10 Best Website Builders Of 2024

Why We Picked It

Weebly gets the top spot for one of the best website builders because of its low cost, flexibility and ease of use. In 2018, Square acquired Weebly, which combined the power of Weebly’s drag-and-drop editor for site building and Square’s e-commerce prowess. Now you have the option to create a small business website with Weebly’s popular editor or choose an online store and build it using Square’s no-frills e-commerce site builder.

General Features

I’d like to start with a mild warning: If you already have an account with Square or Weebly, you may have trouble signing up for a new Weebly account. I have used both Square and Weebly in the past, but I tried to start a Weebly account with my business email and was rejected because I already have an account. I tried all the standard troubleshooting methods and finally gave up trying another day. The next day, I had zero issues, so I guess it was on Weebly’s end.

There are many fans of Weebly and its site editor. You’ll have to choose the personal site option at setup to use it; otherwise, it suggests you use Square for e-commerce options. The themes that Weebly offers are clean but also a bit plain. On one hand, Weebly’s site editor is easy with its drag-and-drop functionality; on the other hand, it can be difficult to figure out where features are. For example, changing fonts and colors are all in the menus. And there isn’t much you can customize once you choose a theme. However, you can choose a different theme and keep your content, which saves a ton of time.

Extras

There’s a lot you can do with Weebly extras that come as add-ons or with high-tier plans, including adding an e-commerce element to sell physical or digital items, selling online courses and adding custom code while editing. One of my favorite options with Weebly is the app marketplace. I easily added a couple of plugins that are free to use to my site editor. With the vertical divider, I changed the look of my site and the text animation app let me create fun text blocks on my site.

Pricing

Weebly is more affordable than many of its competitors. The free plan is only worth using if you want to create a personal site and share it with friends and family because you can’t change the branding on the footer. Paid plans range from $10 per month (billed annually) to $26 per month (billed annually).

It is possible to use the free or low-priced plan to sell products, which is uncommon among website builders. I added a shopping cart and set it up with a product page and connected my Stripe account.

Reputation

I can tell you all about my experience using Weebly over the years, but I’m only one example. User reviews tell a different story. The mixed reviews include complaints about slow or non-existent support and bugs with the editor. However, there are also glowing reviews from long-time customers that praise the ease of use and low prices. Ratings range from 1.4 to 4.4, so there’s no guarantee that you’ll love or hate Weebly.

Standout Feature

If you decide you don’t like your Weebly theme, even after adding your own content, you can switch themes and your content stays. It’s an uncommon feature for most website builders.

Who Should Use It?

Weebly is one of the best website builders for small business, entrepreneurs, bloggers, creatives and e-commerce sellers. Put plainly: It’s a great choice for anyone—especially beginners. Its intuitive site editor takes little time to learn, and the themes it includes ensure your site will look like a pro designed it.

Learn more: Read our full Weebly review.

Weebly’s free plan gives users a good way to test its site editor without the time constraints of a free trial. However, its free plan does not allow you to connect to a custom domain. Instead, sites on the free plan use a Weebly subdomain, such as yoursitename.weebly.com. While the $10 per month (billed annually) Personal plan allows users to connect a custom domain, it displays Weebly ads, so it is unsuitable for business use.

Those looking for a professional business website will need to choose the $12 per month (billed annually) Professional plan at a minimum. This allows you to connect a custom domain without Weebly ads. Although it’s more expensive than its Personal plan, it is competitively priced and provides a good value with a free domain name and several e-commerce features that are not widely available at such a low monthly price.

	Free	Personal	Professional	Performance
Pricing	$0	$10 per month (billed annually) or $13 per month (billed monthly)	$12 per month (billed annually) or $16 per month (billed monthly)	$26 per month (billed annually) or $29 per month (billed monthly)
Connect a Custom Domain	–	✓	✓	✓
Free Domain Name	–	–	✓	✓
Remove Weebly Ads	–	–	✓	✓
Unlimited Storage	–	–	✓	✓
Free Themes	✓	✓	✓	✓
Free SSL Certificate	✓	✓	✓	✓
Sell Physical Goods Online	✓	✓	✓	✓
Sell Digital Goods Online	–	✓	✓	✓
Automatic Tax Calculator	✓	✓	✓	✓
Shipping Calculator	–	✓	✓	✓

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Why We Picked It

Designing a site with GoDaddy’s website builder requires zero technical skill—all you have to do is answer a few questions about the purpose of your site and you’ll get a prebuilt site that’s ready for customization. Or you can choose a template you like and start adding your content through the drag-and-drop editor. GoDaddy doesn’t offer as many design options as some of its competitors, but the templates are clean and professional.

