Best Free Website Builders

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Did you know you can make a website in 20 minutes? Impossible? Nope! In fact, below we show you the providers that make it possible. We reviewed, tested, and played with every feature. Wix is our best for most users selection. The website builder is intuitive, great for beginners and advanced developers, and has hundreds of templates taking the guesswork out of website design.

The Best Free Website Builder for Most

The most pressing problem is free website builders don’t give you to get the look you want when it’s done. Wix destroys that myth. And helps you create eye-grabbing websites easily and for free. It’s like putting together a simple puzzle, that makes you money when you’re done.

Wix gives you complete control over how you build your masterpiece. Colors, buttons, images, and more are all under your command with no web design experience needed.

The 6 Best Free Website Builders 

1. Wix – Best for most
2. Hostinger – Best for easily setting up a site you love in one afternoon
3. Weebly – Best free website builder for small business owners
4. WordPress – Best free website builder for blogging 
5. Strikingly – Best free landing page builder
6. Site123 – Best free website builder for beginners

When It Makes Sense to Use a Free Website Builder

A good website builder eliminates all the troubles that usually come along with creating your perfect website. It should be simple and easy don’t you think?.

When you’re getting started you don’t have to pay a dime to do it.

Website builders help avoid extra costs that come with hiring a developer. Developers can be expensive and often don’t create your vision how you can.

Instead, a website builder is the perfect DIY solution. 

But, wait, we’re talking about free website builders. I hear you asking, “Can I get the same quality as paying somebody for it?” 

With modern free website builders, you absolutely can if all you need is a home for your webstore, blog, company website, or the like.

The only investment will be your time in learning and building your home on the web.

#1 – Wix  — Best for Most

Wix offers a free website builder that is second-to-none. It powers more than 100 million websites and its flexibility continues to surprise even the most advanced users of this website builder. 

It’s not only the hundreds of templates that make Wix so customizable—the drag-and-drop editor gives you the power to control what pops off of your web page. 

So, you can create a gorgeous website without knowing one line of code. 

What we also found great was the complete hands-off approach Wix offers. 

If you don’t want to spend time designing your site, the artificial design intelligence (ADI) software will ask you a series of questions and Wix will design your site for you. 

For example, Wix will ask what industry you work in, what services or goods you provide, and a few other questions before putting together the right site for you. 

Another thing we really love is the ability to utilize the hundreds of integrations available in the Wix App Market, which isn’t something many other website builders offer at the free level. Wix’s app marketplace has more than 280,000 apps available. 

Plus, Wix offers marketing tools and standard SEO optimization free of charge, which will help you rank higher on Google faster while also building your organic web traffic. 

Wix even includes web hosting, live chat widgets, and even more features with its free forever site builder.

One thing you won’t be able to get as part of the free plan is a custom URL. You can find more information about both the free version and the pricing plans at Wix.com.

#2 – Hostinger — Best For Easily Setting Up A Site You Love In One Afternoon

A lot of site builders include web hosting in their plans, but it can be hard to have confidence in the basic hosting offered alongside a free site builder. Especially if you have big plans for your website’s growth and reach.

Why not get some of the best web hosting available instead and get a site builder every bit as powerful as the other options on this list? With Hostinger, you can pay just $1.99 per month for hosting and get your pick of site builders.

Setup is incredibly easy.

Hostinger has an array of powerful yet affordable hosting plans. Yes, that means you’ll have to pay a little upfront, but you get a higher quality of web hosting for your fledgling site (which you can still build and publish for no extra cost).

Our recommendations are to use either Hostinger’s WordPress Starter package ($3.99/month for a four-year commitment) or their Premium Shared Hosting plan ($1.99/month for a four-year term). It just really depends on whether you want your new site on WordPress or not.

There is a cheaper WordPress plan from Hostinger, but if you opt for the slightly more expensive WordPress Starter plan, you also get a free domain name for one year. That’s also true of the Premium Shared Hosting plan.

After you determine what platform you want your site to run on and select a plan, Hostinger’s exceptional guided setup will hold your hand the rest of the way.

If you went the WordPress route, Hostinger will automatically install it and even take care of updates automatically. Plus, you can opt for a template during the setup wizard so you can shave even more time off of getting your new site published.

If you go with Premium Shared Hosting, you’ll see an offer in your Hostinger dashboard to use the Zyro website builder.

That’s a great option if you’re a little intimidated by the site building experience on WordPress, which can be complicated because there’s so much you can do on that platform.

With using the Zyro builder, you get extra help in quickly setting up your site. Use one of their templates or even use Zyro’s AI builder to whip your site up based on a few details you’ll provide it.

Either way, you get to go from zero to a ready-to-rock website with Hostinger.

