To sustain this free service, we receive affiliate commissions via some of our links. This doesn’t affect rankings. Our review process.
|
1st |
 |
|
2nd |
 |
| 3rd |
 |
Having a website is a must if you operate a business. It’s a way to showcase your offering and let the world know you exist. Gone are the days of spending tens of thousands on a website. Today, it’s easier and more affordable than ever, thanks to website builders.
They remove the guesswork by offering everything you need under one login – hosting, domain management, design, SEO and even email marketing. But the market is crowded and reliability varies. Our experts dive in to find you the best website builder.
Article Overview
- What Should I Look For In A Website Builder?
- Should I Use A Website Builder?
- What Are The Best Website Builders (Top 3)?
- 8 More Website Builders Reviewed
- How To Build A Website From Scratch
What Should I Look For In A Website Builder?
Before you make your own website, ask yourself:
- What features do I need? (social media integration, drag & drop editor, etc.)
- What is the purpose of my site? (information, sell products, etc.)
Once you determine your needs, then you can begin looking for a company that provides the features that best fit your goals and budget.
Should I Use A Website Builder?
Website builders are preferred over traditional Content Management Systems (CMS) in that they are usually:
- Easy – little technical expertise needed to use drag and drop & plug and play features
- Fast – sign up and start creating your website right away
- Digitally-based – services that don’t require downloading software, thus allowing multiple people to access and edit from anywhere, anytime
- One-Stop Shop – self-hosted (no third-party hosting provider or external plugins required)
Web builders are ideal for small businesses, startups, freelancers and anyone who doesn’t need anything super advanced. You can set up a shop and start promoting your business and selling quickly.
However, if you have more advanced needs, are looking to grow your brand significantly, or wish to differentiate more from the competition, it might be beneficial to invest in a CMS (our experts compare the top CMS’s) that allows more customizations and room to grow.
What Are The Best Website Builders?
We’ve taken the most popular website builders on the market and stacked them up to each other in exhaustive tests. Our researchers compare features, price, user feedback, and more.
Weebly Review
| #1 |  |
Weebly is our 1st choice for website creation software and has the basics to build your website. They don’t overwhelm you with tons of features. This is what makes it so simple and easy to use.
Weebly is an excellent choice for a novice who knows nothing about design or website building. Best of all, there is a free version that you can test out before advancing to a higher package level.
The Weebly platform is updated regularly. Key features include designer templates (including single page layouts), a shopping platform, and a “promote” service that integrates email campaigns and lead generation forms within the Weebly dashboard.
If you have an existing Weebly site, you can take advantage of most features for free.
Pros |
Cons |
|
|
Packaging and Pricing
| Free | Personal | Professional | Performance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price Per Month (when paid annually) | $0 | $6 | $12 | $26 |
| Drag & Drop Builder |  | | | |
| SSL Security | | | | |
| Search Engine Optimization | | | | |
| Connect Your Domain | Weebly.com Subdomain | | | |
| Advanced Site Stats | | | |
|
| Support Options | Community Forum, Chat & Email | Community Forum, Chat & Email | Community Forum, Chat, Email & Phone | Community Forum, Chat, Email & Phone (Priority) |
| No Square Ads | | |
||
| Password Protect | | |
||
| Weebly Transaction Fee | 3% | 3% | 3% | 0% |
| Number of Products | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Digital Goods | | | |
|
| Shipping Calculator | | |
||
| Accepts PayPal | |
|||
| Abandoned Cart Emails | |
Coupon Code
Video Overview
Here’s an overview of how to use Weebly.
Squarespace Review
| #2 |  |
Squarespace is our runner-up and is a designer’s dream come true. This company allows you to personalize your website character by character so that it looks exactly the way that you desire, and you don’t have to know code to take full advantage of Squarespace. All with a fresh, modern look!
They have an easy drag and drop editor so you have a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) type of feel when editing your website. And if you are more experienced in code you can also use your own CSS, markdowns, or code injections to add even more customizations.
They also have the option to sell your products including managing inventory, create discount codes, and edit other product variables.