General Features

I’ve tested GoDaddy multiple times over the years and it only gets better and easier to use. I tried out the prebuilt site, which is great to use as a jumping-off point, but I prefer to have a little more control over the look and feel of my website. This time, I used one of the templates to create a video game coaching site with the ability to accept online appointments. Each time I added a new section that required more setup, GoDaddy’s site builder sent me to the right area automatically.

Compared to other site builders, GoDaddy is as easy to use as its competitors. The main menu lives on the right side, but that didn’t derail me much. Changing navigation details such as my favicon or social media info all exist in the settings menu. Once I finished designing my site and adding my content, I decided I didn’t like the template (I can be fickle), so I swapped out the theme. Much to my relief, all my content remained. I also realized something that I take for granted: GoDaddy’s site builder auto-saves.

Extras

I already mentioned that you can build a site for accepting online appointments, but there are also options to set up an e-commerce site and restaurant reservations. As far as I could tell, the only way to set up subscriptions is via a third-party app.

Although we aren’t actively scoring AI assistance, I did test some of GoDaddy’s AI tools. The recommended professional description for a service I added was spot-on, though a bit generic. At the very least, it saved me a bit of time writing a full description. I tried some of the other voices offered and that’s when the AI tool kind of fell apart. The humorous option was way off base, while the encouraging one simply added an exclamation point to the professional option.

Pricing

The cost of a GoDaddy plan is reasonable compared to other website builders. There’s a free plan, which is nice if you just want to test out the site builder and tools, but I’d never use it for an actual website because you can’t connect a unique domain name and GoDaddy ads are placed on the site. The introductory pricing for all plans is decent and good for the first year you sign up, but it’s most generous for the Premium plan (you save 34%).

If I were only going to create a website for personal use, the Basic plan would be enough for me. However, I like that GoDaddy includes email marketing tools and the best value for my money would be the Premium plan, which offers 25,000 email sends per month versus the Basic plan’s 100 sends.

Reputation

GoDaddy has always received mixed reviews from users and experts alike. For years, the biggest complaints about GoDaddy have been poor customer service and hidden fees. In my experience, customer support was helpful but it can take a while (it took me 40 minutes from start to finish to get a refund). Ratings across several sites and forums range from 1.07 to 4.4 out of five stars.

Standout Feature

GoDaddy website builder stands out for its appointment booking tool. This enables service-based businesses to accept online bookings easily. Plus, GoDaddy uses its technology to design a site based on your needs. It will even add stock images related to your site or business theme.

Who Should Use It?

GoDaddy offers features specifically for small businesses and online stores. Many of the marketing and SEO tools are built into the editor or dashboard, but not all come with your monthly plan.

Learn more: Read our full GoDaddy review.

	Basic	Premium	Commerce
Introductory Pricing (Billed Annually)	$10.99 per month	$14.99 per month	$20.99 per month
Renewal Pricing (Billed Annually)	$12.99 per month	$22.99 per month	$26.99 per month
Connect a Customer Domain	✓	✓	✓
Free SSL Certificate	✓	✓	✓
Sell Physical Goods	✓	✓	✓
Sell Subscriptions	✓	✓	✓
Sell Digital Goods	✓	✓	✓
SEO Tools	‘-	✓	✓
Email Marketing	100 sends per month	25,000 sends per month	100,000 sends per month
24/7 Support	✓	✓	✓

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GoDaddy’s feature-rich Basic plan is suitable for most businesses looking to build a professional website. The biggest difference between the plans is the number of emails you can send per month. All plans come with built-in email marketing that enables you to capture leads on your site and automatically send email campaigns. However, the Basic plan has a maximum of 100 email sends per month, whereas the Premium plan has a maximum of 25,000 and the Commerce plan allows for 100,000

Why We Picked It

IONOS is better known as a web host, but its website builder MyWebsite competes with some of the most popular standalone builders. The interface is intuitive, and the drag-and-drop functionality makes it easy for anyone to use. New users get a deep discount on the first six months with IONOS, and renewals aren’t that pricey (starting at $6 per month, for the first six months and then $12 per month for the last six months).

General Features

I’ve used IONOS as a web hosting service and its website builder reminds me a lot of site builders used in conjunction with add-ons like Elementor. I tried to sign up for an account, but I got an error with my address multiple times. To test the website builder, I borrowed a login from a friend.

Starting a website with the MyWebsite Now from IONOS is easier than most website builders. I simply filled out fields, chose a theme I liked and the site builder populated a lot of the design for me. I replaced text and photos with my own content and that was it. Adding new elements was just a matter of pointing and clicking or dragging and dropping.

The biggest benefit to using IONOS for building a website is that it includes many of the features that would require plugins otherwise. For example, you have the option to create different kinds of content for different audiences that visit your website if you choose the Plus or Pro plan. There’s also an SEO “coach” feature that kind of mimics what Yoast does for WordPress users.

