Build your website, no coding required
Create a website using simple tools from trusted website builders to design and host your website. The best website builders make it possible to create your own website without coding. How? They handle the coding and offer beautiful templates that you can easily customize with your own text, designs, visual contents, and more. Today, you can use a web builder to build your site, even if you’ve never built a website before.
Want to know the #1 best website builder right now?
Our top pick: Wix
The best website builder for most people and small businesses is Wix website builder.
Why we chose Wix:
Wix offers professional tools to host, design and build your own high-quality websites, whether you’re promoting your business as a small business owner, showcasing your work as an artist, or opening an online store to start selling online. It’s easy to use for beginners and comes with lots of features and professionally designed website templates built to meet your business needs.
Skip to: Top rated website builders | Website builder comparison | In-depth Website builder reviews, ratings and analysis | How to pick a website builder
With a good website builder, it’s easy to get started building your site: (1) Choose the best web builder for you (2) Select a template, edit or customize it as you like (3) Add everything else you need for business (4) Publish your website and go live online.
The whole process of building your site might seem easier than you thought, however, the not so easy part is finding the right builder for you and your website, as website makers differ in use circumstances, pricing and features. The big question then becomes, “What is the best website builder to use?”, instead of getting a list of top website creators.
What we cover in this review and guide
In this website builder reviews, ratings and buying guide, you will know which website builder is best for different use cases after rigorous testing across various categories of performances and learn how to choose the best website builder to build your site.
Here are the top-rated popular and best website builders of 2022
Top Rated Website Builders in 2022
Our top 6 website builder picks for 2022 are:
- Squarespace – Best overall
- Wix – Best for small business
- Weebly – Easiest for absolute beginners
- Shopify – Best for online store
- GoDaddy website builder is best for building basic websites
- WordPress is the best for blogs and content heavy sites that need solid CMS
Get your site up and running
We tested and compared top builders and platforms to build a website. Our recommendations are a range of trusted website builders that offer both free and paid options. Create everything from clean personal, or simple business websites to robust online stores. Each web builder has free plans you can use to get started.
Free and paid tools for a professional look:
Squarespace
Best overall builder for an all-in-one website solution.
Squarespace is the best website builder for creatives and creative small businesses.
Squarespace is the best all-around website builder for creatives such as artists, photographers, and creative small businesses like restaurants, decor and more. Its templates are more visually enhanced than other website makers and thousands of creatives and businesses in the creative industry agree it’s worth every penny.
Build a website, sell your crafts or services online and build your brand with Squarespace. From artists to photographers, portfolios and small businesses like restaurants, decor, DIY arts and crafts, Squarespace has the best tools and templates creatives need to build, design and host their website, create an online presence or build an online store to sell your crafts.
Is Squarespace right for you?
Who should use: If you need a website creator with the best templates to build beautiful and creative websites, Squarespace is the right choice for you. With designer inspired templates and simple commerce integration, Squarespace is a highly recommended website builder. If, however, you need an easy site builder for building simple or professional small business websites, Wix has a much easier to use tool for beginners.
Features
- Free plan: No (14 days trial)
- Ecommerce: Yes
- Easy to use
Wix
Best for small businesses of all types.
Wix is the world’s most popular, best and easiest website builder for small business. Its intuitive drag-and-drop site builder tools with robust CMS capabilities makes it a great choice for both small business owners and beginners to build professional websites.
With 500+ customizable and responsive templates, Wix is the perfect place to create a professional small business website, get business solutions with industry-leading SEO, advanced design features and pro tools to build and host your small business website.
Who should use: If you need a simple and affordable website builder to make a website for your business in the corporate or service niche, Wix is the right choice for you. The templates are professional looking packed with business services tools and easy ecommerce integration.
Why we picked Wix
Why we picked it: First off, Wix is a reputable web builder and hosting brand. But that’s not just it, Over the years, Wix has constantly improved its website tools and now features some of the most amazing apps to power small business websites. The user interface of the Wix site builder is really easy to use, beginners will find it easy to navigate.
Features
- Free plan: Yes
- Ecommerce: Yes
- Easy to use
Weebly
Easiest website creator with the best free and paid options for beginners.
Weebly has the easiest website builder with free and paid tools for complete beginners to build, design and host really simple websites.
