Best Website Builders of 2023

Squarespace is a great website builder if you're looking for a no-code, all-in-one solution that includes free professionally-designed templates. Squarespace is known for its sleek designs that make it quick and easy to set up a great-looking website.


What Squarespace does best is help you create stunning websites without having any coding knowledge. The website editor gets updates often to make it easier to use, but the overall best features of Squarespace are those beautifully designed templates that make it look like you're a professional website designer.

Squarespace includes lots of features to help you put together a quality website with forms for lead capture, built-in email marketing tools (so you don't have to use a third-party app), and it doesn't limit your storage or bandwidth (except for video).

It's also worth noting that Squarespace offers excellent blogging features. In my opinion, a blog is necessary whether you have an info-only website or an online store. And it's a user-friendly blog module - I was able to quickly create a blog, add images, and modify SEO settings for each post.

Although Squarespace refuses to offer phone support, it explains why and more than makes up for this missing support channel by providing excellent live chat, email, and social media help and it does so quickly. I preferred using the help center because it has so many well-made tutorials, videos, and answers to common questions.

Who is Squarespace best for?

I've always been a proponent for Squarespace as a great solution for solopreneurs. Whether you're creating a website or an online store, or you simply want to sell on social media, Squarespace works for all purposes. However, it isn't the most scalable solution - customization is limited.

Recent upgrades to Squarespace

Squarespace is good about keeping its website builder updated as technology changes. When Google's AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) project took off, Squarespace was quick to adopt the practice to increase the load speed of mobile pages for better ranking (the jury is still out on whether Google AMP is worth using). Still, Squarespace is committed to improving its product for its clients.

The site builder released version 7.1 to give customers more customization options, such as animation to your site - all without having to add code to the backend. Squarespace also implemented Fluid Engine, which is a drag-and-drop editor that makes it much easier to design an online store by moving blocks around on the page.

Squarespace pricing

Like other website builders, Squarespace offers multiple plans to suit different stages and sizes of businesses. Pricing ranges from $23 to $65, but if you want to pay annually, monthly prices averages from $16 to $49.

Shopify is known as the e-commerce website builder, and for good reason. It offers accessible pricing for small businesses and scalable solutions for when your business grows. It's easy to use and it offers a robust app store for you to add functionality where you need.


Shopify is the best website builder for e-commerce users because it offers different levels of e-commerce functionality at every plan level, making it easy for anyone to get started with an online store. The editor has a bit of a learning curve, though.

Although Shopify gives you all the basics you need to get started with an e-commerce website, including nearly 100 templates, you may find that you're reliant on apps to give you added functionality. The good news is that Shopify's app marketplace is bursting with options - more than 4,000 of them, in fact.

An important feature for any online seller is analytics, and Shopify excels at this. I played around with multiple reports and found that Shopify offers excellent insight into traffic, sales, abandoned carts, and marketing efforts, to name a few.

You won't have to worry about security with Shopify. It's one of the most trusted website-building platforms with PCI compliance. Your site and your customers' data will be safe with a fraud detection system.

Support at Shopify is available 24/7, which is helpful because not everyone conducts business during business hours only (and time zones are a thing). I wasn't able to get phone support because I had to request a call back, and it took me a while to find the contact info in the help center and community forum. Shopify kinda buries it.

Who is Shopify best for?

Shopify is best for small businesses that want a full-fledged online store. The cost is worth it for one of the mid- to high-tier plans, given the excellent features, such as abandoned cart recovery and analytics.

Recent upgrades to Shopify

Shopify stays on top of updates and upgrades to its platform, so your subscription to the service will always get better. Recently, Shopify added shipping speed status, which lets you share with customers when they can expect their packages from you. Soon you should see global inventory tracking, which makes Shopify an even better option for global sales and management.

Shopify pricing

I didn't consider Shopify's Starter plan because it's a bit too limiting, but if you're looking for a stripped down version of Shopify to sell on social only, it's free to start and only $5 per month thereafter. The Basic, Shopify, and Advanced plans cost $29, $79, and $299 monthly, respectively.

Wix combines ease of use, value, and lots of choice when it comes to prebuilt templates and a robust third-party app marketplace. Anyone can create the website of their dreams with this well-designed website builder.


