Wix Best all-round website builder. Pros Free plan ideal for smaller projects Beginner-friendly and really easy to use Personalized SEO support for your site. Visit Site.
Wix Overview Wix is an extremely beginner-friendly website builder that gives you total creative control over your site. Ecommerce Although this article focuses mainly on the best website builders, we thought it was important to mention ecommerce when it came to Wix.
Pricing Wix has a free plan that you can stay on as long as you like , which is great for getting started. Wix Gallery Click the image below to expand. Wix is our top-rated website builder because it gives total beginners the tools to create a truly beautiful website. Wix has more templates than any other builder — over , across a broad range of industries. Customize your design by dragging and dropping elements into place — kind of like a PowerPoint presentation.
In a rush? Like the Sound of Wix So Far? Show Me More of Wix. Read our Wix Pricing Review for a breakdown of its pricing plans and what you get with each premium package Want to sell online?
Our Wix Ecommerce Review tells you all you need to know about creating an online store with Wix. Squarespace Best for creatives and quality designs. Best website designs Great blogging features Ideal for creatives. Pros Excellent in-built features and UX Curated selection of modern designs Ideal for creative portfolios. Cons Site speed needs improvement Customization is more limited Integrations withheld for higher plans.
Squarespace Overview Squarespace is a sophisticated website builder that has a lot to offer creatives and businesses alike. Design Squarespace has the best quality designs of any website builder on the market.
Pricing Squarespace provides a day free trial, so you can try its builder out totally risk-free. Squarespace Gallery Click the image below to expand. It takes a little longer to get used to building with Squarespace, but the final look is worth it.
Inaugural poet Amanda Gorman built her personal website on Squarespace, and we love the simple, fresh look. Do You Want a Stunning Website? Squarespace combines style with power, making it a great choice for creatives.
I Want to See Squarespace. Check out our Squarespace Template Designs Review to find out! Is it worth the money? GoDaddy Best for creating and publishing websites fast. Very Good. Pros Fastest route to building a website Switch templates at any time Part of a larger marketing offering.
GoDaddy Overview GoDaddy is very user-friendly, and is the fastest outright website builder for creating a website. GoDaddy Gallery Click the image below to expand. GoDaddy is the best website builder for anyone who needs a simple, stylish website online as fast as possible. GoDaddy builds a site for you based on how you answer a few initial questions.
In a Hurry? GoDaddy is the fastest website builder around; perfect for getting a simple site online quickly! I Want to See GoDaddy. Read our GoDaddy Ecommerce Review to find out if this is the best website builder for your online store. Weebly Best for small businesses and portfolios. Best features for growth Large app store Cheap and free plans. Weebly Overview Weebly is a simple website builder that nevertheless packs a powerful punch when it comes to features — especially ecommerce and blogging.
Weebly Gallery Click the image below to expand. You can add custom code to your templates if you want , and extra features via the Weebly App Center. Weebly is cheap and easy to use, but you can still create complex sites with it — like this one by TrueSource Home Specialities, which advertises several different services. Weebly is also popular with some creatives like film director Johnny Dry on the hunt for a cheaper Squarespace alternative.
Is Weebly Right For You? Weebly was our top scoring website builder when it came to features, and is perfect for growing your online business. Show Me Weebly.
Our Wix vs Weebly comparison puts these market leaders head to head, helping you find the best one for you. Grab New Year savings with Zyro! Helpful grid layout Clean, logical templates Higher renewal prices. Pros A cheap, basic platform for beginners Easy-to-use template editor Excellent add-on functionalities.
Zyro Overview Zyro is an easy-to-use website builder with nice, clean templates. Design Zyro offers template designs to choose from, or you can start customizing from scratch with a blank template.
Zyro Gallery Click the image below to expand. Show Me Zyro. More Information: Check out our Zyro Review to take a closer look at this builder. Jimdo Best for removing adverts cheaply.
Sell on the free plan Rigid designs Help and support lacking. Pros Cheapest advert-free plans Sell up to five products on free plan Jimdo Creator and Dolphin options. Design If you want a site up quickly, then Jimdo is a good option — it works the same way as GoDaddy, using ADI to create a personalized website for you. Pricing With Jimdo, you can enjoy building for free. Jimdo Gallery Click the image below to expand. Jimdo is a middle-of-the-road builder that caters for small businesses wanting to get online.
Jimdo carefully guides you through the process of building a website. The platform has improved a lot in terms of design in recent years. Jimdo is a great option if you want an ad-free site without having to spend too much.