And, while you do have to pay for hosting, our recommended plans won’t cost you much. Four years of Premium Shared Hosting will mean you’ll have to pay just under $100 at checkout, but you’ll be set for the long haul on both your website builder and hosting that can scale with your site.

The WordPress Starter plan is more expensive and will require you to pay $191.52 at checkout for your four-year term. But, if you’re ambitious about your new site, that hosting plan and using WordPress as your platform will mean the sky’s the limit.

If you want the easiest way to get quality web hosting and a free site builder included, get started with Hostinger today.

#3 – Weebly — The Best Free Website Builder for Small Business Owners

Weebly is a simple drag-and-drop website builder. It’s free and keeps your website modern and mobile-friendly.

Ideal for small businesses, Weebly easily allows you to set up your ecommerce website with an attractive online store. 

Plus, as a Square brand, it’s easy to integrate with physical store payments or accounting. You can even integrate an in-store pickup option for your visitors.

Weebly really focuses on creating functional, modern, and results-driven web stores. Pages are customizable to give you a lot of design and layout options.

Inventory management is also included for free, helping you keep track of your products. Plus, built-in SEO optimization will improve your google rankings and you can even have designated landing pages or use contact forms as a lead capturing device.

And if you have questions, the free community forum will offer insight on questions you may have. You also are given chat and email support at no charge. 

Weebly gives you the resources to build up your business’ ecommerce presence in the most efficient way. 

If you are looking to start a small online business or take your physical store to the web, Weebly has everything you need to create your site today. 

#4 – WordPress — The Best Free Website Builder for Blogging 

WordPress has all the features you need to run a successful blog in a convenient package. Just pick a website theme from the hundreds of available templates and build your site out to make it look exactly how you’d like.

With WordPress, the sky’s the limit for what you want to do with your blog. It’s eminently customizable because of the dizzying array of themes, plugins, features, and tools available to you.

Now, there’s one key distinction to make here. There are two very similar yet different forms of WordPress to choose from.

First, you have WordPress.com, which is pictured above in the screenshot. This is the easiest, most straightforward way to start a blog today.

All you have to do is sign up for a WordPress account and start building your blog for free. Even on WordPress.com’s free plan, you can utilize one of dozens of themes, have a preinstalled SSL certificate, and utilize the essential features of Jetpack, a plugin that helps with security and SEO efforts.

WordPress.com’s paid plans provide bonuses like a free domain name for one year, more customization, ecommerce tools like accepting payments on your site, and more. Those start at just $4 per month.

But you can start free and build to your heart’s content until you run into any blockers on your growth.

WordPress.com is the best option if you want to quickly get a simple site off the ground in minutes, completely for free.

If you have more robust needs, want a website you can continue building out for months or years, or want complete freedom to design and shape your WordPress site into what you’re dreaming of, consider instead WordPress.org.

The big difference here is that WordPress.org is the open-source platform that WordPress.com is built upon. By using WordPress.org, you can take your site in any direction you’d like. Choose premium themes from one of the many markets on the web, add powerful ecommerce platforms like WooCommerce, and so much more.

Be aware, though, that while WordPress.com comes with web hosting included, WordPress.org does not. It’s up to you to find a hosting provider so your WordPress.org site can go live.

Fortunately, WordPress itself has a list of recommended hosts. And, of those, we think Bluehost is one of the best options you can go with (even if you weren’t running a WordPress site).

Granted, while WordPress.org costs nothing to use, paying for hosting makes this a not-completely-free site building solution. But Bluehost keeps their rates extremely affordable, so you’ll actually pay less per month for WordPress.org plus Bluehost hosting than you would for any of WordPress.com’s paid plans.

Plus, you’ll get a free custom domain with Bluehost hosting, sweetening the pot overall for you.

So, if you’re comfortable with paying just over $35 for a year of quality web hosting, you can use the free WordPress.org platform to build a more complex, attractive, and incredible site than you ever could with any of the other free site builders on this list.

With WordPress, you’re really only limited by what you can dream up.

Sign up for a WordPress.com account here, or get started with Bluehost here if you want to use WordPress.org for your site.

#5 – Strikingly — The Best Free Landing Page Builder  

Strikingly offers one of the simplest website editors available. It allows you to make a full one-page website in under thirty minutes. Now that’s fast. 

Within an hour you can have the best landing page you ever created at no cost.

When you first come to Strikingly and start creating your site, you get a nice onboarding tour to walk you through picking a template and how to edit it. 

A landing page is one of the biggest tools for converting prospects, leads, and visitors, so being able to design them so well, so quickly is what makes Strikingly so unique.

You can also create unlimited one-page sites under the free plan and are given 5GB of bandwidth per month.