With simple customizable designs, blogging features, domains and really robust eCommerce tools that are perfect for any online venture, Weebly’s simple yet powerful site builder makes it easy to create a professional website for business or online store.
Weebly is by far the simplest and easiest website builder for small and medium business. The free website builder plan is superior to both Wix and Squarespace, so you have enough resources to practice and build free websites.
Features
- Free website builder plan: Yes
- Ecommerce: Yes
- Very simple and easy to use
How to pick a website builder
Is a website builder right for you?
Website builders are service providers that allow anyone to build a website using simple tools. Using a web builder can be a great option for businesses and individuals to create a website with zero design or coding experience. Once you’ve decided a web builder is right for you, consider the following:
Consider your website and business needs
Some web builders are best suited for making professional small business websites, some for robust online stores and the rest are fit to create a simple portfolio or blog. Consider your site type and pick a builder for that purpose.
Your budget and time saving
Many site builders offer free web builder plans or trials depending on the type of website you’re creating. Choose a builder with plans you can afford. To save time, consider using free templates to get started quickly.
Ease of use and technical ability
Choose a beginner friendly website creator you can use with less complications. Some builders are specifically designed for beginners and novice users, while others require some sort of mastery or experience.
Other important considerations and checklists
Your web builder checklist
Here are some other common considerations to think about when choosing a site builder. Order these in the priority that makes sense for you and your business, and keep them in mind as you consider your options:
- Ease of Use
- Popularity
- Pricing
- Free plan
- Design flexibility
- Themes/templates
- Mobile site optimization
- Support
- Blogging
- E-commerce
- Newsletter creator
- Membership creator
- Mobile app
- Web hosting
Not sure which builder to choose?
Which web builder should you consider using?
The best tools for everyone differ. However, some website makers are more popular and feature rich than others. The DIY website-building industry is highly competitive, but there are only a few web builders that really deserve your time.
- If you are a beginner or just getting started building websites, the most basic website builder with entry level prices and features for most people and small businesses to create professional looking website is Wix.
- For creatives such as artists, musicians, photographers and restaurant owners looking to create a visually stunning site, the best website builder with amazing designs to choose from is Squarespace.
- If you want to create an online store or start an ecommerce business, Shopify has the best ecommerce site builder that’s easy to use.
- If you want to build a static and basic website for nonprofit organization, club or resume, GoDaddy website builder is the fastest and cheapest website maker for building basic no-frills websites.
Website Builder Comparison:
Compare top website builders and choose the best website creator to build your site
Compare top website creators and find the best website builder for you to create everything from personal or simple small business websites to robust online stores.
What is the Best Website Builder for 2022?
Some of the best website builders include Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, GoDaddy, WordPress and Shopify. Popular web builders like Wix and Weebly rank highly as the best platforms to build a website even if you’re a novice. Squarespace is well suited for creative or not so basic users, while Shopify tops the chart for building online stores.
After countless hours of review and trials of various web builder tools & software, the best website builder in 2022 is Wix website builder. This is because it is suitable for building all website types, easy to use for beginners and has lots of website design features including professional website templates to make website creation easy.
This is the most comprehensive website builder review and analysis, regardless of the type of tools you need to start, design and host your website. Our website builder analysis is based on core business website features such as clean website templates that are responsive and user friendly to create a professional website, ease-of-use, drag and drop functionality, SEO tools, ecommerce readiness, support and fair pricing. We compared over 30 site building tools and picked the top-rated ones according to their various categories of performance and use circumstances.
Here then is a reviewed list of the best website builders to use in 2022:
Best overall:
Squarespace
Best website builder for creatives and artists
Starting price: $12 per month | Drag-and-drop editor: Yes | Free plan: 14 Days free trial | E-commerce: Yes | E-commerce in entry-level plan: No
Squarespace is one of the best and most popular website builders for small businesses and people in the creative industry such as artists, photographers, restaurants and decor enthusiasts for a lot of reasons. First off, this is a website maker that lets you create personal or business websites with a host of features and creative designer templates, stunning visuals, ease of use and low-cost pricing.
In addition, if you wish to sell your products on your website, it allows you to add ecommerce functionality and a host of other features to help you also sell online.