Extras

Although I found the website builder easy to use (it’s similar to Elementor, in my opinion), there are some trade-offs you might notice if you choose IONOS over other site builders. There’s no built-in email marketing tool and SEO tools are only available on higher-priced plans. I played around a little with IONOS’ AI tools and it works similarly to other site builders’ AI. I used different tones and chose the wording that best fit my site, but in the end, I edited it so much that I probably should’ve just written my descriptions from scratch to start.

Also, there are only a handful of integrations you can use with IONOS, which I think limits your abilities to personalize and monetize a website. There’s another limiting factor that I didn’t run into, but only because the account I was using was on the Plus plan: You can’t move elements around inside a section if you’re on the Starter plan.

Pricing

If I could dock points to website builders that make their plan costs confusing, I would, but we don’t do that here. IONOS gives a hefty discount for all of its plans, but only for the first six months and then you pay the regular rate. Going from $1 per month for six months to $18 per month is a bit of a shock for your pocketbook. When you strip away the intro prices, IONOS is more expensive than some of the more popular website builders.

On top of the confusing pricing, IONOS also offers add-ons at strange introductory rates. For example, when I signed up for the Plus plan (for the website builder product), I got a free domain name (for one year) and I thought I would get the AI-assisted SEO “coaching” tool, but it’s actually $10 per month for six months and then $30 per month (oh, but the first month is free). My head was spinning and I think I wore out my calculator.

Reputation

I can see why IONOS gets a grab bag of excellent, fair and poor reviews from customers. I contacted support via live chat to find out why I couldn’t sign up for an account, but the agent I spoke with was of no help; they gave me a phone number and told me to call support instead. And though no one was able to fix the issue I had, support was prompt, at least.

Ratings from users and reviewers range from 1.08 to 4.8, but IONOS is both a web host and a website builder. So, I dug deeper into user reviews to see what people really thought of the site builder itself. It turns out customers have mixed feelings about the user interface (UI); most users find it easy to use, while others say it’s confusing.

Standout Feature

On IONOS’ Pro plan, you can create personalized content for specific visitors. So, first-time visitors will see something different than return visitors. Or you can set it up to display content differently based on sales, holidays or other specific events.

Who Should Use It?

Though its entry-level plan isn’t suitable for professional use as it has a 10 web page maximum, its mid-tier plan is more affordable and feature-rich. For that reason, it’s a good choice for budget-strapped startups that need an easy way to quickly build and launch a new website.

Learn more: Read our full IONOS review.

Why We Picked It

Squarespace is one of the most popular and best website builders because it’s packed with useful features. You can create an online store, blog, portfolio site, a small business website or a membership site. The editor is user-friendly, but it may take a while to learn the location of menus and features. It’s kind of a cross between a drag-and-drop editor and a point-and-click editor.

General Features

Squarespace is best known for its award-winning templates and easy-to-use site editor. I’m a fan of the clean and modern designs that Squarespace offers, though I can see how they all look a little similar and generic. As soon as I added my own logo and some images that made sense for my site, it felt more like my site.

I’ve used Squarespace to build sites before and the drag-and-drop editor is still intuitive to me. With that said, it requires multiple clicks to get to some features, so it can be a bit tedious to use. In a way, Squarespace’s builder reminds me of using WordPress with Elementor to build blocks, but Squarespace groups elements together so you aren’t building everything from scratch. For example, I was able to quickly add an appointment booking section without having to add all the fields one at a time.

I also had no trouble adding a blog or turning my site into an e-commerce store. It was simple enough to figure out where to add meta descriptions and titles for blog posts and, though it took a while for photos to show up, I was able to add some royalty-free images from the built-in Unsplash photo tool.

Extras

What I like best about Squarespace is that it’s an all-in-one website builder, so there’s little need to shop around for plugins and other tools to create and promote my site. I was able to create emails for my audience and set up automations with triggers so I could just set it and forget it.

Though there’s little need for other tools, I did like that I was able to add extensions (integrations) to Squarespace. I connected a product review app that can automatically collect reviews from customers. It was a one-click installation, so it should be easy for anyone to set these integrations up.

Adding a service-based section to require appointments was as easy for me as creating a website. I simply followed the prompts to set up my Acuity Scheduling page and noted that Squarespace let me use a copy button to set the same time for all the days I had availability.

Squarespace also includes tools for creating a members-only section and Tock, an addon for accepting reservations, which is vital for some restaurants. There’s also an option to find a professional designer to create a Squarespace website for you. I like that there’s an option for this, but I didn’t find it necessary because Squarespace is so easy to use.

Pricing

Depending on which website builders you compare to Squarespace, it’s either on par with others for cost or far more expensive; I rarely find Squarespace the cheapest option. Website building plans range from $16 to $49 per month, billed annually. For professional design services, costs vary depending on the designer’s rate; membership sites range in price from $9 per month to $89 per month, billed annually; Acuity Scheduling costs $16 to $49 per month, billed annually; and Tock ranges from $99 per month to $899 per month, billed annually.

