Website builders make it easy for anyone to create a new website from scratch. You don’t need to be a developer, learn how to code, design, or have any technical experience whatsoever.
As long as you know how to use the Internet, you can create a professional website in minutes with a website builder.
There are dozens, if not hundreds, of legitimate website builders on the market today. Finding the best one for your business, blog, or personal site can be challenging if you don’t know where to look.
After extensive research and some first-hand experience, I’ve narrowed down the list to just five website builders that I can confidently recommend.
I’ll give you an in-depth review of each one below. No matter what type of website you’re building, you can use this guide to find the best website builder for your purposes.
Wix
Best Overall Website Builder
Perfect for beginners. Drag-and-drop editor and 500+ themes. Create a website from scratch in minutes.
The Best Website Builders to Consider:
When it Makes Sense to Invest Into a Website Builder
You can invest in a website builder as soon as you’re ready to start creating a website. In most cases, there is no upfront investment cost to start using a website builder.
That’s right; you can build a website for free. So you can start using website builders before you even consider finding the best web hosting services or anything like that.
Eventually, you’ll want to upgrade to a paid plan once you’re ready for the site to go live. But in the meantime, you can experiment with several different website builders to get a feel for which one you like the most.
It’s too early to invest actual dollars into a website builder if you’re not ready to create and manage your website. If it’s going to just sit there looking unprofessional and unfinished, it could end up doing more harm than good.
But at the very least, you can always start building your website for free using some of these platforms.
#1 – Wix Review — The Best Overall Website Builder
Wix
Best Overall Website Builder
Perfect for beginners. Drag-and-drop editor and 500+ themes. Create a website from scratch in minutes.
Wix is the best website builder for beginners. You can start building a website for free without writing a single line of code. Simply choose a template and customize the content using Wix’s simple drag-and-drop builder.
With no design or development skills, you can have a Wix website up and running in minutes.
For those of you who want to build a website with as little effort as possible, you can use the Wix ADI to create a custom website using artificial intelligence. You just need to pick a theme, template and answer a few questions about the type of website you’re trying to build.
Wix templates are mobile-friendly, SEO friendly, and you’ll have over 500 options to choose from. Bring your site to life with advanced features like scroll effects, animations, or video backgrounds.
I like Wix because it’s so flexible. You can build any type of website using this platform. Wix supports blogs, ecommerce sites, portfolios, bookings, events, restaurants, and more.
Pricing for a personal website starts at just $13 per month. Business and ecommerce sites start at $23 per month. Choose a business plan if you need the ability to accept payments online.
You can start using Wix for free. Actually, you can launch a live site with Wix without ever paying a dime.
But unfortunately, your domain won’t be very professional. You’ll be using a Wix subdomain that follows this format: yourwixusername.wixsite.com/yoursitename
It’s long, messy, and unprofessional. This is fine if you’re just messing around and getting used to the platform. But once you’re ready to go live, I highly recommend upgrading to a premium plan. All Wix plans are backed by a 14-day money-back guarantee.
#2 – Squarespace Review — Best Website Builder For Beautiful Designs
Squarespace
Best For Stunning Designs
Award-winning design templates. Perfect for creative professionals. Plans start at $12 per month.
Squarespace is the perfect website builder for creatives professionals. If you’re an artist, musician, designer, photographer, or anyone who wants to create a website with a stunning design, Squarespace is the best option for you.
Bring your creative ideas to life by using an award-winning design from Squarespace. These designs are modern, beautiful, and fully-customizable for every use case.
Just browse the templates by category to find the best option for your website.
As an all-in-one website builder, Squarespace has everything you need to create a stunning website from scratch.
Once you get up and running, Squarespace provides you with the tools required to be successful as well. You’ll benefit from features like valuable website analytics and the ability to sell products online.
Squarespace starts at $12 per month. If you want built-in ecommerce functionality, Squarespace business plans start at $18 per month.
I’d recommend Squarespace to anyone who wants to showcase their portfolio and sell online. For example, an artist can upload photographs or paintings and sell prints directly from a Squarespace site with ease.
