The Best Website Builder 2022:
We’ve Reviewed the 17 Best

Tooltester is supported by readers like yourself. We may earn an affiliate commission when you purchase through our links, which enables us to offer our research for free. Learn more about our methodology here.

10 Best Website Builders of 2022

1. Wix – Best website builder for small businesses
2. Squarespace – Best for creatives and bloggers
3. GoDaddy Website Builder – Great marketing tools
4. Zyro – Affordable Wix alternative
5. Webnode – Very affordable and great for multilingual sites
6. Weebly – Extremely intuitive but not updated enough
7. Jimdo – Fastest way to build a website
8. IONOS – Comes with a good variety of marketing tools
9. Webflow – Best website builder for designers
10. WordPress.com – Complex but very powerful

Who wrote this guide?

Hi, I am Robert Brandl and have been testing website builders for more than a decade. Back in 2009 I wanted to create a simple website, mainly to share photos and post articles. But back then, this was very hard if you didn’t know how to code.

Eventually, this need for an easy-to-use website tool led me to find my first no-code website builder, which was Weebly. This discovery made me start Tooltester, to help beginners just like you create your own website.

For a very long time, we even used the Webnode website builder to run this site and publish our content. But when it grew to more than 200,000 monthly visitors and 7 different languages – bigger than even the best website builders could support – we made the switch to WordPress.

Our team of researchers has since grown to a team of 5 digital experts, who are happy to help you along the way. Learn more about our methodology or leave a comment if you have any questions!

Tip #1: Have you already checked out our Smart Finder Tool? Simply answer 5 questions and we’ll show you which site builder best fits for your project! Give it a try.

What kinds of sites can be created with a website builder?

The great thing about website builders is that they offer templates for a range of different industries (check out these templates by Wix, for example). You pick the one you like and just add your own text and images. You don’t have to start from a blank slate, which makes it super easy to achieve impressive results in no time.

Website builders are perfect for small businesses, portfolios, photographers, online stores, restaurants, and hotels, as well as clubs and associations.

In contrast, sites that require a database (real-estate listings, job boards) aren’t so easy to create. They require a different tool and more time. Your best bet in this case: WordPress or Webflow.

And since we get this question frequently: No, hypercomplex sites like Airbnb, eBay, or Facebook are completely out of reach. You’ll need to hire a development team to build a website like that.

Tip #2: The ranking table on this page shows the best website builders. Please visit our dedicated research if you’re looking for the best ecommerce website builder (Shopify, WooCommerce etc.) or for detailed information on WordPress.

So which one is the best website builder for you, and which ones should you avoid?

Find your favorite in our website builder ranking table

To help you navigate the table more easily, I added a color code for you:
Green: Excellent product
Yellow: Good product with some flaws
Red: It’s a ‘no’ from us

#	Website Builder	Pricing	Comments
1	Wix Our Top Pick	Free: $0 Connect Domain: $5 Combo: $16 Unlimited: $22 Business & eCommerce: from $27 Pricing details > Try for free	+Excellent templates +It’s extremely flexible +Powerful add-on marketing tools +Extensive App Market +Wix ADI –Pricey –Templates can’t be changed easily –Media-heavy sites can be slower to load on mobile Learn more
2	Squarespace Excellent for Blogging	Personal: $14 Business: $23 Online Store (Basic): $27 Online Store (Advanced): $49 Pricing details > Try for free	+Templates and Designs +Blogging feature +Customer support +Mobile Apps –Usability of the editor –Only one sub-navigation –Page Speed Learn more
3	GoDaddy Websites Getting Better All The Time	Free: $0 Basic: $11.99 Standard: $21.99 Premium: $24.99 Ecommerce: $44.99 > Try for free	+Responsive layouts +Very user-friendly +Free marketing tools +Fastest page loading speeds –Limited SEO –No app store Learn more
4	Zyro The Affordable Newcomer	Website: $2.90 Business: $4.90 Advanced Store: $15.90 > Try for free	+Low prices +Fast and easy editor +Multilingual websites +Live chat support –Blog is very basic –No app store –No password-protected pages
5	Webnode The Polyglot Website Tool	Free: $0 Limited: $3.90 Mini: $7.50 Standard: $12.90 Profi: $22.90 Pricing details > Try for free	+Suited to multilingual websites +Great for SEO +Free email address included –Limited ecommerce features –Basic blog –Missing some key features Learn more
6	Weebly Unmatched ease of use	Free: $0 Personal: $6 Professional: $12 Performance: $26 Pricing details > Try for free	+Ease of use +Responsive Themes +App Center +Team Management –Limited Design Flexibility –Multilingual Websites –Slow development Learn more
7	Jimdo Create a Website in No Time	PLAY: $0 START: $11 GROW: $22 UNLIMITED: $39 Pricing details > Try for free	+Ease of use +Attractive designs +Mobile version +Loading speed –Limited features –Few SEO options –Design flexibility Learn more
8	IONOS Websites for businesses	Starter: $5 Plus: $10 Shop Starter: $12 Shop Plus: $20 > Try for free	+Good for multilingual sites +Phone, live chat and personal support included +Option to create backups +Loading speed –No free trial –Issues with content suggestions Learn more
9	Webflow Ideal for Freelance Designers	Starter: $0 Core: $16 Growth: $35 Pricing details > Try for free	+Powerful fusion of visual editor and CMS +Customization options +Perfect for client-work +Great support material –Not beginner-friendly –No app store –Few built-in extensions Learn more
10	WordPress.com WordPress for Starters	Free: $0 Pro: $15 > Try for free	+Free plan +No installation or maintenance +Support included –Not the most intuitive –Not the most cost-effective option for a WordPress site Learn more
11	Strikingly Great for One-pagers	Free: $0 Limited: $8 Pro: $16 > Try for free	+Best in-class support +Cheap for multiple websites +Ease of Use –SEO –Limited Free Version Learn more
12	Duda The Language Genius	Basic: $14 Team: $22 Agency: $44	+Great for multilingual websites +Website Personalization Tools +Easy drag-and-drop editor +Backup and Restore feature –Relatively expensive –Limited app store Learn more
13	One.com The Budget Site Builder	Standard: $2.49 Premium: $7.48 Online Shop: $16.99 > Try it out	+Very inexpensive +Responsive templates –No integrated blog –Poor support quality –Pricing not straightforward Learn more
14	Site123 Good for Languages	Free: 0€ Basic: 11,87€ Advanced: 15,58€ Professional: 21,14€ Gold: 26,70€ > Try for free	+Multilingual features +Free plan with support +Ease of use –Ads –Layout restrictions –Limited access Learn more
15	Webstarts Wix’s Little Brother	Free: $0 Pro Plus: $7.16 Business: $19.99 > Try for free	+Decent free plan +Flexibility –SSL costs extra –Backend could use revamp Learn more
16	Web.com The Deceiving One	Starter: $10 Marketing: $15 Ecommerce: $20 (Discounted rates for the first month available)	+Website builder and templates –Billing terms (renewal every 4-weeks instead of 30 days, renewal prices hidden in fine-print) –Exaggerated domain renewal rate ($38/year) + Whois Protection fees on top –Cancellations by phone only –No money-back guarantee –Navigation only has one sub-level Learn more
17	Webs.com Has Had its Best Days	Free: $0 Starter: $5.99 Enhanced: $12.99 Pro: $22.99	+Website editor –Negative customer feedback –Hardly any development –Template designs Learn more

