The best website builders make it easy for individuals and small businesses to have a professionally designed website without paying a top dollar to a developer. Since they are particularly easy to use, you can also get your website up and running in record time.
However, with hundreds of website builders on the market, finding the right website creator can be challenging. Website builders aren’t one-size-fits-all. Read our review of the top website builders to choose the builder that best fits your needs. Check out our comparison charts that also reveal all the hidden pros and cons so you can see what each builder offers.
Check Out Our Top Best Website Builders:
- Wix Website Builder – Best for Building Free Sites
- DreamHost Website Builder – Best value for money.
- HostPapa – Best for Instant Website Creation
- HostGator Website Builder – Best For Personal Bloggers
What is a Website Builder?
A website builder is a tool that allows the user to construct websites without any manual coding. Website builders make it easy for anyone to create a website. It typically has a drag-and-drop interface so users with little or no coding experience can easily create professional-looking websites.
Website builders can be offline or online; offline website builders are software you download and build websites with, while online builders are installed in the backend or cPanel of your live website.
Most hosting services now offer website builders to attract customers. Some also provide advanced tools such as SEO analytics tools, custom email addresses, domains, and third-party integrations to go with those builders.
How to Choose the Best Website Builder For Your Needs?
Some basic questions are essential when looking into website builders. The most important factors are what type of website you want to build, your budget, and ease of use. Here are some tips for selecting the best website creator for you:
- Check your budget: This is the first thing you should do. It would be best if you only went for what you can afford, so always consider the costs involved in building and maintaining your website going forward. If the total costs (including domain registration, hosting, and all) exceed your budget, then check this list for more affordable options.
- Identify Your Priorities: What do you value above all else in a website? Is it speed or design, or UI? What kind of website are you building (blog, eCommerce website, forum, etc.)? You must have definite answers to these questions to avoid choosing the wrong builder and having to start over.
- Consider The Themes and Templates Available: Your website is a product of the templates, themes, and features offered by the website builder. Some builders give you only a handful of theme customization options, which can be very frustrating. Make sure whatever site/builder you choose has an abundance of templates and tools so you can make further tweaks in the future if you need them..
- Consider The Ease of use: Though you don’t need any coding, some website builders may give you a harder time than others. Luckily most website builders are designed for the general public with some knowledge of how websites work.
Full Overview Of The Top Best Website Builders
- Overall Score: 4.7
- Ease-of-Use: 5.0
- Design and Templates: 5.0
- Help with Building: 4.3
- Tech Support: 4.4
- Check Platform Policies: 4.8
Wix’s website builder offers complete user control while making the interface beginner-friendly. So if you are looking to build a website with maximum creative freedom, then Wix is probably your best option.
Wix’s website builder also provides a wide range of website editing tools and features to allow you to create highly interactive websites. It doesn’t make our number one list because, for many beginners, too many options can be distracting. For instance, some newbies complain that the visual editor seems cluttered.
If you are willing to spend more than 10 minutes designing your website and plan to integrate cool features such as video backgrounds, you should give Wix’s website builder a trial.
Pros
- Hundreds of templates to choose from
- Easy to use website builder interface
- Dozens of free and paid apps
- eCommerce options
- Free SSL with all Wix
Cons
- You get better analytics from third-party apps
- It is difficult to move the website from Wix
Wix is famous for its Photoshop-like interface, eCommerce options, and total creative freedom.
Pricing Table
| Connect Domain | Combo | Unlimited | VIP | |
| Price | $4.50 | $8.50 | $12.50 | $24.50 |
| Free Domain For One Year | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Custom Domain | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Wix Ads | Yes | No | No | No |
| Bandwidth | 1 GB | 2 GB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Storage | 500 MB | 3 GB | 10 GB | 35 GB |
| Video Hours | _ | 30 minutes | 1 hour | 5 hours |
| Customer Care | 24/7 Customer Care | 24/7 Customer Care | 24/7 Customer Care | Priority Customer Care |
Unique features
Initiative website building tools
Wix offers a potent yet straightforward website builder. The interface comes with drag and drop tools to help you add or remove features from your website. Since it is a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) website builder, your published website will look as it appears in the editor.
