Website builders are a perfect solution for individuals, entrepreneurs and small businesses to start a website without hiring a developer. However, finding the best website builder can be tricky for beginners.
There are so many website builders on the market, how do you know which one is the right solution for you? The true answer to the question of the best website builder will vary depending on your specific needs.
In this article, we’ll help you choose the best website builder by going over the pros and cons of the most popular options. popular. .
We will compare the following website builders in this article. If you are interested in a particular website builder, simply click on the name to continue.
- WordPress.org
- Web.com
- Wix
- Website Builder by HubSpot
- WooCommerce
- Gator by HostGator
- Website Builder by Hostinger
- Domain.com
- BigCommerce
- Shopify
- WordPress.com
- Squarespace
- Weebly
- Dreamhost Builder Website
- GoDaddy Website Builder
Choosing the Best Website Builder: What to Look For
Before comparing the top website builders, we recommend that 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: having a blog section, photo gallery, online store (e-commerce), reservations, contact form, SEO features, social media features, etc.
If you’re not sure what you want, check out your competitors or other websites for inspiration.
Most website builders offer an intuitive drag and drop user interface to create your new website. You can take advantage of trial accounts (free plans) or the generous money-back guarantee to test before making your final decision.
Next, you should consider your options for growth. Will you be adding regular updates to your website? Do you need a blog section? Would you be selling more products on your website in the future?
You need to make sure that the website builder you choose is capable of handling your needs as your business grows.
Our Best Website Builder Review Criteria
We’ve helped over 400,000 users build a website, and over the past two decades we’ve tested nearly every website builder on the market.
We look at a number of 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 the website builder is easy to use for absolute beginners (non-tech-savvy users). It should come with a customizable drag-and-drop builder, powerful editing tools, and other design customization options.
- Pricing – Since it’s a competitive space, we took a look at which website builder offers the greatest value for the price. We ask questions like do you 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 added extras/hidden costs?
- Design & Features: We want to make sure the website builder offer a good selection of professional website templates along with flexibility to add additional features like Google Analytics, CRM, third-party marketing tools, etc.
- Ownership and portability of data: This is often not thought of by beginners, but being in the industry for longer Over two decades, we pay close attention to the terms of service and privacy policy to ensure you own your data, and it’s portable in case you need to change.
hours, 7 days a week when needed.
That said, Let’s take a look at the best website builder software to start your website without hiring a developer or coding HTML from scratch.
1. WordPress
WordPress.org (also known as self-hosted WordPress) is the most popular website building platform in the world. 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 will talk about WordPress.com later in this article. You can also read our WordPress.org vs WordPress.com comparison for more details.
The self-hosted WordPress content management system (CMS) tops our list of the best website builders due to its popularity, powerful features, scalability, and ease of use.
WordPress is a free and open source Website Builder. This means that you have the most control over your website compared to any other online website builder on this list.
With WordPress, you have full ownership of your website without any third party control, thus giving you maximum privacy.
This is why many popular websites like WhiteHouse.gov (US government), CNN, The New York Times, Microsoft, and many other small businesses use WordPress as their site builder. web.
Unlike other website builders on our list, you will need a WordPress hosting account and host your own website (this is much easier than it sounds). We have detailed instructions on how to get started with WordPress below.
Advantages:
WordPress gives you full control over every aspect of your website and online presence. . . It can be used to build any type of website. For example, an eCommerce store, community forums, social network, membership website, business/corporate website, landing pages and more.
There are thousands of pre-made WordPress themes from high quality that you can use for your website design.
You can also use one of the popular drag and drop WordPress page builders, such as SeedProd and Divi, which allow you to easily create your own custom website layouts using a drag and drop editor (not coding is needed).
Another great advantage of WordPress is that you get access to over 59,000 free WordPress plugins.
Plugins are like apps for WordPress that allow you to add additional features and functionality to your website, such as shopping cart, contact forms, Google analytics, photo gallery, social media tools, chat live, CRM, CSS customization, etc.
WordPress plugins also make it easy to connect and integrate your website with popular business tools, so you can automate and streamline your day-to-day operations.
Another big reason why WordPress is popular all over the world is because its website builder is fully translated in over 75 languages and allows you to easily create multilingual websites.
When you consider all of the above benefits, WordPress is, By far the most powerful website builder on the market.
