Best website builder in 2024
There’s a website builder out there for every kind of small business owner, artist, photographer, writer, and consultant.
Your site does not have to be coded throughout order to be aesthetically appealing and easy to use. Even if you don’t have any prior web development knowledge, you can simply create a professional website using website builders like Squarespace, Wix, and Weebly. Advanced options like email marketing or eCommerce are available with some of the greatest website building providers. These features are particularly critical if you’re trying to build your audience or make money from your website.
Selecting the optimal website builder depends on your individual requirements. It may be tough to navigate through all of the free website builders and all of the eCommerce website builders if you want a more complex commercial website. Because the industry is getting more complicated and growing, you have more options than ever when it comes to choosing the best website builder for your needs.
Many favourites have developed, and those are usually excellent good starting points, and even the front-runners are really not great for every circumstance. If you’re looking for a website builder that will allow you to create a professional-looking website, we’ve set out all the information you need to make an informed selection. We looked at whether the builder offered excellent customisation, eCommerce capabilities, marketing tools, and an SEO tool, for example. Customer service and the ability to do business online were more important.
There are more than a dozen website builders to choose from, so we investigated the reviews on PCMag, Wirecutter, SiteBuilderReport, WebsiteToolTester, WPBeginner, and more for any common ground that could exist. As a final step, we polled the CNET crew and used the tools.
listed below to create a few test sites. Plugins, live chat, eCommerce, pricing, and customer support are just a few of the areas we focused on since they are important to small business owners, creative professionals, and other content producers as well as SEO features.
If you’re still not sure which web builder to choose, there’s a guide at the bottom of the list with questions you should ask yourself as you start your online journey. If you currently have a basic website and are searching for a host, or if you want to start a self-hosted WordPress site, check out our rankings of the best web hosting and top WordPress hosting services.
Wix.com
Wix is the clear winner when it comes to website builders. With more than 110 million sites, it is the biggest player in the game. This well-liked website builder also has the most features, tools, and flexibility.
An AI-powered automated website creation (“Wix ADI”) on one end, which needs minimum user work, to Wix Corvid, an open platform for complex applications like Javascript, databases and data-driven dynamic pages: Wix offers a whole spectrum of ease of use. Because it might be difficult to maintain consistency between your landing page and website design if, for example, you start with a template but then decide to entirely alter it, we do advocate picking one lane (e.g. Wix ADI, specialised templates or design-from-scratch) to optimise the experience.
Wix, like many of its competitors, offers a basic free website builder plan that lets website owners set up a free starting site with ads. If you like the free version, you could spend money on a paid version without ads. A $14-per-month “Combo” package fulfils most of a personal website’s demands. Wix features a “Business VIP” e-commerce website package that starts at $49 per month for your online store when it comes to constructing an e-commerce website. As a result, you’ll have to account for the purchase of a domain separately. As for metrics and analytics, Wix doesn’t have its own, so you’ll either need a premium Google Analytics subscription or another third-party service.
Wix has a few downsides, despite the fact that most critics consider it the best. In the past, Wix was one of the only builders that had data constraints for each of its plan levels, so if you want to upload limitless photos and videos as well as expected and over 5,000 visitors a month to your webpage, make absolutely sure you do the math when choosing a plan.
The editor’s independence and range of options may be overwhelming to people who do not have the time or desire to make multiple little decisions. Furthermore, web design freedom needs a greater level of participation with the format and style than editors with stricter constraints.
Squarespace.com
Squarespace reminds us of the popular student in high school who is all glitz and little substance. In terms of usability, it falls somewhere in the middle between Wix and Weebly; on the other hand, users have given it high reviews for the high quality of the design possibilities available. What we believe it will shine for is small and medium sized enterprises that desire a well-designed page and potential for e-commerce expansion with reduced transaction costs.
The Squarespace editor is a little harder to figure out than the editors for Wix and Weebly. One of the many helpful features is a global style editor. Another is a powerful tool for editing photos. These indicates that your website would always look excellent on a smartphone, however you won’t be capable of making any mobile-specific modifications as with Wix or Duda. Customer service was also generally excellent, which should provide some relief to company owners. The editor’s add-ons are limited because of its ease of use.
In addition to unlimited storage, bandwidth, and a domain, Squarespace provides a $23 Business website subscription that includes unlimited contributors, a Gmail pro account, and e-commerce store-building tools. Choose between $27 and $49 a month for your “Online Store” package, which includes extras like abandoned shopping cart recovery and gift cards. You should know that the $27 online shop plan has no transaction costs, even if it is somewhat over the market rate for an e-commerce site. Depending on how many products you sell in a given month, the savings for our online business could really add up.
This website is an excellent representation of Squarespace’s products: clean, professional, and appealing design, but without the layers of creative power or flexibility you get from other builders.
