How to choose the best website builder
There are so many builders of websites in the market, how do you know which is the right solution for you?
In this article, we will help you choose the best website builder reviewing the advantages and disadvantages of the most popular options.
- WordPress.org
- Wix
- Gator by HostGator
- BigCommerce
- Shopify
- Weebly
- Squarespace
- GoDaddy Website Builder
- WordPress.com
- BoldGrid
- 1 & 1 IONOS Website Builder
- Ucraft
Choose the best website builders- What to look for?
Before comparing the best builders of websites, we recommend that you write what you want to do with your website. What are your goals and what features you would like to see on your website?
For example, you can write things like: have a blog section, photo gallery, online store, reservation system, contact form, slider, etc.
If you are not sure of what you want, ask your competitors or other websites to get inspired.
Most website builders offer a drag-and-drop user interface to build your website. You can take advantage of test accounts to take a test drive before making your final decision.
Next, you should consider your growth options. Will you be adding regular updates to your website? Do you need a blog section? Would you be selling more products on your website in the future?
You must ensure that the website builder you choose is able to handle your needs as your business grows.
With that said, let's look at the major website creation platforms to make your website without hiring a developer.
1. WordPress
WordPress.org (also known as Word Hosted AutoPress) is the most popular website creation platform in the world. More than 28% of all websites on the Internet work with WordPress.
Note: There are two versions of WordPress available. There is WordPress.org and WordPress.com self-hosted. We'll talk about WordPress.com later in this article. You can also read our comparison of WordPress.org vs WordPress.com for more details.
The self-hosted WordPress tops our list of the best website builders because of its popularity, its powerful features, its scalability and its ease of use.
WordPress is the builder of open source and free websites. This means that you have the most control over your website compared to any other builder on this list.
Unlike other website builders, you will need a WordPress hosting account and host your own website (this is much easier than it seems).
Pros:
WordPress gives you complete control over every aspect of your website. It can be used to build any type of website. For example, an e-commerce store, community forums, a social network, a membership website and more.
There are thousands of prefabricated WordPress themes that you can use to design your website. It also has an amazing builder of drag-and-drop pages like Beaver Builder and Divi, which allow you to easily create your own page layouts.
Creating a page with the best Beaver Builder add-on to create pages
You'll also have access to over 50,000 free WordPress add-ons. These are like WordPress applications that add additional features and functions to your website.
WordPress is completely translated into dozens of languages and can be easily used to create multilingual websites.
Cons:
You will have to manage your own website, which means that you will need to familiarize yourself with a new system. This slight learning curve is easily overcome by most users, but at first, it feels a bit difficult.
You should also keep up with WordPress updates, add-on updates, and create backup copies.
Prices
WordPress software is available for free, but you will need a domain name and web hosting that normally costs $ 14.99 / year and $ 7.99 per month, respectively.
Fortunately, we have reached a special agreement for Techyaari User. You can start a website for only $ 2.75 per month with Bluehost, an official recommended WordPress hosting provider. They are offering our users a 60% discount on web hosting that comes with free SSL and a free domain name.
2. Wix
Wix is another popular website builder based on the cloud. It offers simple use combined with a robust set of options to simply build your web site.
Pros
Wix is a fully hosted platform so you will not have to pay for the hosting. You will get access to hundreds of templates to choose from for the design of your website. Each template is fully editable with its intuitive drag-and-drop site generator.
It also comes with dozens of free and paid applications that you can install on your website. These applications allow you to add new functions and functionalities to your website. Some of them are created by Wix, and others are created by external developers.
Wix offers a free set up with restricted bandwidth and storage. However, you can use this plan to test your drag-and-drop website generator. It does not include a domain name, so if you decide to keep your website, you may want to upgrade to a premium plan.
You also get a free SSL with all the Wix plans, but you will have to activate it for your website.
Cons
The Free and Connect Domain plans will display the Wix brand ads on your website. You must upgrade to your Combo or Unlimited plan to remove those ads.
If you ever decide to move your Wix website away, it will be quite difficult for you to do so.
Your Connect Domain plan, which costs $ 9.16 per month, only allows you to connect a custom domain name, so you'll still have to buy a domain name separately.
Prices
Wix offers a limited free plan with a Wix brand subdomain. You can connect a domain for $ 9.16 per month. Your combo plan starts at $ 14.95 / month and will give you a free domain name. The electronic commerce plan costs $ 26.25 per month.
If you are interested in how it compares to WordPress, see our comparison of Wix versus WordPress.