It also comes with strong SEO tools that search engines love, and this ensures that your website always gets the highest rankings on the engines. search. We use and recommend the all-in-one SEO plugin for WordPress because it will help you outrank your competitors on Google.
For all the above reasons, our experts rate WordPress as the #1 website builder and search engine. #1 Content Management for Business Owners, Bloggers, Web Developers, and Web Designers.
Cons:
You will have to manage your own website , which means that you will need to 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’ll also need to keep up with WordPress updates, plugin updates, and creating copies. website security. All of this can be automated by your WordPress hosting provider.
Price:
While WordPress is a free website builder, you will need a name domain and web hosting to get your website up and running, which normally costs $14.99/year and $7.99/month, respectively.
Luckily, we’ve come to a special deal for WPBeginner readers. You can start a website for just $2.75 per month with Bluehost, an official WordPress recommended hosting provider. They are offering our users a 69% discount on web hosting that comes with free SSL certificate, free domain name, great uptime and 24/7 phone support.
→ Click here to claim this Bluehost exclusive offer ←
With this special price, WordPress is one of the cheapest website builders on this list for small businesses.
For more details, check out our guide on how to build a website with step-by-step instructions (including a video tutorial).
Note: WordPress works with all the popular 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 a business name idea yet? Use our intelligent AI-powered business name generator tool to create your brand name idea.
2. Web.com
Web.com is one of the original and most popular website builders for small businesses. They offer easy-to-use website building tools at a very affordable price, so anyone can create a website without having to know how to code.
Pros
Web.com offers a powerful drag and drop website builder that is easy to use for business owners with no background technicians.
You can choose from thousands of beautiful pre-made website templates and customize the design to match your brand needs with just a point and click.
The builder comes with all the powerful features you’d expect, including the ability to add photo galleries, videos, testimonial sliders, contact forms, map locations, social media buttons, and more.
You can add unlimited pages to your website and customize the layout of each website page individually. All of their website templates are 100% mobile friendly and also allow you to customize the layout for different devices (desktop, tablet and mobile phones).
Its eCommerce tools let you add up to 50 products, accept credit card payments securely online, track and manage orders, offer discounts and more.
All plans from Web.com come with a free domain name, business email addresses, 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 talk to n your web experts when you need them. aid.
Apart from website builder, they also offer custom web design services where an expert can design your entire website at a very affordable price.
Cons
While Web.com offers all the tools you need to build a small business website, it lacks some of the powerful features you may want as your business grows.
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For example, the blogging functionality on Web.com is very limited, and doesn’t compare to the power of what you get with WordPress.
Your eCommerce plan restricts you to only 50 products, which is more than enough for most small businesses. However, if you’re looking to build a strong online store, you might want to look into other website builders on our list, such as WooCommerce or Shopify.
Lastly, since Web.com is a website proprietary web builder, you won’t be able to easily switch to a different platform if you want to do so in the future.
Pricing
Web.com pricing plans start at $1.95 per month for your starter website plan that comes with your drag and drop website builder, hundreds of beautiful templates, thousands of stock images, and a free domain.
Your marketing plan starts at $2.95 per month, and includes additional SEO features to help you rank higher. Lastly, their eCommerce plan starts at $3.95 per month that 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 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 builder software. It offers ease of use combined with a powerful set of features to easily build your website. Over 1.9% of all websites use Wix as their website builder.
Benefits
Wix Website Builder is a fully hosted platform, so you will not have to pay for hosting. You get access to hundreds of templates to choose from for your website design. Each template is fully editable with its intuitive drag and drop site builder.
Wix has also created an artificial design intelligence (Wix ADI) that can design a beautiful website for you.
In addition to tons of templates, Wix also comes with dozens of free and paid apps that you can install on your website. These applications allow you to add new features and functions to your website. Some of them are created by Wix and some are created by third-party developers.
Wix offers a free plan with limited bandwidth and storage. However, you can use this plan to test your drag and drop website builder. It doesn’t include a domain name, so if you decide to keep your website, you may want to upgrade to a premium plan.
You also get free SSL with all Wix plans, but you’ll need to activate it on your website.
Cons
The Free and Connect Domain plans will show Wix-branded ads on your website. You’ll need to upgrade to your Unlimited or Combination plan to remove those ads.