Pros |
Cons |
|
|
Packages And Pricing
| Personal | Business | Basic | Advanced | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $12/month billed annually or $16 month to month | $18/month billed annually or $26 month to month | $26/month billed annually or $30 month to month | $40/month billed annually or $46 month to month |
| Number of Pages, Galleries and Blogs | 20 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Unlimited Bandwidth and Storage | | | | |
| Number of Contributors | 2 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Mobile-Optimized Website | | | | |
| Powerful Website Metrics | | | | |
| Free Custom Domain with Annual Purchase | | | | |
| 24/7 Customer Support | | | | |
| Fully Integrated Ecommerce | | | | |
| Accept Donations | | | | |
| Number of Products Able to Sell | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Sales Transaction Fee | 3% | 2% | None | None |
| Professional Email from Google | | | |
|
| $100 Google AdWords Credit | | | |
|
| Mobile Optimized Checkout | | |
||
| SSL Security | | |
||
| Squarespace Website with Integrated Galleries and Blog | | |
||
| Powerful Commerce Analytics | | |
||
| Inventory, Orders, Tax, Discounts | | |
||
| Label Printing via Shipstation | | |
||
| Integrated Accounting via Xero | | |
||
| Abandoned Checkout Autorecovery | |
|||
| Real Time Carrier Shipping | |
Coupon Code
Wix Review
| #3 |  |
Wix is our third place winner and has a variety of website building packages for you to choose from so your website looks the way you want it to look and has the features it needs.
They have extensive customer support including email, phone, forums, and a help center. Wix includes an easy to use drag and drop interface like most web design software.
There are many apps you can integrate on your site to personalize it to your needs and Wix recently decreased the prices for the majority of its plans. The downside to Wix is that once you choose a template you cannot change it.
Pros |
Cons |
|
|
Packages And Pricing
| Connect Domain | Combo | Unlimited | eCommerce | VIP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $5/Month | $10/Month | $14/Month | $17/Month | $25/Month |
| Bandwidth | 1GB | 2GB | Unlimited | 20GB | Unlimited |
| Storage | 500MB | 3GB | 10GB | 20GB | 20GB |
| Connect Your Domain | | | | | |
| Google Analytics | | | | | |
| Free Hosting | | | | | |
| Free Domain (Annual Subscription Only) | | | | |
|
| Remove Wix Ads | | | | |
|
| $300 Ad Vouchers (Annual Subscription Only) | | | |
||
| Site Booster App (Annual Subscription Only) | | | |
||
| Form Builder App (Annual Subscription Only) | | | |
||
| Online Store | | |
|||
| VIP Support | |
||||
| Instant Response | |
||||
| Professional Site Review | |
Coupon Code
8 More Website Builders Reviewed
The rest of the website builders our experts have reviewed are listed below. Don’t see the one you’re interested in? Ask us in the comments and we’ll be happy to add it to our research queue.
1&1 | Aabaco | BoldGrid | Jimdo | SpaceCraft | StudioPress Sites | Web.com | Yahoo
1&1 Review
One of the best things about 1&1 is that you can do everything you need for your website. You can host it, design it, build it, promote it, and advertise it all through 1&1 – no need to go anywhere or pay a bill to anyone else.
They also have this really cool and unique feature called GoToAssist, which allows a 1&1 support representative to look at your computer screen so you can work together on any problems or questions you run into.
However, 1&1 has possibly the worst reputation online when it comes to website building software. There are many frustrating things for 1&1 users and by doing a simple Google search you’ll see not many people are a fan of them.
Pros |
Cons |
|
|
Packages And Pricing
| Basic | Plus | Premium | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99/Month for 12 Months then $9.99/Month | $4.99/Month for 12 Months then $19.99/Month | $9.99/Month for 12 Months then $29.99/Month |
| SSL Certificate | | | |
| Website Editor | | | |
| Optimized for Mobile | | | |
| Domain and Mail | | | |
| Access to 20 Million Images | | | |
| Over 10,000 Templates | | | |
| Online Marketing | | |
|
| Sell Up To 1,000 Products | |
Aabaco Review
Aabaco bought Yahoo’s Website Hosting. It does everything the other website makers do at a reasonable price.
Nothing really stands out for Aabaco though, which is a bit of a disappointment since they came from such a big name company. Their 30-day satisfaction guarantee is nice and their 24-hour phone support is a good feature as well.
