In today's digital age, having a website is essential for any business or individual looking to establish an online presence. However, building a website from scratch can be a daunting task, especially for those who lack coding or design skills.
Fortunately, website builders have made it easier than ever to create a professional-looking website without needing any technical expertise.
But there's still science behind choosing the right website builder for your business. Making a good decision at the beginning will stop you from having to go back later and start again from scratch with another provider when you have tons of other things to do.
Lucky for you, there are many free website creators available in the market, each with its own unique features and benefits. And if you’re interested in uncovering hidden insights, we’ve got a website intelligence report that will help you unearth new opportunities for improving your online presence.
In this article, we will review some of the best website builders both free and premium to help you choose the right one for your needs. Jump in to find your match!
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Pricing: From $5.50 to $29/mo
With the help of Wix, anyone can develop a website or an online business without knowing how to code.
It's a hosted solution, meaning Wix's servers act as its "cloud," where it runs. So, you don't need to install any software, and you don't need to pay for hosting.
Thus you can simply create, manage, and market a Wix website from anywhere as long as you have a web browser and access to the Internet.
Using Wix, you can choose between Wix Editor and Wix ADI:
Wix ADI is simpler to use since it creates a website specifically tailored to your needs, doing the most of the laborious work for you. You just need to make a few minor adjustments, and you're ready to publish!
The traditional Wix Editor might be a better option since it's still incredibly simple but also enables you more creative freedom. But it’s your website, you decide if you want a little work to do, or if you want to let the AI do the job.
Here is a quick rundown of Wix's features:
There are more than 800 templates available on Wix. Despite the fact that they are all expertly made, some look more attractive than others.
Every Wix template is totally mobile responsive and is grouped into many categories of websites, including business, blogging, online store, and photography.
Pricing: From $5 to $100/mo
WordPress is an extremely popular website builder platform. It began life as a relatively conventional blogging platform, but it soon evolved into a sophisticated website builder that enables you to construct any type of website you can imagine, including membership, forums, e-commerce, business websites, and more.
You can create powerful websites using your text, images, video, and other elements thanks to WordPress' flexibility.
Be aware that WordPress comes in two versions: WordPress.com (fully hosted), and WordPress.org (self-hosted). Here’s a detailed article that will explain the differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
WordPress is categorized as the most flexible website building tool. Here’s why:
However, if you don't have any coding skills, it's not as easy to customize and design, especially when compared to drag-and-drop website builders like Wix and a few others that will be mentioned below.
You have a wide variety of options because there are thousands of artists who produce WordPress themes worldwide.
As was already stated, your website's features are largely determined by the theme and plugins you install. Therefore, be careful not to prioritize aesthetics over utility when selecting a WordPress theme design. Both are equally crucial to building the website you require.
Pricing: From $23 to $65/mo
Squarespace is another website builder shaped to help creatives build their own websites and publish their work without having any coding skills.
You're in luck if a versatile drag-and-drop editor is more your style. You can move items around on Squarespace to wherever you like.
Although the Squarespace UI is sleek and simple, at first it may seem a bit too uncluttered. Finding the items you're looking for requires a few clicks, and occasionally users wish it was clearer where to discover particular features.
A nice touch is that when using the Editor, you can see precisely how your website will look when you publish it and you can see any changes take place in real-time.
The best thing is that not a single line of code is required. One of Squarespace's major advantages is that anyone can use it to construct a professional website without ever worrying about their coding abilities. However, if you want to use code, you can do that as well. It’s entirely up to you!
Now, let’s take a closer look at its features:
All of Squarespace's templates are made to adhere to its requirements of excellent design, usability, and performance. You can preview and alter any template for free because they’re part of your monthly subscription.
The designs on Squarespace are made to emphasize visual features, and for convenience, you can explore templates by category and industry. Although each template has layouts and features tailored to the industry it was created for, you can easily alter any template's appearance and functionality to suit your needs.