Reputation

Looking at star ratings across the internet, it’s a mixed bag: Squarespace gets as low as 1.4 to mediocre at 3.5 and as high as 4.6 (all out of five stars). This is why I looked at individual reviews to get a sense of why users rate it so high or low.

While I personally like Squarespace, I admittedly haven’t run into the issues other users have. Many users have reported that canceling the auto-renewal of subscriptions on Squarespace can be challenging. Another common issue that users have is that Squarespace can be frustrating to use if you want full control. On the flip side, there are plenty of Squarespace user reviews that call out how easy and quick it is to get a website up and running.

Standout Feature

Squarespace lets you enable accelerated mobile pages (AMP), which lightens the load of blog pages. Reducing the size of images, using a specific font and removing custom code speeds up loading time on mobile phones.

Who Should Use It?

Squarespace is one of the best website builders for creatives—photographers, designers and other artists would do well with a Squarespace design. It’s also a good choice for an online store, especially with specialty features like the limited availability labels.

Learn more: Read our full Squarespace review.

	Personal	Business	Commerce	Commerce Advanced
Pricing	$16 per month (billed annually) or $23 per month (billed monthly)	$23 per month (billed annually) or $33 per month (billed monthly)	$27 per month (billed annually) or $36 per month (billed monthly)	$49 per month (billed annually) or $65 per month (billed annually)
Unlimited Bandwidth	✓	✓	✓	✓
Free Domain Name	✓ (with annual plans)	✓ (with annual plans)	✓ (with annual plans)	✓ (with annual plans)
Free SSL Certificate	✓	✓	✓	✓
Integrated E-commerce	–	✓	✓	✓
Transaction Fees	–	3%	0%	0%
Advanced Shipping	–	–	–	✓
Support	24/7	24/7	24/7	24/7

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Though Squarespace isn’t the cheapest website builder on the market, every plan is suitable for professional use. That said, many businesses will find that even its entry-level plan is a good value as it is packed with features from an extensive template library to a free domain and SSL certificate. Businesses looking to sell online will find its Basic Commerce plan worth the price as it has zero transaction fees, which can save a good deal of money.

Why We Picked It

HostGator is one of the most affordable options of all the best website builders. The editor itself is simple to use. The true drag-and-drop editor is intuitive and allows you to drag an element anywhere on the page you’d like.

General Features

HostGator’s templates are generic but customizable, so you can change the look of your website to make it unique. I counted more than 200 themes, so there are a lot of options. In regards to the actual website builder, I’d say HostGator fashioned its app like other built-in website builders that web hosts use. To me, it’s a lot like Elementor, but with fewer options. I had access to elements such as buttons, text, images, video and maps.

As far as designing a website with HostGator’s editor, I had zero issues. The tutorial is fairly detailed, so I was able to follow along easily or venture out on my own. I added elements to a page and then resized as needed, which is nice for design freedom. With that said, I kind of like having a snap-and-lock style of editor because I’m not the best designer and if given full reign, I might not leave any white space on a page (for those who don’t know, that’s bad design).

Extras

While HostGator offers tools to help with SEO, email marketing, e-commerce and malware protection, they’re all add-ons that cost extra. In fact, the only thing you get that’s considered “extra” is the ability to add a blog to your site. I will say that HostGator’s add-ons are easy to install and use, but I just can’t get past how much HostGator nickels and dimes you for features and tools that are often included at no extra charge with other website builders.

Pricing

HostGator’s introductory rates are meant to draw you in, but at checkout is when I realized just how pricey this option can be. The entry-level plan seems affordable at $3.75 per month, but you have to commit to three years and pay that up front, which is $135. After that, your rate increases to $9.99 per month on an annual basis, which is $119.88. Not bad at first glance. But I want site protection, backups and an SSL certificate, which all cost extra (a total of about $100 more per year). These “extras” are typically included in most competitors’ plans at no extra cost.

I want to mention that I spent so much time on HostGator’s site that it tried to entice me with an even better introductory rate: $2.75 per month (for a three-year contract). So, if you’re committed to using HostGator, try to get the lowest possible rate for your first long-term commitment. Also, finding the actual pricing for HostGator requires you to go through checkout, so it’s difficult to figure out what you’ll actually pay (read more on my experience with this frustrating design below). I had to use an incognito window to find out the actual pricing, by the way.