Squarespace was founded in the dorm room at the University of Maryland in 2003.
Who is squarespace website builder best suited for?
- If you want to create a standard website for your creative business, arts or crafts.
- If you want to sell your products online on your website with ease.
- Events and wedding planners who are looking to build a wedding website to showcase their work and connect with customers.
- Photographers, artists, musicians and restaurant owners who want to build a personal or brand website without hiring a developer.
Things we like
- Free domain with website builder.
- It has a robust line of e-commerce and CRM (customer-relationship management) tools and features.
- The Basic commerce plan allows for an unlimited number of products.
Things we did not like
- It’s not the easiest drag and drop website builder to use, especially for beginners. You will need to get play with the visual WYSIWYG page editor a little to master it.
Squarespace Pricing
Squarespace basic personal plans start at $12/mo. and its basic commerce plan starts at $26/mo. You will have a 14days free trial to familiarize with the visual editor, after which you will be required to choose a website plan.
Why we picked squarespace as the best website builder
During the course of our test, we couldn’t help but notice the amazing additional features on squarespace. They are top notch, and very thoughtful.
Some outstanding features of squarespace include: design flexibility, template customization, blogging, photo galleries (very useful for portfolio sites), scheduling software, and even more unusual features like podcast hosting and ability to receive donations from your website.
Stunning media focused mobile responsive design templates.
Elegant, clean themes are the hallmark of Squarespace. Stunning would be a word to use when describing their templates. The website templates are high quality and creatively designed for various creatives ranging from small businesses to photography, musicians, weddings, blogging and crafts templates for Esty sellers.
Their websites are beautifully designed, attractive, and on target with modern day examples of website standards. Partly they achieve this with their highly visual, minimalistic style. You’re also given the option of beginning with a cover page for your website, which can give that important first impression.
Robust ecommerce and storefront features.
In our ecommerce feature testing, we found Squarespace has the most extensive set of product-management features around.
Squarespace is a good choice if you’re looking for an eCommerce option that isn’t overly complicated. You’ll find built-in functionality for shipping, taxes, accounting (Xero), chargebacks, discounts, checkout, customer resource management and other product specific additional info.
What you should know and points to consider
There’s a bit of a learning curve.
Squarespace does have a bit of a learning curve and may not be the ideal choice for a person who is just starting out. This is not entirely a con, but because Squarespace offers so much customization and control over fine details, it takes longer to learn how to use their program.
Is Squarespace easy to use?
Yes! Although you might find it challenging as a first timer, their walkthroughs and guides simplify the whole thing for you.
To edit certain aspects of the page that you’re currently viewing in the editor, like the page title or a content block, simply hover your cursor over the item you’d like to adjust and another set of menu options will appear.
In comparison: How Squarespace measures against other website builders in the same category of performance
Squarespace vs Wix vs Weebly
- Compared to Wix, Squarespace has well designed templates which makes it the best website builder for creatives. You would find Squarespace to be a more fitting website creator if you own a restaurant, design business or portfolio. Whereas, you would find Wix to be a more suitable option for you if you just want to build a co-operate website that looks professional.
- Many users agree that Squarespace Appstore selection is well tailored towards the creative minds as compared to Wix, Weebly and GoDaddy site builder which are more centric to small businesses.
Squarespace vs GoDaddy website builder
Unlike GoDaddy, which required us to use a separate website editor to create an ecommerce site, with Squarespace, you can create a blog, eCommerce or general website without limitations.
Overall, Squarespace won our vote as the best website maker because they beat out every other web building tools in terms of quality design, commerce integration and designs especially for creatives such as photographers, artists, musicians and restaurants to build beautiful websites for their business. Whether you want to build a website, sell online or build your brand, Squarespace web builder is a feature rich website builder that lets you bring your creative ideas to life.
Best for small business:
Wix
The best beginner friendly website builder for small businesses
Wix stood out to us as the best website builder overall for most people and small businesses who want to create a small business website for cheap.
Starting price: $14 per month | Drag-and-drop editor: Yes | Free plan: Yes | E-commerce: Yes | E-commerce in entry-level plan: No
Wix takes the lead as the best and most popular website builder platform well suited for most people and small businesses who want to get online fast and easy because of the way it balances simplicity, professionalism and affordability.
