Building a Website in 2023? Here are the Top 10 Website Builders

Do you want to build a website without hiring a developer? Want to know which is the best website builder that will help you build a professional-looking site with ease?

We’ve got you covered. There are so many builders in the market and most of them charge a fee to use their platform. So before you make a commitment, you may want to know what each one has to offer so you can pick the one that matches your website needs.

We’ve tried and tested the best website builders in the market to narrow down the list for you.

Here are the top 10 website builders reviewed and compared.

1. WordPress.org
2. Web.com
3. Domain.com
4. Gator by HostGator
5. HubSpot Website Builder
6. GoDaddy Website Builder
7. SquareSpace
8. WordPress.com
9. Weebly
10. Wix

Before we review each one of them, let’s quickly take a look at what you need to consider before you choose a website builder.

How to Choose a Website Builder

Website builders help you lay the foundation, structure, and design of your website. Ideally, you want to pick a reliable platform that will work in your favor as your website grows.

Here’s what we recommend looking at:

• An easy to use dashboard to save time and make it effortless to create and customize your site.
• Themes and templates with predesigned layouts, colors, menus, and fonts to help you set up your site faster.
• A good builder won’t require you to use any coding but at the same time, it should give you the option to add your own code if you need to.
• Affordable pricing is another deciding factor especially if you’re just starting out. Many builders come with tiered pricing plans so you can start off cheap or for free and then pay to upgrade once your website starts growing.
• More often than not, you will run into issues and errors. It’s important to have multiple channels to contact customer care or a support community.

Added to that, you’ll need to decide how much control you want over technical aspects such as web hosting, security, and backups. There are robust platforms like WordPress.org that let you take full control. However, if you prefer to hand off maintenance and technical tasks, then there are builders like Wix that manage it all for you.

Keeping these points in mind, we’ve picked the top 10 website builders for you.

1. WordPress.org

WordPress.org (also known as self hosted WordPress) is the most popular website builder in the world. It’s an open source content management system (CMS) and the best part? It’s absolutely FREE!

WordPress powers more than 43% of the web, and that number keeps rising every day. From simple blogs to complex eCommerce sites, WordPress can handle any kind of website.

WordPress is designed to be incredibly easy for anyone to create a website without touching a single line of code. That said, it also gives you complete control over your website’s files and database. This means if you’re a seasoned developer, you’ll be able to make any and all technical changes you want.

The platform is simple and flexible so you can customize it to match your business needs.

You’ll find plenty of themes and templates to design a stunning website with ease. Plus, WordPress is home to 55,000+ plugins to add more features to your site. You’ll find free and premium plugins to manage all aspects of your website including any problem you face.

WordPress has a default page builder to create web pages and blog posts. And if that’s not enough, you can add third-party page builders like Beaver Builder, Divi, and Elementor to your site.

You can also enable a shopping cart using the WooCommerce plugin or Easy Digital Downloads.

To build specific landing pages with stunning designs without technical know how, you can check out SeedProd.

The only thing you need to keep in mind with WordPress.org is that you have to manage hosting, backups, SSL, and security on your own.

But given that there are so many third-party tools and plugins available, you’re sure to find one to solve any issue or need.

Keep in mind that every platform has a learning curve and that includes WordPress. But what really stands out about WordPress.org is the community that’s built around it.

You’ll find help from fellow WordPress users on WordPress forums. There are also tons of WordPress tutorials, blogs, YouTube channels and social media pages from sites like WPBeginner, IsItWP, and BlogTyrant.

These are all available for free. Check out: Best Free Websites and Resources to Learn WordPress (Beginners & Developers).

As for web hosting, you can get an affordable plan with one of the many popular web hosts. We recommend Bluehost as they are one of the most reliable and trusted hosting services in the market.

Highlights

• 100% free website builder
• User-friendly dashboard
• Thousands of themes, templates, and plugins to choose from
• Most flexible and scalable builder with endless customization options
• Caters to any kind of website

Cost: WordPress.org is free to use but you need to buy your own domain name and hosting plan. You can get this from any of the top web hosting companies.

The best one though is Bluehost. They are reliable, focus on ease of use, and offer great customer support. And as a Nameboy user, you’ll get 60% off on web hosting with a free SSL certificate, free domain name, great uptime, speed optimization, and 24/7 phone support. So you can get started at just $2.75 per month.

Get started with WordPress.org

2. Web.com

Web.com is a popular do-it-yourself website builder. It’s one of the oldest and best options to design any kind of website.

To begin with, they have one of the most affordable pricing plans to make it possible for just about anyone to launch their own website.