This is perfect for quickly building landing pages as your marketing campaigns begin and progress. Plus, being able to utilize a potentially unlimited number of free landing pages gives you plenty of opportunity to run A/B testing between strategies or segment leads through individualized pages.

Plus, Strikingly will give you simple web traffic analytics and easily integrate with your Google Analytics account so you can gain quick insight into how your landing pages are performing.

#6 – Site123  — The Best Free Website Builder for Beginners

If you are nervous about using website builder software, Site123 is the best way for a complete beginner to build a website.

In three easy steps you can establish your website and online presence. 

First, you start with selecting your website type. Site123 can quickly set up a page template for a business, a blog, an event page, or even handyman services.

Then, just add your business name and upload your content and images. Site123 will publish your site, with the whole process taking just about one hour. 

Keep in mind, with Site123 you don’t have complete creative control. But for beginners who just need a functional home on the web, this is ideal. 

Even with the array of website types and templates, your website will be mobile-friendly and SEO optimized without any complicated tasks required on your end. 

Also, you receive access to royalty-free images from Site123’s image bank, containing hundreds of stock images with no limitation of use. If you use your own content, you have 250MB of storage to utilize.

One thing to be aware of, though—Site123 only offers ecommerce functionality with its paid plan ($12.80/month). But, for a simple homepage or an online home that attracts visitors to call your physical business, Site123 is as simple and effective as it gets.

It’s okay to be apprehensive about designing your website for the first time. Site123 alleviates any concern you may have, because of their easy, hands-off, all-in-one website creation process. 

Methodology for Choosing the Best Free Website Builder

When you think about anything free, it’s easy to think that the quality will suffer. But with this list of free website builders, you can actually get more than you expect from a free solution. Here is how we judged these free options to pick out the best.   

Flexibility of Design

Having your hands tied when you want to add the one detail that can make your site unique is a terrible feeling. Imagine you want to add a “buy now” button in the header next to your navigation and the option is not available. 

Visitors want easy choices and an easy browsing experience. Having the right templates and color options, along with the freedom to add media where you want it, makes your site stand out and helps it become a conversion machine. 

It all depends on the type of site you want to make. If you need a unique, splashy ecommerce store, Wix and Weebly present the best bets. If you want a customizable blog, WordPress (with Bluehost hosting) is the way to go. For simpler needs, Strikingly and Site123’s free plans can do the trick.

Low Learning Curve

With a free website builder in particular, no one wants to waste time having to learn how to use it.

Wix, Strikingly, and Weebly all have very easy editors and can have you building a website in a few hours, even minutes if you use the artificial design intelligent software baked into Wix. 

If you’re new to the whole concept or a very small business that just needs a simple web presence, Site123 will take care of all the building for you, eliminating any learning curve at all.

Ecommerce Capability

Having the option to sell products or services is a common need for people building their own website. 

Most of the free website builders on this list offer ecommerce functionality and product marketing as part of their free plans. This is huge and gives you the ability to make money with minimal marketing costs. 

Wix even gives you the ability to capture leads using live chat and contact forms, use email marketing tools to make sales and manage campaigns, create promotional videos, and more. 

If you need a web store, make sure ecommerce is an option in your free website builder of choice.  

Minimal Advertising

Have you ever been on a site that had so many ads it was distracting? Weebly and Strikingly don’t put ads or their own branding on your free site, while Site123, Wix, and WordPress.com do (though they tend to be subtle and unobtrusive).

Keep this in mind if any ads are a dealbreaker. 

With Wix, it’s just a little sidebar saying the website was built with its platform. With WordPress, their general ad placements on your site help keep free features free. 

It all depends on what you’re comfortable with having on your site.

Low Cost to Upgrade

Let’s face it, we all want the best deal. Free is great and may be enough to get you up and running, but what if you need more because your website or business is taking off?

This list offers the most comprehensive free plans available, but also includes affordable monthly upgrades to a subscription that can be monthly or yearly. 

WordPress and Weebly’s lowest paid tiers are just $4 per month and $6 per month, respectively. With both, you unlock the ability to use a custom domain and access to more marketing and ecommerce tools.

This gives you the option to select a plan you can grow into and, if you decide it’s not for you, the risk is minimal. 

Summary

What is the best free website builder for you? It all depends on your needs.

Are you creating a blog to build a following? WordPress is perfect for that. 

Need an easy site building and setup process with best-in-class hosting? Go with Hostinger.

Are you looking to grow your business with a specialized website? Wix and Weebly are fantastic options.

Have simpler needs? Strikingly can help you churn out beautiful landing pages for free and Site123 can take care of all the work of building your new home on the web.

Whatever your needs, the free website builders recommended in this article will help you get where you want to go.