Weebly.com
Weebly isn’t as well-known as Wix because only 50 million websites have been made with it, but it does offer some good options depending on what you need. In comparison to Wix’s Goliath, Weebly is an excellent David if you need a basic and easy-to-use website editor, a big site (around 25-30 pages), unlimited storage, site mobility, and economical but robust online shop options.
The editor is one of the most user-friendly solutions for building a website, and the minimal learning curve still yields beautiful results. That simplicity of use signifies the editor is much more restricted of add-ons and flexibility in design and it will not have the variety of options or mobile customisation options that a builder like Wix has. Despite this, we never got to a point in our testing where we felt constrained by these limitations. It’s possible, though, that it will come up in the work of a high-octane web designer.
Weebly’s free plan is one of the most generous among free website builders, and it only costs $6 per month, making it one of the more affordable options (albeit with Weebly ads). Ad-free site, analytics, and commerce are included in the $12-per-month plan, while the $26 plan includes additional shop features, like tax and shipping calculations, inventory management and discounting.
Even if you don’t have a lot of spare time, Weebly’s commerce features are superior to those of Wix and Squarespace. It’s rare among website builders, but Weebly allows you to download your site files so you may relocate them to another server if you’re concerned about being locked into the service.
Duda.co
When it comes to website builders, Duda is one of the smallest players in the industry, with just over 15 million websites produced, but it caters to the needs of designers and design companies. A strong and user-friendly builder and a variety of unique features have made it a viable alternative for everyone who wants to construct a website, whether they’re an individual or a group.
Many more of Duda’s functionalities set something apart, which would include mobile site customisation options, comprehensive data analytics (e.g. advanced metrics like form submissions, duration on site, and website traffic), and consumer personalization so that you can easily show particular message or offers to users based on the time of the day or, their location, or their browsing history. In additional, it has a complimentary e-commerce add-on that allows you to sell up to 10 products with multiple languages support.
Duda’s Basic plan costs $14 per month, which is on line with its major rivals, Wix and Weebly. Furthermore, you could add up to 4 editors (rather than just one with Basic) and gain access to advanced statistics with Duda’s $ 22 white-label/custom-branded builders package. To accommodate web designers that work with several customers and need to manage multiple sites, it offers a $44 monthly “Agency” plan. This plan contains 4 websites as well as the option to save site files so that they can be transferred anywhere. Despite its high price tag, Duda is able to provide features that other major competitors do not, such as analytics, multilingual support, enhanced customisation, and mobile device customization.
GoDaddy.com
GoDaddy is known best for its specially made domain names and web web hosting, so it makes perfect sense that this also offers site builder app. Although the name is a mouthful, “Websites + Marketing” is meant to get a simple site up and operating in less than an hour, much like the other solutions on our list.
Email and social network ads, PayPal charges, as well as an SSL certificate were also all included in the basic package. Its $16-per-month plan includes an SEO tool; $22 adds extended appointment assistance; and $25 adds online shop capabilities, such as some outstanding product listing and shipping choices for your online store. The prices shown above are for a monthly membership; however, new users may save money by prepaying for a year.
Even though GoDaddy is known for selling domain names among other things, you will need to add one separately. However, GoDaddy’s current website builder is a significant improvement over the company’s previous GoCentral offering. Additionally, if you opt for the free tier, you won’t be subject to a 30-day trial period, so you can test out GoDaddy at your leisure.
WordPress.com
When people talk about WordPress, they almost usually mean WordPress.org, the open-source website where the software is available for free. Even if it is a long-term success, it does need the purchase of a web server and a domain name. If you want to learn more about WordPress.org’s more advanced capabilities, WPBeginner and WebsiteToolTester are wonderful places to start.
WordPress.com has a one-of-a-kind website builder. If you want to make a website for your blog, this is a great choice. WordPress provides everything you need for blogging, even if it isn’t as feature-rich as some of its rivals. Furthermore, unlike Wix or Weebly, it is not a drag-and-drop website builder.
You can get rid of WordPress advertisements and receive 6GB of storage for $4 per month. A $25 upgrade gives you access to custom WordPress theme options and add-ons, as well as 13GB of storage and online selling possibilities. With the $45 per month e-commerce plan, you can accept payments from over 60 countries, connect your website to popular shipping providers, and access premium design options for your online store. The $8 option seems to be the best value if you’re establishing a blog with the idea of generating money from it in the future.
Aside from bloggers who don’t want or need to spend a lot of time on website design, WordPress has a fairly restricted set of capabilities and isn’t a good fit for most other types of websites. That being said, Joomla and Drupal are excellent choices for anybody seeking for a more powerful off-the-shelf CMS. In comparison to WordPress, both of these are more practical to use, but both come with additional customizable options.
Shopify.in
Shopify is a superior alternative for developing a website for an e-commerce store than Wix. The platform’s e-commerce capabilities, which are accessible to business owners, may be used to rapidly and simply set up an e-commerce internet store. Although Shopify is used by the majority of “e-tailers,” this does not mean it is the ideal answer for every circumstance.