A quick note about the prices you see here: they are usually charged yearly.

Tip #3: You can also compare all website builders conveniently side-by-side! Go to our comparison tool.

A brief guide to finding the best website builder

Now that you’ve seen our ranking table, you might still be left wondering how to actually choose the best website builder for your specific project.

Video: How to find the best website builder (3:58 min)

Here’s the good news: choosing a website builder is relatively risk-free nowadays. However, there are a couple of things that you should be looking into before deciding:

Tip #4: Interested in video tutorials to create your website? You’re in luck! Currently, we have a Squarespace tutorial and another one for Wix.

The top website builders – our detailed study

Let’s now take a more detailed look at our research. These are the best (and worst) website builders:

1. Wix

Our Top Pick

With 200m users, Wix is certainly the biggest website builder out there. They’ve come quite a long way from being a niche product to almost becoming a household brand.

The thing we like most about Wix is the flexibility and choice of themes for small businesses. Combining these two features gives you virtual (and visual!) superpowers. Wix enables even novices to create very presentable websites – more than any other website builder we have reviewed.

That, combined with its SEO-friendliness (meaning you have all the tools at your hand to get Google traffic), makes Wix the best website builder on Tooltester.

Compared to other website builders, it does have its price but we think it can be worth it if you take advantage of its large range of features.

What our readers think of Wix

Who should use Wix?

Wix is extremely versatile. We found that typical users are freelancers and small businesses – anyone who wants to build an impressive website or portfolio with little effort. Wix offers hundreds of professional themes for you to customize. It’s very likely you will find the style you are looking for in their enormous template selection.

It’s also a good choice if you want to receive online payments, e.g. selling products via their online store, selling appointments via Wix Bookings, or even creating a members area where you charge for premium content. These features really set Wix apart from its competitors.

Who shouldn’t use Wix?

Wix is not the cheapest website builder, so if you have a limited budget and only need a simple website, you should probably look at Webnode, One.com or Weebly. Our research shows that these are good Wix alternatives for price-conscious users.

Wix features a blogging tool, which is quite good (in fact, we use it ourselves on Tooltester.net). But if your main goal is to become a blogger we’d recommend checking out Squarespace or WordPress.

Wix Pricing

Noteworthy Features

Wix Pros and Cons

What we like:

• Their hundreds of well-designed templates that are very flexible
• Range of features: the App Market lets you add new features with just a few mouse clicks: newsletter subscription form, event calendar, live chat, music player etc.
• Accept payments and sell merchandise through the online store and ecommerce features (commission-free)
• Wix comes with an automatic backup and restore feature, which is extremely helpful for beginners and advanced users alike.
• Wix ADI is a separate editor specifically for beginners. Using a question and answer creation workflow, this makes creating a website extremely easy.

What they should improve:

• Not ideal for larger websites: we wouldn’t recommend Wix if you’re building a large site (30+ pages). The navigation doesn’t allow for very complex structures.
• Loading speed can be on the slow side: although Wix is actively working on improving their speed, it’s still not perfect.
• Mobile version of website sometimes needs additional tweaking, as the desktop version is not always perfectly converted into a mobile-friendly layout.

More information on Wix:

Our detailed Wix Review provides an even more in-depth look into the ins and outs of this website builder.

We have a detailed Wix Tutorial if you want to learn how to create a site.

And finally, to start a free trial, head over to Wix.com

2. Squarespace

Great for Blogging

Squarespace has been around since 2003 and speaks of “millions” of websites created on their platform. With a market share similar to Wix’s, it’s one of the biggest players in the website builder market.