Between the centralized main dashboard with guided tours and a simple-to-use site editor, Wix is nearly a complete solution right out of the box. It's packed with features and options - add a blog, a shopping cart, or manage advertising campaigns. If there's any feature you're missing, check out the Wix app marketplace, as there are more than 250 third-party apps you can use there.

Wix has one of the best website editors because it's easy for anyone to learn and use. I went through the guide for setup and found that if you have zero experience creating a website, Wix makes it so simple for you to do it step by step.

And all of Wix's templates (900+) are customizable, which is its strongest feature. I did get a little frustrated that I couldn't switch templates on my site. And when I looked for a marketing section, I realized it's an addon that comes with more costs ranging from $10 to $49 per month.

When it comes to security, Wix takes potential threats very seriously. There's DDoS protection, SSL certificates, and 24/7 server monitoring. Plus, you can create a backup anytime you need and restore a previous version of your site should anything be compromised.

Wix's phone support line is open 24/7, and you can reach out via live chat if you prefer. When I tried to contact support by phone, I found the wait times slow enough that I gave up. I had better luck with live chat and the agent I got was helpful and friendly.

Who is Wix best for?

Wix is especially great for new users, but the editor is a flexible enough option for experienced users that want to customize their sites, too. If you're easily overwhelmed by too much choice, you may find Wix frustrating. It lands in the middle of the pack when it comes to pricing, but you can at least get started with a free plan to see if it's the right website builder for you.

Recent upgrades to Wix

Wix updates its platform often, and it doesn't neglect any area. E-commerce tools have been tweaked and added, such as the Wix POS (point of sale) to support multichannel sales. Wix also recently added the SEO Learning Hub to help customers improve their sites and rank higher on search engines.

Wix also improved its ADI (artificial design intelligence) to make website creation even easier - just answer some questions and Wix's AI-powered tool will build a website based on your criteria.

Wix pricing

Wix's pricing may seem high at first glance, but when you take into account the hundreds of free templates and the easy-to-use site editor with a multitude of elements and features, it's actually a high value-to-cost ratio. Pricing for website plans range from $16 per month to $45 per month. The limitations on lower-priced plans may push you to another provider, though.

Web.com didn't start out as a website builder, rather it offered professional web services. In fact, it still does, which is why we think it's a good choice for small businesses that don't want to create a do-it-yourself website, though you still can with Web.com's simple drag-and-drop site builder.


It's surprisingly simple to build a website with Web.com as your website builder because the 175+ templates are stacked with all the elements you could need for a basic website - just replace the content with your own. The drag-and-drop editor makes sense, as do the terms for the elements you can add to your site.

Aside from its ease of use, Web.com also offers free stock photos via an Unsplash integration, which is a nice timesaver. One of the most unique features from Web.com is free LLC formation, so if you're starting a new business, you may as well take advantage of that offer.

By far, Web.com's biggest selling point is its professional design and SEO services, but it's also the most confounding - I couldn't easily edit meta descriptions without Web.com's help.

Web.com offers basic security features, but it doesn't seem to prioritize data security. There's little on its site or help center about PCI compliance or fraud detection.

Support is available 24/7 via live chat and limited hours for phone support. Wait times can be long; I stopped waiting for a response after 20 minutes. Also, I found the articles in the help center are outdated, so I didn't give it great marks for quality customer support.

Who is Web.com best for?

Web.com's website builder is a good fit for small businesses that don't want to hire a web designer.

Recent upgrades to Web.com

One of the best updates to Web.com's offerings is abandoned cart recovery for e-commerce users. However, it removed email marketing as a service, which seems odd given the abandoned cart recovery addition.

Web.com pricing

Pricing for Web.com is reasonable at the beginning, and if you pay annually.

Getting started with Web.com is fairly affordable if you agree to pay annually, but the renewal or month-to-month cost is $9.99 per month to $39.99 per month. The introductory cost is only $4.95 to $19.95 per month, but paid annually. That's just the plan cost, as noted above, there are lots of upsells (and some features aren't available without an upgrade to a service).

Duda makes it possible for an individual or an agency to create several websites with a website builder meant for building sites at scale. The higher-tier plans let you create multiple websites, and there are tools available to help you duplicate and edit for fast output.


Duda is a website builder, but it's intended for freelancers and agencies that build multiple websites. You can use it as an individual, but it's a bit pricey for a single website. The high-tier plans include staff accounts, so you can have multiple people working on multiple websites simultaneously from the same account.