Web.com is a hosted platform which means they take care of web hosting. It’s built into the price of the website builder.

Next, there are readymade website templates and a user-friendly drag and drop builder to design a beautiful site that matches your brand perfectly. Added to that, you get access to thousands of stock images and photos to make your site stand out.

Aside from its website builder, you can also get SEO and marketing tools, eCommerce store, advertising, and more.

Highlights

• Simple pricing plans
• Drag-and-drop interface
• Custom website design
• SEO-friendly content
• In-house design team

Cost: Starts at $4.95 per month.

Get started with Web.com

3. Domain.com

Domain.com is the best web builder for those looking for a simple solution. So bloggers, small businesses, and those who want an online presence will love Domain.com.

It’s built on AI (artificial intelligence) making it one of the smartest builders out there.

You can enter your details and answer a few questions about what kind of website you want to set up. The builder will then create a mockup that you can use as a foundation. These designs look great out of box and all you have to do is edit the text and images to customize them to match your brand.

The designs are also responsive which means your site will look great on any screen size.

If that’s not what you’re looking for, you can also start building from scratch to create a custom design.

Added to that, there’s an eCommerce builder that lets you list and sell products, manage and track inventory, accept online payments, and more.

With Domain.com, you can also access SEO tools to get your site to rank on search engines.

Domain.com offers affordable pricing on domains, hosting plans, and the website builder, so you won’t have to shop around for each element. You can buy a hosting plan and get a free domain name for 1 year, along with free SSL, unlimited storage, and scalable bandwidth.

Highlights

• AI smart builder
• Readymade designs and templates
• Design protection so website is responsive on all devices
• Custom website design and eCommerce stores
• Web design and marketing services
• Over 550k images available for use
• Pre-built sections and page layouts
• SEO and analytics tools
• Chat, phone, and email support

Cost: Starts at $1.99 per month.

Get started with Domain.com

4. Gator by HostGator

The Gator Website Builder is an intuitive platform to create stunning websites fast.

Similar to Domain.com, you can add basic info about what type of site you want to build. The builder will then create a cool design for you in a matter of minutes. Their designs come with optimized layouts and elements that meet industry trends.

You can add your own images, logo, and customize elements such as fonts, colors, navigational menu, and more.

Gator Website Builder also lets you set up an online shop to sell products. You’ll get management tools for inventory, shipping, taxes, orders, payments, and more.

To top it off, you can also enjoy automated email marketing with lead capture forms, landing pages, and CRM (customer relationship management) tools, to name a few.

Highlights

• Intelligent builder
• Image library and logo maker
• Mobile responsive edsigns
• Optimized for SEO
• 24/7 support

Cost: Starts at $3.46 per month with a 45-day money back guarantee. It includes free hosting, SSL, and domain.

Get started with Gator

5. HubSpot Website Builder

HubSpot Website Builder is a popular CMS that helps you build a website with ease. It focuses on marketing so not only can you build a great website, but you can grow it fast too.

You can create your website quickly using premade website designs. There’s a drag and drop editing tool to help you customize it. You’ll find plenty of options to match your logo, brand colors and fonts, and overall style you’re looking for.

There’s more. With HubSpot, you’ll get lots of free marketing tools such as lead capture forms, email marketing, landing pages, and more.

As for offering support to your customers, you add live chat to your website.

Finally, to make sure your experience is hassle-free, there’s a user-friendly reporting dashboard to manage everything about your website.

Highlights

• Pre-built website themes with the option for custom development
• Fully integrated CRM
• Drag-and-drop editor
• Easy migration options
• Built-in SEO recommendations

Cost: Starts at $45 per month (billed annually) with a 14-day trial period. You can build a free website on your own custom domain for free. No credit card needed.

Get started with HubSpot Website Builder

6. GoDaddy Website Builder

GoDaddy is a well known web host and domain registrar. They offer a website builder that’s easy to use and you can get started for free. All you have to do is pick a template, then add your content and business info to make it yours.

There are built-in marketing tools that you can use to promote your business online.

And the best part is that it comes with a centralized dashboard that lets you manage everything on any device.

You can create a beautiful responsive website with no technical skill needed at all!

Highlights

• Integrated photo library
• One-time appointments
• PayPal payments
• Email and social media marketing

Cost: Personal plan costs $5.99/month, business plan for $9.99/month, and business plus plan for $14.99/month. All plans are billed annually.

Get started with GoDaddy Website Builder

7. SquareSpace

SquareSpace is an all-in-one solution that helps you build beautiful websites.

This means the domain, hosting, image gallery, and analytics are all included in its pricing plans.