3. Gator by HostGator
Gator is a new website builder by HostGator, one of the most popular web hosting providers in the world. Gator Builder is an all-in-one website hosting and creative solution.
Pros
Gator is a fully hosted platform, so you do not have to worry about software, updates or backups.
It has an intuitive website builder that lets you choose from more than 200 professional website design templates. Each style comes with straightforward customization choices that you simply will set up from the builder itself.
You can edit any element on a page with a simple point-and-click interface. You can also drag and drop commonly used items such as images, videos, photo galleries, text, columns, maps, and contact forms.
You also have access to a library of built-in file photos, so you can find and add beautiful photos on your website.
All paid plans also include a free personalized domain name for your website. The e-commerce plan also comes with the ability to set up an online store and sell your products online.
Since Gator is a paid product, they do not sell your data or show any ads on your website.
Cons
Unlike some of the other options on the list, Gator does not have a free plan. They also do not offer a free trial.
Like other proprietary builders on the list, you can not hire a developer to help you significantly modify the design of your website or add new features to your website.
Prices
Gator paid for the plans from $ 3.84 per month, $ 5.99 per month for the premium and $ 9.22 for the electronic commerce plan.
Gator can be used to create a website for small businesses, a store with limited items or a photo gallery. However, it is no match for the power of the most popular website creator, WordPress.
4. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is one of the most powerful website creation platforms for building an online store. If you are looking to create an expanding e-commerce website, then BigCommerce is the platform for you. It comes with all the essential features incorporated, so you can keep overhead costs low and margins high.
Pros
BigCommerce is a fully hosted e-commerce solution, so you do not have to worry about speed, security or website updates. They manage the server and the technical side for you so you can concentrate on growing your business.
Unlike other hosted e-commerce solutions, BigCommerce has a native integration with WordPress that allows you to take advantage of WordPress's flexibility while leveraging BigCommerce's headless e-commerce power. In simple terms, your website will be fast and secure no matter how much traffic you receive.
BigCommerce integrates with all popular payment gateways, such as Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, Square, Amazon Pay, Visa Checkout, Chase Pay, Ayden and more. Unlike Shopify, BigCommerce does not charge a transaction fee for the use of these payment gateways.
You can start with one of its many prefabricated website templates and customize it to suit your needs using its simple drag-and-drop website generator.
BigCommerce comes with many built-in features to handle conversion rate optimization, such as cart abandonment, improved product search, product reviews, coupons and more.
The best part is the control panel that allows you to see the metrics to help you grow your business with confidence.
Cons
If you're just getting started, you'll see that BigCommerce has slightly higher prices than other builders of websites on the list.
Since it is a proprietary platform, migrating out of BigCommerce will be difficult.
Prices
BigCommerce comes with a free 15-day trial for all plans. Their basic plans are $ 29.95 per month, which include all the essential features you will need. You can upgrade to the plus set up, which costs $ 79.95 per month for additional conversion optimization features. Your professional plan costs $ 249.95 per month, which has all the advanced features you may need.
The best part of BigCommerce compared to Shopify and other third-party e-commerce platforms are that they have seamless integration with WordPress, which can be a great advantage if you want to combine the flexibility of WordPress with the power of BigCommerce.
5. Shopify
Shopify is a website builder designed specifically for online stores and e-commerce websites. Power more than half a million companies with 1 million active users. More than 40 billion dollars in products have been sold on the Shopify platform.
Pros
Shopify is a completely hosted all-in-one solution, meaning you do not have to worry about managing software, installing updates or keeping backups. Shopify does all that for you.
It offers an integrated payment resolution known as Shopify Payments. You can also add third-party payment gateways to accept payments.
As a creator of e-commerce websites, Shopify comes with complete inventory management, unlimited products, powerful statistics, easy marketing solutions, all carefully wrapped under one roof. They have hundreds of designs to choose from, and you will never need to add code.
With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, Shopify makes it easy to create a fully-fledged e-commerce store. They also offer POS in the store, allowing you to sell products in your location at the same time you accept all credit cards and take advantage of Shopify inventory, shipping, marketing, and statistical management tools.
You can even integrate Shopify into WordPress, which allows you to use both great solutions at the same time.
Cons
If it's just starting, it's possible that Shopify's prices are a little higher than other website creators on this list.
If you ever want to move your Shopify website away, it will be quite difficult to do so.
Prices
The basic Shopify arrange can value you $ 29 per month. You can upgrade it to Shopify for $ 79 per month or advanced Shopify for $ 299 per month. Shopify also offers a Shopify Lite plan for $ 9 per month, which basically allows you to add a purchase button on any website.