If you ever decide to move your website outside of Wix, it’s going to be quite a pain to do.
Your Connect Domain plan, which costs $9.16 per month, only allows you to connect one custom domain name, so you’ll still need to purchase a separate domain name.
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 will get you a free domain name. The eCommerce plan for online stores 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 merchants and small business owners. It combines the power of your drag-and-drop website builder, marketing automation tools, and CRM, so you can deliver a personalized digital experience to your users.
Pros
HubSpot is known for being one of the leading CRM and marketing automation platforms in the world. After listening to the concerns of small businesses, they decided to create an all-in-one website builder that helps you create a website in minutes (without hiring a developer).
You can use their templates conversion-optimized websites to quickly build a website that delivers results.
Alternatively, you can use their simple drag-and-drop editor to create a custom website design in minutes .
The best part about HubSpot website builder is that they allow you to do responsive testing, so you can choose up to five variations of a page, and HubSpot will monitor and provide the best performing option.
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HubSpot’s website builder integrates seamlessly with your CRM platform, so you can leverage customer data to create a completely personalized digital experience for each website visitor.
It comes with many other powerful features including SEO tools, powerful analytics, blogging tools, live chat software, email marketing feature, multi-language content support and more.
Considering the features of its integrated marketing platform, HubSpot is definitely one of the best professional website builders on 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. is. For advanced online stores and business websites, it’s better to use WordPress.
The good thing is that HubSpot recognizes this too, which is why they have a free WordPress plugin that allows you to integrate seamlessly. with WordPress to offer the best of both worlds.
HubSpot is a very powerful platform that comes with many features. This can be intimidating for small business owners just starting out. As long as you’re committed, your account executives will work with you to ensure your business succeeds online.
Price:
HubSpot offers a powerful builder free website builder that not only lets you build a website, but also gives you a suite of marketing automation tools like CRM, email marketing, live chat, and more.
You can get started for free and as your business grows, you can choose the package that best suits your needs.
Prices for their paid plans start as low as $45 per month for the Starter plan, which gives you all your business tools, including: CMS (website builder), marketing center, sales tools, and business operations tools.
All plans come with 24-hour live chat and phone support, 7 days a week, and their support team is really helpful.
HubSpot is a great choice for small businesses looking for an integrated website building platform that has all the tools small businesses need.
5. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce website builder on the planet for starting 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 internet use WooCommerce as their eCommerce website builder, making it twice the size of Shopify.
Pros
WooCommerce is the best website builder for eCommerce sites because it gives you complete control over your website.
It comes with all the features you can imagine to run a successful online store. .
You can accept payments online 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 further.
Unlike Shopify, WooCommerce doesn’t charge additional transaction fees if you choose to use other payment solutions.
They also offer dozens of extensions to help you with shipping, delivery, fulfillment , sales tax management, inventory management, and just about every aspect of store management.
You can create custom sales funnels and product landing pages with SeedProd, create an affiliate program with AffiliateWP, display real-time social proof with TrustPulse, offer free shipping or run BOGO deals using advanced coupons, set special wholesale pricing with the WholeSale suite, add order boosts and upsells with FunnelKit (formerly BuildWooFunnels), and basically do anything you can imagine.
WooCommerce seamlessly integrates with all popular email marketing services, analytics platforms, live chat software, help desk software, and conversion optimization tools.
You can reduce cart abandonment and increase sales conversions by adding gamification from the OptinMonster plugin for WooCommerce.
Other than that, WooCommerce is extremely SEO friendly, and it can get even better your eCommerce SEO using the AIOSEO plugin.
The amount of freedom and flexibility that WooCommerce offers simply cannot be put into words. For more details, check out our complete list of the Best WooCommerce Plugins and Best WooCommerce Themes.
For all of the above reasons, our experts rate WooCommerce as the Best Ecommerce Website Builder .
Cons
Like WordPress, WooCommerce is a self-hosted e-commerce platform, which means you’ll need to familiarize yourself with a new system.
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It will be an answer to keeping WooCommerce updated, creating website backups and performing 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 site Free ecommerce web builder, but you will need a domain name and web hosting to get your online store up and running.
This cost will vary depending on the traffic and popularity of your website.
You can get started for as little as $2.99 per month with SiteGround’s starter plan, which comes with pre-installed WooCommerce, free SSL certificate, daily website backups, free CDN, automatic updates, and security improved.
