Website builders are a perfect solution for individuals, entrepreneurs, and small businesses to launch a website without hiring a developer. However, finding the best website builder can be difficult for beginners.
There are so many website builders on the market, how do you know which one is right for you? The true answer to the best website builder question depends on your specific needs.
Reading: How to create a wordpress website for beginners website builders
In this article, we will help you choose the best website builder by reviewing the pros and cons of the most popular ones go through options .
In this article we will compare the following website builders. If you are interested in a specific website builder, just click on the name to skip ahead.
- WordPress.org
- Web.com
- Wix
- HubSpot Website Builder
- WooCommerce
- Gator by HostGator
- Hostinger Website Builder
- Domain .com
- BigCommerce
- Shopify
- WordPress.com
- Squarespace
- Weebly
- Dreamhost Website Builders
- GoDaddy Website Builders
Choosing the Best Website Builder – What to Look For?
Before choosing the best website -compare builders, do we recommend this You write down what you want to do with your website? What are your goals and what features would you like to see on your website?
For example, you can write down things like: do you have a blog section, photo gallery, online store (eCommerce), reservation system, Contact form, SEO features, social media features, etc.
If you’re not sure what you want, check out your competitors or other sites for inspiration.
Most website builders offer an intuitive drag-and-drop interface to create your new website. You can take advantage of the trial accounts (free plans) or generous money-back guarantee for a test drive before making your final decision.
Next, you need to consider your growth options. Will you update your website regularly? Need a blog section? Would you sell more products on your website in the future?
You need to make sure that the website builder you choose is able to meet your needs as your business grows.
Criteria for our Best Website Builder Test
We’ve helped over 400,000 users create a website and pretty much every website builder on the market for the past two decades Market tested. p>
We look at several different criteria when reviewing the best website builder picks for each use case, but our top five elements are:
- Ease of Use – We want to make sure that the website builder is easy to use for absolute beginners (non-technical users). It must come with a customizable drag-and-drop builder, powerful editing tools, and other theme customization options.
- Pricing – Since this is a competitive space, let’s take a look which website builder offers the best value for money. We ask questions like: Does it offer a free domain, free SSL, free business email, free ecommerce features, etc. If not, how much would a small business owner have to spend on extra extras/hidden costs?
- Design & Features – We want to make sure that the website builder offers a good selection of professional website templates along with the flexibility to add additional features like Google Analytics, CRM, 3rd party marketing tools add etc.
- Customer Support – While we expect website builder software to offer an intuitive, user-friendly interface, we want to ensure that customer support is available 24/7 when needed.
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- Data Ownership and Portability – Beginners often don’t think about it, but since we’ve been in the industry for over two decades , we pay special attention to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy to ensure that you own your data, and it’s portable in case you need to switch.
That being said, let’s take a look at the best Website builder software to launch your website without hiring a developer or coding HTML from scratch.
1. WordPress
WordPress.org (aka self-hosted WordPress) is the world’s most popular website building platform. Over 43% of all websites on the internet are powered by WordPress.
It is important to note that there are two versions of WordPress, self-hosted WordPress CMS and WordPress.com. We’ll talk about WordPress.com later in this article. You can also read our WordPress.org vs WordPress.com comparison for more details.
The WordPress self-hosted content management system (CMS) tops our list of the best website builders for its popularity, powerful features, scalability, and ease of use.
WordPress is a free and open source website builder. This means you have maximum control over your website compared to any other online website builder on this list.
WordPress gives you full control over your website with no third party control, so you get the maximum privacy.
That’s why many popular websites like WhiteHouse.gov (US government), CNN, The New York Times, Microsoft and countless other small businesses use WordPress as their website builder.
In contrast to other website builders in our list, you need a WordPress hosting account and host your own website (it’s a lot easier than it sounds). Below are detailed instructions on how to get started with WordPress.
Advantages:
WordPress gives you complete control over every aspect of your website and online presence . It can be used to create any type of website. For example an ecommerce store, community forums, social network, membership site, business/corporate website, landing pages and more.
There are thousands of high quality prebuilt WordPress themes that you can use for your website design.
You can also use any of the popular drag-and-drop WordPress page builders like SeedProd and Divi, which allow you to easily create your own custom website designs with a drag-and-drop editor (no programming required).
Another great advantage of WordPress is that you get access to more than 59,000 free WordPress plugins.
Plugins are like apps for WordPress that allow you to add additional features and functionality to your website, e.g. B. Shopping Cart, Contact Forms, Google Analytics, Photo Gallery, Social Media Tools, Live Chat, CRM, CSS Customization, etc.
WordPress plugins do it for you also easy to connect and integrate your website with popular business tools, allowing you to automate and streamline your daily operations.
Another important reason why WordPress is popular all over the world is that their website builder is fully translated into over 75 languages and allows you to easily create multilingual websites.
When you consider all the above advantages, WordPress is by far the most powerful website builder out there.
It also comes with robust SEO tools that search engines love and this ensures that your web site always gets the highest rankings in search engines. We use and recommend All-in-One SEO Plugin for WordPress because it will help you outperform your competitors on Google.