I Want to See More of Jimdo. Our Wix vs Weebly vs Squarespace vs Jimdo comparison lays out the pros and cons of the best website builders to help you choose the right one. Duda Best for lending a creative hand. Aimed at design agencies Surprisingly easy to use Quite expensive. Pros Feature-rich, industry-specific designs Amazing in-house widgets and apps Great value if building multiple sites.
Design Design is where Duda really shines. Duda Gallery Click the image below to expand. Duda is a very design-focused website builder that helps you create a stylish website. Building several websites? The Agency plan works out great value. Duda is perfect for those wanting a beautiful website without any of the creative hassle. Show Me Duda.
Best for Blogs and Content-Heavy Websites. Above Average. Well-suited to blogs Very cheap plans Customize with code. Design You get over themes to choose from — some are free, while others you need to pay for. Pricing WordPress. Do You Want to Start a Blog? Learn More About WordPress. More Information: Read our WordPress. Site Best for help and support via live chat. Great support on hand Ideal for tech novices Stripped-back features. Pros Excellent live chat feature Supportive building process Very beginner-friendly.
Site Gallery Click the image below to expand. SITE is a safe choice, especially for nervous beginners who want a lot of support. SITE is always on hand to support over live chat. SITE is a free and easy way of creating basic websites — a perfect option for beginners! Strikingly Best for value for money. For one page websites Great value for money Beginner-friendly. Strikingly Overview Strikingly is another beginner-friendly website builder that specializes in one-page websites.
Oh, and an excellent onboarding tool, too! Strikingly Gallery Click the image below to expand. Strikingly offers great value for money, and is a good blogging builder for beginners. One page websites are a simple way to show off a new project or idea. Show Me More of Strikingly. Multilingual options Wide range of industries Confusing to use. Pros Templates cover wide industry range Set up sites in different languages Designs for corporate businesses. Cons Platform feels behind the times Requires commitment to paid plan Confusing to work with.
Here are some other strong options: 1. PageCloud PageCloud is an easy-to-use drag-and-drop website builder, but when we tried it out, it fell down in two areas; mobile responsiveness, and price. Carrd Carrd is a really interesting platform. Make the Most of Free Trials and Free Plans Most of the website builders in our list offer either a free trial or a free plan for you to use. Website Builder Comparison Chart — a detailed side-by-side comparison of our top-rated website builders Website Builder Quiz — get a recommendation about which website builder is best for you based on your needs.
How much do website builder subscriptions cost? How popular are website builders? What are the pros and cons of website builders? How scalable are website builders? What is most flexible website builder in terms of design?
Can I edit the website builder templates? What is a custom domain name? This obviously will vary depending on a number of factors, not the least of which is how clear of a design vision you have and whether you have experience building a website. That being said, each site builder has pros and cons when it comes to level of usability or ease-of-use based on the features, flexibility and intuitive design of the editing interface.
On one end of the spectrum you have a builder like Wix, which is very easy to use but also comprehensive -- the sheer number of options and tools makes it hard to whip up a site quickly. On the other end, you have a builder like WordPress or GoDaddy, each of which doesn't provide you with a ton of options when building your pages. Most people will want to devote enough time to their site that it serves its purpose of representing you online in a good light, so we generally recommend you take the time to learn your editor and take advantage of the many options available.
This goes hand-in-hand with time investment, since the more control you have, the more choices you have to make. There are builders like Squarespace that have a fairly rigid design structure, but still let you customize fonts, colors and content. And on the other end of the spectrum you have a site like Wix, that lets you place objects anywhere on your site at your own risk!
Certain editors are more geared toward large site structures plus pages than others, so it's important to know whether you will have a ton of pages and sections, or whether it's more in the realm of a glamorized digital business card or fancy work portfolio. The number of navigation levels, for example which you can think of like file folders or Inception : a page within a directory within another directory would represent three levels of navigation , can be an important consideration.
Most pages probably use two levels -- sections and the pages within each section, but online stores and other types of sites might need more. Weebly and BigCommerce are probably the best examples of builders that support large site structures, while Squarespace and Wix limit you to two levels of navigation. Every builder we researched has an e-commerce option available, but that doesn't mean that they're all up to the task.
A site like WordPress isn't really what you want if your plan is to sell products online, while a site like Shopify or BigCommerce is expressly focused on online sales and has lots of e-commerce features.