Pros |
Cons |
|
|
Packages And Pricing
| Lite | Basic | Professional | Premier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price Per Month Billed Annually | $14 | $29 | $79 | $299 |
| Number of Products | 10 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Storage Space | 1GB | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | 10GB | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Free Domain | 1 Year | | | |
| Transaction Fee | 1.5% | 1.5% | 1% | .75% |
| Mobile Storefront | | | | |
| 30+ Marketing, Sales, Backoffice Apps | | | | |
| SEO Tools | | | | |
| Social Media Support | | | | |
| Live Insights Activity Monitoring | | | | |
| PayPal Support | | | | |
| Chat Live w/ Customers on Your Store (Web & Mobile) | | | | |
| Live Store Badge | | | | |
| $100 Bing Search Ads Credit | | | |
|
| Business Email Accounts Included | 10 | 30 | 1,000 | |
| 24/7 Customer Support | | | |
|
| Bulk Product Import/Export | | | |
|
| API Access for 3rd Party Solutions | | |
||
| Priority Phone Support | |
|||
| Designated Account Manager | |
BoldGrid Review
BoldGrid works on top of WordPress and has two main phases: inspiration and customization. Unlike competitors, BoldGrid designs that are live on your site are completely filled out.
There are no blank spaces, which can be confusing to find where exactly you can customize them. Once the design you have chosen is live, you can then customize the titles, fonts, styling, and more to fit your specifications.
All BoldGrid designs are responsive and you can use drag and drop or CSS/HTML for the editor. It also has hundreds of thousands of free photos for you to use.
Pros |
Cons |
|
|
Packages And Pricing
BoldGrid is free if you have a hosting account. If you don’t have a hosting account, BoldGrid offers two supported providers: inMotion Hosting or Web Hosting Hub.
Jimdo Review
Jimdo is a fairly inexpensive website design software and even offers a free version so you can test it out before you pay any money.
What really stands out for this company is its multiple forms of customer support. Although their live chat isn’t 24/7, the fact that they offer live chat is something we like about them. They have many tutorials and FAQs to help you get your website built.
If you want to use video on your site, you’ll want to know that you cannot upload video directly to Jimdo. You have to use a third-party like YouTube or Vimeo.
Pros |
Cons |
|
|
Packages And Pricing
| Free | Pro | Business | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price Per Month Billed Annually | $0 | $7.50 | $20 |
| Storage | 500MB | 5GB | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | 2GB | 10GB | Unlimited |
| Domain | www.yourname.jimdo.com | Free | Free |
| Email Accounts | 0 | 1 | 20 |
| Forwarding Aliases | 0 | 3 | Unlimited |
| Password Protected Areas | 1 | 5 | Unlimited |
| Number of Products for Sale | 5 | 15 | Unlimited |
| No Transaction Fees | | | |
| Payment Methods | PayPal | PayPal | PayPal, Stripe |
| Statistics | | |
|
| Custom Footer | | |
|
| Ad-Free | | |
|
| Discount Codes | |
||
| Weight-Based Shipping | |
SpaceCraft Review
SpaceCraft is fairly easy to use, making it a great option for beginners. It claims to have a Drag and Drop editor, but it’s not a true drag and drop experience.
It has an editor, but you can’t customize your website through the frontend. One nice feature is that it has an autosave, so you’ll never lose your work. All designs are responsive, so they’ll look good on all online platforms.
Pros |
Cons |
|
|
Packages and Pricing
SpaceCraft has a 14-day free trial.
| Basic | Premium | Concierge | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price Per Month | $8 billed annually or $10 month-to-month | $16 billed annually or $20 month-to-month | $49 billed annually or monthly with a one-year contract |
| Unlimited Pages |  | | |
| Unlimited Bandwidth | | | |
| Unlimited Storage | | | |
| Custom Domains | | | |
| Online Support Tools | | | |
| Free Domain (with annual purchase) | | |
|
| Unlimited Contributors | | |
|
| Pre-configured Templates | | |
|
| Social & Form Integration | | |
|
| Advanced Design Controls | | |
|
| Developer Tools | | |
|
| Advanced SEO Tools | |
||
| DNS Management | |
||
| Location Finders & More | |
||
| Website Performance Tools | |
||
| Live Customer Support | |
StudioPress Sites Review
You’ve probably heard of StudioPress if you have a WordPress site because StudioPress is the company behind a large majority of WordPress themes.
StudioPress Sites is geared toward entrepreneurs who don’t have large budgets or internal tech support. On the other hand, StudioPress Sites is not aimed at larger companies.