For all the above reasons, our experts rate WordPress as a website builder #1 and Content Management System for Business Owners, Bloggers, Web Developers & Web Designers.
Cons:
You need to manage your own website which means that you need to do this familiarize yourself with a new system. This slight learning curve is easily overcome by most users, but it feels a bit difficult at first.
You also need to keep up with WordPress updates, plugin updates, and create website backups. All of this can be automated by your WordPress hosting provider.
Pricing:
Although WordPress is a free website builder, you will need a domain name and Web hosting to get your website live, which typically costs $14.99/year or $7.99 per month.
Fortunately, we’ve worked out a special offer for WPBeginner readers. With Bluehost, an official WordPress recommended hosting provider, you can start a website for as little as $2.75 per month. They offer our users 69% off web hosting with free SSL certificate, free domain name, great uptime and 24/7 phone support.
→ Click here to claim this exclusive Bluehost offer ←
This special price makes WordPress one of the cheapest website builders in this small business list.
For more details, check out our guide to creating a website with step-by-step instructions (including video tutorial).
Note: WordPress works with all major web hosting services, and is actually recommended by many other companies including GoDaddy, SiteGround, DreamHost, Hostinger, etc.
Ready to get started but don’t have an idea for a company name yet? Use our intelligent AI-powered business name generation tool to develop your brand name idea.
2. Web.com
Web.com is one of the most original and popular website builders for small businesses. They offer easy-to-use website building tools at a very affordable price, so anyone can build a website without knowing how to code.
Benefits
Web.com offers a powerful drag-and-drop website builder that is easy to use for non-technical business owners.
You can choose from thousands of beautiful pre-made website templates and customize the design to your branding needs with just one click.
The builder comes with all the powerful features you’d expect, including the ability to add photo galleries, videos, review sliders, contact forms, map locations, social media buttons, and more.
You can add unlimited pages to your site, and customize that Design each website page individually. All of their website templates are 100% mobile-friendly, and you can also customize the theme for different devices (desktop, tablet, and mobile).
Mit With its e-commerce tools, you can add up to 50 products, securely accept credit card payments online, track and manage orders, offer discounts, and more.
All Web.com plans include a free domain name and a business one Email address, autosave and backup features, website security solution, SEO tools, website analytics and other powerful website tools.
They also offer unlimited chat and phone support so you can at Speak to their web experts for help if needed.
Besides website builder, they also offer custom web design services where an expert can design your entire website for a very affordable price.
Cons
While Web.com provides all the tools you need to create a small business website, it lacks some of the powerful features you may need as your business grows.
For example, the blogging functionality in Web.com is very limited and nowhere near the power of WordPress.
Their e-commerce plan limits you to just 50 products, which is more than for most small businesses is enough. However, if you want to create a robust online store, you should check out other website builders on our list like WooCommerce or Shopify.
Last but not least, since Web.com is a proprietary website builder, you can Don’t just switch to another platform in the future.
Pricing
Web.com Pricing Plans start at $1.95 per month for their website- Starter plan that comes with their drag and drop website builder, hundreds of beautiful templates, thousands of stock images, and a free domain.
Their marketing plan starts at $2.95 per month, and it includes additional SEO features to help you rank higher. Finally, their eCommerce plan starts at $3.95 per month, which includes eCommerce tools like the ability to accept credit cards with a secure shopping cart, sell up to 50 products, track and manage your orders, and much more.
Web. com site builder allows you to create a business website at a very affordable price.
3. Wix
Wix.com is another popular cloud-based website building software. It offers ease of use combined with a powerful set of features to build your website with ease. Over 1.9% of all websites use Wix as their website builder.
Benefits
Wix website builder is a fully hosted platform, so you do not have to pay for hosting. You get access to hundreds of templates to choose from to design your website. Each template is fully editable with its intuitive drag-and-drop site builder.
Wix has also developed an artificial design intelligence (Wix ADI) that can design a beautiful website for you .
In addition to countless templates, Wix also offers dozens of free and paid apps that you can install on your website. These apps allow you to add new features and functionality to your website. Some of them are built by Wix, others by third-party developers.
Wix offers a free plan with limited bandwidth and storage. However, you can use this plan to try out the drag-and-drop website builder. It does not contain a domain name. So if you decide to keep your site, you might want to upgrade to a premium plan.
You also get free SSL with all Wix plans, but you will need it to use it for your site to activate.
Cons
Free and Connect domain plans show Wix branded ads on your site. You will need to upgrade to their Combo or Unlimited plan to remove these ads.
If you ever decide to remove your site from Wix, it will be quite complicated to do so.
Your Connect Domain plan, which costs $9.16 per month, only lets you connect one custom domain name, so you still have to purchase a domain name separately.
Pricing
Wix offers a limited free version with a Wix-branded subdomain. You can connect a domain for $9.16 per month. Their combo plan starts at $14 per month and gets you a free domain name. The online store ecommerce plan starts at $23 per month.