Like GoDaddy, SquareSpace lets you choose a website template that’s already prefilled with designer fonts and color palettes.

You can explore tools and pick the ones you want to add to your site. This makes it easier to customize your site to create a simple website, online store, booking service, small business, and so on.

You can then create email and social media campaigns to grow your audience and retain customers.

Highlights

• Fully managed website builder
• Templates for every purpose
• Flexible designs that can be customized
• eCommerce features to sell products and services
• Third party website extensions to manage, optimize, and enhance your site
• Email marketing and social content

Cost: Starts at $16 per month if you bill annually.

Get started with SquareSpace

8. WordPress.com

WordPress.com is one of the fastest managed WordPress host, not to be confused with WordPress. org. For more details, you can check out this comparison: WordPress.com vs self-hosted WordPress.

With WordPress.com, you won’t have to manage hosting, backups, security, and other technical stuff. All of that is taken care of for you.

But this also means you lose control over your website. You’ll be limited in customizations, features, and functionality.

This platform is better suited for those who want to create a simple website. And if you want to expand functionality, there are plenty of addons that are easy to install.

The downside is that it gets pretty expensive as you grow. Plus the eCommerce functionality is extremely limited.

Highlights

• SEO-friendly publishing platform
• Limited website control
• Free subdomain website

Cost: Basic plan is free. You can create a free website with a WordPress.com subdomain that will look like myblog.wordpress.com.

To connect a custom domain name and remove WordPress.com ads, you can choose the Personal plan for $48 per year. To monetize your site, it costs $96 per year for the Premium plan.

If you need advanced features like unlimited storage space, plugin installation, Google Analytics integration, the Business plan is priced at $300 per year.

Get started with WordPress.com

9. Weebly

Weebly is a powerful website builder and eCommerce platform. It comes with a drag and drop website builder, pre-designed layout options, website stats, and more.

One thing Weebly and WordPress.com have in common is that they both have a free plan that allows you to use a free subdomain. You can start a site for free with a domain that looks like myblog.weebly.com. This doesn’t look like a professional website. For small business owners, it’s much better to have yourdomain.com rather than yourdomain.weebly.com.

Weebly makes it easy to setup, configure, and launch your website. You can add a blog and a storefront with just a click.

Highlights

• Drag and drop solution
• Fully managed web host
• Powerful eCommerce tools
• Parallax and animation effects
• Site search
• Custom HTML, CSS and Javascript
• Integrated analytics

Cost:

There’s a limited free version for beginners. To use your own custom domain name, you’ll have to subscribe to a premium plan that starts at $6 per month.

To create an online store and waive off the transaction fee, there’s a Business plan for $26 per month.

Get started with Weebly

10. Wix

Wix is a popular website builder and fully managed platform that lets you set up websites in minutes.

You can build a site from scratch or use the AI builder called Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) that creates a couple of designs for you. You can edit your designs in mobile-only view to give users on mobile devices a different experience.

Wix’s designs are optimized for search engines so your website will perform well on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Wix lets you get started for free. This type of Wix website is great for personal websites or to create a basic online presence. You can add advanced features as you grow to include a blog, an online store, accept bookings, and more.

You can create a Wix subdomain for free. If you want to connect to a custom domain, then you’ll need to subscribe to their paid plans.

Highlights

• 500+ customizable website templates
• Drag and drop web builder
• Video backgrounds, scroll effects and animation
• Growth tools like email marketing, social posts, Facebook ads, and client management
• eCommerce features like shipping, taxes, and payment options

Cost: Get started for free with a branded sub domain.

To connect to your own domain name, you need a pro plan that costs $9.16 per month. They also have a combo plan starting at $14.95/month in which you will get a free domain name. The eCommerce plan for online stores costs $26.25 per month.

Get started with Wix

That’s our roundup of the 10 top website builders in the market. A few honorable mentions include Jimdo, Duda, Zyro, Webflow, and SiteBuilder. These are great options to explore if you’re looking for more choices.

Also, if you want to create an eCommerce store, then we recommend using WordPress.org coupled with the WooCommerce plugin. You can also look hosted eCommerce website builders like Shopify, Adobe Commerce (Magento), and BigCommerce.

That’s all we have on website building today. We hope you found this post helpful and if so, you’ll definitely want to see our resources:

• 19 Powerful Domain Name Generators for the Perfect Website Name
• How to Start a Small Business Website (Step by Step)
• 10 Best Email Marketing Software to Grow Your Business

These posts will help you get a brandable domain name. You’ll also learn how to create a WordPress site with ease and promote it through email marketing.