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→ Click here to claim this exclusive offer from SiteGround ←
Alternatively, you can also use Bluehost’s premium WooCommerce plan which costs $12.95 per month, but comes with various premium WooCommerce extensions such as online subscriptions, booking and appointments, and other premium features (worth over $1000 if purchased separately).
Owners of high traffic WooCommerce sites end up using WP Engine for WooCommerce Managed Hosting, and pricing starts at $30 per month.
For more details on this, check out our full breakdown of how much an eCommerce website actually costs.
6. Gator by HostGator
Gator is a popular online website builder created by HostGator, one of the largest web hosting providers in the world. The Gator builder is an all-in-one website building and hosting solution that makes 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 that lets you choose from over 200 professional website design templates. Each layout comes with simple customization options that you can configure from within the builder itself.
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, maps, and contact forms.
Gator also gives you access to a library of stock photos, so you can find and add beautiful photos 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.
Since Gator is a paid product, they do not sell your data or display ads on your website.
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Cons
Unlike some of the other options on the list, Gator doesn’t have a free plan. They also do not offer a free trial.
Like other proprietary website builders on the list, you cannot hire a developer to help you significantly modify the design of your website or add new features to your website. your website.
Pricing
Gator offers a 55% discount to WPBeginner readers, so their pricing plans start as low as $3.46 per month for Starter, $5.39 per month for premium, and $8.30 for eCommerce. plan. It is definitely one of the cheapest website builders on the list.
Gator can be used to create a website for a small business, a limited-item store, or a photo gallery. However, it is no match for the power 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% off premium plans using the WPBeginner Hostinger coupon code.
This makes Hostinger a great choice for those looking for a cheap website builder to start their website.
Pros
The Hostinger Website Builder allows you to create a website without any design or coding skills. Its powerful and easy-to-use design tools make it easy for anyone to create visually stunning websites.
Comes with a logo maker, helpful AI tools and plenty of pre-built website templates with which you can start. You also have access to over 1 million high-quality images for free.
The best part about Hostinger Website Builder is the affordable price. If you are an artist or a small business with a limited budget, Hostinger is your best option. Pricing for their individual website builder starts at $1.99 per month.
But don’t let the low prices think this isn’t a powerful website building platform. They offer great 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.
They also have eCommerce plans that allow you to add unlimited products, accept online payments , offer discounts coupons, order management, inventory management and even connect your store with Amazon, Instagram and Shopify.
Cons
Not easy to switch template once you choose one. Also, since Hostinger is not open source, it lacks the third-party plugins and integrations that WordPress offers.
Their starter plan is somewhat limited in features and does not include a domain free, but it has all the essentials you need to build a website.
While Hostinger does offer blogging features, it’s not a true blogging platform, so they lack features like the ability to schedule blog posts, etc.
Preci o
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 comes with a free domain. The Business plan starts at $3.99 per month and includes advanced features. You can get a discount on any of these plans by using our Hostinger coupon code: wpbeginner.
8. Domain.com Website Builder
Domain.com is one of the best domain registrars on the planet, offering a variety of website solutions, including web hosting , website builder, business email , and more.
Its drag and drop website builder allows you to create a small business website, blog, and even an eCommerce website with just a few clicks.
Pros
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 it via a simple drag and drop interface to match your brand.
All Domain.com Website Builder Templates They are optimized for mobile devices and tablets and desktop computers. This means your website will look great on all devices.
It comes with all the powerful features you’d expect from a well-known website builder, including website analytics, eCommerce functionality, the ability to to add a blog to any website and a free SSL certificate with all plans.
With your ecommerce plan, you also get inventory management, tax management, coupons and discounts, and many other features powerful.
They also offer live chat and phone customer support for technical assistance, so you can get started easily.
Cons
Unlike other popular website builders, Domain.com Website Builder does not have a free website builder option. They also do not offer a free trial. However, they do offer a money-back guarantee in case you’re not satisfied with the product.
Their extension ecosystem is small, and you won’t be able to hire a developer to build advanced features like WordPress because it’s not Open source.
Since it is a proprietary platform, it will be difficult to migrate your website outside of the Domain.com website builder.
Lastly, your starter plan will Restricts to only 6 page website. For unlimited pages, you need at least your business plan.