As one of the largest CMS options with over 110 million users in 190 countries, Wix has something for everyone. Whether you’re a business owner, musician, student, passionate blogger, or eCommerce entrepreneur, they provide all the tools and features you need to start your website from scratch and grow.
Who should use Wix website builder:
- If you are just starting out learning how to build a website
- If you are a small business owner in need of a basic DIY website builder to build your website.
- Beginners and starters.
- People who want to create professional looking websites without code or hiring a website developer.
Pros
- Free domain name with website builder.
- Easy to use.
- Lots of professionally designed website templates.
- Beginner friendly user interface.
- Artificial website design intelligence lets you create your website with the click of a button.
Cons
- Locked template means you cannot change website template once you publish your website.
Wix is often considered the best platform to build a website, based on user ratings, popularity and its constant appearance as the best site to create a website. Although that’s debatable for several reasons, you will find Wix a great choice if you want to build and design a simple personal or professional small business website.
Wix Pricing
The basic plan of Wix web builder tools starts at $9/month and its basic ecommerce plan starts at $17/mo. You can start for free (if you are comfortable with Wix ads running on your site) and upgrade later if you want to connect to your own custom domain name.
Is Wix easy to use?
Yes! Many customers agreed that Wix is easy to use. Online reviews also confirm that the website setup process is great for beginners.
How does Wix compare to other website makers of the same category of performance?
How does Wix compare to the rest of the other website builders in our test?
Wix vs Squarespace.
- You can create professional looking business websites with Wix, whereas Squarespace templates are primarily designed for creatives.
Wix vs Weebly.
- While Weebly has got the easiest website builder user interface for starters, you would find Wix more appealing if professionalism is of concern to your business.
Why we picked wix as the best small business website builder
Lots of professionally designed templates.
Wix has over 500 templates that cross many interests and industries. You can also create a design yourself using their blank templates.
The templates are well designed, sophisticated, and match current design standards. In fact, Wix often comes out with new features and designs that are intuitive and easy even for beginners.
Great features for photography, portfolio websites and artists.
For those interested in photography or sharing lots of images, you can create image galleries with 40 different layouts. You can also create private sections of your website that you only allow selected people to view.
For music lovers, you can share music through Spotify and Soundcloud integration, or sell your own music through Wix Music.
Ease of Use.
With the design drag-and-drop features, you don’t need extensive knowledge of coding. It runs right in your web browser and doesn’t require downloading any additional software.
Wix ADI (Artificial design intelligence).
Wix also has something truly unique called ADI – Artificial Design Intelligence. It’s like a design assistant. Once you’ve put in your content, it will create a polished looking website for you. Afterwards, you can continue to customize and change based on your own choosing.
Impressive ecommerce functionality.
In terms of ecommerce, Wix has a lot to offer. Their builder includes many features like customer email subscriptions, customer reviews, Google maps integration, contact forms, and more. Customers can also schedule bookings through your website.
Small business tools (App Market).
More recently, Wix has incorporated an App Market to allow for more functionality for site. Among these apps are things like a “comment section,” an “online store,” a “forum”, etc. You can even include Google AdSense and start making money online through advertisements.
What you should know and things to consider before using
Limited Storage.
If you’re looking for a LOT of storage, you may be disappointed with Wix. While some competitors offer unlimited storage, Wix starts a 500MB for their cheapest plan and caps out at 20GB with their most expensive plan.
Locked templates.
Another major downside to Wix’s customization is that templates can’t be changed. To change a website template, you would have to create a new website from your dashboard to choose the new design you like and probably start copying and pasting.
Overall, Wix website builder is no doubt one of the most popular, highly rated and best website builder in 2022 for small businesses and most people in need of a free or pro tool to build, host and design a professional looking website fast and easy. It combines ease of use with a powerful set of features and website builder templates to easily build your website. If you are looking for a simple website creator with lots of features to create a website for your small business, Wix is the best website builder for building basic small business websites.
We enjoyed using the Wix dashboard. All of the menus were intuitive, and there were dedicated hubs for almost everything including email, customer management, newsletters, Wix stores, SEO, and domain management.