They mostly cater to a creative crowd. It’s hard not to like the clean design of their website and the powerful aesthetics.

While Wix often gets criticized for not being a truly professional tool (which we find a bit unfair), Squarespace doesn’t seem to suffer from this reputation. Even among web designers it’s a perfectly acceptable way to create a website. So their branding seems on point – the question is, though, whether their product is just as good as their self-marketing?

What our readers think of Squarespace

Who should use Squarespace?

Squarespace is really focused on creative folks, or makers as they like to call themselves. So if you are part of this group it’s very likely you’ve seen many of their ads already. Their users identify very much with the Squarespace brand.

Based on our conversations with their users, Squarespace serves their target audience extremely well. These include people who like to post images and post blog articles. But also freelancers who sell services (e.g. consulting, yoga classes), or even products via the online store.

Who shouldn’t use Squarespace?

If you want to spend the least amount of time possible on creating your website, there are probably better choices than Squarespace. You’ll need to invest a bit of time and love to get a great result.

We also don’t recommend Squarespace for larger websites (30+ individual pages) due to the limited depth of the navigation (only one-sub level). Our research also concluded that it’s nearly impossible to create a multilingual website with Squarespace. So if you are targeting readers in multiple languages, Wix or Webnode would be better options.

Squarespace Pricing

Noteworthy Features

Squarespace Pros and Cons

What we like:

• Their brilliant designs that are pretty flexible and offer numerous prebuilt sections for easy use.
• Customer support: next to the great documentation you have access to live chat agents who are available on weekdays, and 24/7 email support.
• It’s the best website builder for blogging: No other site builder offers such sophisticated blogging capabilities, with features including commenting, multiple authors, and even the ability to host podcasts.
• Their mobile app for iOS and Android lets you edit your website and blog on the go.

What they should improve:

• There is no backup and restore feature, which is a bit disappointing.
• It’s not the easiest drag and drop website builder to use; other alternatives are better suited to beginners.
• When we tested their page speed (also an important SEO factor), it wasn’t exactly impressive.
• A larger selection for external applications would be desirable as well (something comparable to Wix App Market).

More information on Squarespace:

Our detailed Squarespace Review gives you an even more complete picture of the website builder.

We have a detailed Squarespace Tutorial if you want to learn how to create a site.

And finally, to start a free trial, head over to Squarespace.com

3. GoDaddy Website Builder

One-stop shop for marketing

We all know GoDaddy, the web hosting and domain name giant. Turns out, they have their very own website builder – and it’s not half bad. In fact, the GoDaddy website builder is one of the most highly scored on our list, nabbing the #3 spot from our previous bronze medalist, Weebly.

In our experience, it’s tricky to find a website builder that combines ease of use, modern designs, premium features, and affordability. But amazingly, GoDaddy ticks all these boxes – and more.

There’s a reason the website builder is also called ‘GoDaddy Websites + Marketing’, and that’s because it integrates an impressive range of additional marketing tools. A marketing planner, email marketing tool, Canva-like content creator, and social media dashboard are all included. Based on our research we know a handful of website builders that offer something similar (e.g. Wix, Squarespace). However, we think GoDaddy does a much better job of incorporating these tools within its software, and making them very user friendly.

What our readers think of GoDaddy

Who should use GoDaddy?

Given its business-focused features (such as a live chat widget, appointment booker, online store, popups, and marketing tools), we think GoDaddy is best suited to small businesses and freelancers who need to set up an online presence, quickly.

Its pared-back editor also makes it ideal for beginners who want to create a modern-looking website without too much work. Finally, the affordable plans make GoDaddy a good option for anyone after a basic and budget-friendly website.

Who shouldn’t use GoDaddy?

If you’re after a website builder that gives you full drag-and-drop flexibility and complete design control, you’ll be disappointed with GoDaddy’s simplified editor – it doesn’t give you the kind of free rein that you’d get with website builders like Wix or Webflow.

In our research, we also found the SEO options to be lacking, so it’s not ideal if you need to attract organic traffic to your site.

Similarly, it’s not ideal for those who will be using their website as a blog. The blog editor is basic and offers limited customization options. For serious bloggers, we’d recommend Squarespace or WordPress.

GoDaddy Pricing

Noteworthy Features

GoDaddy Pros and Cons

What we like:

• Their easy-to-use editor and modern, mobile-friendly templates, which can help you get online quickly
• Excellent marketing features: email marketing, social media dashboard, popups, graphic design tool
• It’s the best website builder for fast page loading speeds: no competitor is as fast
• Appointment booking tool, which lets you offer services, classes and events
• GoDaddy Insights, an AI-powered metrics tool that ties key performance stats together, and gives you personalized Action Plans to increase your website’s visibility

What they should improve:

• SEO options are basic, and severely restricted on lower plans. GoDaddy doesn’t allow for the deep level of optimization offered by other website builders
• The blog editor comes with just a handful of features, and doesn’t give you much control over design or layout
• The lack of an app store means that options to enhance your site’s functionality with third-party tools are limited

More information on GoDaddy:

Our detailed GoDaddy Review takes a closer look at the pros and cons of this website builder.

If you’d like to try it out for free, head over to GoDaddy.com

4. Webnode

The Polyglot Website Tool

Although not as popular as other website builders like Weebly or Wix, Webnode still boasts a pretty decent user base—according to its website, it has over 40 million users.

Webnode can be hit-and-miss: some features are advanced and almost unique in the industry. For example, Webnode offers multilingual features for building websites in multiple languages, as well as membership registration features for creating members-only website areas. Based on our research, not many other website builders offer these features out of the box.

