Choosing a website builder

A website builder is a hosted service where you pick a template, edit pages in the browser, and publish without touching code or setting up a server. The company runs the hosting, applies security updates and usually provides the SSL certificate. In return you pay a monthly or yearly fee and accept its limits on design, apps and moving your site elsewhere.

Questions to answer first

What is the site for? A one-page portfolio, a restaurant menu with opening hours, a blog you plan to write for years and a store with 500 products each point to different tools.

How much will you want to change later? Drag-and-drop editors are quick to start with and can feel boxed-in after a year. Platforms such as WordPress take longer to learn and leave more room to grow.

Can you leave? Most hosted builders do not let you export a working copy of your site. Your text and images can be copied out, but the design stays behind.

What does it cost in total? The plan price is only part of the bill. Add a domain name after any free first year, email addresses on that domain, paid apps or plugins, payment processing fees for a store, and your own time. Free plans generally show the builder’s ads and use its subdomain rather than your own name.

Two kinds of editor

Builders split roughly into two camps. Free-form editors, with Wix as the best-known example, let you drag a text box or an image to any spot on the page, down to the pixel. That freedom helps when you have a clear picture of the design, and it also makes it easy to end up with a page that looks fine on a laptop and breaks on a phone, since each layout may need adjusting separately.

Section-based editors, used by Squarespace, Weebly, GoDaddy and most of the others, give you prebuilt blocks such as a header, a gallery, a price list or a contact form. You fill them in and reorder them. The result is harder to make unique, also hard to make ugly, and the mobile version usually takes care of itself.

General-purpose builders

Wix

Wix is the most flexible of the drag-and-drop builders. Elements can be placed almost anywhere on the page, the template library runs to more than 800 designs, and an app market adds bookings, events, forums and a store. There is a free plan with Wix branding and a wixsite.com address. One limitation to know in advance is that a published Wix site cannot switch to a different template. Changing the look later means rebuilding the pages.

Squarespace

Squarespace is known for polished templates suited to photographers, designers, restaurants and small shops. The editor is more structured than Wix, with sections that snap into place, which keeps pages looking tidy but limits free placement. There is no free plan. A 14-day trial lets you build before paying. Commerce features are built into the higher plans, and Squarespace also sells domains and Google Workspace email through the same account, which keeps the billing in one place.

Weebly

Weebly has belonged to the payments company Square since 2018 and connects closely with Square’s point-of-sale and online checkout. It offers a free plan with a Weebly subdomain and simple section-based editing. It suits small businesses already taking payments with Square. Square also sells a separate store builder, Square Online, so check which of the two fits before starting.

GoDaddy Websites + Marketing

GoDaddy’s builder asks a few questions about your business and generates a starting site you then adjust. It is quick and the editing is limited to predefined sections, which suits a local service business that wants something presentable in an afternoon. A free plan exists, and paid plans add email marketing, social tools and online appointments.

Jimdo

Jimdo, based in Hamburg, targets self-employed people and very small businesses. Its current builder can create a first draft from a few answers, and the editing options are deliberately simple. There is a free plan and a small number of low-priced paid plans.

Zyro

Zyro is a budget builder owned by the hosting company Hostinger. It has clean templates, a grid-based editor, and built-in AI tools such as a text generator and a logo maker. Its blog lacks features such as comments, and design customization is narrower than on Wix.

Strikingly

Strikingly specializes in one-page sites where visitors scroll through sections instead of clicking between pages. It fits a personal page, an event or a product launch. A free plan is available with a Strikingly subdomain, and paid plans add a custom domain, more sites per account and a simple store. Longer sites with many pages are better served elsewhere.

SITE123

SITE123 skips free-form design altogether. You fill in content and it arranges the layout. It is the fastest way to get a basic site online with no design decisions, and the least suitable if you care about how the site looks. A free plan and live chat support are included.

IONOS

IONOS, formerly known as 1&1, sells its builder alongside hosting and domains. It has no free plan, the introductory pricing is low, and it covers the basics for a simple business site. The templates look dated next to Squarespace or Wix.

Builders for professionals

Duda

Duda is aimed at web designers and agencies who build and manage sites for clients. It offers client access controls, reusable content and white-label options. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial, and pricing is higher than consumer builders.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is the hosted service run by Automattic, which is different from installing the free WordPress software on your own host. In April 2022 it replaced its plan lineup with a free plan and a single paid Pro plan at $15 a month, which is the tier that allows installing plugins and custom themes. The block editor takes longer to learn than Wix, and the platform suits people who publish a lot of articles.

Builders for online stores

Shopify

Shopify is a hosted platform built for selling. It handles products, inventory, checkout, shipping rates and taxes, and it has a large app store for reviews, subscriptions, print on demand and more. Many of those apps charge their own monthly fees, which can add a good deal to the real cost of a store. There is a free trial but no free plan. Using a payment provider other than Shopify Payments adds a transaction fee on top of the processor’s own charge.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a hosted store platform aimed at shops with larger catalogs. It includes more features in the base plans than Shopify and does not charge its own transaction fees. Plans are tied to yearly sales, so a store that grows past a threshold moves up a tier. A 15-day free trial is offered.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free plugin that turns a self-hosted WordPress site into a store. The plugin itself costs nothing, but you pay for hosting, a domain, and often for extensions covering payments, shipping and subscriptions. It gives you the most control of anything on this list, along with responsibility for updates, backups and security.

Getting a first site live

Whichever builder you choose, the order of work is much the same.

1. Write the text for your main pages before picking a template: what you do, where you are, how to reach you, and prices if you publish them.
2. Start a free plan or trial and choose a template close to the structure you need, not only the one with the nicest photo.
3. Replace the template’s demo text and images with your own, and delete pages you will not use.
4. Check every page in the builder’s mobile preview.
5. Connect a domain. Most builders sell one directly, or you can point a domain bought elsewhere at the builder by changing its DNS records.
6. Turn on HTTPS if the builder does not do it automatically, publish, and then add the site to Google Search Console to see how it shows up in search.

Upgrade to a paid plan only when the site is ready, since that is usually when the first-year domain offer and the billing clock start.

Matching builder to site

For a first site with no budget, Wix or Weebly on a free plan lets you learn before paying. For a design-led portfolio or a restaurant, Squarespace is the common choice. For a store, start with Shopify or BigCommerce if you want hosting handled, or WooCommerce if you already know WordPress. Agencies building for clients should look at Duda.

Since then, Zyro has been folded into Hostinger and is now sold as the Hostinger Website Builder.