Easy to use
As with most website builders, you don’t need coding knowledge to create a website. Wix goes the extra mile by giving you significant customization options and flexibility. You can include all the latest trends in web design on your website. So if you’re not a fan of static websites, you can add video background or animations without programming experience.
The Wix app market
You can access over 250 apps, add-ons, and extensions to add functionality and usefulness to your website. These apples include Wix Pro gallery to help display your images and Site Booster to help you get more traffic from search engines. Many apps are free, although you might only be able to access some of them on the premium plan.
Themes and designs for specific industries
Wix provides over 500 tastefully designed website templates. You can sort through these templates by industry or hobby to find the one layout for your best site. Many of the templates are free, but you will need to subscribe to the eCommerce plans to access all of the free templates. The templates are themed around categories such as restaurants, online stories, photography, fashion, blogging, and education.
Wix is perhaps the best website builder for artists in general. It is an excellent option for just about anyone who wants a professional-looking website either for their business, personal portfolio, eCommerce store, or blog. It might also be perfect if you want to promote a hobby or sell physical or digital products. The wide range of customization allows you to create a website that aligns with your preference. Check out our full Wix review here for more.
Is Wix Your Perfect Provider?
Wix offers great customization tools for small and medium business websites. Try it out for yourself.
- Overall Score: 4.5
- Ease-of-Use: 4.5
- Design and Templates: 4.5
- Help with Building: 5.0
- Tech Support: 4.0
- Value for money: 5.0
With over 1.5 million websites and over 750,000 WordPress installations, the award-winning company is one of the pacesetters among web builders/hosts.
DreamHost offers secure WordPress hosting, a custom dashboard, unlimited space and bandwidth, and every other thing you need to grow. It is built on top of WordPress, a CMS that powers one-third of all websites. Whether it’s for personal blogging or business, It offers hundreds of templates sorted into different categories and industries.
Its editor is easy to get a handle of and although it isn’t drag and drop, you get to move columns and elements around the page to your taste. It manages media similar to WordPress in a Media Library so you can use the same photo multiple times. However, you can’t edit those images, unlike in WordPress. Its blogging features are also just as extensive and it has an SEO section to get you some exposure.
Pros
- Very affordable for individuals and SMBs
- High user ratings, especially in the area of reliability and ease of use
- 97-day money-back guarantee
- Every plan features a free domain registration and privacy
- Easy setup
- Automatic daily website backups.
Cons
- Customer Support is limited and takes time to respond
- Average speed is slow (1700 Ms)
- No email
- Few advanced features and 1-click installs.
| Shared Starter | Shared Unlimited | Managed WordPress | |
| PRICE (per month) | $2.59 | $3.95 | $16.95 |
| Number of websites | 1 | Unlimited | 1 managed website |
| Not included | Included | Unlimited | |
| WordPress Website Builder | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Quick Start Wizard | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Premium Starter sites | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free Domain | Included | Included | Included |
| Post&page builder | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SEO Recommender | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Unique Features
Site Migration
DreamHost offers free WordPress site Migration. This migration can be done instantly with no downtime. So this means you can easily move your WordPress site to a DreamHost server at no cost to you. This free migration, however, only applies to WordPress sites. For other website developers like Wix and Weebly, you’ll be charged a one-time fee of $99 for the migration.
Shared Hosting
Shared Hosting is a form of web hosting in which your site shares RAM, CPU, and server resources with other websites. This significantly reduces costs and is the perfect option for folks who want to create a website without spending a lot of money. The downside to this, however, is that it isn’t very powerful enough for high-traffic sites.
DreamHost has two shared hosting plans for customers. The difference between the two plans is that one features an email and unlimited web hosting, while the other doesn’t.