Reputation

I want to start by sharing my own experience with HostGator to help explain why users give the host and site builder low ratings. I signed up for one month hosting ($11.95) and one domain name ($0.99). I didn’t add on any additional services, yet a hosting add-on was in my subtotal for $14.95. There was no explanation of what that was for and I triple-checked the services I chose; there was no $14.95 option. I tried talking to a live chat agent and one phone support agent and neither of them could help. It turned out the third person was able to point to a slightly hidden option of domain privacy that was selected under a different tab. So, HostGator’s UI is a bit confusing, but it seems the company is trustworthy at least.

HostGator’s reputation is a bit up and down. User and reviewer ratings range from 1.8 to 4.2, but overall it’s middle of the road. Lots of complaints are regarding iffy refund policies, deleted files, IPs on blacklist and unauthorized charges.

Peter Garcia Leets, a digital marketer and web specialist and one of our advisory board members, also hasn’t had a good experience with HostGator’s customer service. “If anything goes wrong with their tools, settings or account, then it become really complicated and time-consuming for them to actually fix it,” he shared.

On the flip side, there are user reviews that praise customer support and low prices.

Standout Feature

HostGator includes a helpful tutorial to get you started using its editor. Although many other website builders have the same feature, HostGator’s is particularly detailed, so you likely won’t need to contact customer support.

Who Should Use It?

We’d suggest HostGator for personal projects, blogs or a simple small business website. It’s affordable and offers an easy-to-use editor, but it’s lacking in template options.

Read more: Read our full HostGator review.

Why We Picked It

Wix is one of the most popular website builders because it offers something for everyone. You can use the free plan to create a website, but you’ll be on a subdomain and have Wix display ads. The lowest-priced plan is a bit limiting, but you have access to lots of free apps to extend your site’s functionality.

General Features

I used Wix a long time ago and as I recall, I liked the simplicity of its site editor. The dashboard and site editor have changed slightly since then, so it was like I was a new user all over again. In fact, it took me a while to realize the button I needed to press to get to the website editor was in the top right corner, which didn’t feel intuitive to me. But to be fair, I had previous experience and my expectations were wrong.

Wix now uses sections to help you design a website, which can either be helpful or annoying. Adding sections is as easy as choosing the category of section, such as a welcome message and then the style of section. After that, you just drag and drop it into a cordoned off area and fill in with your content. A separate box with settings opens where you can adjust font, text size and effects in a text box, for example.

There’s a point during setup where you can choose the type of website you’re building (portfolio, blog, restaurant, online store, e.g.) and the prompt tells you that it will personalize your dashboard to fit your website’s goals. I changed mine from portfolio to blog to restaurant and nothing changed.

A new feature for Wix is an AI generator for design. I tested a welcome message for a restaurant site (Medieval Meals). I added a few key notes that should be included and the AI sort of got it right, though the image it chose made zero sense and the text was a little odd, so I needed to adjust both. I don’t think I’d use it in the future because it didn’t save me much time, but as it gets better in time, it could be a helpful tool.

The sections Wix offers are generic and I was a bit disappointed, but maybe my expectations were too high. I still think Wix is a great option for restaurants to build their websites, but there were no sections specifically for creating a menu, which was surprising. I had to build it from scratch.

I think one of my favorite features is the AI image creator that’s built into Wix’s site editor. I described the type of image I wanted and it created precisely what I needed. I would argue that the image creator is better than the text generator. The only thing I don’t love (and this is probably because of the snap-to-grid style of Wix’s site editor) is that I can’t position anything where I want it, like slightly left of center.

Extras

Wix offers so many extra features that many of its competitors don’t. In fact, I’d say Wix is probably the best option for restaurants and hotels that need a website because it includes specific features for these types of businesses. As far as the standard extras that I typically look for in a website builder, Wix offers almost all of them. I could easily add meta descriptions and titles and there’s built-in email marketing included in all paid plans.

The only thing that I was disappointed to see was that I couldn’t swap themes and keep my content. Honestly, I expected Wix to have changed this feature to keep up with competitors that allow you to switch website templates any time.

Pricing

I appreciate a few things about Wix’s pricing plans. First, the website builder offers a free plan, which is great for trying out the builder to see if it’s what you want. Second, pricing is fair given that the low-priced plan includes a free domain name for the first year, lead capture forms and email marketing features.

Although I would never choose the Business Elite plan, I appreciate that Wix includes so many features for development, e-commerce, data management and customized reporting tools. However, it’s $159 per month (billed annually), which is expensive for the industry.

Reputation

Wix fares well in user and reviewer ratings: The lowest rating I found was 3.7 and the highest at 4.9 (out of five stars). Personally, I’m a fan of Wix and its support. I had no trouble contacting an agent when I needed help figuring out how to connect my domain (which is an easy process, but I needed to test support).

Standout Feature

Wix offers one of the biggest template libraries for an all-in-one website builder. There’s more than 900 designer-created templates. Not all of them are winners—some look very dated—but most are modern and fit for multiple industries.

Who should use it?

