The Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Best Website Builder

After countless hours spent testing the most popular website builders, this article provides a comprehensive overview of each to help you determine the best choice for your needs. For every website builder mentioned, there are numerous beginner tutorials available that can guide you in creating your website step-by-step.

Wix: The All-in-One Powerhouse

The first website builder on the list is Wix. With over 40% of the market share, Wix is the most used all-in-one website builder in the world. It's geared towards small businesses and individuals who are looking for a versatile tool to build pretty much any kind of website.

To create a website using Wix, you can start by answering a few simple questions, and Wix’s new AI tool will generate a custom template for you. Alternatively, you can simply choose a pre-designed template from their library.

To customize your website, you'll use Wix's simple drag-and-drop editor. You can rearrange elements by simply dragging them to a different position on the page. To add a new element, just drag it from the sidebar onto the page, customize it, and place it wherever you want. This builder offers great design flexibility, allowing you to position elements literally anywhere on the page with pixel-perfect precision. In comparison, other drag-and-drop website builders often restrict you to predefined guidelines, like a grid, which can limit your creative freedom.

What truly sets Wix apart from other platforms is the large variety of options you get. It offers a vast library of over 900 website templates, more than 800 apps in the Wix App Market, and a wide range of design elements for customization. While it's good to have many options, if you are completely new to building websites, the sheer number of possibilities and design freedom can be a bit overwhelming.

Pricing: - Free Plan: Allows you to publish a simple website on a Wix subdomain with Wix ads displayed on your page. - Light Plan ($17/month): Lets you publish on your own domain and removes the Wix ads. - Core & Business Plans ($29-$36/month): Needed for more storage or to accept payments. - Business Elite Plan ($159/month): Removes all limits.

Overall, Wix is a great option if you're looking for an all-in-one website builder with many templates and great flexibility in terms of design and features.

Squarespace: Where Design Meets Simplicity

The second website builder on this list is Squarespace. After Wix, Squarespace is the second largest all-in-one website builder and is often called the Apple of website builders because of its intuitive and clean design.

Creating a website with Squarespace is very similar to Wix. You can either use their new AI tool to build a custom template or choose a pre-designed template. Squarespace offers approximately 150 website templates, which is a significantly smaller selection compared to Wix. However, all of the templates look very artistic and modern, which is something Squarespace is known for.

To customize your website, you'll also be using a drag-and-drop editor, but it's a bit more restrictive. For example, you can only place elements inside a predefined grid. While this can feel a bit limiting sometimes, it also makes it a lot easier for beginners to create a clean layout. Squarespace strikes a good balance between ease of use and flexibility without being overly complicated for beginners.

Squarespace also has its own app marketplace called Squarespace Extensions. However, with only about four dozen extensions, it has far fewer options than Wix. In general, Squarespace focuses more on built-in features for a more streamlined experience. It's also very popular among artists, photographers, and designers looking to create a beautiful and clean portfolio website. It's also a good alternative to WordPress for starting a blog, as it allows you to create, manage, and optimize your blog content very easily without having to install a lot of extra plugins.

Pricing: - 14-Day Free Trial: Available to test the platform. - Personal Plan ($16/month): Basic features and the ability to accept payments with a 3% transaction fee. - Business Plan ($23/month): Unlocks more features and removes the transaction fee. - Commerce Plans ($27-$49/month): Offer even more features and fewer limits for online stores.

Overall, Squarespace is a great option if you're looking for an easy-to-use, all-in-one platform to build a beautiful website without needing maximum design freedom or tons of options for additional features.

Webflow: Maximum Creative Freedom for Designers

The next website builder to consider is Webflow. Like Wix and Squarespace, Webflow is an all-in-one website builder with a visual drag-and-drop editor. It's more geared towards professional web designers who want to create something completely custom and unique.

The editor feels more like a graphic design tool, kind of like Photoshop, compared to a typical website builder. With Webflow, you get maximum creative freedom and control over your designs. You can build almost anything you can imagine without needing to write any code. For those who like creating designs in Figma, Webflow has a plugin called "Sync Figma to Webflow" that lets you convert your Figma designs directly into a functioning website, and any changes you make in Figma will automatically be updated in Webflow.

Webflow also has a powerful content management system that allows you to create dynamic websites like blogs or portfolios. When it comes to templates, Webflow has an open marketplace with a massive selection of over 6,000 options. Some are free, but most cost between $50 and $130. There are also just over 100 apps available in the app marketplace to add extra functionality.

Pricing: - Free Plan: Publish on a Webflow.io domain, limited to two pages. - Basic Plan ($14/month): Use your own domain and add up to 150 pages. - CMS Plan ($23/month): Required for creating a blog or portfolio. - Business Plan ($39/month): For larger sites. - E-commerce Plans: Separate plans priced at $29, $74, and $212 per month.

Webflow is not the best choice if you're just looking to quickly set up a simple website. But if you want full design freedom and don't mind learning a more advanced tool, it's absolutely worth considering. It's especially amazing for designers who want to build stunning websites without needing a developer.