If you’re interested in how it compares to WordPress, check out our Wix vs WordPress comparison .
4. HubSpot Website Builder
HubSpot Website Builder is a powerful content management platform built for marketers and small business owners. It combines the power of drag and drop website builder, marketing automation tools and CRM so you can offer your users a personalized digital experience.
Benefits
HubSpot is known for being one of the world’s leading marketing automation and CRM platforms. After listening to small business concerns, they decided to create an all-in-one website builder that lets you create a website in minutes (without hiring a developer).
You can use their conversion-optimized website templates to quickly create a website that delivers results.
Alternatively, you can use the simple drag-and-drop editor to create within a few minutes to create a custom website design.
The best thing about HubSpot’s website builder is that you can run adaptive tests, allowing you to choose up to five variations of a page and HubSpot the best-performing option monitored and deployed.
HubSpot’s website builder integrates seamlessly with their CRM platform, so yes you can use the customer data to create a fully personalized digital experience for each website visitor.
It has many other powerful features including SEO tools, powerful analytics, blogging tools, live chat Software, email marketing capability, multilingual content support and more.
Considering the features in their integrated marketing platform, HubSpot is definitely one of the best professional website builders in this list for marketers and small businesses.
Cons
While HubSpot allows marketers to create personalized digital experiences, the platform is best suited for landing pages and simple business websites. For online stores and advanced business websites, you’re better off with WordPress.
The good thing is that HubSpot recognizes this too, and that’s why they have a free WordPress plugin that allows you to seamlessly integrate with WordPress to offer the best of both worlds.
HubSpot is a very powerful platform with many features. This can be intimidating for small business owners who are just starting out. As long as you are committed, their account managers will work with you to ensure your business thrives online.
Pricing:
HubSpot offers a powerful free Website builder that not only allows you to create a website, but also a range of marketing automation tools such as CRM, email marketing, live chat and more.
You can get started for free and if As your business grows, you can choose from the package that best suits your needs.
Prices for the paid plan start at $45 per month for the Starter plan, which gives you all the business tools, including : CMS (website builder). , marketing hub, sales tools, and business operations tools.
All plans include live chat and 24/7 phone support, and the support team is really helpful.
HubSpot is a great choice for small businesses looking for an integrated website builder platform that includes all the small business tools they need.
5. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce website builder in the world to start an online store. It is an open source ecommerce software built on top of WordPress.
According to our expert research 8.8% of all websites on the web use WooCommerce as their ecommerce website builder, making it twice the size of Shopify.
Pros
WooCommerce is that Best website builder for ecommerce websites as it gives you complete control over your website.
It includes all the features you can imagine to run a successful online store.
You can accept online payments using WooCommerce Payments or integrate with over 83 other payment options including Stripe, PayPal, Square, Authorize.net, AmazonPay, AfterPay, Klarna, Apple Pay, Google Pay and more .
Unlike Shopify, WooCommerce does not charge additional transaction fees when you use other payment solutions.
They also offer dozens of extensions to help you with shipping, delivery, fulfillment, VAT management, inventory management, and pretty much every aspect of store management.
You can create custom sales funnels and product landing pages with SeedProd, create an affiliate program with AffiliateWP, and show real-time with Social Proof. Trust Pulse, offer free shipping, or run BOGO- Deals with Advanced Coupons, set special wholesale prices with the WholeSale suite, add order increases and upsells with FunnelKit (formerly BuildWooFunnels), and basically do anything else you can think of.
WooCommerce seamless integration with all major email marketing services, analytics platforms, live chat software, helpdesk software and conversion optimization tools.
You can reduce cart abandonment and increase sales conversions by adding gamification from the OptinMonster plugin for WooCommerce.
Aside from that, WooCommerce is extremely SEO friendly, and you can keep improving your ecommerce SEO, by using the AIOSEO plugin.
The amount of freedom and flexibility that WooCommerce offers simply cannot be put into words. Check out our full list of the best WooCommerce plugins and best WooCommerce themes for more details.
For all the above reasons, our experts rank WooCommerce as the best website builder for ecommerce.
Cons
Just like WordPress, WooCommerce is a self-hosted e-commerce platform, which means you have to learn a new system.
This will be your answer to keep WooCommerce up to date, create website backups and perform routine website maintenance tasks. Most of these tasks can be automated by WooCommerce hosting providers like SiteGround, Bluehost, WP Engine, and others.
Pricing
WooCommerce is a free ecommerce -Website builder, but you need a domain name and web hosting to make your online store live.
These costs vary based on website traffic and popularity.
You can get started with the SiteGround Startup Plan from as little as $2.99 per month which comes with pre-installed WooCommerce, free SSL certificate, daily website backups, free CDN, automatic updates and improved security.
See also: How to Make Your WordPress Blog Completely Private (4 Ways)
→ Click Here To Claim This SiteGround Exclusive Offer ←
Alternatively, you can use Bluehost’s premium WooCommerce plan, which costs $12.95 per Costs a month but comes with several premium WooCommerce extensions like subscriptions, online booking and appointments, and other premium features (worth over $1000 if purchased separately).