On the flipside, Webnode lacks some basic functionality that can make it a no-go for some. In particular, we weren’t too impressed with Webnode’s blogging and online store capabilities.

That said, Webnode is still a popular free website builder. Most paid plans also come with a free domain and at least one free email account if you’re keen to upgrade to paid.

What our readers think of Webnode

Who should use Webnode?

If you want to create a simple and clean-looking website, Webnode might be the right choice for you. It sports over 100 modern templates, categorized by industry to help you find the perfect template for your website.

With Webnode, you can also create multilingual or membership websites (or, a multilingual membership website!) without writing a single line of code.

And if convenience is a major consideration for you, you’ll appreciate how Webnode bundles in free email accounts—you won’t have to manage your email separately with another provider.

Who shouldn’t use Webnode?

Webnode excels at producing a simple-looking website. From our tests, however, we found that Webnode isn’t the best for blogging. Its blog features are quite basic—heading hierarchies are limited to H2 and you can’t assign blog posts to multiple categories. Nor can you add multiple blog contributors. If you are running a blog-focused website, our recommendation would be to check out Squarespace or WordPress.com instead.

Advanced online store owners should look at other ecommerce options. Webnode’s ecommerce features are quite limited, helping you set up products and offer the standard payment methods. But you won’t be able to get real-time shipping rates or set up automatic tax calculations.

Webnode Pricing

Noteworthy Features

Webnode Pros and Cons

What we like:

• Its multilingual features for adding multiple languages to your website. Webnode also sets up the necessary subdirectories for you—you won’t have to worry about doing so yourself.
• The ability to backup and restore is available on higher-level plans. You can even download an offline version of your site
• Free email accounts so you don’t need to pay for and manage email accounts elsewhere!
• Membership registration features for creating member-only areas of your website.
• It’s one of the cheapest ways to start a website using a custom domain name

What they should improve:

• Webnode’s ecommerce features are rather limited.
• Likewise for its blog capabilities—it’s not a great option for serious bloggers who run multi-contributor blogs.
• There’s no app store for extending the functionality of your Webnode website with third-party apps.

More information on Webnode:

Check out our detailed Webnode review for more information.

Compare Webnode’s plans in this detailed pricing guide.

To start a free website, go to Webnode.com

5. Weebly

Unmatched Ease-of-Use

Weebly used to be one of our favorite website builders. The ease of use of their website editor was (and still is) unmatched.

But Weebly seems to have fallen by the wayside after being acquired by Square. These days, the Square team appears to be prioritizing the development of its Square Online e-commerce platform. As a result, not many features have been added to Weebly in recent years.

That said, the features we love about Weebly are still there—their blog and membership area being two good examples. And from our experience, it isn’t common for website builders to make e-commerce features available for free like Weebly does. All these make Weebly still worth using if you want to build a website with a decent range of features, and without going through too much hassle.

What our readers think of Weebly

Who should use Weebly?

If you’re completely new to building a website, Weebly is a decent choice for its ease of use. In particular, you’ll love Weebly if you’re starting a blog—adding new posts, crafting their content, and publishing them on your Weebly website is a breeze.

Will you be using your website to grow your email list? Weebly can help with that too. Use its built-in email marketing features to create email forms and send marketing emails to your subscribers. (Additional charges may apply, though.)

Finally, check out Weebly if you’ll be building a membership website. It’s got the features you’ll need for membership registration and making certain parts of your website off-limits to non-members.

Who shouldn’t use Weebly?

Given Weebly’s slower development pace in recent years, it may not be the best if you want a website builder that looks more modern and is more frequently updated. After researching many website builders, we find Wix and GoDaddy to be much better options in this regard.

On a related note, Weebly might not be a great choice if you care about making a good first impression with your website. That’s because many of Weebly’s templates look rather dated. Using them can cause visitors to think that your website had been built a long time ago (and not updated to keep in touch with the latest web design trends).

People who want to build international websites should probably also give Weebly a miss. That’s because Weebly doesn’t have native features for adding multiple languages to a website. While you could get around this by installing a third-party multilingual app, here’s one obstacle you won’t be able to overcome: Weebly’s blocking of traffic from some countries. Would we want to lose access to these countries’ visitors? No, thank you.

Weebly Pricing

Noteworthy Features

Weebly Pros and Cons

What we like:

• Weebly’s ease of use, no doubt. Drag and drop various content elements into your website and you’ll have a professional-looking website in no time.
• Building multi-level navigation menus is a piece of cake—again, just drag and drop your menu pages to set their hierarchies however you want!
• The website builder lets you set up membership registration without too much difficulty.
• The Weebly App Center provides a wide range of third-party apps for adding more features to your website.

What they should improve:

• Weebly could definitely work on more regular product improvements and revamping its interface—the website builder looks outdated in its current form.
• Similarly, Weebly should add more modern-looking templates to its collection.
• We’d love to see Weebly add automatic backup functionality. Currently, you have to take manual backups of your website. And even then, your blog and store pages won’t be included in the backup.

More information on Webnode:

Visit our detailed Weebly review for more information.

Learn more about Weebly’s plans in our comprehensive pricing guide.

You can also start your free Weebly website here.

6. Jimdo

Solid All-Round Package for Beginners

Founded in 2007, Jimdo is a German website builder with more than 32 million websites to its name. Simplicity is also its credo, which shows in the AI set-up wizard that Jimdo internally calls “Dolphin”. Answer a short series of questions and Jimdo will automatically generate a working website for you. The website builder can even pull information from your Google and Instagram listings for inclusion in your website.