Shopify: The E-Commerce Specialist

Shopify is very different compared to the other options in this article because it's designed specifically for building online stores and e-commerce businesses. If the main focus of your website is not selling products online, then you don't need to consider Shopify. However, if you plan on building an online store, then Shopify is definitely one of the best options.

To build your store, you'll first have to choose a theme. Currently, there are over a dozen free themes and more than 200 premium themes, ranging from $100 to $500. Unlike the previous website builders, Shopify doesn't have a drag-and-drop builder. Instead, you'll add pre-designed sections to your page and then customize the layout and design through the options in the side menu. This limits your design freedom but also makes setting up your store very easy and quick. Plus, you won't have to spend additional time optimizing your website for mobile.

Where Shopify really shines is the backend of your online store. It's designed to simplify the complexities of running an e-commerce business with things like inventory management, order fulfillment, payment processing, customer email automation, and much more. Another big advantage of using Shopify is its massive App Store with over 8,000 apps, allowing you to add tons of additional features to your store.

Pricing: - 3-Day Free Trial: Followed by a three-month paid trial for $1 per month. - Plans: Range from $29 all the way up to $2,300 per month. The main difference is the transaction fee for every sale, so it makes sense to start with the Basic plan and upgrade as your sales grow.

If you want to build an online store easily and quickly and don't care so much about having a very customized design, Shopify is highly recommended.

Hostinger Website Builder: The Affordable All-rounder

Next is the Hostinger Website Builder. Hostinger is best known as a hosting company, but since 2019, it has also offered its own quite good website builder.

Just like Wix and Squarespace, Hostinger lets you create your own template using AI or choose from a library of approximately 150 pre-designed templates. You can customize your website using a simple drag-and-drop editor, which feels a bit like a simpler version of the Wix editor. You can also use this website builder to create a basic blog or a small e-commerce website.

Overall, the Hostinger Website Builder is simpler and offers fewer features compared to the more established builders. At the moment, there's also no dedicated app marketplace. However, Hostinger is rapidly adding new features and has a public roadmap where you can see which features are coming next.

One of the biggest reasons to choose the Hostinger Website Builder is the price. With their premium plan, you can build and run your website for as little as $2.49 per month. Keep in mind, though, that this price only applies for the first four years if you pay upfront, and after that, it renews at $7.99 per month. Even so, it's still much cheaper than most other options. You are essentially getting the convenience of an all-in-one website builder for the price of running a WordPress website. Because you're paying for a server that includes a website builder, you can create up to 100 websites on the same plan at no extra cost.

One downside is that Hostinger doesn't offer a free plan or a trial, but they do offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Overall, the Hostinger Website Builder is recommended if you're looking for a very affordable and simple tool to build one or multiple websites.

WordPress: The King of Content Management

The last option on this list is WordPress, which is still the most popular way to create and manage websites. In fact, over 40% of all websites are running on WordPress.

It's important to note that WordPress is not an all-in-one website builder. Instead, it's a free-to-use, open-source content management system that allows you to create and manage websites without needing to write any code. Because WordPress is not an all-in-one solution, it comes with additional responsibilities. You will have to manage things like hosting and security yourself, making it a bit more technical and harder to get started. For new users, it can feel overwhelming at first.

Nevertheless, WordPress has some major advantages. First, it has a massive ecosystem with an enormous collection of over 30,000 themes and a vast library of over 70,000 plugins. This gives you virtually unlimited options to customize and expand your website. You can also install a drag-and-drop website builder like Elementor, which makes designing your website much easier.

The second big advantage is that you'll actually own your website when using WordPress. You can download it and move it to any server whenever you like. With most website builders, you're locked into their platform. Finally, running a WordPress website is pretty affordable. The main cost is hosting, which you can get for just a few dollars per month, though some plugins or themes may come with additional costs.

Note: It is important to distinguish between WordPress.org (the free, self-hosted software) and WordPress.com (a for-profit hosting service). For full control and ownership, WordPress.org is the recommended path.

Overall, WordPress is a great choice if you want full control and ownership of your website with endless possibilities for the future, as long as you're willing to invest some time in learning how to use it. It remains the number one choice for anyone serious about starting a blog.

How to Choose the Right Website Builder for You

Each platform has its unique benefits, so it's important to consider your specific needs before making a final decision.

• Wix: A great choice if you're looking for an all-in-one platform with plenty of templates and great flexibility in design and features.
• Squarespace: A great option if you want a platform that has a good balance between ease of use and flexibility and offers a good amount of beautiful and artistic templates.
• Webflow: The best choice for professional web designers or anyone who values complete design freedom to create something truly unique.
• Shopify: The best platform for an e-commerce website where the main focus is selling products.
• Hostinger Website Builder: An excellent choice if you need an easy-to-use and very affordable tool to create simple websites.
• WordPress: The way to go if you want full control and ownership of your website with endless possibilities for the future.

For those with no budget, check out the providers that offer free plans, such as Wix and Webflow.