Owner of WooCommerce -Sites with really high traffic end up using WP Engine for managed WooCommerce hosting, and their prices start at $30 per month.
For more details on this, check out our full breakdown of the true cost of ecommerce -Sites.
6. Gator by HostGator
Gator is a popular online website builder developed by HostGator, one of the largest web hosting providers in the world. Gator builder is an all-in-one website building and hosting solution, making it a perfect website builder for small businesses.
Pros
Gator is a fully hosted platform, so you don’t have to worry about software, updates or backups.
You get a simple website builder to choose from over 200 professional website builders select design templates. Each theme has easy customization options that you can configure yourself in the builder.
You can edit any element on a page with a simple point-and-click interface.You can also drag and drop commonly used elements such as images, videos, photo gallery, text, columns, cards, and contact forms.
Gator also gives you access to a built-in stock photo library , so you can find beautiful photos and add them to your website.
All paid plans include a free custom domain name for your website. The eCommerce plan also includes the ability to set up an online store and sell your products online.
Because Gator is a paid product, they don’t sell your data or show ads on your site.
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Cons
Unlike some of the other options on the list, Gator doesn’t have a free plan. They also don’t offer a free trial.
Like other proprietary website builders in the list, you can’t hire a developer to help you significantly change your website design or add new features to your website.
Pricing
Gator is offering WPBeginner readers a 55% discount, starting their pricing plans at $3.46 per month for starters, $5.39 per month for Premium and $8.30 for eCommerce start plan. It is definitely one of the cheapest website builders on the list.
Gator can be used to create a small business website, limited items store, or photo gallery. However, it cannot compete with the performance of the most popular website builder, WordPress.
7. Hostinger Website Builder (formerly Zyro)
Hostinger Website Builder, formerly Zyro, is a powerful and affordable website builder for beginners. They offer an easy-to-use drag and drop website builder tool with free hosting and 81% discount on premium plans with WPBeginner Hostinger promo code.
This makes Hostinger a great choice for those looking for a cheap website builder to get their website started.
Pros
The Hostinger Website Builder allows you to create a website without any design or coding skills. Their user-friendly and powerful design tools make it easy for anyone to create visually stunning websites.
It comes with a logo maker, useful AI tools, and tons of pre-made website templates to get you started can. You also have access to over 1 million high-quality images for free.
The best thing about Hostinger Website Builder is its affordable price. If you are an artist or a small business on a budget then Hostinger is your best choice. Single website builder pricing starts at $1.99 per month.
But don’t let the low pricing make you think this isn’t a powerful website builder platform. They offer excellent uptime and reliability.
With every plan you get powerful new features. For example, in the premium plan, you get marketing integrations like Google Analytics, Facebook retargeting, visitor remarketing, etc.
You also have eCommerce plans that allow you to add unlimited products, online payments accept and offer discounts, coupons, order management, inventory management, and even connect your store to Amazon, Instagram, and Shopify.
Cons
It’s not easy to use templates to change once you pick one. Since Hostinger isn’t open source, it also lacks the third-party integrations and add-ons that WordPress offers.
Their starter plan is a bit limited in features and doesn’t include a free domain, but it has all the essentials that you need to build a website.
While Hostinger offers blogging features, it is not a true blogging platform, so it lacks features like the ability to schedule blog posts, etc.
Pricing
Hostinger’s pricing starts at $1.99 per month for their individual plan, which does not include a free domain name. The premium plan starts at $2.79 per month and includes a free domain. The Business plan starts at $3.99 per month and includes advanced features. Get a discount on all these plans with our Hostinger promo code: wpbeginner.
8. Domain.com Website Builder
Domain.com is one of the best domain registrars in the world and offers a range of website solutions including web hosting, website builders and business e -Mail , and more.
With their drag and drop website builder, you can create a small business website, blog, and even an ecommerce website in just a few clicks.
Benefits
Domain.com offers an easy drag-and-drop website builder to create your website. You can start with one of their hundreds of professionally designed templates and customize them to fit your brand with a simple drag-and-drop interface.
All Domain.com website builder templates are optimized for mobile devices, tablets, and desktop computers. This means your website will look great on all devices.
It has all the powerful features you would expect from a well-known website builder, including website analytics, e-commerce functionality, the ability to a blog on each site and a free SSL certificate with all plans.
You also get inventory management, tax management, coupons and discounts, and many other powerful features with their eCommerce plan.
They also offer live chat and phone customer support for technical assistance to get you started easily.
Cons
Unlike other popular website- Creators, Domain.com website builder does not provide free website builder option. They also do not offer a free trial. However, they offer a money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the product.
Their extension ecosystem is small, and you can’t hire a developer to add advanced features like WordPress because it’s not is open source.
Since it is a proprietary platform, it will be difficult to migrate your website away from the Domain.com website builder.
Finally, the Starter plan only on it 6 page website. For unlimited pages you need at least their Business plan.
Prices
Domain.com website builder plans start at $1.99 per month for Starter, $6.99 per month for Business, and $12.99 per month for the Ecommerce plan.