Pros |
Cons |
|
|
Packages And Pricing
| Content | Commerce | |
|---|---|---|
| Price Per Month | $24 billed annually or $27 billed quarterly | $33 billed annually or $37 billed quarterly |
| Ideal For | Bloggers, Podcasters and Affiliate Marketers | Selling Physical Products, Digital Downloads, Membership Programs and Courses |
Web.com Review
Web.com does everything for you. They’ll set up your website for you and all you have to do is pay for it, although pricing is much higher than other companies we’ve reviewed.
They also aren’t very clear about their packages and pricing, which is frustrating. I have called Web.com in the past and every time I have the same experience. When I contacted them about a website, they had me give a brief description then they told me what I needed. As we all know, salespersons are always trying to upgrade you to the next level, and unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a clear idea of what my options were because everything I needed to learn had to be told to me by them.
Unlike other competitors, I couldn’t confirm or check any information or even have them send me an email of my options to see what the best and most affordable option was for me. As a consumer, this would be frustrating because you don’t really know what your options are and you could be upgrading unnecessarily.
Pros |
Cons |
|
|
Packages And Pricing
For pricing information, you must call Web.com directly. Each package is customized to fit your website’s needs. In a time where users want information and numbers at their fingertips this can be frustrating since other online website builder competitors list this information on their sites.
We believe it may be more helpful to have a survey type questionnaire on Web.com to fill out so you don’t have to spend time on the phone getting transferred and being on hold.
In the past, this is what Web.com has told us.
- Pay $124.95/month for 12 months then $99.95/month
- Mobile-friendly site
- Get an 800 phone number
- Site goes live in seven days
- They do hosting, marketing and maintenance for you
- They do SEO including meta, tags, etc.
How To Build A Website From Scratch
Want more fine-grained control over your website, its design, and functionality, your domain name, hosting provider, etc.? Building a website from scratch is not as difficult as you might think (although the website builder companies want you to believe it is!).
Our experts have put together a step-by-step guide on building your own website. They cover everything from naming and branding your website; hosting, platform, and design; security, backup, marketing, SEO, and monetization. And of course, if you need help in any respective area, we’re available 24/7 – just comment on the article you’re experiencing difficulties with.
Leaning towards a do-it-all website builder or going at it yourself?
Disclaimer: This website contains reviews, opinions and information regarding products and services manufactured or provided by third parties. We are not responsible in any way for such products and services, and nothing contained here should be construed as a guarantee of the functionality, utility, safety or reliability of any product or services reviewed or discussed. Please follow the directions provided by the manufacturer or service provider when using any product or service reviewed or discussed on this website.
What’s your take on website builder wordpress with TemplateToaster?
We haven’t reviewed TemplateToaster, Emma.
I see you guys discussing “SBI!” in the comments but I don’t see it mentioned in the article. What is SBI and do you have any plans on covering it?
Not at this time.
The plug and play options for website software builders seem simple and easy, but I wonder why it is that these are not more popular. One that the article did not mention that is in the same category as Yahoo’s Website Builder, 1 & 1, and SBI is the Google+ Website Builder. Both the Google and the Yahoo! versions I am familiar with, and both of them operate within a rigid framework. That is, there are templates to choose from and you have to operate within those frameworks to plug in your options. This kind of setup is great if you have absolutely no idea where to start or how you want to operate the site, but will be severely limiting otherwise. I found from Google and Yahoo! both that even just adding a blog or a store to the site is nearly impossible, and if it is possible it is such a pain to figure out that I gave up on it personally.
In the spirit of plug and play website builder software that is open source, I also want to mention Concrete 5. Concrete 5 will not host for you, but the site makes many recommendations for both free and paid hosting services. It is a basic website builder, but I have noticed that if you become more familiar with how to operate website builder software, Concrete 5 does have a lot more options that will be of use to you and your website will have a sleek and professional feel to it even though you built it yourself.
Of course, you also have the option of trying something like Dream Weaver or Front Page. These are more hard core options, although they are actually quite easy to use. When I started out building my own sites, Front Page was one of the best known programs and I gravitated there, since it was a lot lower priced than more high tech options (including the Dream Weaver software). There will be a learning curve with either of these options, but it is pretty easy to figure out. Additionally, there are a number of options which allow you to create tables, insert images and basically do whatever you need to.
Another good option is a piece of freeware software called NVU. Actually, I am not even sure if this is still available. I picked up my own free copy years ago and it has served me well. There is no arguing that this is best for producing simple and basic web sites. For me this just fine. I do not want something with all kinds of animations or flash or any of the newest stuff to say it looks cool. I build my websites to educate people (including prospects and customers) and to sell my products and services. If you want to create a site that is more geared to entertain or do something else entirely, then you may want to look into another software option.