Apart from being a solid website creation suite, Jimdo also provides basic online store features for selling physical products. And if you’re more code-savvy, you can use Jimdo’s classic Creator editor to insert custom lines of code as you build your website.

What our readers think of Jimdo

Who should use Jimdo?

Jimdo is a noteworthy option for absolute beginners who aren’t confident of building a website themselves but don’t have the budget to outsource the work. The website builder’s AI-powered Dolphin builder takes just a few minutes to create and tailor a simple website to meet your needs. From there, you can add content blocks and customize placeholder text to flesh out your website. All things considered, Jimdo is the best website builder on the market for ease of use.

Simplicity is Jimdo’s strong suit, making it a good choice for personal projects and small business uses. For example, we’d recommend using Jimdo if you want to build a one-page portfolio or a simple website that tells customers how to visit your physical store.

You’ll also find Jimdo particularly useful if you have already set up online profiles (e.g. Google My Business, Facebook, Instagram) for your business. That’s because Jimdo can automatically populate your website with data from these profiles.

Who shouldn’t use Jimdo?

Bigger businesses with more advanced website needs will be better off using a website builder that offers more features. For example, Jimdo doesn’t support blog creation, but Squarespace and WordPress do.

Meanwhile, if you need digital product fulfillment, automatic tax calculation, or other advanced ecommerce features for your online store, we find Shopify and Wix to be far superior options.

Jimdo also isn’t a good fit if you want to set up a membership website. The website builder doesn’t have features for letting users create member accounts. If member registration is important to you, check out other website builders like Wix or Webnode.

And if you want search engines to find your website easily, you’ll be disappointed by Jimdo’s limited range of search engine optimization (SEO) features. Our research shows that many other website builders—such as Wix and Squarespace for example—give you more control when it comes to SEO.

Jimdo Pricing

Noteworthy Features

Jimdo Pros and Cons

What we like:

• With the AI-powered Jimdo Dolphin builder, you can quickly set up a basic website without writing any code.
• Business Listings provides a convenient option for keeping your business information up to date on multiple listing platforms.
• Unlike some other website builders we’ve tested, Jimdo doesn’t charge transaction fees for ecommerce orders.
• If you don’t have a website logo, you can use Jimdo’s free logo creator to generate one for free.
• Jimdo websites generally have fast page load speeds, which is great for both SEO and the user experience!

What they should improve:

• You can’t set up a blog for Jimdo Dolphin websites (blogs are possible with Jimdo Creator websites, though).
• Jimdo’s ecommerce features are quite basic—you can’t sell digital products or get real-time shipping rates for example.
• We’d also like to see Jimdo expand its limited range of SEO features.

More information on Jimdo:

Learn more about Jimdo in our detailed Jimdo review.

Explore Jimdo’s prices in our Jimdo Dolphin pricing and Jimdo Creator pricing guides.

You can also try Jimdo for free here.

7. IONOS – MyWebsite

Websites for businesses

IONOS is another domain and hosting giant that has ventured into the world of DIY website building. But unlike GoDaddy, 1&1 IONOS’s business-focused website builder offers several options, to cater to different levels of technical experience.

For complete beginners, there’s IONOS MyWebsite Now, which offers a variety of templates and a simplified editor. Most businesses, however, opt for MyWebsite Creator, which offers hundreds of industry-specific templates that can be edited via an intuitive drag-and-drop builder. (This is actually powered by Duda’s site creator – a bonus for those who are already familiar with that tool.) There’s also MyWebsite Creator Pro, for those who want to take customization even further.

So, what sets the IONOS website builder apart? Unique marketing features such as personalization, which lets you tailor content to specific visitors, definitely give it a one-up over competitors. In our experience, it also handles multilingual sites and translations more smoothly than most website builders (many of which don’t offer this feature at all).

All of this is offered at a very attractive price, with MyWebsite Creator plans starting at $10/month.

What our readers think of IONOS

Who should use IONOS?

While most website builders offer features tailored to small business, IONOS stands out for offering personalization and multilingual features. With the ability to add an online store (via Ecwid), blog, integrated newsletter tool, booking forms, and a calendar, IONOS caters to a wide range of online business needs.

IONOS’s prices are also a lot lower than the competition’s, something that price-conscious users will undoubtedly find interesting.

Who shouldn’t use IONOS?

We’ve found that options to enhance IONOS websites with third-party apps are limited, with just a handful of direct integrations available with tools like Livechat, Disqus, Yelp, and Google Translate. Those looking to easily add a greater range of functionality to their site will find better options with Wix.

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to use a domain name purchased with another provider, unless you transfer it to IONOS. So if you already have a domain name and aren’t keen on moving it over, IONOS isn’t a very practical option.

IONOS Pricing

Noteworthy Features

IONOS Pros and Cons

What we like:

• Excellent business features, such as email newsletters, personalized content, and SEO tools, to help small businesses gain customers online.
• Advanced multilingual capabilities, letting you add both manual and automatic translations.
• Affordable pricing, with significant discounts offered in the first year.
• Email, live chat and phone support is offered, as well as a single point of contact.
• Backups of your site are made every time you publish, and it takes just one click to restore a previous version of your site.

What they should improve:

• The lack of a free plan/trial is a huge inconvenience. It’s not possible to try the platform out without handing over any payment details.
• A more extensive app store/widget library would help make integration with third-party tools easier.

More information on IONOS:

You can learn more about IONOS MyWebsite in our full review.

If you’d like to try it out, visit IONOS.com.