All plans include a free SSL certificate, unlimited storage, blogging features, and Phone support.
You can also use our Domain.com promo code to get 25% discount on domain registration.
If you are looking for a professional website builder, the domain .com website builder is a great option.
However, if you want advanced features and more control over your content, then you can’t beat self-hosted WordPress (#1 option on our list).
9. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a popular ecommerce website builder that allows you to easily create a scalable online store. It has all the essential built-in features so you can keep your overheads low and your margins high.
Benefits
BigCommerce is a fully hosted eCommerce Solution so you don’t have to worry about speed, security or site updates. They handle the server and technical side for you, so you can focus on growing your business.
Unlike other hosted ecommerce solutions, BigCommerce has native integration with WordPress, which allows you Harness the flexibility of WordPress Harness the mindless ecommerce power of BigCommerce. Simply put, your website will be fast and secure no matter how much traffic you get.
BigCommerce integrates with all major payment gateways including Stripe (credit cards and ACH), PayPal, Apple Pay, Square, Amazon Pay, Visa Checkout, Chase Pay, Ayden and more. Unlike Shopify, BigCommerce doesn’t charge a transaction fee for using these payment gateways.
You can start with one of the many pre-built website templates and customize them to your needs with a simple drag & drop website builder.
BigCommerce has many built-in conversion rate optimization features such as: B. Abandoned cart, improved product search, product reviews, coupons and more. For additional functionality, you can connect to third party applications from their app store.
The best part is their dashboard where you can see the metrics that will help you grow your business with confidence.
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Cons
If you’re just starting out, you’ll find that BigCommerce’s prices are slightly higher than other website builders in the list.
Since it is a proprietary platform, a migration away from BigCommerce will be difficult.
Pricing
BigCommerce comes with a 15-day Free trial supplied for all plans. Their $29.95 per month basic plans that include all the essential features you need. You can upgrade to the Plus plan, which costs $79.95 per month for additional conversion optimization features. Their Pro plan costs $299.95 per month and comes with all the advanced features you need.
The best thing about BigCommerce compared to Shopify and other third-party ecommerce platforms is that they have seamless integration with WordPress, which can be a huge plus when you combine the flexibility of WordPress with it want the power of BigCommerce.
This is one of the reasons we placed BigCommerce at the top of our list of the best ecommerce website builders.
10. Shopify
Shopify is another popular ecommerce website builder designed specifically for online stores and ecommerce websites. It supports millions of online stores in 175 different countries. Over $400 billion worth of products have been sold on the Shopify platform.
According to our expert research, 4.4% of all websites on the internet use Shopify as an ecommerce website builder.
Advantages
Shopify is a fully hosted, all-in-one ecommerce software. That means you don’t have to worry about managing software, installing updates, or keeping backups. Shopify does all of that for you.
It offers an integrated payment solution called Shopify Payments that allows you to accept credit cards. You can also add third-party payment gateways to accept payments.
As an ecommerce website builder, Shopify offers full inventory management, unlimited products, powerful statistics, and simple marketing solutions, all neatly packaged in one Roof. You have hundreds of themes to choose from and you never need to add any code.
With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, Shopify makes it super easy to create a full-fledged online store.
They also offer in-store POS, which allows you to sell products at your location while accepting all credit cards and utilizing Shopify’s inventory, shipping, marketing, and statistics management tools.
Cons
Shopify forces you to use their Shopify payment platform. If you want to use your own payment processing solution, they charge an additional 2% transaction fee, which is really high.
If you’re just starting out, you might find Shopify’s prices a bit higher than other websites- creators in this list. Check out our Shopify vs WooCommerce comparison for more details.
If you ever want to remove your website from Shopify, you’re going to find it quite difficult.
Update: By popular request we have created a step-by-step guide on how to switch from Shopify to WooCommerce. Our team has developed a free migration tool that does the work for you.
Pricing
Shopify’s Basic plan will cost you $29 per month. You can upgrade it to Shopify for $79 per month or to Advanced Shopify for $299 per month. Shopify also offers a $9 per month Shopify Lite plan that basically allows you to add a buy button on any website.
If you want a hassle-free ecommerce website builder, there is Shopify might be the perfect option for you.
11. WordPress.com
WordPress.com is a blogging platform and website hosting service powered by Automattic. It was created by Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of the open source software WordPress , hence the name WordPress.com.
For more information, see our article on how WordPress.com and WordPress.org relate.
WordPress.com is not the same as that of self-hosted WordPress.org mentioned as our #1 website builder. Instead, it’s a bespoke hosting solution primarily focused on blogging. See our WordPress.com vs WordPress.org comparison for more details .
Advantages
WordPress.com is a website hosting service built on top of WordPress.com the same he WordPress software but with a fully customized user experience. You don’t have to worry about the software and backups as WordPress.com takes care of them.
Their free and paid plans have different features. All plans allow users to choose from hundreds of free and paid WordPress themes. You can then use the built-in customizer to add your site title, use widgets, add navigation menus, and so on.