The one drawback of selling with Squarespace is that they take a 3% transaction fee for the entry-level business plan. But if you upgrade to the Basic Commerce plan for $26 per month, the commission fee is waived. In most cases, the extra $8 per month will be less than the cost of paying a 3% commission for each transaction.
Squarespace also offers award-winning customer support 24/7. Try Squarespace free for 14 days.
#3 -Shopify Review — The Best Website Builder For Ecommerce
Shopify
Best For Ecommerce Sites
Built-in ecommerce functionality and payment processing. Drag-and-drop site builder. More than 3,200 app integrations. Starting at $29 per month.
Shopify is arguably the most well-known ecommerce platform on the market today. But in addition to supporting ecommerce transactions and facilitating sales online, Shopify is also a website builder.
If you’re starting a new ecommerce site from scratch, Shopify will be your best option.
As an all-in-one solution, you can use Shopify to find a business name and create a brand using free tools. Once you build your online store, Shopify makes it easy to sell from anywhere. In addition to your website, you can sell via social media, online marketplaces, and even in-person with Shopify POS software.
To build an ecommerce store with Shopify, simply create a theme and customize it with your content.
Shopify has a mix of free and paid themes for everyone. From minimalist styles to big imagery, grid style, 3D products, and large inventories, you’ll be able to find exactly what you’re looking for.
Customize your site by adding features and functionality from the 3,200+ integrations available on the Shopify App Store.
If you need some extra assistance, you can connect with a Shopify expert to help set up your store or get everything optimized for search engines. You’ll also benefit from award-winning support 24/7.
Shopify has three plans, starting at $29, $79, and $299 per month, respectively. You’ll have to pay extra for some app integrations and themes.
The only real downside of using Shopify as a website builder is the fact that it’s so niche-specific. It’s only made for building ecommerce websites.
If you’re starting an ecommerce business, set up a Shopify account and try it free for 90 days.
#4 – WordPress Review — Best For Bloggers and Developers
WordPress
Best For Bloggers and Developers
World's most popular CMS platform. Perfect for blogs and content sites. Complete control and customization options. Premium plans starting at $4 per month.
WordPress is the most popular CMS platform in the world. It powers more than one-third of the entire Internet.
While WordPress is an excellent choice for creating and managing a website, it’s not a traditional all-in-one website builder. Beginners might have a tough time figuring it out since it doesn’t have a drag-and-drop editor.
You’ll also need to get your domain name and hosting service elsewhere—WordPress is not a one-stop-shop.
But for those of you looking for complete customization and control over your website, WordPress will be the best option. Out of the box, the features are pretty bare. But you can add functionality to your site with over 56,000 plugins.
There’s a plugin for anything you could imagine. For example, let’s say you wanted to add ecommerce functionality to your WordPress site. You can just install the WooCommerce plugin.
You can build a WordPress website and publish it live on the Internet without having to pay anything. Although similar to Wix, it will have a WordPress subdomain.
So if you’re just testing out the platform and getting your feet wet, this option is fine. But you’ll definitely need to upgrade to a premium WordPress plan to get the most out of your website.
Paid plans start as low as $4 per month. You won’t find a cheaper deal from a reputable website builder.
The real value in WordPress is managing your site once it’s up and running. You’ll have complete control over anything you could possibly imagine. It’s ideal for running a content site, which is why we use it here at Crazy Egg.
WordPress doesn’t have the same type of dedicated support as other website builders. You’ll have to rely on its knowledge base style support page and forums. But since it’s so popular, you can find tons of free guides and resources on the web.
#5 – Weebly Review — The Best Free Website Builder
Weebly
Best Free Website Builder
Drag-and-drop editor. HTML/CSS and Javascript access. Ecommerce capabilities. Premium plans starting at $6 per month.
Weebly is another well known and popular website builder. Like most of the options on our list, you can use it to create a website for free.
But Weebly’s free plan goes above and beyond other free plans on the market. Just for signing up, you’ll get a free SSL certificate, 500 MB of storage, free hosting, SEO tools, lead capture forms, live chat support, and email support.