Pricing
Dominio.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 come with a free SSL certificate, unlimited storage, blog features, and phone support.
You can also use our Domain.com Coupon Code to get 25% off domain registration.
If you are looking for a professional website builder, then Domain website builder .com is an excellent option.
However, if you want advanced features and more control over your content, nothing will beat self-hosted WordPress (#1 option on our list).
9. BigCommerce
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BigCommerce is a popular eCommerce website builder that allows you to easily create a scalable online store. It comes with all the essential features built in, so you can keep your overhead low and margins high.
Benefits
BigCommerce is fully e-commerce. hosted solution, so you don’t have to worry about website speed, security or 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 a native integration with WordPress, allowing you to take advantage of the flexibility of WordPress while leveraging the headless eCommerce power of BigCommerce. In simple terms, your website will be fast and secure no matter how much traffic it receives.
BigCommerce integrates with all popular payment gateways, including Stripe (credit cards and ACH), PayPal, Apple Pay, Square, Amazon Pay, Visa Checkout, Chase Pay, Ayden and more. Unlike Shopify, BigCommerce does not charge a transaction fee for using these payment gateways.
You can start with one of their many pre-made website templates and customize it to fit your needs with its easy Drag and drop website builder.
BigCommerce comes with many built-in features to handle conversion rate optimization such as cart abandonment, enhanced product search, product reviews , coupons and more. For additional features, you can connect with third-party apps from your app store.
The best part is its dashboard, which allows you to view metrics to help you grow your business with confidence.
Cons
If you’re just starting out, then you’ll find BigCommerce’s prices to be a bit higher than other website builders on the list.
Since it is a proprietary platform, it will be difficult to migrate away from BigCommerce.
Pricing
BigCommerce comes with a 15-day free trial to all plans. Their basic plans at $29.95 per month, which come with all the essential features you’ll 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 has all the advanced features you could need.
The best part about BigCommerce compared to Shopify and other third-party eCommerce platforms is that they have seamless integration with WordPress, which can be a huge advantage if you want to combine the flexibility of WordPress with the power from BigCommerce.
This is one of the reasons why we have BigCommerce on our list of best eCommerce website builders.
10. Shopify
Shopify is another popular ecommerce website builder designed specifically for online stores and ecommerce websites. It powers millions of online stores in 175 different countries. More than $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 a site builder eCommerce website.
Advantages
Shopify is an all-in-one fully hosted eCommerce software, which means you don’t have to worry about managing the software, install updates, or maintain backup copies. Shopify does all of that for you.
It offers an integrated payment solution called Shopify Payments that lets you accept credit cards. You can also add third-party payment gateways to accept payments.
As an ecommerce website builder, Shopify comes with complete inventory management, unlimited products, powerful statistics, easy marketing solutions, all seamlessly integrated under one roof. They have hundreds of designs to choose from and you never need to add any code.
With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, Shopify makes it very easy to create a complete online store.
They also offer in-store POS, which allows you to sell products at your location, while accepting all major credit cards and taking advantage of Shopify’s inventory, shipping, marketing, and analytics management tools.
Cons
Shopify forces you to use their Shopify Payment platform. If you want to use their own payment processing solution, they charge an additional 2% transaction fee, which is really high.
If you’re just starting out, Shopify’s prices might be a bit higher than other website builders on this list. For more details, check out our comparison between Shopify and WooCommerce.
If you ever want to move your website outside of Shopify, you’ll find it quite difficult to do so.
Update: Due to the popular request, we have created a step by step tutorial on how to switch from Shopify to WooCommerce. Our team created a free migration tool that does the job for you.
Price
Shopify’s basic plan will cost you $29 per month. You can upgrade to Shopify for $79 per month or Advanced Shopify for $299 per month. Shopify also offers a Shopify Lite plan for $9 per month, which basically allows you to add a buy button on any website.
If you want a hassle-free ecommerce website builder, then Shopify can be the perfect fit for you.
11. WordPress.com
WordPress.com is a blogging platform and website hosting service managed 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 are related.
WordPress.com is not the same as the self-hosted WordPress.org referred to as our #1 website builder. Instead, this is a custom hosting solution focused primarily on blogging. See our comparison of WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org for more details.