If you really just want to have a clean and easy-to-use online storefront, one of the dedicated e-commerce builders makes the most sense, but if it's more of an ancillary service or simply nice to have, you can go with the builder that feels the best and sign up for its e-commerce option.
There are even builders like Duda, which allow you to sell up to 10 products for free using another plan. Transaction fees: While we're not small business owners, we do like math and this variable struck us as particularly important.
Those numbers greatly eclipse the monthly rate you're paying and add up even more if you're selling significantly more. So before you choose a builder, make sure you read the fine print about transaction fees. Then there are sites like BigCommerce, which doesn't charge extra and even has a PayPal discount, but has sales limits for each plan. We know you're a smart and savvy business owner who pays close attention to the books, but we thought it would still help to remind you: do the math before signing up.
As we mentioned at the top, many builders lock you into their hosting service, but not all. If you're afraid of commitment or think you might want to switch as your business or services evolve, go with a service like Weebly or Duda that allows you to download your website files for easy use on another host. The other big factor here is the free trial period.
The industry standard is around 14 days, but some go up to a month. Others don't have a trial period, but will give you your money back within 30 days if you're not happy. Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic.
We delete comments that violate our policy , which we encourage you to read. Discussion threads can be closed at any time at our discretion. CNET editors pick the products and services we write about. When you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Joe Van Brussel. Best website builder overall Wix.
Jump to details. See at Wix. Best prepackaged design Squarespace. See at Squarespace. Easiest to use Weebly. See at Weebly. Best for building a customized experience Duda. See at Duda. Best For basic, no-frills websites GoDaddy. See at GoDaddy. Best for writers and bloggers WordPress.
See at WordPress. Best for basic e-commerce Shopify. See at Shopify. Best for bigger stores BigCommerce. See at BigCommerce. Best website builders compared Free trial? Best website builder overall. Best prepackaged design. Easiest to use. Best for building a customized experience. Unlike many WYSIWYG editors, the code produced is very clean and well-written even if you choose the 'I have no coding experience' option during setup.
You can make granular changes to individual elements using the panels on the right. Webflow offers a free demonstration of its features via the website, and you can also subscribe for a free Starter package which allows you to create up to two projects. Read our full Webflow review. Bluefish is among the smallest web design tools available today.
The tiny installer takes only a few moments to setup. While the interface is text-only, it's clearly designed with novices in mind as it employs clear-cut toolbars, user customizable menus and syntax highlighting. Bluefish has an excellent search function, allowing you to find text across multiple projects. The tool also has no trouble juggling hundreds of documents at the same time.
Although Bluefish supports working with remote files, the varied and useful dialogs and wizards don't currently support direct upload of web pages via FTP. Despite the best efforts of the developers, Bluefish may take some time to get used to. The tool is available free of charge, however, so you have nothing to lose by giving it a try. It offers a variety of packages and free extensions that can be downloaded from its marketplace to add additional features — and the code editor itself can be customized.
While a lot of people may be intimated by the idea of coding if they have no programming experience, at some point in the web design process it can be important to be able to edit code directly.
This is particularly helpful if you want to customize code for existing software add-ons in order to get the features you want for your website. Visual Studio Code can help make the process less painful by providing a dedicated platform for coding. Visual Studio Code sports its own terminal and debugger, supports linting, and has integration with all manner of source control tools.
It especially offers good support for Javascript and Python, making it potentially useful not just for coding the frontend of a website but also potentially some backend functions as well. Read our full Virtual Studio Code review.
If you're involved in web design, the chances are you'll also need some graphic design skills and assets. Here we'll look at a couple of other resources and assets you'll properly need to help with your website design process:. You don't need anything too expensive or fancy unless you're chasing a career in graphic design or illustration. However, you'll probably find yourself wanting to create simple logos, headings, text features, as well as manipulate photos, all as part of your website design.
There are a lot of different packages out there, from GIMP which is a completely free software platform, to older software such as Jasc's Paint Shop Pro which remains a competent program that can be bought on the cheap at Amazon.
Alternatively, check out these other features for the latest in best, and sometimes free, software you might want to use:. On top of creating your own graphics, there's also a good chance you'll want to use stock photos to really give your website a professional look.
Stock photos are available on almost any subject matter, and on top of that there are also an increasing number of stock video websites, in case you want to add video media. Even better is that there are a number of free stock image and video websites, but be advised that these tend to be much more limited than paid-for stock image sites.
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