Easiest for beginners:
Weebly
Simplest website builder for beginners and novice users
Weebly is one of the easiest website builders to use for building really simple business or personal sites. It’s easy-to-use site building tools, generous free and paid plans with robust ecommerce by Square makes it an affordable easy to use website builder for beginners.
If simplicity and ease of use is what matters to you the most in a website builder, you will find Weebly to be a perfect fit to build your website. Weebly is one of the top services available for building a website because of the unmatched simplicity of its website editor and ease of use.
Weebly is a beginner friendly simple website builder with an easy-to-use drag and drop page builder you can use to create your personal or business website.
In addition to that, Weebly is often considered a free website builder, because of how robust and generous its free site creator plans are.
Who should use Weebly?
- Beginners and starters in need of a really very simple website builder.
- Small or medium business owners who need more freedom and space better than what Wix offers.
- Small businesses or organizations are looking for a website builder that lets them add a large number of web pages.
- Ecommerce businesses.
- People who need a free website builder and hosting.
What we like
- It’s the simplest website builder to use.
- The free website builder plan on Weebly lets you create a free website without restrictions. You would still have to upgrade though, if you want to use your own custom domain.
- Free website builder with free domain.
- A very solid ecommerce platform to start selling online.
What we dislike
- It’s too basic (though that’s what makes it easy to use for beginners and new small business owners with no technical knowledge).
Weebly is based in San Francisco and was founded in 2007. It currently hosts over 40 million websites, and like Wix, they’re a strong presence in the DIY – Do it yourself website building market.
Weebly Pricing
Weebly basic plan starts at $5/mo. and goes all the way to $25/mo. for small business ecommerce plans. The free website builder plan lets you create a free website.
Is Weebly easy to use?
Yes! The foundation of Weebly is that it is the simplest website building platform online. In our testing, we found Weebly’s user interface very easy to navigate and beginners friendly.
What makes Weebly stand out
These are some of the things that set Weebly apart from its competitors:
- Weebly has one of the cheapest website builders plans available.
- Weebly lets you create a standard looking website for free, but with its branded domain of course.
- Weebly uses ecommerce by square for its online store builder, which is a top-notch service for seamless online payment processing.
- Their content management system is well laid out to support large websites. No jokes, you can have over 100 pages on a single Weebly site. No other website builder allows that.
Weebly vs Wix vs Squarespace
- In terms of simplicity and ease of use, Weebly is a clear winner as compared to Squarespace, GoDaddy and Wix.
- Although Weebly has got dozens of responsive mobile friendly themes that can make your blog, portfolio, or eCommerce site look classic, they are not as sophisticated as what you will see on Wix or Squarespace.
Best for online store:
Shopify
The best Ecommerce website builder for online store
When it comes to building online stores, Shopify beats every other website builder hands down as the best website builder for online stores. The obvious reason for this is because unlike the other website builder tools who try to be the all-in-one website building solution, Shopify was originally built as a small business ecommerce website builder.
Shopify is best for:
- Creating an online store.
- Businesses or individuals who wants to build a basic or full fledge ecommerce business.
- People who want to start drop shipping.
- People who need a low-cost ecommerce platform to start selling online.
Pros
- Entry level ecommerce plan to encourage small business owners.
- Lots of inbuilt ecommerce features to help you sell online.
Cons
- It’s not as cheap as the other website builders.
Shopify pricing
Shopify’s basic ecommerce plan for new businesses starts at $29/mo. and gives you everything you need to launch and manage your online store.
Is Shopify easy to use?
Yes! The Shopify ecommerce site builder user interface is pretty easy to use. Even as a beginner, you can set up an online store with Shopify ecommerce site builder.
Are there free online store templates that I can use?
Shopify has a library of well-crafted ecommerce templates to fit any kind of online store you want to start, from fashion, style and crafts to the more professional stores like digital products, visual designs and health. There are free and premium templates you can choose from.
What sets Shopify apart from the other website builders
- Shopify is a small business ecommerce website builder period!
- While the other website builders are primarily made to cater for individuals and small businesses who want to create their own website without code, Shopify was created with the sole aim of helping local store owners take their trade online.