Wix is a great option for new small business owners, especially those who want to try running an online store. Although the e-commerce plans seem pricey, Wix’s plans are comparable to competitors.

Learn more: Read our full Wix review.

Why We Picked It

Shopify is primarily an e-commerce website builder. All of the paid plans come with built-in shopping carts and marketing features to help you sell online. There are only nine free e-commerce templates from which you can choose. If you don’t mind paying, there are dozens of premium templates available, but they cost about $100 on average.

General Features

Although it’s been a while since I last created an online store and website using Shopify, it was just as or even easier than I remember. I used the guided walkthrough to create my store and add products.

Adding a product is technically easy to do, but it’s a tedious process because of all the fields and options available. I spent about 30 minutes per product because I added a SKU, barcode, pricing, photos, description and category. After adding a few products, it got a little faster thanks to muscle memory. Shopify includes a preview of what your product page looks like when it comes up in search engine results, which helped me decide to edit the description to make it shorter. The only thing I wish Shopify would add is an autosave.

Although Shopify is easy to use, I found it less intuitive than other website builders. It wasn’t entirely clear where I should look for my actual website and the editor. I could’ve clicked on every option in the left-hand menu, but I saved myself time by searching the help center. I started by changing my theme (it was several years old) and that’s when I remembered that Shopify only offers about a dozen free themes. The best news is that I was able to swap my theme and keep my content.

Editing my site and store on Shopify became easier over time. I ran into a few errors (twice while trying to browse free images). A frustrating part of using Shopify’s site editor is that you have to create color schemes for your theme. I get why Shopify does this; forcing you to use a color scheme creates consistency across your site. Personally, I just want to change individual elements to slightly different shades of the same color sometimes and I couldn’t.

Extras

There’s no denying that Shopify is one of the best website builders for selling physical products, whether you’re shipping items yourself or dropshipping. One thing I couldn’t do on Shopify is sell subscriptions without using an app from Shopify’s marketplace, which costs extra to that third-party seller. Once upon a time, I wasn’t able to sell online courses through Shopify, but that’s an available feature now.

Pricing

I’ll be the first one to point out that Shopify seems a bit expensive compared to other website builders, but you get a lot of value from each plan. It’s also worth noting that Shopify hasn’t increased its prices in years; the low-priced plan has been $29 per month (billed annually) for as long as I can remember. One of the biggest benefits of choosing a higher-priced plan is the discount you get on payment processing rates, but this is only relevant if you have a higher volume of sales. Other benefits are for businesses with multiple inventory locations and global sales.

With all that above being said, I’m a fan of the Shopify Starter plan. At $5 per month, I can add products and a buy button to my existing site, which is really all I need. I can also use the Shopify app to accept credit card payments when I sell my products in person.

Reputation

Overall, Shopify gets excellent reviews for its site editor and features. It’s recognized as one of the pioneers of e-commerce and it remains high on many lists as one of the best e-commerce platforms. With that said, Shopify ranges in five-star ratings from 1.5 to 4.7.

Users mostly complain about slow responses from support and holds on funds. While I can’t personally check the validity of these complaints, I think it’s safe to assume that every service receives similar complaints. As far as praise goes, Shopify users say the platform is easy to use and offers good support when needed.

Standout Feature

Shopify Starter costs $5 per month and allows you to add a buy button to a site you already own, your social media or sell in person with the Shopify point-of-sale mobile app.

Who Should Use It?

Only serious e-commerce small businesses should consider Shopify. It’s meant for building online stores, not just websites. It’s an ideal solution for brick-and-mortar businesses that want to sell inventory online too.

Learn more: Read our full Shopify review.

	Basic	Shopify	Advanced
Pricing (Billed Annually)	$29 per month	$79 per month	$299 per month
Pricing (Billed Monthly	$39 per month	$105 per month	$399 per month
Unlimited Bandwidth	✓	✓	✓
Sell Online	✓	✓	✓
Online Transaction Fees	2.9% plus 30 cents USD	2.7% plus 30 cents USD	2.5% plus 30 cents USD
Inventory Locations	Up to 1,000	Up to 1,000	Up to 1,000
Max. Staff Accounts	Two	Five	15
Support	24/7	24/7	24/7

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Read our full guide to learn more about Shopify pricing and plans.

Why We Picked It

Zyro is a website builder with one of the lowest introductory prices we’ve seen. To take advantage of the low cost, you have to agree to a four-year contract. You’ll get your choice of at least 150 free templates to get you started on your website. The designs are clean and rely on hero images to anchor the designs.

General Features

Zyro became part of the Hostinger family recently, which means you should have access to the Zyro website builder whether you sign up with Zyro or Hostinger (it all ended up being Hostinger in the end for me). I’ve had previous experience with Zyro (back in 2022 before Hostinger took over) and I liked its ease of use and AI-powered tools. It’s a bit different now with more help from AI.

