Commute to Old Street

🏆 Winner: Jitty
Although other platforms over a commute-based search, these are all separate to their main search experience and don't allow you to add other filters. Jitty is the only platform with fully integrated Travel Time search built directly into the main experience. which makes them (us) the winner. That means you can search for homes via commute-times and then layer on other filters too (e.g. "3 bed house 45 minute commute from Paddington with a large garden).

3. Price per square foot (<£500)

🏆 Winner: Jitty
Only Jitty lets you search and sort by £/sqft, so Jitty wins.

4. Equestrian or rural property

🏆 Winner: OnTheMarket
 OTM specialises in niche property types like "equestrian properties" and has dedicated filters for them, which make them easy to search by. Easy filtering and lots of options make them the winner.

 🟣 Runner-up: Jitty - thanks to its image-based tagging system, it still surfaces niche property types well. Rightmove and Zoopla doing this isn't possible.

5. Period + renovation potential

🏆 Winner: Jitty
 Jitty handles subjective criteria better than any other portal. It uses photo recognition to detect renovation potential, so every listing on the site is flagged as having either having or not having it.

 🟣 Runner-up: Zoopla - Zoopla does offer these features, but loses out because its reliant on agent-added keywords. That means listings that might have renovation potential, but don't have this mentioned in the estate agent description, won’t be included. That means you'll see some listings with renovaton potential, but will miss others where the estate agent hasn't proactively flagged it.

What We Learned About Search

Rightmove still rules when it comes to raw coverage. If you're looking anywhere in the UK, they probably have it. But filters? Not their thing. Prepare to trawl through lots of irrelevant listings.

Zoopla has a few more tools in its kit with some decent filters and some smart-ish tags. But it lacks true power to handle specific criteria.

OnTheMarket is useful if you want a niche property type, like a farmhouse or equestrian property, but the search itself isn’t particularly powerful.

Jitty, of course, is the overachiever here (and we’re not just saying that). Jitty offers the most advanced search experience. From natural-language input to Travel Time to image-based search, it’s powerful in a way none of the other portals are. Where it falls down compared to Rightmove is coverage. But it now has listings covering over 25% of the UK and it’s growing fast.

Property Page Comparison

Finding a property is the start. Once you’re on the page, the question is: does the portal help you accurately assess it and make an informed decision about whether to go view it?

Feature Rightmove Zoopla OnTheMarket Jitty
Price per square foot ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅
Price comparison vs area average ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅
Low £/sqft flag ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅
Price change history ❌ ✅ ❌ ✅
Sold price history ✅ ✅ ❌ ❌
Local overlays (crime, flood, etc.) ❌ ✅ ❌ ❌
Early access listings ❌ ❌ ✅ ❌
Multi-location travel time view ✅ ✅ ✅ ❌
Nearby schools/stations ✅ ✅ ✅ ❌

Who Performs Best — By Property Page

Portal Strengths Limitations
Rightmove Solid all-rounder with familiar layout and decent listing detail Lacks pricing context offered by newer platforms (e.g. £/sqft, price change history)
Zoopla Best for historical price data and local overlays like flood risk or crime Doesn’t show price per square foot or area benchmarks like Jitty does
OnTheMarket Early-access listings and niche categories (e.g. equestrian homes) Minimal pricing data and fewer listing insights overall
Jitty Transparent pricing with £/sqft, area comparisons and price change tags Currently missing local area overlays like flood or school data – though that’s coming

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What We Learned About Property Pages

When it comes to property pages, each portal has its own strengths, but none offers everything.

Zoopla leads on data. Its Crystal Roof overlays include crime, flood risk, and other local insights, and it’s the only major portal to show both sold price history and price change history (i.e. how much the asking price has shifted). That combination makes it arguably the most comprehensive option.

Rightmove sits comfortably in the middle. It’s not particularly innovative, but not missing much either.

OnTheMarket is the most limited in terms of data, but has a unique edge: early-access listings that appear before other portals pick them up.

If you’re looking for pricing transparency, Jitty stands out. It shows price per square foot, local comparisons, and even tags properties that appear underpriced for their area. That said, it currently lacks some of the local data overlays found on other platforms.

Each portal brings something useful to the table, but Zoopla currently offers the richest dataset per property.

Why Consider Jitty?

Jitty is for buyers who want more control, more transparency and a faster way to cut through the noise.

  • It’s the only portal with fully integrated Travel Time search, that allows you to search for properties via your commute time.
  • You can exclude homes that don’t meet your criteria -  like leaseholds, ground floor flats, or renovation projects - to avoid trawling through irrelevant listings.
  • Listings come with price per square foot, local price guide comparisons and price history, so you get a better sense of the value of each property.

Whether you’re buying now or just browsing for later, Jitty gives you the tools to search smarter. And we’re growing our coverage of homes across the UK fast.

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