Pricing: From $0 to $26/mo
Similar to Squarespace, Weebly is the top free website builder that lets you create your page precisely as you'd see it online. There is no need to switch between a front-end and a back-end, or alter raw code merely to relocate an image.
You can easily move items like text boxes, forms, buttons, and photos across your page using the drag-and-drop editor in Weebly. This makes creating your website a piece of cake.
Weebly is also considered the cheapest website builder for small businesses since it comes with a free version of it. If you want to dig deeper into its features, you get:
There are about 50 different themes available on Weebly, which isn't a huge selection. The themes which are available aren't the most impressive, but they’re not terrible, and you can change templates at any time. However, they do fall short of what Squarespace and Wix have to offer.
They come in a variety of styles, which is excellent, although they do seem to favor grid layouts and full-screen image backgrounds. A downside of this website builder is that the templates aren’t mobile-friendly. But themes on Weebly are more structured; you can't just drag things around as you please.
Pricing: From $3.60 to $10.80/mo
Pixpa is causing a stir among creatives who require a website that serves as both an online business and a portfolio.
However, let's get one thing straight: Pixpa isn't for everyone. This website builder is specially designed for photographers and creatives who want to reach new heights with their talents.
Let’s dive into some of its features to better understand why it shines:
There are 30 distinct themes available. Each one has a distinct photo grid and layout in addition to having a somewhat different design. The original themes don't have a lot of text or a comprehensive menu, but if you decide you want a different design, you can change these features in the editor.
Speaking of editors, you can alter the gallery layout, set the display of your photographs to full bleed or scale, and even change the hover effect for the images. Pixpa is a great challenger for videographers as well because you can link any YouTube or Vimeo videos.
Each theme is mobile-friendly and enables you add other pages in addition to the gallery pages, like blogs, about pages, contact pages, online stores, as well as private or public album pages. The editor makes it simple to build sections and move them around the page to achieve the desired layout.
Pricing: From $3.60 to $10.80/mo
Shopify is a specialized e-commerce website builder that assists consumers in creating their own online store.
It really is that simple; you don't require advanced technical knowledge, unlimited money, or the services of a professional to realize your goal. You can build your online store with Shopify in a jiffy. Even for novices, setting up your store with Shopify is simple, clear, and easy.
In terms of sales tools and features, Shopify provides users with payment options, dropshipping, shipping, abandoned cart recovery, digital selling, product management, multi-channel integration, and POS.
With more than 1,200 apps available in its app store, Shopify makes it simple to expand your store whenever you need to. You can be sure to find it on the Shopify App Store if your theme is missing a feature you're looking for, like email marketing tools, dropshipping services, or a reviews area.
You can choose from a wide variety of SEO tools with Shopify. Although it doesn't include every technique in the book, the majority of crucial topics—from header code to custom URLs—are addressed. Shopify even encourages you with SEO recommended practices when you upload products.
Stores on Shopify are always safe. This platform manages cyber attack threats, deploys updates, and complies with legal requirements for handling online transactions.
The themes offered by Shopify are well-created and have a modern, visually appealing design. You can always find the ideal tone for your brand because each one is available in a wide range of distinct styles and color schemes.
You can look through themes by industry, including everything from electronics and furniture to art and photography.
All themes are responsive to mobile devices, which means they will automatically resize to accommodate screens on smartphones and tablets.
Pricing: From $6 to $16.70/mo
GoDaddy is a well-known web hosting company that offers several services, including domain registration, web hosting, and website building. Their website builder is a popular choice among those who want to create a website quickly and easily.
GoDaddy website builder offers a variety of features, including a drag-and-drop editor, customizable templates, built-in SEO tools, and e-commerce capabilities. Its website builder provides a range of pre-built website templates that cover various niches like business, blog, online store, photography, and more.
The drag-and-drop editor allows users to customize the layout of the website by simply dragging and dropping elements to create their desired design.
The website builder is equipped with various SEO tools that help users optimize their website for search engines. This includes adding meta descriptions, keywords, and page titles.