This article provided a lot of useful and interesting information and really put me onto the right track for creating a good quality website using the best website builder software of today. The first part got me into the right path of thinking as far as what I actually want out of building a website. I tried building a site before without any specific idea in mind and it turned out looking like a web site straight out of 1995. So, after learning that lesson the hard way, I decided this time that I needed to consider things a lot more carefully next time.
In my case, I thought a community-oriented website for the whole family would be the way to go, although I would need to make it child-friendly without making it look hokey, either. I would need it to be able to link to a children’s book store to sell my publications, and it would be important for me, as a person targeting not only parents and children but advertisers and publishers, to have a large website audience. Equally important would be that I could analyze my audience in order to capitalize on sales.
Prior to reading this article, I would never have thought of the potential of using a Content Management System (CMS). When I made my first website, selling children’s books from independent publishers, I did not understand that a website builder was not necessarily a host, and ended up paying a professional far too much money to settle the matter for me. That was not necessary, I see now. I would have been better off, I think, to have taken a course or even read up on how to use CMS and designed a website myself. That way, it would have been done according to my own design and I would have had complete control over making changes as well as what changes I wanted to see made. Although I could not have seen how the website would be used or what users had wanted beforehand, I would have been able to immediately make changes and tweaks to the site based on those things if I had used my own CMS and could do so much more with it.
The idea of open source software used to scare me, as it seemed cheap or even just not as good of quality as the kind that you pay for. This article cleared a lot of that up for me. I am glad to know that there are many people out there who are striving to create software that is both free and high-quality, as well as being constantly improved upon for the good of everyone in the community. I appreciate this even more now that I have sunk money into a website previously and learned that just because you pay for the software does not necessarily make it better than open source. Because I have the money and am happy with my results after reading the recommendations from this article, I will definitely be making a donation to the developers for more than the amount I paid for the website builder software that I paid for in my previous website endeavor.
If you are just starting out, like I was and sometimes still feel like I am, take the advice in the article and figure out what you need from a website first, and then look at one to three website builder software programs to determine which will best meet your needs. Play around with them and get a feel for how easy it is to use the features you want, and see whether you like how your website would turn out using each of these. The good part is, most of them offer at least a free trial- Concrete 5 lets you try out the software without a host- even if they are not open source software. Try it on for size and become familiar with it. That is the best piece of advice I can add.
One caveat I found working with the WordPress CMS is that it is not incredibly intuitive. I consider myself to be an intermediate-level user and I think the coding and such were a little too far above my level with this software. With Drupal, although the advanced settings were still there, there was also a section with many options that was much more user-friendly to someone at my level. Although some say that Drupal does not have as great of a look and feel to it as WordPress does, I think the fact that Drupal lets you control the settings more easily makes it a better choice for gaining the necessary website builder experience. After that, I went on to look at the more advanced settings in Drupal and I am considering looking again at WordPress to see whether I now have enough knowledge in order to use it successfully myself. I do not have experience with Joomla, the other CMS mentioned in this article, although I have heard good things about it before.
There are a number of low tech web builder software available. In some cases, hosting companies may offer a proprietary version. You can check them out if you like, although I rather enjoy trying to build the site on my own.
Some website builders have specific targeted audiences. For example, Plover is Website Builder for insurance brokerages and agencies.
SBI is okay, but when it comes to being able to design a full-featured, powerful website that looks good and does what you want, the free open source Drupal system is the way to go IMO. You can setup anything from an e-commerce shop to an artist slideshow, with only a hosting fee to pay.
SBI! seems like a solid piece of software. I’ve actually heard of it quite often, but more in terms of affiliate marketing than as an actual useful website builder. What advantages does it carry over a CMS such as Drupal or Joomla?
The main differences, as outlined above, are:
* Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, etc. offer self-hosted installations that you can download, customize, extend with modules and add-ons, and host on your own server.
* The hosted platforms – Yahoo, SBI!, etc. come ready to rock n’ roll out of the box and require very little setup. The downside is they may not be as configurable, and you’re not in as much control as if you host your own solution (you’re also not bound to monthly payments with a self-hosted option).
Nice list. Good work. You should check out Indigloo. It’s an online website creator with the power of Drupal and Joomla.