It doesn’t offer the same drag-and-drop functionality as other website builders. However, you can easily customize designs to an extent.
It includes powerful editing tools that bloggers find very useful.
Cons
You cannot install custom plugins or themes unless you upgrade to their business plan.
Premium and lower plans do not have e-commerce features or third-party ad network support. The business plan allows you to use WooCommerce, install WordPress plugins and third-party ad networks. However, you must still follow the WordPress.com Terms of Service.
Pricing
WordPress.com’s free plan is extremely limited. Their personal plan starts at $4 per month, billed annually, and includes a custom domain. The premium plan costs $8 per month, billed annually, and gives you the ability to monetize your website and advanced theme customizations.
But to build truly professional websites, you need either their Business plan ($24 per month) or their Ecommerce plan ($45 per month), which is far more expensive than self-hosted WordPress .
12. Squarespace
Squarespace is a popular professional website builder known for its great design and ease of use. According to W3Techs, approximately 1.8% of all websites are built with Squarespace.
Benefits
Squarespace has enterprise-class infrastructure to host your website. This secure and robust platform allows you to focus on growing your business without worrying about hosting.
Squarspace comes with tons of website designs to get you started. All of these themes are fully ready for all types of content. They’re fully editable, and Squarespace even allows you to use multiple templates for the same site at the same time.
Adding content to your website is very easy on Squarespace. Just point anywhere on your website and start typing. You can simply drag and drop elements onto pages to create your own layouts in minutes.
Squarespace also has an eCommerce plan that allows you to use your website to add an online store. It provides a beautiful interface to manage your products, inventory, orders, coupon discounts, and more.
Cons
Squarespace offers limited integrations with a third-party service, the one hurdle to growing your business.
Your e-commerce plans allow only Stripe, Apple Pay, and PayPal for payment processing. You cannot add additional payment gateways.
Pricing
Squarespace sites start at $12 per month and $18 per month. Their online stores start at $26 and $40 per month.
Squarespace is a beautifully designed platform that offers very easy-to-use features. It can be perfect if you just want to build a website quickly.
If you’re wondering how it compares to WordPress, then take a look at our Squarespace vs. WordPress comparison.
13. Weebly
Weebly is a simple website building software with tons of great designs and features. It comes with a beautifully designed page builder that lets you edit your website without learning any coding.
Popular payment platform Square has acquired Weebly to offer a more integrated website building solution for local businesses.
Benefits
Weebly is a fully hosted platform, so you don’t have to install and manage any software. They take care of hosting your website and managing all the software running in the backend.
It comes with dozens of website designs that you can use as a starting point for your website. These beautiful designs are fully editable with Weebly’s live page editor.
See also: Fluorescent Ink – The Definitive T-Shirt Designers Guide
Weebly also offers built-in support for e-commerce. This is an easy way to create an online store and start selling.
Every Weebly website has built-in features for contact forms, photo galleries, sliders, and more. This allows you to easily add functionality to your website without going through a complicated setup process.
Considering its ease of use and great features, Weebly is consistently ranked as one of the best DIY website builders for beginners.
Cons
Weebly.com offers a fully hosted platform, so you are locked into the features on offer. You cannot hire a developer or designer to add new functionality or features to your site.
Weebly will show Square ads on your site on both free and personal plans. You must upgrade to the Professional plan to remove ads.
Pricing
Weebly comes with a very basic free plan. Their paid plans start at $6 per month and are billed annually. The Pro plan is $12 per month and the Business plan is $26 per month.
If you’re wondering how it compares to WordPress, check out our Weebly vs WordPress comparison.
Often beginners start with Weebly and end up wanting to switch to WordPress. To help with that, we’ve created a free import tool called WeeblytoWP that allows you to easily switch from Weebly to WordPress.
14. Dreamhost Website Builder
DreamHost Website Builder is a new website builder software built on top of WordPress. It’s available as part of all DreamHost hosting plans, starting as low as $2.59/mo with a free domain, making it one of the cheapest website builders in our list.
Benefits
DreamHost WP Website Builder is built on top of WordPress and powered by BoldGrid, allowing you to take full advantage of WordPress with a customized user experience. DreamHost’s website builder allows you to choose a professional theme from the theme gallery.
After that, you can customize these themes with a drag-and-drop customizer. You can point and click any item in the preview area to edit its properties. You can easily change colors, fonts, layouts, navigation menus and widgets.
Need a staging website? DreamHost’s BoldGrid builder will create one for you with a single click. This way you can test your new themes, layouts, plugins and themes before making them live for everyone to see.
It also comes with a full WYSIWYG page editor. Take the guesswork out of editing your pages in WordPress. What you get is exactly what you see in your page editor window. You can also use GridBlocks to easily drag and drop elements onto your page and create your own layouts from scratch.
DreamHost WP Site Builder can be used to build any type of website with to create a custom domain name. Because it’s based on WordPress, it’s easy to add blogging features, powerful SEO and social media features, ecommerce capabilities, and more.