Benefits
WordPress.com is a website hosting service built on the same WordPress software but with a fully customized user experience. You don’t have to worry about software and backups as WordPress.com takes care of that.
Their free and paid plans have a different set of 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, etc.
It does not offer the same drag and drop functionality as other website builders. However, you can easily customize the layouts to some extent.
It comes with powerful editing tools that bloggers find really useful.
Cons
You cannot install plugins or custom themes unless you upgrade to your business plan.
Premium plans and below do not have e-commerce features or support for third-party ad networks. With the business plan, you can use WooCommerce, install WordPress plugins and third-party ad networks. However, you will need to follow WordPress.com’s terms and conditions.
Pricing
The WordPress.com 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, is billed annually, and gives you the ability to monetize your site and advanced design customization.
But to really build professional websites, you’ll need either their Business plan ($24 per month) or their Ecommerce plan ($45 per month), which is much more expensive than self-hosted WordPress.
12. Squarespace
Squarespace is a popular professional website builder known for its great designs and ease of use. According to W3Techs, approximately 1.8% of all websites are built with Squarespace.
Pros
Squarespace comes with an enterprise-grade infrastructure for host your website. This secure and robust platform allows you to focus on growing your business without worrying about hosting.
Squarespace includes tons of website designs to get you started. All of these layouts are completely ready for all types of content. They are fully editable and Squarespace even allows you to use multiple templates for the same website at once.
Adding content to your website is easy with Squarespace. Just point to any part of your website and start writing. You can easily drag and drop elements onto pages to create your own layouts in minutes.
Squarespace also has an eCommerce plan that allows you to add an online store to your website . It offers a nice interface to manage your products, inventory, orders, discount coupons, and more.
Cons
Squarespace offers limited integrations with third-party services that can hinder your business growth.
Your eCommerce plans only allow Stripe, Apple Pay, and PayPal for payment processing. You cannot add additional payment gateways.
Pricing
Squarespace websites start at $12 per month and $18 per month. Their online stores start from $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 quickly build a website.
If you’re wondering how it stacks up against WordPress, 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 includes a beautifully designed page builder that allows you to edit your website without learning any coding skills.
Popular payment platform Square acquired Weebly to offer a more integrated website building solution for local businesses .
Benefits
Weebly is a fully hosted platform, so you don’t need to install or manage any software. They take care of hosting your website and managing all the software that runs on the backend.
It comes with dozens of website layouts to use as a starting point for your website. These beautiful layouts are fully editable with Weebly’s live page editor.
Weebly also comes with built-in support for eCommerce. This allows you to easily create an online store and start selling.
Each Weebly site comes with built-in features for contact forms, photo galleries, sliders, and more. This allows you to easily add features to your website without any complicated setup process.
Given the ease of use and great features, Weebly is consistently ranked among the best DIY website builders for beginners.
Cons
Weebly.com offers a fully hosted platform, so you’re limited to the features they offer. You may not hire a developer or designer to add new functionality or functionality to your website.
Weebly will display Square ads on your site on both the Free and Personal plans. You have to upgrade to their Professional plan to remove the ads.
Price
Weebly comes with a very basic free plan. Their paid plans start as low as $6 per month, billed annually. The professional plan costs $12 per month and the business plan costs $26 per month.
If you’re wondering how it compares to WordPress, check out our comparison of Weebly vs WordPress.
A Beginners often start with Weebly and then 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 that is based on WordPress. It’s available as part of all DreamHost hosting plans, which starts as low as $2.59/mo with a free domain, making it one of the cheapest website builders on our list.
Pros
DreamHost WP website builder is built on WordPress and powered by BoldGrid, so it takes full advantage of WordPress with a personalized user experience. DreamHost’s website builder allows you to choose a professional design from their gallery of themes.
After that, you can customize those layouts with a drag and drop customizer. You can point and click on any element in the preview section to edit its properties. You can change colors, fonts, layouts, navigation menus, and widgets with ease.
Need a temporary website? DreamHost’s BoldGrid Builder creates one for you with a single click. This allows you to test your new layouts, layouts, plugins and themes before publishing them for all to see.
It also comes with a full WYSIWYG page editor. No more guesswork when editing your pages in WordPress. You will get exactly what you see in your page editor window. You can also use GridBlocks to simply drag and drop elements to your page and create your own layouts from scratch.