8. Webflow

Creating Websites for Clients Easily

Webflow is not your typical drag and drop website builder. Headquartered in San Francisco and backed up by some big-name funding, Webflow combines powerful CMS capabilities with an intuitive visual editor. It’s fast becoming the platform of choice for designers, freelancers and agencies.

With Webflow, designers have complete control to build responsive websites, without the need for any coding. They can also take advantage of Webflow’s dynamic content to build and re-use elements such as templates, helping to ensure design consistency (while also saving a lot of time and effort).

Because of this, Webflow is often compared to WordPress – with the added benefit of being a lot easier to use. Prices start at $12/month, and there are different available plans for individual sites, and for those who need multiple websites.

Webflow Pros and Cons

What we like: Webflow really puts you in the driver’s seat, giving you control of every aspect of your website’s design – responsiveness, styling, interactions; you name it. SEO options are solid, and its guaranteed uptime of 99.99% is impressive. Accessibility seems to be a big focus for them, with features such as smooth-scrolling, visual impairment simulations, and an Audit panel all baked into the builder. You also get plenty of support through their Webflow University, which is packed with courses, videos and other great resources.

What they should improve: Although you do get access to plenty of support materials along the way, we really wouldn’t recommend Webflow if you’re an absolute beginner. It requires a lot of hands-on work, especially for extra features such as a blog or online store. Webflow doesn’t come with many widgets or even an app store, which would be handy. The pricing is a little complicated, with different plans for individual sites and for those who need multiple sites. And the more features you need (e.g. site search, code export), the pricier it gets (see more about Webflow pricing in our guide).

Free trial: www.webflow.com

Detailed Webflow review

9. WordPress.com

WordPress for starters

The software WordPress, which was first designed to create blogs, now powers 42.9% of all websites on the Internet. It is extremely powerful, customizable, and flexible. You can create any kind of website with it, from ecommerce to real estate site or a full online newspaper.

While the software itself is free and open-source, there is a version that is more like other website builders on this page. It’s found through WordPress.com, and it comes with web hosting, pre-installed plugins, a selection of themes, and dedicated support.

This is all great because it’s things you usually have to do and find yourself. So WordPress.com does make it easier than ever for anyone to create a WordPress site.

The free plan gives you enough to try it out. However, for an ad-free website (plus access to plugins, premium themes and advanced SEO settings), you’ll need the Pro plan, which costs $15.

WordPress.com Pros and Cons

What we like: It’s very easy to get started. There is no maintenance or complex installation process, and you can get a decent looking blog for free (hosted on their preselected domain). The support is good, fast, and even there to help with third-party plugins you install on your site.

What they should improve: It’s not the easiest backend to get used to for beginners. While the fact there are only two plans (Free and Pro) makes pricing simple to understand, it may not suit users who need a budget solution – especially as there are cheaper WordPress hosting providers. The 50GB storage limit on the Pro plan means it’s not ideal for users who want to upload a lot of big files (e.g. videos).

Free trial: www.wordpress.com

Detailed WordPress review

10. Strikingly

Great for Onepagers

Strikingly has its focus on one-page layouts. This can be especially interesting if you want to create a landing page, say for event registrations. Their responsive designs are indeed striking (no pun intended) and look great on mobile devices. You can either start with their ad-sponsored free plan or upgrade to the Limited ($8), Pro ($16) or VIP plan ($49 per month). Limited also includes a 5-product online store, whereas VIP increases this limit to 500 products.

Strikingly Pros and Cons

What we like: if you are planning to build multiple sites, the PRO plan can be interesting as it includes up to 3 sites. We found their support to be top-notch and it’s pretty easy to get your head around Strikingly.

What they should improve: single-page websites are not Google’s favorite so it might not be too easy to rank well. Something simple like adding an external code snippet requires you to upgrade to the PRO plan, which is comparatively expensive (unless you will actually create the full three websites that are included).

Free trial: www.strikingly.com

Detailed Strikingly review

11. Duda

The Language Genius

Duda’s website builder started out in 2008 and is special in many ways. For once, they get all the basics right: the templates look great, you get all the SEO settings you need, the blog is decent and there is an online store.

On top of that, there are two areas where they manage to outshine their competitors: for once, you can create multilingual websites with it (an area that barely any site builders masters). Plus, they also offer what they call “website personalization tools”. Using them you can show fully customized content to your visitors, for example, based on their location or the time of the day. A very powerful feature!

All this comes at a price: Duda is not exactly cheap. The lowest plan (Basic starts at $14 per month and doesn’t include a domain name or email accounts. An interesting thing to note is that Duda sells their website builder to other web hosting companies, such as IONOS (where it’s called MyWebsite Creator). There, you can get pretty much the same product at a much lower price.

Duda Pros and Cons

What we like: ease of use, their stylish templates, and their unique site personalization tools. Also, in our eyes, Duda is second to none for multilingual websites.

What they should improve: although there is an app store with third-party applications, the available apps are relatively limited. Prices are quite steep compared to the competition.

Free trial: duda.com

Detailed Duda review

12. One.com

The Budget Site Builder

One.com is one thing: cheap. This Danish provider stormed into the website builder (and hosting) market a few years ago offering the lowest prices we’ve seen. They also provide hosting, which is really convenient if you need to use both a website builder and a CMS like WordPress.

But One.com can get expensive. If you are going to need more than 5 pages, you’ll need to get the Explorer plan ($7.48/month). Then it is almost as expensive as Weebly and Webnode (both ranked higher than One.com), and rather limited in features if compared to these.