GoDaddy also offers built-in e-commerce tools to help users sell their products online. This includes payment gateways, shipping management, and inventory management.
However, it also offers some advanced features, such as the ability to add custom code and scripts, which is useful for more experienced users who want to add more complex functionality to their site.
The website builder is equipped with security features like SSL certificates and backups to keep the website secure.
One potential downside of the GoDaddy website builder is that it can be a bit limited in terms of design customization. While there are plenty of templates to choose from, some users may find that they are too restrictive in terms of what they can do with their website design.
Additionally, some users have reported that the website builder can be a bit slow to load, which can be frustrating when trying to make changes to your site.
Pricing: From $0 to $41/mo
Jimdo is a website builder that has been around since 2007. It was founded in Germany by a trio of entrepreneurs, and since then has grown to become a popular website builder platform for businesses and individuals who want to create their own websites. Jimdo is an easy-to-use platform that allows users to create professional-looking websites without the need for coding skills.
One of the things that sets Jimdo apart from other website builders is its intuitive interface. The platform is designed to be user-friendly, and even those with no prior experience in website creation can quickly and easily build their own site.
The platform is based on a drag-and-drop system, which means that users can simply click and drag elements to where they want them to appear on their pages. This makes it easy to customize the look and feel of the site, and to add new elements as needed.
Jimdo also offers a range of templates that users can choose from. These templates are designed to be customizable, so users can add their own images, text, and other content to create a unique website that reflects their brand or personality. The templates are also mobile-responsive, which means that they will look great on any device, whether it’s a desktop computer, tablet, or smartphone.
Another feature that sets Jimdo apart is its e-commerce capabilities. The platform allows users to create an online store and sell products directly from their website. Users can set up payment gateways, manage inventory, and track sales all from within the Jimdo platform.
This makes it easy for businesses to get started with e-commerce without the need for a separate platform.
One thing to note about Jimdo is that it is not as customizable as some other website builders. While users can add their own content and images, there are limitations to what can be done with the design of the site. For those who are looking for more control over the look and feel of their site, Jimdo may not be the best option.
Pricing: $0
Drupal is a free, open-source content management system (CMS) that has been widely used for building websites, blogs, and online applications. It is a powerful and flexible platform that enables users to create and manage complex websites with ease.
Drupal is built on PHP and uses a MySQL database to store content. It offers a wide range of features, including a robust content editor, custom content types, user management, search engine optimization (SEO), and multilingual support.
The platform is highly customizable, and developers can create custom modules and themes to extend its functionality.
One of the key advantages of using Drupal is its flexibility. Drupal can be used to build websites of all types, from small personal blogs to large-scale enterprise applications.
The platform's modular architecture allows developers to add or remove functionality as needed, making it easy to customize Drupal to meet the specific needs of a project.
Drupal's content editor is one of its most powerful features. The editor allows users to create and edit content in a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) environment, which makes it easy to format text, add images, and embed videos. The editor also supports custom content types, which enables users to create structured content for their website.
Another advantage of using Drupal is its robust user management system. Drupal allows users to create multiple roles with different permissions, making it easy to manage large teams of contributors. The platform also offers granular access control, which allows administrators to restrict access to specific parts of the website based on user roles.
Drupal's SEO features are also worth mentioning. The platform includes built-in SEO tools that make it easy to optimize content for search engines. Drupal also offers support for meta tags, XML sitemaps, and URL aliases, which can help improve a website's search engine rankings.
Drupal's multilingual support is another valuable feature. The platform supports more than 100 languages, making it easy to create multilingual websites.
Our magic box of website intelligence tricks will enable anyone to grow their website quickly and reach their goals - all while keeping user data safe!
Pricing: From $0
Magento is a powerful website builder that is designed to help businesses create and manage their online stores with ease. It is an open-source platform that is flexible, scalable, and customizable, making it a popular choice for businesses of all sizes.
Although Magento is theoretically free, there are charges associated with several essential and good-to-have aspects of actually launching your website. You will not be able to build a Magento web store without paying any money.