In addition to Duda's built-in scalability for creating regular websites, it includes an e-commerce addon, in case your clients want to sell products. I'm a big fan of the image editor in the platform that saves edited photos in a library and the drag-and-drop editor.

One of the best reasons to use Duda is automation. Flex mode lets you duplicate elements on a page, including images, text boxes, and icons, for example. Once you get the hang of it, you can populate pages and full sites quickly and easily.

Another great feature of Duda is the sharable content library, which makes it possible for clients to upload content they want you to use on their sites. I could see this feature saving so much time for me - no more chasing down content from clients.

Duda's security features are on lock, too. You get an SSL certificate and Duda is PCI compliant. It also offers automatic scans of servers for malware and automated daily backups of Duda's servers.

Who is Duda best for?

Duda is an ideal solution for web developers and creative agencies that need to create sites at scale - you can even create your own widgets for a website. It may seem like a cookie-cutter website builder, but it has tons of design and coding flexibility, so it's as customizable as you need. All Duda is really missing is a big app marketplace, but Duda seems to want to create what you need itself.

Recent upgrades to Duda

Although Duda is seriously lacking in third-party app integrations, it did recently add Zapier, which opens up so many other software connections to you (and automations).

One of the most innovative (especially compared to typical website builders) features added is a dynamic filter, which lets you change info in one spot that will update across multiple pages. A good example would be if your client has its address on every page on its website, but recently moved - you change the address in one place and it automatically updates across a website.

Duda pricing

Duda is an affordable option for you if you run a small business that's in the business of building websites. The pricing range for monthly plans is $19 to $99. If you choose to pay an annual fee instead, you can save 25%.

Leadpages is primarily a landing page builder, but you can also create a full site with its website builder. Its focus on handholding you through creating pages that convert makes marketing accessible to even the brand new.


Leadpages used to solely focus on landing page building, but you can also use it to create a full-fledged website. Its biggest selling point is that it hasn't lost track of its main mission: to make marketing more accessible to solopreneurs, small businesses, and new users.

You can create multiple types of pages with templates built with conversion rate in mind.

The features you get are unique compared to other website builders - I've yet to find a good website builder that includes A/B testing other than Leadpages. And the fact that you can easily duplicate a landing page, pop-up, or alert bar means less time creating and more time focusing on running your business and campaigns.

You can create an unlimited number of pages, and it's so easy to do it on Leadpages. In fact, I think another big selling point for Leadpages is how easy it is to use. Even if you have zero experience in marketing, you can create pages, run split tests, and analyze your data to inform your next decision; Leadpages makes it feel like you know what you're doing.

Although Leadpages isn't strictly a marketing tool or a CRM (customer relationship management) software, it lives somewhere in the gray area between the two. Leadpages keeps your leads in your dashboard, and it includes a lead magnet delivery system, so you can send e-books or guides to leads when they opt-in for emails from you.

Who is Leadpages best for?

Leadpages is really meant for an entrepreneur or small business that relies on leads. You can create unlimited landing pages on various subdomains and use them in ad campaigns.

Recent upgrades to Leadpages

One of the most recent improvements to Leadpages seems to be in a beta stage - a landing page review. It's free for now, but the site builder makes it clear that it's only free for a limited time. You can create a landing page and then submit it to an expert who will send a video review of your page, offering tips and tricks to increase your conversion rate.

Leadpages pricing

Leadpages is relatively expensive compared to the top website builders in the industry, but the value is much higher. The Standard plan costs $49 per month, but if you pay upfront annually, you get a discount that averages to $37 per month. The Pro plan costs $99 per month, or $74 per month, paid annually; the Advanced plan costs $399 per month, or $299 per month, if paid per year.

WordPress is the biggest name in website building, and WordPress.com is the hosted version of the popular CMS (content management system). It's one of the most affordable ways to join the internet with your own blog or full website.


WordPress.com is a well-known CMS and website builder that includes hosting, an SSL certificate, and support, unlike the self-hosted option for the open-source CMS. This means you don't have to find your own hosting plan because it's an all-in-one website builder. It's also one of the most affordable options out there, at least for the low-priced plans.

You get your own domain name on any plan, but if you choose the free plan, it will be a subdomain with WordPress.com branding and ads. There are more than 160 themes, which is good, but if you compare that to the number of themes available for the self-hosted version, that's just a fraction.