One.com Pros and Cons

What we like: They have templates that look modern and are responsive. These will make your site look great on any device. They also offer solid support that you can reach by email or live chat. Another positive aspect is that they are extremely generous with the storage they offer.

What they should improve: Sadly it has some important limitations. For example, if you need a blog it needs to be added separately using another editor. You won’t be able to password-protect your site either as this feature is not included. Another flaw is that their ecommerce system is very basic and only suitable for the smallest online stores.

Free trial: www.one.com

Detailed One.com review

13. Site123

Good with Languages

Languages seem to be Site123’s thing. Not only is the editor available in more than 20 of them (including languages such as Turkish, Arabic, Romanian), they also feature multilingual websites. The editor is relatively restrictive, a bit like GoDaddy Websites. If you just want to get the website job done, without becoming too creative this might suffice. But you have to be aware that their template system can be a bit on the restrictive side.

The cheapest plan that allows you to use your own custom domain name starts at 11,87€ per month. Compared to other website builders it’s a bit pricey as they will still show a small footer ad in this plan.

Site123 Pros and Cons

What we like: their focus on languages and the fact that they have a decent free plan. Their editor is also user friendly and support is usually fast to answer.

What they should improve: more design flexibility would be nice. Also, for a price of 11,87€ per month, there should be no ad on the website.

Free trial: www.site123.com

Detailed Site123 review

14. Webstarts

Wix’s Little Brother

This All-American website creator claims to host almost 4m websites, of which quite a few are probably free ones. The Webstarts editor and features reminded us a bit of Wix. Their design section has a few gems in it and they also pride themselves on being super flexible. But to be honest, it doesn’t quite live up to Wix’s high standards.

Webstarts Pros and Cons

What we like: the free plan is relatively attractive as it offers 1GB of storage and bandwidth. Thankfully the ad isn’t very visible. There is a blogging tool and the Business plan also includes a decent online store.

What they should improve: it’s pretty annoying these days to pay extra for an SSL-encrypted site. Webstarts’ $8 per month charge is outright abusive. The mobile-optimized view isn’t included in their cheapest paid plan, which is a bit of a bummer.

Free trial: www.webstarts.com

15. Web.com

The Deceiving One

Alright, you’ve made it this far down the list, now brace yourself.

If you’ve been to other review sites like ours, you may have seen Web.com at the top of their ranking tables. I’ll explain why in a minute.

It’s not that Web.com is a terrible website builder. The product is actually quite okay. It’s user friendly, the templates are pretty nice; under normal circumstances we’d recommend it. But if you look at their terms, you’ll notice that not much is normal about Web.com.

First of all, you need magnifying glasses to figure out their pricing system. The low price of $1.95 per month quickly skyrockets to $10 after the first month. Having said that, I must note that a “month” is 4 weeks for Web.com. That’s right, in Web.com’s calendar, the year has 13 months. And who on this planet dares to charge $38 per year for a .com domain name? Right, Web.com. Not to forget the $1.95 per month on top for privacy protection and $2.33 for an SSL certificate. Needless to say, there is no money-back guarantee.

So back to why so many other website builder review sites love to recommend them: their commissions are some of the highest of the industry. And now you also know how they are able to pay them. At Tooltester we prefer to recommend decent products that don’t try to take advantage of our readers.

Web.com Pros and Cons

What we like: the website editor is really solid. They use a grid system, which makes it easy to understand for beginners. The templates aren’t bad either.

What they should improve: apart from all the aforementioned pricing shenanigans, I don’t think any web company should ask their customers to call them to cancel. Obviously, they are only doing it to convince you otherwise. And if you are still interested to hear what I don’t like about the product, be my guest: as organized as the grid system editor is, it’s not very flexible. And you can’t create very deep websites, as the navigation lets you only add one sublevel.

Free trial: web.com (no money-back guarantee)

Tip #5: The latest trend in website building is AI-powered site builders (e.g. Wix ADI and Jimdo Dolphin). Right now, it’s the very beginning of this trend and the website editors are mostly still in its infancy. But if you are looking for an extremely easy way to create a site, do check out our post on the best AI Website Builders.

Let’s now check out a few common questions you might be asking yourself.

Common questions from new website creators

Over the years, we’ve heard these questions over and over again. I hope we can answer some of yours too! If your question isn’t included here, please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

Can I really do it myself or do I need a web designer (and what will it cost)?

That’s a really common question and the answer is… well, it depends on a few factors. Please keep in mind that in order to work with a developer you’ll have to be prepared to have a budget of at least $1,500 and that’s the low end. For any changes and further developments, you’ll pay your developer’s hourly rate. Then there is the ongoing hosting as well as domain costs (which will be another $100 per year more or less).

Using one of the best website builders, you can calculate roughly $100-150 per year (all-inclusive), depending on the provider you’ll be using.

In many cases, it’s actually an excellent approach to familiarizing yourself with the task of creating a website. Even if, in the end, you decide to hire a web designer, you’ll have a much better idea of what person you should be looking for and what your website should look like. Our free ebook “Website Creation for Absolute Beginners” will explain all the important parts of a website project.

How does this whole domain name thing work?

The domain name is the web address that your website uses. Our domain is called tooltester.com, and you can see it in your browser’s address bar:

Such a domain costs right around $8-15 per year, depending on the top-level domain (for example .com, .co.uk or .net). You can purchase your custom domain name at the usual places such as Namecheap or GoDaddy.

Next to these paid domain names, there are also free subdomains: yoursite.weebly.com would be an example. Free website builders usually offer that. Obviously, they don’t look as professional as a premium domain name and should not be used in a professional context.