All DreamHost website builder themes are ready for WooCommerce. This allows you to easily create a storefront with their drag-and-drop website builder (see our list of the best WooCommerce hosting companies).
Cons
DreamHost WP website builder runs on WordPress, so you still need a self-hosted WordPress.org website to use it.
But the good thing is that WordPress comes preinstalled with all DreamHost plans. You also get other powerful features that come with DreamHost.
DreamHost doesn’t come with a free plan, but they do offer a 97-day money-back guarantee.
Pricing
DreamHost WP Website Builder is available as part of all DreamHost plans starting at $2.59 per month for 1 website.
WPBeginner readers also get a free domain SSL certificate and free domain privacy with the Starter DreamHost plan, which also comes with a 97-day money-back guarantee.
This makes DreamHost one of the cheapest websites Creators in the Market.
15. GoDaddy Website Builder
GoDaddy is one of the world’s largest domain name registration and web hosting service providers. While many business owners use GoDaddy to host WordPress websites, they also offer a basic online website builder for those who don’t want to use WordPress.
Pros
GoDaddy Website Builder is a simple tool for creating professional-looking websites. It comes preloaded with several ready-to-use blocks that you can drag and drop to create different layouts.
It also has a built-in photo library with professional images from Getty Photography to use on your website can . You can also upload your own photos and create image galleries.
GoDaddy’s website builder works on smaller screens too. This allows you to work on your website on the go using your mobile phone or tablet.
Cons
It’s not as feature-rich and flexible as most other website builders on this list.It offers a limited set of features with fewer design options.
Moving your website from GoDaddy Website Builder to WordPress is quite difficult.
Pricing
GoDaddy website builder pricing starts at $6.99/month for the Basic plan, $10.49/month for the Standard plan, and $14.99/month for the Ecommerce plan . All plans are billed annually.
GoDaddy Website Builder can be used for a simple website with a few pages. However, it is not a good choice for creating content-rich websites.
Our Pick for Best Website Builder
Having carefully evaluated all popular online website builders, we believe that WordPress .org surpasses all website builders in terms of overall performance, ease of use, price and flexibility.
WordPress is an excellent choice for beginners, personal websites and corporate websites. Some of the world’s leading brands use WordPress on their websites. Check out all the reasons why you should choose WordPress as your website builder.
If you want to build your website with the best website builder, then start with WordPress by using Bluehost. It’s definitely our top choice.
You can read our step-by-step guide to creating a website for detailed instructions.
Looking for business name ideas? Try our AI-powered business name generator tool to come up with creative brand name ideas.
If you want to create an online store (eCommerce website), then we recommend WooCommerce as the best eCommerce -Website builder because it offers all the features you need at the best price.
If you are looking for a WordPress alternative, we recommend using either Web.com or HubSpot.
Web.com is one of the original website builders and they offer very affordable prices for small businesses. You can get started for just $1.95 and get all the powerful features including a free domain.
HubSpot offers a free website builder along with a range of marketing automation and CRM tools to grow your business. It also integrates seamlessly with WordPress in case you decide to switch later.
We hope our website builder reviews have helped you choose the best website builder for your project. You might also want to check out our list of tools to help you grow your website.
Website Builder FAQ
Having helped over 400,000 users, to launch their website, we have already given many answers of questions. Below are some of the answers to the most frequently asked questions about website builders.
Are website builders worth it?
Yes, overall, websites are -Creator an extremely inexpensive way to create a website. Instead of paying thousands of dollars to hire a web developer, you can use the easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface that website builders offer to create your own website for a low monthly fee.
What website builder software do professional web designers use?
Nowadays even professional web designers use a website builder like WordPress to create their clients websites as they need any type of website with WordPress plugins and themes.
WordPress’ drag-and-drop page builders make it easy for professional web designers to create custom websites for clients while saving time, serving more customers and make more money every month.
Is it better to code your own website than to use a website builder?
It used to be worth knowing how to make one Website coded from scratch, but nowadays almost all professional developers and designers use a website builder platform or open source CMS software to create websites.
Website builder platforms have gotten really good , and you can just get more done in less time.
Can I switch my website builder software later?
No, except for WordPress most website builders make it really hard to deviate from them. That’s why it’s extremely important to choose the right website builder to grow with.
There are third-party services, tools, and tutorials that can give you varying degrees of success in switching website builder platforms. software can help.
For example, you can use our Weebly to WordPress migrator to switch from Weebly to WordPress.
We also have detailed tutorials on:
- How to switch from WordPress.com to WordPress.org
- How to switch from Blogger to WordPress
- How to switch from Wix to WordPress
- How to switch from Squarespace to WordPress
- Switching from GoDaddy website builder to WordPress
- Switching from Joomla to WordPress
- Switching from Medium to WordPress
- Switching from Shopify to WooCommerce
Is WordPress really free? What’s the catch?
Yes, WordPress.org is open source software that is 100% free for anyone to use. It is made by a community of developers led by the non-profit WordPress Foundation.
WordPress is licensed under the GPL, which means anyone can use, modify and redistribute it. It gives you full freedom and ownership of your website content.