Features of Magento website builder:
However, there are some drawbacks to using Magento as well. One of the biggest is that it can be difficult to use for businesses that are not familiar with web development. The platform is highly customizable, which means that there is a steep learning curve for those who are new to it.
Another drawback is that Magento can be expensive to use, especially for businesses that require a lot of customization or have large amounts of traffic. The platform requires a dedicated server and hosting, which can add to the cost of using it.
Pricing: From $0
PrestaShop is another open-source e-commerce platform that enables merchants to create an online store with ease. One of the key features of PrestaShop is its website builder, which offers a range of tools and templates for creating a professional and attractive online store.
The PrestaShop website builder is designed to be user-friendly and intuitive, even for those who have little or no experience with website design or e-commerce. With a range of customization options available, merchants can create a store that is tailored to their unique needs and preferences.
One of the standout features of the PrestaShop website builder is the range of templates available. There are over 100 professionally designed templates to choose from, covering a range of industries and styles.
These templates are fully customizable, enabling users to add their own branding and content to create a unique online store.
The website builder also includes a drag-and-drop editor, making it easy to add and arrange elements such as images, text, and product listings. The editor is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, with no coding knowledge required.
Another key feature of the PrestaShop website builder is its integration with a range of payment gateways and shipping providers. This makes it easy for merchants to accept payments and ship products to customers, without the need for any technical knowledge or expertise.
PrestaShop also offers a range of built-in marketing tools, such as SEO optimization and social media integration. This can help merchants to drive traffic to their stores and increase sales, without the need for additional marketing expertise.
PrestaShop is free to download. However, using it to run your online business won't be entirely free.
You need to find web hosting and pay for it if you want to utilize PrestaShop for your e-commerce website. Although hosting prices can vary, using PrestaShop's hosting partner will cost you between $4 and $14 per month, depending on the plan you select.
Pricing: From $14 to $44/mo
Duda is a great choice for anyone looking to create a website from scratch or improve their existing online presence.
One of the key advantages of Duda is its ease of use. Even someone with no prior experience in web design can create a functional and attractive website in just a few hours. The platform offers a variety of customizable templates that are suitable for a wide range of industries, including e-commerce, hospitality, professional services, and more.
These templates are fully customizable, enabling users to change colors, fonts, images, and other design elements to match their brand and style.
In terms of features, Duda offers a wide range of options to help users create a website that meets their specific needs. Some of the key features include:
The platform is designed to work with a variety of third-party applications, including e-commerce solutions, marketing automation tools, and customer relationship management systems.
This makes it easy for businesses to integrate their website with their existing tech stack, streamline their operations, and improve their customer experience.
Pricing: From $9.99 to $45/mo
Constant Contact is mostly recognized as an email marketing tool, but it also features a website builder. Constant Contact can be a real help if you have no prior expertise in building websites.
Building a website is now a simple procedure thanks to software that uses artificial intelligence. If you want to build a useful and aesthetically pleasing website with this website building tool you won’t need any coding knowledge.
There aren't any templates for the Constant Contact website builder per se. Instead, Constant Contact automates the layout of your website using artificial intelligence (AI). You are first prompted to enter the subject of your website.
You have the option to select one of the ideas it generates (what other builders refer to as "categories") or to remain steadfast a.k.a unique. In either case, the AI editor will begin assembling a website layout based on your responses.
Constant Contact provides all of the basic features any entrepreneur might need, including:
The best thing about this website builder is that it is super easy to configure. You could train your dog to create your website for your business in terms of its ease of setup.
Pricing: From $0 to $199/mo
Bitrix24 is a full-featured CRM system that automates sales, marketing, and customer service activities for businesses. It provides essential features that enable users to manage leads and pipelines, segment customers, and run their online store.
It is ideal for teams that require powerful CRM software for tracking customer interactions, opportunities, and managing online stores.
Using Bitrix24, you get the chance to access web-based lead-capture forms, enabling you to quickly gather insights for each lead directly into the CRM. This feature makes the entire lead management tool quite powerful.