If you are going to use a website builder you can usually purchase a premium domain name there. That makes handling it slightly easier as you’ll only be dealing with one company. If you are going to use WordPress or you’ll be programming the website yourself, you will also need web space, where you can upload your website’s files and data. With a website builder, you don’t need web space as it’ll be already included.

Using your domain name you can also get your very own email address (e.g. [email protected]). That’ll make a much more professional impression than an address from Gmail or Yahoo. This email address can be managed either through your website builder, domain provider, or an external service. Most website builders work with Google Workspace these days. It’s a great service but it comes at a fairly high cost: $6 per email address.

Tip #6: If your website builder doesn’t include free email accounts we recommend using either an affordable solution like Namecheap’s Private Email Hosting (around $10 per year) or Zoho Workplace, which even has a free plan for up to 5 users!

The whole domain and email setup can be a bit confusing so please leave a comment at the bottom of this page if you still have any questions!

How can I add additional functionality to my website?

You may require additional apps for your website like an online booking engine, event planning, site search, live chat or even a chatbot. The best website builders like Wix, Shopify, WordPress, and Weebly have a dedicated app store where you can add hundreds of plugins with just a few clicks.

Wix’s App Market

But even if there isn’t an app store you can simply integrate apps using the source code they provide. Usually, that’s as easy as copy & paste.

The best website builders for your industry

Obviously, not all projects are created equal. And it’s true of course that there are easy website builders that are better suited to photographers than to bloggers. Let me now give you our favorites for each use case:

The best small business website builder

For a small business website of no more than 20-30 individual pages, we recommend Wix. Especially if you want the design to be something special. The big advantage is that they have a wealth of templates for all kinds of businesses.

If your website is going to be larger than 30 pages, you should check out Weebly as they have a better system in place to manage a large set of pages. Their selection of templates is not as plentiful, so you’ll have to invest a bit more time into putting together a design.

Finally, if you are not scared of technical challenges and need a website that scales, WordPress.org is probably for you. Thanks to 1000’s of plugins and themes, pretty much everything is possible with WordPress. You just have to invest the time to set it up and to manage its ongoing maintenance.

The best website builder for bloggers

Basically, all website builders on this page have their very own blogging tool integrated. But how good are they? Well, it depends. If you want to do this professionally, you’ll probably be best served using WordPress. There’s also Squarespace (which even supports podcasting) and Weebly if you prefer easier options that are less powerful.

And a good intermediate is Webflow, which also has flexible blogging features that are similar to WordPress’s, but whose no-code visual editor makes it a lot easier to customize the design of your blog pages. It requires more technical skills, though.

As running a successful blog is a science in itself, I would recommend checking out our detailed blogging guide. There you can find hosting options and our template recommendations.

The best website builders for photographers and artists

Thanks to their fantastic photo galleries, Wix takes the top spot again. Photography sites and portfolios are pretty much an existential part of Wix’s DNA. Just take a look at their photography and design templates to see for yourself. Another great option for creative workers is Squarespace for their tasteful templates and gallery options.

If you are a professional photographer, you might like Pixpa. There you have a proofing functionality that allows you to set up private collections for clients. What’s noteworthy as well, is the specialized online store for photos. We also have specific tips for artist and musician websites in our dedicated articles.

The best ecommerce website builder

Going to start an online store? Fantastic! Ecommerce is an exciting adventure. To begin it you should be well-equipped. If your online store needs to be able to scale, integrate with multiple sales channels, and offer various real-time shipping options, you’ll need a specialized tool like Shopify or BigCommerce. Read our full Shopify review and BigCommerce review for more details.

If you only want to open a small-to-medium sized online store that is easy to use, it probably makes more sense to go with Wix or Squarespace. They are more affordable than the ‘big guns’ and have more than enough to get you started.

If you’re interested in digital products specifically, then check out our guide on how to sell digital downloads.

Website builder software: Can I install it on my computer too?

PC and Mac website software used to be very popular – maybe you can even remember Microsoft Frontpage or Macromedia Dreamweaver, as it used to be called. The advantage of such programs is that you typically pay (a larger amount) upfront and can build as many websites as you like. The downside is that you need to take care of hosting your website yourself, which incurs additional costs.

These days most people clearly prefer hosted website builders such as Wix, Weebly, and Jimdo due to their added simplicity. You can edit your site from different computers, no matter if it’s a Mac or PC. If you absolutely want an installable website builder software, I would recommend you check out Mobirise. The basic version is free, you only pay if you purchase one of their premium designs or extensions.

Tip #7: We often see our readers over-analyzing their website project, spending days comparing every little feature. What usually works much better is to just sign-up for a free trial, dipping your feet into the water! This way you’ll see very quickly whether this is for you or not.

Best Website Builders: Our Conclusion

As you’ve seen, there are a lot of different website tools out there. The most popular website builder according to our own research and the feedback of our readers is Wix. They’ve become a pretty dominant force in the website building business. But that doesn’t mean their competitors are necessarily worse options. It really depends on your use case.

If you are still unsure about what to pick, I’d again recommend running our Smart Finder and answering 5 simple questions. Good luck with your website project!

Our Testing Methodology

Latest Updates

15 Jun 2022 – Zyro added
11 May 2022 – Glossary added
02 May 2022 – Duda downgraded from #10 to #11
28 Apr 2022 – Wix.com pricing changes, other smaller updates

Congrats! You’ve made it to the very end of this guide. All there is left to say from my side is to leave a comment if you get stuck in the process. We’ll be happy to help you!