We’d like to bring to your attention a detailed review of 5 most popular website builders of the current year – open source, as well as paid ones. Every year, there appear many new platforms – that’s why we have reviewed all the relevant data at the moment and prepared an updated selection of the most advanced website building platforms of 2017. Each website builder on our list has a description, indicating its advantages and disadvantages. So, you’ll be able to choose the right one for your project.
WIX
Our list opens with Wix. There are essential reasons for calling Wix the finest website builder since its capabilities are often better than the competitors’ platforms. In many respects, it is due to the fact that this platform has existed since 2006. Over this period of time, Wix has done a great job on making its service better, and this work is still going on.
The Wix team was able to create a really powerful platform for website building without losing simplicity and ease of use.
You can first pick up the template you find most suitable and only then register it, which is also very convenient. Wix’s efforts were highly praised by users – this free web platform has been used to build over 75 million sites around the world.
WIX Advantages
- A huge templates selection – more than 1000 samples executed with the use of HTML5;
- The quality of templates belongs to the top among the website building platforms;
- Fully adaptive templates are available;
- Extensive options for editing templates;
- Functional and intuitive interface;
- User-friendly Drag and Drop editor;
- A lot of useful plagins: forum, blog, chat, mobile version of the site and many other options;
- Excellent indexing of websites by search engines;
- SEO pack;
- A wide range of applications in AppMarket;
- The ability to load your own templates.
WIX Disadvantages
- One can’t edit HTML/CSS;
- An online store would cost you extra investments.
Conclusion: the Wix platform is an ideal option for beginning webmasters and for those who need a free, well-functioning, and nice site.
Weebly
Weebly is one of the oldest and most popular website builders, which has been developing continuously since 2007. This free platform is used to develop sites for various purposes: business card websites, blogs, online stores. Weebly is a truly user-friendly and easy-to-use platform with excellent templates that have a high potential for editing and modernizing. In addition to colorful templates, Weebly has a powerful Drag and Drop editor, which greatly simplifies the process of building a site.
Weebly Advantages
- Free;
- High-quality templates;
- Availability of fully adaptive templates;
Extensive options for editing templates; - Functional and intuitive interface;
- Convenient Drag and Drop editor;
Excellent indexing of websites by search engines; - A wide range of applications in AppMarket;
- Ability to load your own templates;
- Ability to edit HTML/CSS;
Weebly Disadvantages
- A limited selection of templates – about 100 items;
- Designing online stores is available only for paid tariffs;
- High cost of tariffs for building online stores;
- Sales commission is 3% for online stores
Squarespace
Squarespace is a paid website builder with excellent templates. It can hardly be said that this platform is the best on our list, but it really deserves attention. At least because it has very beautiful high-quality templates. Besides, great efforts are made to promote this platform.
Squarespace does not have a typical interface of the visual editor, and it may take some time to get used to it. Still, it is convenient to customize templates, and the opportunities for customizing websites are really wide.
Squarespace Advantages
- The quality of templates is one of the best among website builders;
- Fully adaptive templates are available;
- Extensive options for editing templates;
- Availability of Drag and Drop editor;
- Excellent indexing of websites by search engines;
- The number of products is unlimited
- The ability to introduce small changes to CSS
Squarespace Disadvantages
- A small selection of templates – just 32 samples. Besides, the templates are boring for the eye, and you can see at once that this is an automatically generated template.
- The web-editor interface may seem difficult to beginning webmasters;
- For detailed customization of the website, you may need the knowledge of HTML/CSS;
- Sales commission is 3% for online stores;
- It is shameful that this platform does not support PayPal as a payment method for online stores;
- Low level of customer support, helping only with basic issues.
Jimdo
Jimdo is a great free website building platform created in Germany. The company was established by three fellow programmers in 2007 and has successfully provided SaaS services in website design ever since. Jimdo was used to build over 15 million existing sites. This platform allows you to develop websites for various purposes – from personal websites to online shops.
Despite the versatility of Jimdo, this platform is best suited for the development of online stores. To create business cards, there are more attractive offers on the market. Still, it is worth noting that using the Jimdo platform for free enables the creation of a simple site without the possibility of online sales and with very truncated functions. If you need further options or are planning to run an online store, you will need to invest some more money. Thus, compared to other free platforms, the features Jimdo renders for free are not the leading ones.
Jimdo Advantages
- Free;
- High-quality templates;
- User-friendly visual editor;
- Handy and intuitive interface;
- Drag and Drop editor;
- Excellent indexing of websites by the search systems;
- Affordable cost of paid tariffs;
- Availability of additional applications;
- Ability to load your own templates;
- Possibility to download and upload goods through CSV files;
- Lots of featured for online stores.
Jimdo Disadvantages
- Only 16 templates available;
- Free products offer very weak possibilities;
- Creating online stores is possible only for an extra money;
- You may use the SEO-settings only in the maximum Business tariff.
SiteBuilder.com
SiteBuilder.com offers a great set of tools for creating your website and does not require any knowledge of code or possession of other technical skills.
SiteBuilder.com Advantages
- SiteBuilder.com offers a full-service package for building websites. This means that you do not have to pay separately for hosting your website.
- The service offers an all-in-one option: included are hosting, the domain name and the branded e-mail address linked to your own domain name.
- SiteBuilder offers thousands of templates for all kinds of websites.
- Each of these templates is easily edited using the drag & drop tool.
- The platform also offers an online store plan. It automatically creates a new PayPal account for the indicated e-mail address to receive payments from your customers.
SiteBuilder.com Disadvantages
- On the SiteBuilder platform, the proposed set of tools is limited.
- Their free plan includes advertising, so you’d better opt for a paid plan if you want a truly professional website.
If you want to quickly create a website, SiteBuilder.com is quite good for it. Still, remember that this is not a fully-functional CMS, like WordPress, so you won’t be able to activate any plugins or a SEO pack by yourself.
So, we hope this review will help you to make the right choice and use the best website builder for your goals.