Unfortunately, the free website builder is branded with a Weebly subdomain. So it’s not a long-term solution. But it’s a great option for those of you who are just starting out.
Weebly has a drag-and-drop site builder, which makes it easy for anyone to create and customize a website from scratch.
You’ll benefit from features like site search, custom fonts, video backgrounds, and an image editor.
Weebly also gives you custom HTML/CSS and Javascript access. So if you have a developer or want to make changes to your site’s code, you’ll have that option.
If you look at the other choices on our list, Weebly can be described as a blend of all four. It’s very good for basically every category. It has the drag-and-drop functionality of Wix, ecommerce capability like Shopify, beautiful designs like Squarespace, and HTML access like WordPress.
But head-to-head, I don’t think Weebly really edges out any of these particular platforms in a specific category.
If you’re a beginner and want to start building a website for free, Weebly is top option to consider. Premium plans start at just $6 per month.
Methodology For Choosing The Best Website Builder
All website builders are not created equally. So how can you find the best website builder for your unique situation?
There are certain factors that you should look for when evaluating a prospective platform. I’ll explain the methodology that we use and recommend here at Crazy Egg. You can weigh these elements according to your personal needs.
Ease of Use
Creating a website from scratch doesn’t need to be challenging. If you don’t have any development or design experience, you’ll definitely want to go with a drag-and-drop site editor.
Wix will be your best option here. But Squarespace, Shopify, and Weebly all have drag-and-drop builders as well. To get this type of building functionality with WordPress, you’ll need to install a plugin. But it will ultimately fall short if you’re comparing it head to head with a platform like Wix.
Overall, Wix will be the easiest option. You can use AI technology to automatically build a custom website for you. The entire process takes just a few minutes.
Customization
The process of creating a website using a site builder is pretty standard from platform to platform. You’ll start with a theme and template before making custom changes from there.
While these themes and templates will give you the flexibility to add images, text, videos, and other content, there will always be some level of restriction in terms of what you can customize.
For most of us, that’s not a problem. But if you want total control for complete customization and content management, WordPress will be the best option to consider.
Website Type
What type of site are you creating? The answer will depend on which website builder will accommodate your needs.
Shopify is the clear winner for ecommerce sites. For portfolios and sites for creative professionals, use Squarespace. WordPress is the best option for bloggers and content websites.
Small businesses and everyone else will lean towards Wix. If you don’t like Wix for some reason, Weebly is a good runner-up for beginners that need simplicity.
Support
When it comes to something as important as your website, customer support is crucial. If your site is having problems and you need assistance, you’ll want to get in touch with someone who can solve your issue as soon as possible.
Most website builders offer 24/7 customer support. But to get the most out of that support, you’ll need to be on a premium plan. Weebly offers email and live chat support with all free plans, but you won’t get that benefit from every platform.
If you want an extensive knowledge base with self-help guides, tutorials, and access to forums, WordPress is perfect for you. But they don’t have the traditional type of customer support you’d get from Wix or Shopify.
Pricing
Building a website doesn’t need to be expensive. In fact, three of the five options on our list (Wix, WordPress, Weebly) allow you to create a website for free—all five let you start for free.
A free website builder is not a long term solution. It’s a great way to get started, but you’ll definitely need to upgrade if you want to build a legitimate website.
The price will depend on the features required to run your website. For example, plans for ecommerce functionality cost more than plans for a basic personal site.
Look beyond the cost of your website builder subscription for any additional costs that will be incurred. For example, with WordPress, you’ll need to get a domain name and web hosting service from other providers. With Shopify, you might have to pay for a theme or apps that you’re integrating with your online store.
Wix
Best Overall Website Builder
Perfect for beginners. Drag-and-drop editor and 500+ themes. Create a website from scratch in minutes.
Summary
Ready to build a new website? It all starts with choosing a website builder.
Each website builder on the market today is unique. The right choice for you might not be the best for me. Whether you’re starting a blog, ecommerce site, online portfolio, personal site, small business website, or anything else, there’s an option for you on this list.
Use the methodology that I’ve described in this guide to find the best website builder for your needs.
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