I started by letting Zyro create my website based on a description and some keywords and I was mostly satisfied with the result. Not all the text was spot-on and the site it created was a bit generic, but I just modified what I didn’t like. This might seem like an odd thing to get excited about, but I was giddy about the ability to adjust the leading by dragging a group of text up or down in a text box. Typically kerning (spacing between letters) and leading (vertical spacing between sentences or paragraphs) is a style you can adjust by numbers. This small feature makes it easy for visual people (like me) to get everything right where you want it.

Zyro includes SEO guidance in each page’s settings, which is a nice addition. After making changes to a page, the built-in guide let me know when I got it just right with my content length, keywords and image alt tags. With that said, it didn’t assess the quality of my content. I’m not sure writing about my Golden Retriever and Foxhound did much for the organic skincare website I was working on.

Overall, Zyro’s website builder is easy to use. The AI tools saved me some time with design and I enjoyed the process. I feel like I could design a website I like with Zyro, but other website builders tend to offer more elements and a little more freedom with design. Plus, I couldn’t swap out my AI-built theme for a pre-built one that Zyro offers and keep my content.

Although I liked building a site with Zyro, I didn’t get a chance to try all the features because I kept running into reloading errors and some sections didn’t load to begin with (more on that below).

Extras

Perhaps it was just server lag, but I couldn’t create my online store for at least a full minute. The site just hung, as though frozen, when I clicked “continue.” It finally finished loading and I was able to add products and fill out my shop. Once again, it seemed as though I’d run into lag issues, but it turned out I hadn’t scrolled down to add a price. Nothing indicated that I had unfinished fields until I scrolled. I’m going to chalk this up to Zyro not being as intuitive as it usually is.

One of the newest features in Zyro is built-in marketing. Naturally, I thought this meant email marketing tools, but no. It’s just integrations with social media channels for advertising. The closest thing you get to added marketing tools is a contact form and a subscribe button for lead generation.

Pricing

To get the best value-to-cost ratio, I suggest you choose the longest-term plan available. It’s a little expensive on the front end, but you’ll get one of the best deals for a website and hosting available. Zyro’s low-priced plan costs $2.99 per month if you choose a four-year contract, but you have to pay that total upfront. The month-to-month plan is standard for the industry at $11.99 per month, but it comes with a $4.99 setup fee, which makes it more expensive for the first month than most of Zyro’s competitors.

It might be worth noting that Zyro/Hostinger offers a discount if you meet all of its checklist requirements within 24 hours of signing up.

Reputation

Zyro receives decent reviews that average around 3.75 on a five-star scale. To be fair, most of the positive user reviews came before Zyro joined the Hostinger team. A lot of the issues users seem to report on are regarding the changes that came after the fact, such as discontinued plans and features and lack of support. It’s still an easy-to-use platform and many users note that there are enhanced features.

Standout Feature

Zyro offers a tool that allows you to import an existing website to its platform. It’ll pull in the content from the site to its site builder, so you can essentially plug the content into a new design quickly and easily.

Who Should Use It?

Zyro seems like a good fit for first-time website creators that don’t plan to add a lot of content. Its editor is very easy to use, and the price is attractive. However, it’s a long commitment to get the low price.

Learn more: Read our full Zyro review.

Why We Picked It

First, we’d like to be clear that the WordPress we’re recommending here is the open-source free content management system (CMS) from WordPress.org, not the site builder of the same name at WordPress.com. The popular CMS is also one of the best website builders because of how much flexibility and freedom you get with the platform.

General Features

To start, I should tell you that I use WordPress for my personal website and it works well for my needs. I should also tell you that I hate building websites from scratch. Given that information, it would make much more sense for me to use Wix or Squarespace, both of which I enjoy using. However, it’s hard to ignore the freedom and flexibility I have with WordPress.

Using WordPress without any plugins is difficult if you have no experience building websites. I prefer to use it with Elementor, a plugin that gives you a drag-and-drop site editor. Without plugins, I get frustrated. Still, it’s possible.

I started by connecting my domain and installed WordPress (keep in mind that you need a web host for all of this). Then I chose a theme. WordPress offers seemingly countless themes you can use for free (and many more that cost around $100 each). I went with the basic Twenty Twenty-Four theme for testing purposes, but I suggest choosing one that’s tried and true (like Astra).

The standard editor isn’t true drag-and-drop, but you can drag elements onto a page you’re customizing. Mostly WordPress uses a point-and-click style of editing, which is still easy but tedious, in my opinion. A lot of page building in WordPress happens in the settings menu where you can add a site title, tagline and custom URL.