Shopify’s platform, like many other commerce-oriented builders, is focused on your product and sales information. With Shopify, you won’t have to worry about missing any important processes since the software handles everything for you, including inventory, customer data, taxes, and shipping costs. Shopify’s customer care staff is also accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via phone, chat, or email.
In light of its narrow target audience, Shopify doesn’t provide a wide range of pricing alternatives, and as a result, its costs are higher than the industry average. The $29-a-month “Basic Shopify” plan covers most of the essentials for an online store, while the $79-a-month plan includes gift cards and more staff accounts. The $50 difference in pricing between basic and standard, in our view, isn’t worth the savings in transaction fees and delivery charges. If you have a bigger company, they also offer a $299-per-month membership.
Shopify’s pricing model is arguably perhaps the most major flaw. The additional fees are well worth it if you want the help, direction, and a builder who will handle the most of the technical issues. BigCommerce’s various applications are intriguing, but if you’re utilising BigCommerce that costs extra, it might quickly mount up. As an alternative, you may compare the overall cost of extra add-ons and transaction fees depending on your sales with rivals like BigCommerce, which provides more product variations and combinations while charging cheaper costs. If you’re still undecided, we suggest doing the math.
BigCommerce.com
BigCommerce is the best solution for medium- to large-scale online stores because to its lack of transaction fees and endless product variants. While Shopify’s store site builder is more user-friendly, taking the effort to learn how to use it now might save you a lot of money in the long run.
When you first start using it, the editor has a tonne of options and flexibility, but like Wix, this can be confusing for new users. The features and tools like product varieties and tax rates, on the other hand, are likely to come in helpful if your business grows or reaches a certain level of success.
While BigCommerce and Shopify have the same price tiers, what you get at each level differs. Customers that sign up for the lowest BigCommerce plan ($30) get an unlimited number of users, bandwidth, and storage, as well as an unlimited amount of goods. eBay, Google Shopping, and Amazon all provide e-commerce site integration. Standard only supports yearly sales of $50,000, whereas Plus and Pro support up to $150,000 and $400,000, respectively, each year in sales. More and more transactions visitors make, the more money can save about transaction fees. However, if you build up enough sales, you’ll have to switch to the next plan tier.
Analyzing your inventory levels and expected sales will indeed be beneficial, as it is with all online shop builders. The fact that there are no transaction costs — and that you can save an extra 0.5 percent to 1 percent via a discount arrangement with PayPal , so if your business is bigger, taking advantage of the opportunity 2-week trial and consider giving BigCommerce a shot.
Conclusion
Now that you’ve seen our list of the top website builders, we hope you have a clearer idea of which one is most suited to meet your requirements.
As a result of extensive research and feedback from individuals just like you, we can guarantee that the information we’ve given you in this article is true and trustworthy.
Each website builder on our list has its own set of advantages, as you can see. It doesn’t matter whether you want a budget-friendly website or something more elaborate; there is a builder out there for any need.
In the end, Wix was found to be the top website builder in our study. You may create a website that is uniquely yours using the drag-and-drop interface, which even technophobes can master, and a wide variety of themes and features, such as contact forms and media galleries.
Although we focused on Wix as a website builder, it’s also a great choice if you’re thinking about starting an online store. Small businesses who wish to start selling online might take advantage of ecommerce-specific programmes.
If you’re not sure where to begin, using Wix’s free plan is a terrific method to get started and determine what works and what doesn’t.
Use the free trials (or plans) offered by as many website builders as you can. This will allow you to get a feel for each one and help you make an informed decision about which one is ideal for you.
Frequently Asked Question
No. A CMS (Content Management System) lets you update your website exactly as it appears to an outsider, so you can see the current state of your site and all of its pages while using the Website Editor. This saves time since you don’t have to log out or reload your page to see your changes as they’re being made. There is no support for external page builders, and only the internal builder may be used to manage your pages.
In order to utilise our website builder, we suggest that you download the newest version of Firefox. In addition, Safari, Chrome, and Internet Explorer are all supported. For the greatest experience with our services, please use the above-mentioned browser or an older version. When browsing your Account Overview page, if you are seeing a Browser Compatibility Warning, please update the latest version of your browser or use a browser supported by your website builder to resolve the issue.
There is currently no list of third-party programmes that are compatible with the website builder. Web applications that don’t need server-side support and are written in HTML or Javascript are often unaffected. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions. Please read Adding Third Party Web Tools for information on how to integrate third-party programmes into your website.
That’s not the case. As a website builder, we don’t give service code that can be copied and pasted elsewhere, therefore selecting a content location is necessary when selecting a component.
It is not feasible at this time to transfer web pages from another host to website builder. In order to show and comprehend the information on your site, the builder has to construct a new page for each new piece of content. You may copy/paste any text you wish to relocate to your website builder site by downloading the files from your old server and uploading them to your new account.