Drag-and-drop functionality
DreamHost’s user interface is pretty simple and straightforward. It’s based on a simple drag-and-drop style, so you can customize whatever you need on your site. There are also advanced text editing options. In short, if you’ve experienced the traditional WordPress interface, you’ll realize DreamHost’s interface is more user-friendly and better for beginners. However, there are also advanced options for professionals.
Multiple design options
With over 100 design blocks to choose from and multiple themes, DreamHost makes it easy for you to create something that stands out. There are themes for photography, restaurants, real estate, and more.
Quick start wizard
Simply get your website up and running in no time with the website creation wizard. This feature helps you select the design, add functionalities, and input the required details you need on your site.
Real-Time SEO
DreamHost offers a well-built backend for SEO and tips for on-page SEO built right into the website builder. It piggybacks off WordPress’s SEO capabilities and allows you to create SEO compliant posts and pages.
The rich features of WordPress-backed DreamHost suit the needs of many personal and business-related websites. Anyone can create flexible and attractive sites, even with a basic plan. Little wonder why it’s an award-winning company.
Is DreamHost Your Perfect Provider?
DreamHost is built on top of WordPress, and has great hosting and support. Try it out for yourself
- Overall Score: 4.9
- Ease-of-Use: 5.0
- Design and Templates: 5.0
- Help with Building: 4.8
- Tech Support: 5.0
- Check Platform Policies: 4.6
HostPapa offers a fantastic drag-and-drop website builder for individuals and small business owners who want to build a website within minutes. With its easy-to-use editor and professionally designed templates, you’ll have a working website in less than 10 minutes.
With the basic plan, you get up to 120 modern website templates. When designing your website, you make simple choices such as choosing your layout, modifying colors, importing images, and voila, your website is ready. The websites are mobile-optimized, so your website will look just as spectacular to mobile users. You can edit text and also add new web pages as you see fit.
Pros
- Copyright-free stock images
- Intuitive drag and drop interface
- Over 120 modern website templates
- Mobile-friendly and responsive website
- eCommerce options
- Social media integration
Cons
- Need a hosting plan to use the website builder
- Need to subscribe to higher plans to enjoy Hostpapa’s online store builder and social media integration
HostPapa provides excellent web hosting plans and related services at low prices.
Pricing Table:
| Starter | Business | Premium | Enterprise | |
| Price | $2.99 | $9.99 | $19.99 | $39.99 |
| Domain Registration | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| Pages | 2 pages | 1000 pages | 1000 pages | 1000 pages |
| Mobile-friendly templates | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| HTML and CSS editing | HTML only | HTML only | HTML & CSS | HTML and CSS |
| Header/footer Code Injection | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| eCommerce | No | No | No | Yes |
| Transaction Fees | None | None | None | None |
Unique Features
Responsive, mobile-friendly template
In today’s world of smartphones, having a mobile-ready website has become a must. HostPapa website builder allows users to create mobile-friendly templates, so they don’t have to worry about optimizing their website.
eCommerce tools for small businesses
If you are on the enterprise plan, you will get eCommerce options to allow you securely set up your online store. HostPapa offers other solutions such as social media integration, inventory management, and sales integration with trusted payment processors like PayPal and Stripe. This feature makes HostPapa one of the best website builders for eCommerce.
One-click publishing
You can preview your website as you build it to know how it will appear on smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers. You can also make changes and instantly preview how they affect your site’s performance and appearance. When your site is ready, all it takes is one click for your website to go live.
Advanced website features
HostPapa allows you to add features to your website to improve functionality and user experience. For instance, you can add forms your visitors can fill out when they want to contact you or subscribe to a service/product.
You can also add a social media widget so people can find your other social media profiles through your website. All of these are possible without any single coding for website building experience on your part.
Free one-on-one training
Hostpapa offers a very easy-to-use drag-and-drop website builder. However, if you need further guidance, you can explore their video tutorial and other learning resources. You can request a one-on-one training session if you further run into issues or need a personalized learning session. Someone from the Papasquad will reach out to you for a free 30-minute long one-on-one training section.