DreamHost WP site builder can be used to create any type of website with a custom domain name . Since it’s built on WordPress, it’s easy to add blogging features, powerful SEO and social media features, eCommerce features, and more.
All of DreamHost’s website builder themes are WooCommerce ready . This allows you to easily create a storefront using your drag and drop website builder (see our list of the best WooCommerce hosting companies).
Cons
DreamHost WP Website Builder runs on top of WordPress, so you’ll still need a self-hosted WordPress.org website to use it.
But the good thing is that WordPress comes pre-installed with all plans from DreamHost. You also get other powerful features included with DreamHost.
DreamHost doesn’t come with a free plan, but does offer a 97-day money-back guarantee.
Price
DreamHost WP website builder is available as part of all DreamHost plans starting at just $2.59 per month for 1 website.
WPBeginner readers too they get a free domain, free SSL Certificate, and free domain privacy with DreamHost’s Starter plan, which also comes with a 97-day money-back guarantee.
This makes DreamHost one of the creators of most affordable websites on the market.
15. GoDaddy Website Builder
GoDaddy is one of the largest domain name registrars and web hosting service providers in the world. While many business owners use GoDaddy to host WordPress websites, they also offer a simple online website builder for those who don’t want to use WordPress.
Pros
GoDaddy Website Builder is a simple and easy 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 that you can use on your website. You can also upload your own photos and create image galleries.
GoDaddy’s website builder also works on smaller screens. This allows you to work on your website on the go using your mobile phone or tablet.
Cons
Not as feature-rich and flexible as the most of the 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
Pricing for GoDaddy Website Builder 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 the best website builder
After carefully evaluating all website builders on Popular line, we believe WordPress .org beats all website builders in overall performance, ease of use, price, and flexibility.
WordPress is a great choice for beginners, personal websites, and business websites . Some of the biggest brands in the world use WordPress on their websites. See all the reasons to choose WordPress as your website builder.
If you want to build your website with the best website builder, start with WordPress using Bluehost. It’s definitely our first choice.
You can read our step-by-step guide on how to create a website for detailed instructions.
Looking for business name ideas? Try our A.I powered business name generator tool to find creative brand name ideas.
If you are looking to create an online store (eCommerce website), then we recommend WooCommerce as the best business name builder. eCommerce websites because it offers all the features you’ll need at the best price.
If you want a WordPress alternative, we recommend using 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 as little as $1.95 and it comes with all the powerful features, including a free domain.
HubSpot offers a free website builder along with a suite of CRM and marketing automation tools to grow your business. It also integrates seamlessly with WordPress in case you want 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 get started your website, we’ve answered a lot of questions. Below are some of the answers to the most frequently asked questions about website builders.
Are website builders worth it?
Yes, website builders in general are an extremely cost effective way to build a website. Instead of paying thousands of dollars to hire a web developer, you can use the easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface offered by website builders to create your own website for a low monthly fee.
What website building software do professional web designers use?
Nowadays even professional web designers use a website builder like WordPress to create the sites website because they can create any type of website using WordPress plugins and themes.
Drag and drop WordPress page builders make it easy for professional web designers to create custom websites for clients. customers while saving time, allowing them to serve more customers and earn more money each month.
Is it better to code your own website than to use a website builder?
In the old days, it was worth it know how to code a website from scratch, but these days almost all professional developers and designers use a website building platform or open source CMS software to build websites.
Building platforms Website builders have gotten really cool and simply let you get more done in less time.
Can I change my website builder software later?
No, with the exception of WordPress, most website builders make it very hard to put down. That’s why it’s extremely important to choose the right website builder that you can grow with.
There are third-party services, tools, and tutorials that can help you switch from website building software with varying degrees of success. .
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
- Moving from GoDaddy Website Builder to WordPress
- Moving from Joomla to WordPress
- Moving from Medium to WordPress
- How to Switch from Shopify to WooCommerce
Is WordPress really free? What’s the catch?
Yes, WordPress.org is open source software that is 100% free for everyone to use. It is built by a community of developers under the guidance of the nonprofit WordPress Foundation.
WordPress is licensed under the GPL, which means anyone can use, modify, and redistribute it. It gives you complete freedom and ownership over the content of your website.
The only problem is that to use WordPress, you must have a domain name and web hosting that is valid for all websites.