Perhaps because WordPress.com is one of the best-known website builders, it's aware that its platform is often targeted by hackers. Therefore, WordPress.com offers excellent security, from SSL certificate for all plans to actively monitoring its servers for any malware or DDoS attacks.

I almost exclusively use WordPress as a CMS myself, but I hadn't tried the hosted version before. I think its best feature is that it's easy to maintain because WordPress.com handles updates (to keep you protected) and it includes Jetpack Essentials, which is a pack of elements you can add to your sites, such as photo galleries and a contact form.

You can add other plugins, but you might not need them, and I found a lot of helpful elements in Jetpack.

WordPress.com gives you plenty of options to find help within its support center. It does leave out free users from getting live help, though. And if you need a live agent, you're limited to live chat or email, but chat is available 24 hours per day on weekdays.

Who is WordPress.com best for?

In all fairness, WordPress.com can be a good fit for anyone, but my tests showed that it's best for individuals who want a website or blog - free or paid. The free plan and the low-priced plans are excellent for new users who don't want to spend a lot at the beginning and may not have a lot of experience. However, the low-priced plans are limited for small businesses.

Recent upgrades to WordPress.com

One of my favorite things about WordPress.com is that they're constantly improving the platform, features, or adding new themes. It appears that WordPress.com adds new themes at least every other month (sometimes monthly). There are new tools for designing your pages, including new border options, and the block editor has been organized to put the most-used block transformations near the top of the list.

You can see all the new upgrades on WordPress.com's blog.

WordPress.com pricing

The free plan from WordPress.com is well known, but if you want to remove branding, you can do so for just $9 per month. Monthly pricing for other plans ranges from $18 to $70. As affordable as the starter plan is, the other plans are a bit pricey compared to other website builders, especially when you consider value.

Zyro is a great choice for new small businesses that want to get started quickly with a website. Although there isn't much room for growth, Zyro is an easy-to-use website builder that won't break your budget.


Zyro's goal seems to be to attract new users to its platform with its low introductory rates and relatively low renewal monthly costs, along with its AI tools. Those tools make it easier for new businesses to create a brand, from logo to content for sites.

What Zyro does best is offer intuitive tools and a site builder, which is also great for new users who may not know how to create a website. I found it so simple to create a logo, build a site, and even create content for my site with the AI help (but the results are questionable, in my opinion).

Also, it stumbles a bit when it comes to scalability. There are only two plans available and few integrations, so you're limited in how much functionality you can add to your site.

Like most website builders, Zyro offers a free SSL certificate to keep your site and your visitors safe. If you choose to create an e-commerce site, your security should be just fine, as Zyro has Level 1 PCI compliance. Plus, Zyro creates backups of your site any time you update and save it, but there's no mention of server monitoring or fraud detection.

Support from Zyro is limited to live chat, email, and a help center. The good news is that Zyro updates its articles in the help center often, so I was able to find current answers to my questions.

Who is Zyro best for?

Given how many tools Zyro offers to help you build a brand and create content with the help of artificial intelligence, I found it's the best choice for brand new businesses. It's easy to use the content creator and logo maker, and the site editor is intuitive, too. This makes it perfect for a new business owner who doesn't have coding skills, time to learn, or the budget to hire a professional.

Recent upgrades to Zyro

Although Zyro's blog doesn't make it clear what the update schedule is, the platform does get updates. For example, Zyro added a Stripe checkout button, so you can integrate the payment processor to your site to sell a product or two, and now you can add WhatsApp as a social media channel to your site. Perhaps even better: you can embed code on your site (good news for web devs).

Zyro pricing

Zyro's pricing is pretty straightforward: Get a great rate your first year, and then pay quite a bit more to keep your account going. Intro rates are $2.99 per month for the Website plan, and $3.99 per month for the Business plan. Those rates go up exponentially to $11.99 and $14.99, respectively, but it's still less expensive than many other website builders. Unfortunately, Zyro offers less value.

GoDaddy Website Builder is one of the easiest website builders to get started with. It's an all-in-one solution for every site building plan that includes hosting, domain name, email marketing, and SEO tools to some degree. It's also an affordable option.


The best reason to use GoDaddy is to get a website up and running as quickly as possible. GoDaddy Website Builder is ridiculously easy to use - simply answer a couple of questions and follow the prompts in the builder to edit your site. It's made for beginners.