If you want an uncomplicated e-commerce website creator, Shopify may be the perfect option for you.
6. Weebly
Weebly is an easy-to-use website builder with tons of excellent designs. It includes a beautifully designed page builder that allows you to edit your website without learning any coding skills.
Pros
Weebly is a fully hosted platform, so you do not need to install and manage any software. They are responsible for hosting your website and managing all the software that runs on the server.
It comes with dozens of website designs to use as a starting point for your website. These magnificent designs are fully editable using Weebly's live page editor.
Weebly also comes with built-in support for electronic commerce. This allows you to easily create an online store and start selling.
Each Weebly site comes with built-in functions for contact forms, photo galleries, sliders and more. This allows you to easily add features to your website without any complicated configuration process.
Cons
Weebly is a completely hosted platform, so it is blocked to the functions they offer. You can not hire a developer or designer to add new functionality or function to your website.
Weebly charges 3% for transaction fees on every purchase made through its e-commerce store. You must update your business plan to avoid these additional charges.
Prices
Weebly comes with a very basic free plan. Your paid plans start at $ 8 per month billed annually. The professional plan costs $ 12 per month and the business plan costs $ 25 per month.
If you're wondering how it compares to WordPress, then check out our comparison of Weebly and WordPress.
7. Squarespace
Squarespace is a popular fully hosted website builder, known for its excellent designs and ease of use.
Pros
Squarespace comes with a business-level infrastructure to host your website. This secure and strong platform permits you to target growing your business without concern about hosting.
Squarespace includes tons of website designs, to begin with. All these designs are completely ready for all types of content. They are fully editable, and Squarespace even allows you to use several templates for the same website at the same time.
Adding content to your website is very easy in Squarespace. Simply point to any place on your website and start typing. You can drag and drop items on pages to create your own designs in minutes.
Squarespace also has an e-commerce plan that allows you to add an online store to your website. It offers a nice interface to manage your products, inventory, orders, coupon discounts and more.
Cons
Squarespace offers limited integrations with third-party services, which can be an obstacle to the growth of your business.
Your e-commerce plans only allow Stripe, Apple Pay and PayPal to process payments. You can not add additional payment gateways.
Prices
Squarespace websites start at $ 12 per month and $ 18 per month. Their online stores start at $ 26 and $ 40 per month.
Squarespace is a beautifully designed platform that offers very easy-to-use features. It is good if you simply wish to quickly build a web site.
If you're wondering how it compares to WordPress, then take a look at our comparison of Squarespace vs. WordPress.
8. GoDaddy Website Builder
GoDaddy is one of the largest domain names and hosting service providers in the world. They offer a simple and elegant website creator with hosting included.
Pros
GoDaddy Website Builder is a simple and easy tool to create professional looking websites. It comes preloaded with several ready-to-use blocks that you can drag and drop to create different designs.
It also has a photo library integrated with professional Getty Photography images that you can use on your website. You can additionally transfer your own photos and build image galleries.
The builder of GoDaddy websites also works on smaller screens. This allows you to work on your website while traveling using your mobile phone or tablet.
Cons
It is not as rich in features and flexible as most of the other website creators on this list. It offers a limited set of features with fewer design options.
It is quite troublesome to move your web site from GoDaddy web site Builder to WordPress.
Prices
The personal plan costs $ 5.99 / month, the business plan for $ 9.99 / month and the business plus plan for $ 14.99 / month. All plans are billed annually.
GoDaddy web site Builder is used for a basic website with many pages. However, building rich content websites is not a good option.
9. WordPress.com
WordPress.com is a blog and website hosting service managed by Automattic. It is created by Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of open source software WordPress, hence the name WordPress.com. For more information, see our article on how WordPress.com and WordPress.org relate.
However, WordPress.com is not the same as WordPress.org. Please see our comparison of WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org for more details.
Pros
WordPress.com is a website hosting service. Built on the same WordPress software but with a fully customized user experience. You do not have to worry about software and backups, because WordPress.com takes care of it.
Your free and paid plans have a different set of features. All plans enable users to settle on from hundreds of free and paid WordPress themes. Then you can use the built-in customizer to add the title of your site, use widgets, add navigation menus, etc.
It does not offer the same drag-and-drop functionality as other website builders. However, you can easily customize the designs to a certain extent.
Cons
You can not install add-ons or custom themes unless you upgrade to your business plan.
Premium plans and inferior plans do not have e-commerce functions or support of third-party advertising networks. With the business set up, you can use WooCommerce and third-party ad networks. However, you will still have to follow the terms and conditions of WordPress.com.