Once you start configuring it, the whole lead system will function seamlessly for you. You can also customize the lead forms that you share online. How awesome is that?!
Bitrix24 includes all of the major CRM features you'd expect. You can manage projects directly within the software, complete with all of the communication and collaboration tools required to ensure that everyone or every team is informed and working together.
Chat, HD video calls, a calendar, a knowledge base, and a company workspace are among the tools available.
Businesses can access a variety of automated features with the two most expensive plans, including automatic invoice payments, expense management, and even automation across the sales pipeline.
The major downside of Bitrix24 is how challenging it is to understand and utilize. Users can find it difficult to master the software quickly. Unfortunately, the user interface isn't as user-friendly as some of its competitors.
Pricing: From $0 to $212/mo
Webflow is a hybrid of the traditional and the modern. Although it is a website builder, it offers a level of customization and capability typically only found in platforms like WordPress.
As a result, web designers prefer to use Webflow. It's perfect for those that require a completely customized platform but don't want to bother with the intricate code.
When you sign up for Webflow, the platform does an excellent job of onboarding you. If you're feeling confident, you can jump right into the design process, but Webflow also includes a tutorial.
Webflow’s editor looks scarily similar to Adobe Photoshop. The practice of building boxes for each component of your site and layering them on top of one another is known as "The Box Model," according to Webflow. The layout of your site is made up of many boxes, including image, text, and button boxes.
Whether you're creating a standard website or an online store, let's look at some of the main built-in features Webflow does offer you:
Templates can be filtered by industry, price (free vs. premium), or e-commerce. Because of this, finding a template that meets your demands is really straightforward. Before choosing, you can even explore the designs to check which ones enable dynamic content.
Also, a brief description of each template explains its greatest uses and your available design alternatives. The extensive template descriptions provided by Webflow and the ability to preview designs are a good touch.
Even though you can create a website for free, the least expensive way to actually publish it online is with Webflow's $12/month "Basic" plan. This is appropriate for straightforward websites that only require a few common features, such as menus, contact forms, and image galleries.
Pricing: From $29 to $299/mo
BigCommerce is the only e-commerce platform available that enables you to sell physical, digital, and service-based goods without the need for an app (often at an extra cost).
There are already versions of each of these sales types in the editor. Due to the fact that you won't have to worry about using third party apps, this means less hassle and less expense.
Let’s dive into its e-commerce features:
If you do decide to grow your site beyond these features, you can do so thanks to the over 600 apps available in the BigCommerce app store and the platform's astounding 400 API calls per second capacity.
Compared to its competitors, BigCommerce's app store is far more constrained. But only because it already has so many great internal features!
Simply said, you don't require as many apps as you may with Shopify, for instance. Because you don't have to pay for third-party add-ons every month, costs are kept down.
BigCommerce offers more than 100 themes.
Fortunately, BigCommerce makes it very simple to locate the ideal theme. You have the option of searching by sector or by the template layout you choose.
You can pick from designs with huge graphics or grid layouts, for instance. You can also use the search bar to get specific results, or you can view free or premium themes.
Pricing: From $0 to $22.99/mo
Webs.com generally targets startups, entrepreneurs, and small companies. Webs' tools are significantly more aimed toward small enterprises, but that doesn't mean you can't use them to create a personal or nonprofit website.
Webs is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) website builder, which means that what you see when designing the website is what will actually appear after it is published.
You can choose to create normal pages with 6 different page layout configurations, or specialty pages that include pre-defined structured webpages you can choose from.
Webs provides a fairly complete e-commerce solution if you're developing an online business. You can choose to either add a web store or, if you already have one, integrate your Etsy store right into your website.
All the necessary capabilities for an online store are there in Web's web store. You can customize product versions (so your visitor can choose several versions of the same product) and product status, as well as include product images, descriptions, prices, and tax and shipping options.