Hostpapa is our top recommendation for all the right reasons. Whether you are a beginner setting up a personal blog or a brick-and-mortar business looking to start an online store, Hostpapa has you covered. The 30-day money-back guarantee also gives you an option to test the features for free.
- Overall Score: 4.0
- Ease-of-Use: 4.5
- Design and Templates: 4.3
- Help with Building: 3.8
- Tech Support: 3.8
- Check Platform Policies: 4.0
HostGator website builder is perfect for those looking to build a small store, small business website or a photo gallery. Although it doesn’t pack the editing powers of competitors like WordPress, it has enough features to make it one of the best website builders for small business owners.
Its key features include its stock image library, beautiful templates, intuitive interface and the ability to switch themes. The last point means you can pivot your website without having to rebuild from scratch.
The builder also allows you to incorporate subscription membership and download of digital items. Anyone who is looking to set up a simple online presence will benefit from Host gator website builder along with its excellent web hosting offerings.
Pros
- Over 200 professionally designed templates
- Customization options
- Easy to use point and click interface.
- Stock photo library
- Free custom domain name on all plans
Cons
- No free trial or free plan
- Limited website modification options
| Hatchling | Baby | Business | |
| Price (per month) | $2.75 | 3.5 | 5.25 |
| Number of websites | Single website | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| WordPress installs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free WordPress Website transfer | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Unmetered bandwidth | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free SSL certificate | No | Yes | Yes |
| Free dedicated IP | No | No | Yes |
| Free SEO tools | No | No | Yes |
| Free domain | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Unique Features
Free domain name
HostGator offers free domain registration if you register for a 12, 24 or 36-month plan. This helps you minimize cost when creating your website for the first time. However, you will pay a domain renewal fee after the end of the first year.
Social media integration
The HostGator website builder allows you to integrate social media widgets on your website. You can use these tools to curate media from social media to your site and allow visitors to find you on social media platforms.such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
App market
You can add more value and functionality to your website by adding apps from the app market. Many of these apps can be used to automate your website processes or improve user experience. Hostgator also provides you a Bing Ad Credit that gives you $100 in search advertising each time you spend $25 on Microsoft advertising.
Mobile App
HostGator website builder is also available as a mobile app. From the app, you can make changes to your website and hide elements. You can also manage your online store on the go with your mobile app
Blog
HostGator website builder is one of the best options for blogging due to its excellent blogging tools. There are many blogging-themed templates in the editor. You can also add post tags, headings, images, videos, and embed links to your web posts.
Logo Maker
The logo maker will come in handy for those on a budget. With the logo maker, you can create a personally looking logo and customize it to fit your needs and preference.
HostGator is the best website for anyone who wants to build a blogging brand. It also comes with other tools that make it ideal for small businesses as well such as the logo maker. The tools might look basic, but they pack enough punch for most individuals and small businesses to get a personally looking and fully functional website.
HostGator is the best website builder for beginners due to its simple-to-use interface.
What Is The Best Website Builder For Your Industry?
Weighing the pros and cons of top website builders is no easy task. To keep it simple, choose a website builder that best suits the niche/industry. For instance, if you’re making a photography website, you’ll need a website builder with unlimited storage for photos and great server speeds for loading images. Here are the best website builders for some popular industries:
eCommerce
A good eCommerce website builder should allow owners to process orders easily, accept payments, manage logistics, and provide excellent customer care. The best eCommerce website builder currently is Shopify. It allows anyone to create a plug-and-play website that provides all the tools and resources you need for your eCommerce business.
Photography
Photography websites are like the personal portfolios of photographers. They must be highly professional and allow certain customizations (such as password-protected photos, watermarks, image categorization, etc.).
Squarespace is the overall best for photographers. It has very attractive templates photographers can use for their images. However, if you’re on a lower budget, you can use Wix.