Shopify vs Wix vs Weebly vs Squarespace
To compare Shopify with the likes of Wix, Squarespace and Weebly is like comparing MS Excel to MS word. The main difference between Shopify and other website builders such as Wix and Squarespace is: Shopify is a full fledge ecommerce website builder, while Wix, Squarespace and Weebly are website builders for small businesses of any kind.
Shopify is best compared against other full-fledged ecommerce site builders such as WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Squareup and Volusion.
Other website builder alternatives to consider
The following website builders passed our criteria, but didn’t stand out enough to earn our recommendation.
- WordPress (wordpress.com) is one of the most popular website builders on the market. If you need a complete CMS-type (content management system) solution and have a little more technical aptitude (or access to folks that do), WordPress is hard to beat.
- Jimdo (jimdo.com) is a close second to the best free website builder, Weebly. However, its lackluster templates and lack of live chat support made us think twice about pinning a ribbon on it.
- Zoho Sites offer an extensive degree of customization options for those who have a basic knowledge of code. However, it handles images poorly (which is a big no-no these days) and the templates are littered with cheesy stock photos.
What is a Website Builder?
Website builders (also known as “website makers”, “website creators” or “site builders”) are web tools that allow the construction of websites without manual code editing. They are typically online tools and software services provided by web hosting companies with drag and drop features to build your website online. Offline website builder software (known as “website design software”) runs on a computer to create and design pages, that can then be published online via a webhost.
Methodology
To help you make an informed decision on which website builder to use, we tried over 15 popular website makers on the web, created test websites ourselves and did a comparison of the top-rated website building sites across various categories of performance and use circumstances. We extensively tested each website builder based on speed, ease of use, uptime, mobile responsive design flexibility, pricing and other features like blogging, ecommerce and web hosting.
How to Create a Free Website
Follow these 6 simple steps to create a website today
- Choose a service and sign up for a free website builder. Click on the get started button and choose what type of website you want to create.
- Customize a template or start from scratch. Choose your website starting point, pick a template and customize with your own text, designs, images, and more. OR start building your site from scratch.
- Drag and drop design features. Add your own text, galleries, images, videos and more.
- Add everything else you need for business. Add tools and apps you need for your website. You can add an online store, booking system, a blog and more.
- Find your custom domain and connect it. Find the perfect domain name for your website if you don’t have one already, register it or transfer your already existing domain.
- Publish your website and go live online. If everything looks good, click “publish” to take your website live and start building your online presence.
Web building essentials
ITTVIS website solutions has compiled a list of other services that you may need in order to get your website and build your online presence. Check out these guides for more essential information:
- How to create a business website
- Best web hosting services
- Best ecommerce website builders
- Best free website builders
- How to create a free website
- How to start a blog
Discover best practices and get your questions answered
Website Builder FAQs
Summary: The Top 7 Best Website Builders
These are the top-rated best website builders right now:
- Best overall: Squarespace (squarespace.com).
- Best for small business: Wix (wix.com).
- Easiest for beginners: Weebly (weebly.com).
- Best for online store: Shopify (shopify.com).
- Best for blogs: WordPress (hosted with Bluehost).
- Best for building basic websites: GoDaddy website builder.
- Website builders with the best free plans: Weebly, Wix and WordPress.
Whether you’re a small business owner, an artist, a photographer, a writer or a consultant wanting to build your own website, there’s a website builder out there for you.
Conclusion
All in all, website builders are a fantastic option for tech beginners and small businesses who need an affordable and professional website that can be up-and-running quickly.
If you don’t have the budget to hire a professional web team and don’t want to mess around with complicated customization: Website builders make getting online quick and painless.
Gone are the days when creating a website would require you to code, or otherwise employ the services of a website designer to help you make your website.
Today, with tons of available new site building tools, software’s and online sites to create websites, building and designing a website now simply requires a good online website builder and your creative ideas to design and customize your website as you like.
Having reviewed various website builders to aid an easy site creation without any coding knowledge, choose the best website builder well suited enough for your website creation and get started building your website today.
References and Resources
- Smartphone internet access stats – retrieved from CNBC.
- Leader in website creation – retrieved from Wix.
- What to look for in a website builder – retrieved from HostGator.
- Tools we used: Google web performance tools.
- The basics of website building – retrieved from HostGator.
- Checklist for creating a website – retrieved from smallbiztrends.