You can use Webs to optimize all the fundamental SEO features for your entire website, including titles and descriptions. But if you want to change the titles, descriptions, and meta tags for each individual web page, you must sign up for a premium account.
Webs.com offers free hosting, so you won't have to pay for it even if you don't use one of their paid plans. This is advantageous because you will not have to manage your own hosting. If there are any technical or security issues, Webs will handle them for you so that your website always functions properly.
In terms of templates, you can choose from 450 mobile-friendly designs. You can pick a template that suits your sector from among those that cover more than 20 different industries.
Even if you want to pay someone to change the design for you, Webs will prevent you from doing so because it doesn't give you the freedom to customize the HTML and CSS of the templates.
You do have some customizing choices with Webs, though. Some themes let you change the background image or color, while others offer a variety of color schemes. The navigation bar, body, and footer font styles can all be changed.
Our magic box of website intelligence tricks will enable anyone to grow their website quickly and reach their goals - all while keeping user data safe!
Pricing: From $4.95 to $19.95/mo
SiteBuilder is powered by artificial intelligence and no coding skills are needed for building a website on this platform. You can use it to build any type of website, including e-commerce.
The drag-and-drop editor in SiteBuilder will get your basic website up and running quickly. However, it is only suitable for creating very basic websites. If you require anything more, SiteBuilder will fall short.
There are hundreds of website templates to choose from in SiteBuilder - design, professional services, weddings, blogs, and online stores are among the categories.
With such a diverse range of industries represented, there should be something for everyone!
However, be careful when selecting your template. You won't be able to change it once your site is live, which means you'll be stuck with one design for the rest of your website’s life.
In terms of features, SiteBuilder also includes a slew of free extras, including simple contact forms, mailing list buttons, live social feeds, and video and music players.
Moreover, you are unable to post your own videos. Only links to Vimeo or YouTube can be embedded when using SiteBuilder to add a video. Moreover, SoundCloud can be used to add songs.
For the first year, a domain is provided without charge; thereafter, a fee is charged to renew it.
The most expensive e-commerce plan includes sales features, allowing you to sell products through your website. These features include the ability to create discount codes, shipping management tools, and the ability to apply product variations such as size and color.
Volusion is one of the oldest e-commerce website builders around - created in 1999. Volusion most recently upgraded to "V2," a new operating system with some UX (User Experience) enhancements. The inventory system is much clearer, making it much simpler to handle your stock.
The fact that it offers a ton of helpful data, analytics tools, and payment choices is, however, what matters most. So you can see where its already strong points are.
Additionally, Volusion has concentrated on fusing business features and site-creation tools by beginning the user journey in the storefront editor in an effort to keep up with e-commerce industry leaders like Shopify.
As an e-commerce website builder, you get:
One disadvantage of Volusion is that it does not include a blogging platform, which is usually included with e-commerce builders these days so they can promote the products.
Volusion provides 34 premium themes for $180 each in addition to 11 free themes.
The designs are very feature-specific. Therefore, you will have to choose a non-industry focused design unless you discover a theme to suit your business.
Another advantage Volusion has over Shopify is the ability to change layouts whenever you like. This implies that you can change the visual style of your online shop without worrying about updating your content. All of it is done for you!
As you can see, there are quite a few things that need to be taken into consideration when deciding on which platform to create a website.
From our point of view, the most important ones are the budget, the level of technical experience needed and the flexibility of the website builder.
Before making a decision, you can try out a few platforms, especially the ones that come with a free trial and see which one is best for you. Some of them might seem overwhelming to use if you have no coding skills, and in this case, it’s recommended to hire a professional.
But even if you are determined to create a website on your own, with no development background whatsoever, there are still many available options out there at a reasonable price. Ensure that your website contains all the elements that shape your corporate identity to make it stand out from the competition.
Once your website is up and running, you should also check out some tools for improving your site and your business, and a few ways to promote your website for free.
Also don’t forget to add analytics to your website, in order to keep track of how many visitors you have, where they land, where they drop off and, in general, how they use your website!
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