Perhaps the bit I like the least about building a website with WordPress is how exhausting it is. You have to remember to click save or you’ll lose work. I also have to bounce back and forth between creating pages, adjusting the settings, going to the appearance section and creating menus and so on. Blogging on WordPress, on the other hand, is very easy, but that makes sense because WordPress started out as a free blogging platform.

Extras

The extras in WordPress are really just the free themes that are packaged with the platform. For e-commerce, lead generation, email marketing and SEO tools, you’ll need to find plugins. The good news is there are a bunch of free plugins you can use to set up your site, but if you aren’t tech-savvy, it could prove difficult.

Pricing

You can’t get better than free. As a website builder, WordPress is free to use. However, it isn’t free to get your site online. You’ll need to pay for hosting and premium themes or plugins to make building your site easier and better. Don’t forget to register a domain name and buy an SSL certificate. These extras may add up, but generally, it’s much cheaper to create a website this way than with an all-in-one website builder.

Reputation

It’s difficult to tell you what the overall opinion of WordPress as a website builder is because it’s easy to confuse WordPress.org (the platform) with WordPress.com (the hosted site builder). Ratings tend to range from 2.5 to 4.9, but overall WordPress is a popular platform with professional website builders. Users who are new to website creation say it isn’t user-friendly and there’s no support. And the thing is, they aren’t wrong. I have lots of experience building websites and I won’t do it without plugins. Plus, there is no support beyond the community because WordPress.org is a free and open-source platform.

Standout Feature

You won’t find a more customizable website builder than WordPress. The only caveat is that you may need to hire a freelancer to help code your website to make it do what you want or learn how to use the right combination of plugins to get what you want.

Who Should Use It?

WordPress isn’t difficult to use by any means, but it isn’t as easy as the all-in-one website builders. If you have some tech know-how and you want a customized website with web hosting of your choosing, then WordPress is good for you—whether you want an info-only site or an online store.

Learn more: Read our WordPress review.

WordPress is a free open source content management system (CMS); however, that does not mean it won’t cost anything to build and maintain a professional WordPress website. Not only do you need to secure web hosting from a third party, but you also need to purchase a domain name and an SSL certificate. On top of that, businesses also often end up paying for premium themes and plugins. Get more details in our guide to WordPress pricing.

Why We Picked It

Although Duda is an outlier in this list of the best website builders, it earns its spot with its simplicity, flexibility and unique features. The lowest-priced plan is $19 per month with no introductory discount. To add on an e-commerce store, you’ll pay an additional $7.25 per month, making this one of the pricer options of the top website builders.

General Features

To start, I find Duda one of the most intuitive drag-and-drop website builders around. I have minimal coding experience, so I appreciated that I could build a website easily with the templates and the WYSIWYG editor. I also liked that I had the option to customize my website with code, should I choose to go that route.

Given that Duda is meant for digital agencies, I was happy to see Duda includes a client management tool that allows you to bill clients as needed. There’s also a client portal, so clients can edit their own site (you get to control permissions) and view and pay their bill. I’d likely use Duda’s white labeling service to brand my platform to give it a more professional look too. On top of this, Duda offers packages with unlimited storage and bandwidth, which makes it ideal for those selling websites to businesses.

Extras

A unique feature of Duda is that it allows you to leave comments on pages. In my opinion, this is a helpful tool that acts as a sort of markup tool for teams. My colleague left a comment with a note to update the logo on the site, so I knew precisely what I needed to change before the site was ready to ship.

Pricing

Duda isn’t the cheapest website builder around but it is well worth the cost for agencies that sell digital services to others. The cost ranges from $19 per month, billed annually, to $149 per month, billed annually. One of the highest-priced plans, Agency, gives you four sites to start with, making it a great starter option and it’s the one I would choose if I wanted to sell my services

Reputation

It’s important to keep in mind that many user reviews come from people who are highly impressed or highly outraged by a service or their experience, so I don’t usually trust just a star rating. I checked Duda user reviews to see what the biggest complaints were to determine whether the star ratings were fair. Many users are frustrated with a lack of security features (it doesn’t offer multi-factor authentication), platform errors, slow support and difficulty canceling a subscription. A lot of the negative feedback is warranted but doesn’t speak to the quality of the service and platform.

Users who are happy with Duda understand what the service is meant for: digital agencies. It gets a lot of positive feedback about its ease of use, helpful support and client-centric tools. Ratings range from 2.5 to 4.8 on a five-star rating scale across multiple review sites.

Standout Features

You can create rules for visitors to your site and it gets fairly granular. For example, you can have specific content show for site visitors who are geographically near your business.  There’s also a content library that makes it easy for you to import content from a client’s existing website into a new design you’re creating.

Who Should Use It?

Due to Duda’s unique website personalization feature, it’s a good choice for businesses with multiple locations and sites that need to present different content to different site visitors. It’s also a good option for marketing agencies, given its white label options.

Learn more: Read our full Duda review.