Like most of its competitors, GoDaddy Website Builder is an all-in-one choice that includes hosting, a free domain name (for the first year), an SSL certificate, and free templates (most of which are mobile-friendly). And to top it off, GoDaddy Website Builder is relatively inexpensive, so it's an ideal pick for new users.

GoDaddy's support leaves something to be desired. It is available 24/7, but my wait time was long, and I had to interact with a bot first before being put through to an agent.

Additionally, support through phone, text, and live chat, isn't always the most helpful. I went in circles with an agent about a charge before finally getting it resolved 30 minutes later.

If you're looking to create a basic website with a little SEO and some email marketing built in, GoDaddy Website Builder could fit your needs, as you won't have to shop around for third-party apps to fill in feature gaps. However, keep in mind that renewal costs are pricey (around 40% higher than intro pricing) and customization isn't GoDaddy's strongest point.

The good news is that GoDaddy has been in the web services world for a while now - so it knows a thing or two about security. Every website gets an SSL certificate and you can set up MFA (multi-factor authentication). There are automatic backups and regular monitoring of servers.

You also have some room for growth with GoDaddy's multiple plans for e-commerce features and unlocking limitations on the number of products you can list.

Who is GoDaddy best for?

Hands down, GoDaddy Website Builder is best for beginners in my opinion. My testing showed that GoDaddy Website Builder is so straightforward that anyone with any skill level can easily build a good-looking website. I think it's affordable to get started and maintain a website with the tools provided, including email marketing and SEO tools.

Recent upgrades to GoDaddy Website Builder

GoDaddy Website Builder got some recent updates to its platform to make it much easier for you to design and make changes to your site on the go. It's more mobile-friendly than ever. It has also disabled Flash, which is an outdated software used to display graphics - and this is a good thing because it didn't always work well; now GoDaddy uses HTML5 (hypertext markup language), which is an industry standard.

GoDaddy Website Builder pricing

GoDaddy Website Builder starts you out with extremely affordable monthly plans. Pricing ranges from $9.99 per month to $29.99 per month (and you get a deep discount if you sign up for an annual plan). Take advantage of long-term contract pricing while you can; the longer the term, the deeper the discount.

Weebly is one of the oldest all-in-one website builders, and it's universally loved by users who prefer Weebly's easy-to-use editor - and it's still viable for creating websites. However, development for the site builder has stopped since Square acquired it in 2018.


Weebly remains a popular website builder among users that know it because it's so simple to create a basic website on its platform. Aside from ease of use, Weebly is also one of the cheapest website builders.

Unfortunately, since Square took over Weebly, there is no more development planned for the Weebly site editor. In fact, if you choose to make a “business” website on Weebly, you get redirected to Square Online and a completely different site editor. So if you want to create only a website with no plans to grow it, feel free to use Weebly.

Even without innovation, Weebly remains a strong choice among its competitors. In my opinion, one of its best features is the collection of simple predesigned templates that I was able to modify fairly easily. And Weebly has a rare feature for website builders: I can switch my template any time without having to repopulate my content, which is a huge timesaver.

The blog features from Weebly are also fantastic. It's so simple to add or modify the sidebar for my blog to include my bio, and a list of posts, and even set up an RSS (really simple syndication) feed. Adjusting titles and descriptions is also pretty straightforward, so you're good on SEO.

Speaking of SEO, Weebly does a great job of letting you modify SEO settings site-wide, for individual pages, and for your blog.

Who is Weebly best for?

Weebly is still just as easy to use now as it was years ago, so it's a great pick for new users. It's also only for information-based websites because of the lack of development for the platform. If you plan to grow your site with new functionality or add an online store, you'd be better off choosing one of the best e-commerce platforms.

Recent upgrades to Weebly

Weebly no longer receives updates to its platform. Square, which owns Weebly, is focusing on Square Online for site building, but Weebly hasn't been shut down yet. There are no set-in-stone plans to do so, reportedly.

Weebly pricing

Weebly has always offered low prices, which is part of the reason it was such a popular website builder. You can get a 100% free plan with basic security and a URL (uniform resource locator) as a Weebly subdomain, but it's fairly limited. Upgrade to a paid plan for $13 to $29 per month, or $10 to $26 per month, if paid annually.