You can learn more about why WordPress is free and what the costs are.
How do other free website builders make money if I use it for free?
Most free website builders make money by selling ads on their website. For example, if you use the free Wix plan, ads will be displayed on every page of your website. This doesn’t look professional.
Other than that, most website builder software offer limited free versions for customers to try out their platform, and they earn money when you upgrade to their paid plans.
Only WordPress.org offers the full-featured website builder for free, and since it’s an open source project, it doesn’t display any ads on your site.
How can I create my own? website for free?
If you want to start a website for free, then you can use HubSpot’s website builder. You can sign up for a free account (no credit card needed).
You can use its smart templates and drag-and-drop editor to create a completely custom web design.
We also offer powerful business tools like CRM, email marketing, live chat, marketing automation and more so you can quickly grow your online presence.
How do I get a business name? free domain?
The best way to get a free domain name is to choose a website building 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
For more details, check out our guide s Here’s how to register a domain name for free.
Do I need a custom domain to build a website?
No, you don’t need a custom domain to create a website, but having one helps jumpstart it. our credibility.
Often, free website builders will give you a branded subdomain like yoursite.wix.com, but this doesn’t look professional.
That’s why we recommend everyone get a custom domain name, especially if you’re serious about your online presence.
Do I need to buy web hosting to build a website?
Yes, all websites need web hosting because 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 building platforms will ask you to upgrade your subscription to a higher plan.
See our comparison of the best WordPress hosting companies for more details.
Are there hidden costs to building a website?
The hidden costs of building any website are add-on 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 the type of site) .
We have written a detailed guide on how much it costs to create a WordPress site (with tips on how to keep a low budget).
Other typical hidden costs in the Website Builders are: storage space, bandwidth, domain renewal costs after the first year, higher renewal prices on some platforms, and sales hard sell. team.
Which is the best website builder for SEO?
We think WordPress is the best website builder for SEO. We use it to build all of our websites, and we’re not alone.
All SEO experts agree that WordPress is the most SEO-friendly website builder, which is why more than 43% of all websites use WordPress.
Learn how to create a WordPress website (step by step).
What is the best website builder for ecommerce?
Almost every website builder claims to have ecommerce features, but we think WooCommerce (WordPress), BigCommerce, and Shopify are the best website builders for ecommerce.
What is the best website builder for A? /B testing?
You can A/B test almost all website builders. To do this, you would 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 tests than others.
Which is the best small business website builder?
The best small business website builders are WordPress, Web.com, and hubspot. If you are looking for an eCommerce website builder for small business, we recommend using WooCommerce.
Are there any website builders on this list that you personally would avoid?
We generally don’t like closed site building platforms web because they lock you in and make it harder to change. If we had to pick one to avoid, we would say avoid Wix because it is the hardest platform to leave. They aggressively try to increase sales every step of the way.
We’ve been building websites since 1998 and have tried many platforms. For the last decade, we always preferred WordPress because it is open source and gives you full ownership of your content.
What is the best tool to build a website?
The best tool to build your website is WordPress along with a SeedProd design tool that allows you to build your website using a full drag and drop interface (no coding needed). You can use SeedProd to create completely custom WordPress themes and layouts with just a point and click.
For more list of design tools, see our comparison of the best web design tools.
Why is WordPress so popular?
WordPress is the most popular website builder used by over 43% of all websites on the internet because it’s easy to easy to use and flexible enough to make different types of websites. That’s the main reason why WordPress has grown so much in popularity.
For more details, check out our complete guide on the 6 most important reasons to use WordPress.
What are the Top 3 Website Builders in Your Opinion?
Our Top 3 Picks for the Best Website Builders website builders are:
- WordPress: the best website builder (overall) .
- Web.com: the me Best Small Business Website Builder (Great Price).
- WooCommerce – The Best Ecommerce Website Builder for Online Stores.
No, this last question is not a joke. We take this question seriously even after referring people to this guide.
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Disclaimer: To help avoid choice paralysis, we only compare the top 15 website building platforms. This list does not include other website building software such as Site123, Duda, Jimdo, SiteBuilder, Webflow, Format, Carrd, Ucraft, Google Sites, Webs, IONOS by 1&1, Adobe Muse, Yola, Webnode, etc. because we believe that the solutions mentioned in this article are simply better.
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