Prices
The basic plan is free but it is extremely limited. Your personal plan starts with $ 4 per month billed annually and includes a custom domain. The Premium plan costs $ 8.25 per month billed annually and gives you the ability to monetize your site and the advanced customization of the design. The business plan costs $ 24.92 per month billed annually and gives you the possibility of having personalized e-commerce complements.
10. BoldGrid
BoldGrid is a new type of website builder that is built on WordPress. It is available as a standalone WordPress add-on, as well as a suite of the fully hosted website builders.
Pros
BoldGrid is based on WordPress, so you get all the benefits of WordPress with personalized user experience. The BoldGrid website builder allows you to choose a professional design from your theme gallery.
After that, you'll customize those styles with a drag-and-drop customizer. You can purpose and click on on any item within the preview section to edit its properties. You can change colors, fonts, layouts, navigation menus and widgets with ease.
Do you need a staging website? BoldGrid creates one for you with a single click. This allows you to test your new designs, designs, add-ons, and themes before everyone can see them live.
It also comes with a full WYSIWYG page editor. No more guessing when editing your pages in WordPress. You will get exactly what you see in the editor window of your page. You can also use GridBlocks to simply drag and drop items to your page and create your own designs from scratch.
All BoldGrid themes are ready for WooCommerce. This allows you to easily create a showcase with the drag-and-drop BoldGrid builder (see our list of the best WooCommerce hosting companies).
Cons
BoldGrid runs on WordPress, so you'll still need a WordPress.org website hosted to use it.
But the good thing is that backups are included through BoldGrid backups, so you do not have to worry about that.
Prices
The basic complement of BoldGrid is available as a free download. You will need a WordPress hosting account and a domain name to install and use it. We recommend using InMotion Hosting because they are an official BoldGrid provider.
This means that you can easily configure BoldGrid with a few clicks on the InMotion Hosting platform.
If you want to use WordPress but with the ease of builder of drag-and-drop hosted websites, BoldGrid would be perfect for you.
11. 1 & 1 IONOS Website Builder
1 & 1 Website Builder is a premium website builder designed specifically for small businesses, individuals and startup websites.
Pros
The builder of IONOS 1 & 1 websites is a fully hosted solution to easily create a website in minutes. It comes with many professionally designed templates to make absolutely purposeful business websites.
All templates are compatible with mobile devices and your website will look great on all devices.
Select your industry to obtain a template that already contains the content that matches your needs. You can modify it as much as you want with an easy-to-use interface.
Each plan comes with a free domain name and its own brand email addresses. Support is available 24/7 by phone, live chat or email.
Cons
There are no third party extensions or extensions that you can install on your website for new features.
The builder of the website and the builder of the online store are two separate products. If you want to start an online store, then you must register with your online store builder.
Prices
They are running an offer of $ 1 for six months on all their plans. Regular prices start at $ 7 per month (Essential), $ 10 per month (Business) and $ 20 per month (Pro).
12. Ucraft
Ucraft offers an easy-to-use website builder for blogs and companies that want to add a shopping cart and start selling products.
Pros
Ucraft comes with a drag-and-drop web builder with dozens of templates to choose from. All website designs are fully compatible with mobile devices. Starting with a basic website takes only a few minutes and does not require technical skills.
They offer a limited free plan and allow you to add your own custom domain name. All paid plans include free domain registration.
All paid plans also include e-commerce functions with more than 70 payment methods to accept online payments. Other notable features include on-site search, Google Fonts, multi-currency stores, multilingual website, discount coupons and more.
Ucraft also has integrations available for various third-party tools and services such as Google Analytics, Live Chat, Zendesk, Intercom, and more.
Cons
There are enough integrations available, but it is only limited to those currently available.
The professional website plan allows you to add only 50 products at a time. You will need a Pro Shop plan to add more products.
Prices
Ucraft offers a limited free plan with the ability to connect your own domain name. Your paid plans start at $ 10 per month for Pro Website, $ 21 per month for Pro Shop, $ 39 per month for BigCommerce.
Our choice for the best website builder
After carefully evaluating the different builder of websites, we believe that WordPress outperforms them all in terms of overall performance, ease of use and flexibility.
Not only is it ideal for beginners. The best brands in the world are using WordPress on their websites. See many more reasons to choose WordPress as your website builder.
You can start with WordPress using Bluehost or read our step-by-step guide on how to make a website.
If you are looking to build an online store (e-commerce website), we recommend BigCommerce as the best solution, since it offers all the functions you will need at the best price.
We hope that this article has helped you choose the best website builder for your project.
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