The only catch is that to use WordPress you need a domain name and web hosting, which goes for all websites.
You can learn more about why WordPress is free and what the cost is.
How do other free website builders make money if I use it for free?
Most free website builders make money by selling ads on your website. For example, if you use Wix’s free plan, ads will appear on every page of your website. It doesn’t look professional.
Moreover, most website builder software offer limited freemium versions to entice customers to try their platform and they make money when you click on their paid plans upgrade.
Only WordPress.org offers the full-featured website builder for free, and since it’s an open-source project, they don’t show ads on your site.
How can I build my own website for free?
If you want to create a website for free, you can use HubSpot’s website builder. You can sign up for a free account (no credit card required).
You can use their smart templates and drag and drop editor to create a completely custom web design.
They also offer powerful business tools like CRM, email marketing, live chat, marketing automation and more to help you grow your online presence quickly.
How to get a free domain name ?
The best way to get a free domain name is to choose a website builder platform that offers a free domain as part of their paid plan.
Here are the best website builder platforms that offer a free custom domain:
- WordPress hosted on Bluehost
- DreamHost Website Builder
- Gator by HostGator
- Web .com Website Builder
See our for more details m Guide to registering a domain name for free.
Do I need a custom domain to create one? a website?
No, you don’t need a custom domain to create a website, but having one helps increase our credibility.
Often we give you free website builders use a branded subdomain like yoursite.wix.com, but it doesn’t look professional.
That’s why we recommend everyone to get a custom domain name, especially if you’re serious about your online presence.
Do I need to buy web hosting to build it? a website?
Yes, all websites require web hosting as that is where your website files are stored. When you buy a website builder subscription, you are technically buying web hosting from them.
As your website grows and gets more traffic, most website builder platforms will ask you to upgrade your subscription to a upgrade to higher plan.
See our comparison of the best WordPress hosting companies for more details.
Are there hidden costs when building a website?
The hidden costs of building a website are additional services like email marketing services, business phone services, professional business email addresses, SEO tools and other third party extensions/apps you may need (varies by type of site). .
We’ve written a detailed guide on how much it costs to build a WordPress site (with tips on how to keep the budget low).
Other typical hidden costs in website builders are: disk space, bandwidth, domain renewal costs after the first year, higher renewal prices on some platforms, and aggressive upselling by sales team.
What is the best website builder for SEO?
We believe WordPress is the best website builder for SEO. We use it to build all of our websites and we are not alone.
Every SEO expert agrees that WordPress is the most SEO friendly website builder and that is why over 43% of all use it Sites WordPress.
Learn how to build a WordPress website step by step.
What is the best website builder for ecommerce?
Almost every website builder claims to have ecommerce capabilities, but we believe that the best ecommerce website builders are WooCommerce (WordPress), BigCommerce, and Shopify.
What is the best website builder for A/B testing?
You can run A/B tests on almost any website builder. To do this, you need third-party tools like OptinMonster, Google Optimize, etc.
Some website builders like WordPress, Shopify, and BigCommerce make it easier to set up A/B testing compared to others.
What is the best website builder for small business?
The best website builders for small business are WordPress, Web.com, and HubSpot. If you’re looking for an ecommerce website builder for small businesses, we recommend using WooCommerce.
Is there a website builder on this list that you would personally avoid?
We usually don’t like closed website builder platforms because they Lock them up and make switching difficult. If we had to pick one to avoid, then we’d say avoid Wix because it’s the hardest platform to switch from. They aggressively try to upsell every step of the way.
We’ve been building websites since 1998 and have tried many platforms. Over the past decade, we’ve always preferred WordPress because it’s open source and gives you full control over your content.
What is the best tool for building a website?
The best tool to build your website is WordPress along with a design tool SeedProd that allows you to build your website using a full drag and drop interface (no coding required). You can use SeedProd to create fully custom WordPress themes and layouts with just one click.
For another list of design tools, check out our Best Web Design Tools Comparison.
Why is WordPress so popular?
WordPress is the most popular website builder used by over 43% of all websites on the internet because of its ease of use and flexibility is enough to create different types of websites. That’s the main reason why WordPress has become so popular.
For more details, check out our complete guide to the top 6 reasons to use WordPress.
Which are what are the top 3 best website builders in your opinion?
Our top 3 picks for best website builder software are:
- WordPress – Best Website Builder (Overall).
- Web.com – Best Website Builder for Small Business (Cheap Price).
- WooCommerce – Best Ecommerce Website Builder for online stores.
No, that last question is not a joke. We get this question seriously even after referring people to this guide.
If you enjoyed this article, please subscribe to our YouTube channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Disclaimer: To avoid decision paralysis, we only compared the top 15 website building platforms. This list does not include other website builder software like Site123, Duda, Jimdo, SiteBuilder, Webflow, Format, Carrd, Ucraft, Google Sites, Webs, IONOS by 1&1, Adobe Muse, Yola, Webnode etc. because we use the mentioned solutions believe in this article are just better.
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