Small Businesses
Wix is the number one website builder for small businesses. The ease of use with Wix is another level, and it provides a wide range of design options. There are also tools for SEO, email marketing, social media posting, and even Facebook advertising. The low costs associated with getting a Wix plan make it all the more perfect for small businesses.
Real Estate
Real estate websites need to be SEO friendly, support contact forms and bookings, and need to be able to connect to home listing services. Pre-designed templates also make the process faster if you don’t have a developer. Hence, WordPress is a great fit.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing websites could use detailed analytics and SEO features more than anything else. Some website builders aren’t affiliate marketing-friendly so you must ensure you’re within the builder’s Terms of Service. If you want to build affiliate marketing websites, you should check out Shopify or WordPress if you’re on a budget.
Next Steps When Choosing A Website Builder
Here are the next things to look out for when choosing a website builder.
Mobile Responsiveness
Most of your visitors will be accessing your website from their phones.. If your site is not mobile-responsive, there’s a risk that they’ll leave.. Try viewing a site hosted by the web builder you intend to use on your phone first, so you know how your site will perform.
Payment Terms and Conditions
If you’re one of those who don’t read “terms and conditions,” now might be a good time to start. You wouldn’t want to have harsh sanctions or an outright closing of your site after years of hosting due to one or two things you ignored while signing up.
Support
It’s pretty obvious that any builder that doesn’t provide ample support for its users isn’t reliable. If you’re a first-time website owner, you need all the help you can get. Therefore, only choose a website builder that provides 24/7 support.
Integration
Does your website allow easy Integration of other sites/platforms? If not, then you should probably reconsider your choices.
Hidden costs
One important area to check in terms and conditions is that of payments. Several website builders are fond of making hidden charges to customers. Read reviews from other users to know for sure if the web builder you’re using has any hidden charges or not.
Provision To Move Your Website
Not all website builders allow users to move their sites to a new domain/host. However, this becomes a necessity in the long run, especially when your site has grown to a high rank, and you have the money to build a better site. It’s essential you confirm whether or not your host allows for this.
How Much Does It Cost To Build A Website?
Building a website can cost anywhere from $200 to $10,000 or even more, depending on the type of website and the Integrations and features. Thankfully, most website builders have free trials and free plans you can try out before committing fully.
What Are The Benefits Of A Website Builder?
Reduced costs
Instead of spending up to $500 on an eCommerce website, a website builder allows you to create your own site for as little as $15 per month. Website builders make owning a website very cheap and affordable.
Instant website creation
It usually takes days or even weeks for programmers to write the code and develop the front and back end of websites. With website builders, however, websites can be made in under a few hours or a few minutes with the right template
Personalization
Website builders allow you to build your website precisely the way you want it. From templates to color, design, and every other stuff, it’s all in your hands.
What Are The Disadvantages Of Website Builders?
Limited design options
With website builders, you’re limited to what you’re given. So, you can’t copy a Web Design from anywhere or use any attractive features that your host provider doesn’t allow.
Ownership
So long as you use a website builder, your site is not truly your own. You’re still under your host, and if something should happen to the host servers or the company should close up, your site will be lost forever.
No Uniqueness
With website builders, it’s possible that your site will look similar to that of someone else using the same host as you are. This scenario mainly occurs with web builders that only provide a few templates.
SEO
There are certain SEO features that website builders just can’t provide. They try to provide as many SEO elements as possible, but some skip important elements like website schema.
Summary
Building a website can be very demanding, and having all the work done for you by these website builders is a big help. HostPapa is perfect for individuals who want a straightforward, no-hassle solution without learning code. And a solution like Shopify is one of the best website builders for eCommerce stores.
Feel free to use any of our recommendations here, as they were carefully selected through in-depth research and customer feedback. Finally, when choosing a web builder, go for higher plans if you can afford them to enjoy its full capabilities. Those plans give you the level of professionalism you might need, while the smaller plans may appear somewhat basic.
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