The 10 Best Personal Website Builders for 2023 Reviewed

Aleksandar Stevanovic

Aleksandar Stevanovic

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Alex is a Senior Software Content Writer at Techopedia. He focuses on creating reader-oriented comparison pages, reviews, research pieces, and editorials. With nearly a decade…

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Michael Simon

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Michael is a Tech Content Editor at Techopedia, who is passionate about delivering high-quality tech content online and ensuring the accuracy of our content. With…

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Last updated: 13 September, 2023

The best personal website builder should be affordable while providing you with access to a library of professional website themes, an easy-to-use editor to customize them, and a variety of tools, features, and apps to get your site off the ground.

There are dozens of providers whose website-building services fit that description, so it can be difficult to choose one over another. To narrow down the field and help you make an informed decision, we’ve reviewed and compared the 10 best personal website builders on the market, looking at their features, usability, pricing, and pros and cons.

The Top Personal Website Creators Ranked

Here’s our list of the best platforms for building a personal website in 2023:

1. Wix — $4.50/month — Overall, the best personal website builder in 2023, with over 900+ free, customizable website templates, a smart drag-and-drop editor, and dozens of advanced features.
2. GoDaddy — $8.72/month — Lets you build a personal website in 15 minutes for free, with the ability to upscale and access advanced features at any time.
3. Webador — $5/month — Hands-down, the best free personal website builder on the market, with 50+ responsive templates, free stock photos, free hosting, and unlimited traffic and storage.
4. Squarespace — $16/month — A premium platform, which is great for creating professional websites for selling products and services online. Offers a variety of gorgeous templates for every industry and use case.
5. Shopify — $32/month — The leading platform for building your online store, which is perfect for individuals getting into dropshipping to create a secondary revenue stream.
6. Square — $29/month + transaction fees — Free to start with and great for creating a website to sell small quantities of hand-crafted items.
7. Ucraft — $10/month — A super-responsive website builder with a free plan that’s perfect for portfolio websites and blogs.
8. IONOS — $1/month for the first six months — The fastest website builder thanks to a built-in AI assistant that can handle everything from design to text and image generation based on your input.
9. Weebly — $10/month — Flexible site builder for creative individuals, offering a free-forever plan with great customization, step-by-step starter guides, and planning tools.
10. Systeme.io — $27/month — An ideal website builder for affiliate marketing sites, with built-in email capture, unlimited emailing and file storage, and effortless sales funnel creation.

Should I Use a Personal Website Builder or Hire Someone?

If you need a simple website to use as a personal blog, store family photos, promote your artwork, or publish short stories, building it yourself is a much more cost-effective solution than hiring a professional website designer.

While the task may sound daunting, the key thing to understand is that you won’t be building the entire website from scratch.

Another thing to keep in mind is that professional developers are relatively expensive, with average rates starting as high as $37/hour and website builds costing hundreds or thousands of dollars.

That’s why we recommend giving personal website builders a try, at the very least. Once you see first-hand how easy they are to use, you’ll be glad you didn’t spend your hard-earned money on paying someone else to do the job for you.

The Top Personal Website Builder Packages Reviewed

Here are detailed reviews of the best personal website builders in 2023 so you can see what different providers offer, how they compare, how complex they are, and what tools and features you’ll have access to.

1. Wix — Overall, the Best Personal Website Builder

Wix is a robust personal website builder that gives you all the tools you need to bring your website to life. The platform is built on an enterprise-grade foundation, so you’ll enjoy super-fast site loading speeds and ironclad security while still having the full creative freedom to customize even the smallest detail of the site to your liking.

With Wix, you’ll have access to over 900 free, customizable website templates created by professional designers. They’re tailored for particular industries and use cases, as well, so you’ll find everything from professional CV and artist websites to coaching and event planning sites and travel and food blogs.

The platform features a smart drag-and-drop editor with over 1,000 advanced design capabilities, so you’ll be able to fully customize the website outline, font, and colors, and add photos, videos, and gifs, create new pages, and design a custom navigation menu – or do anything else that comes to mind.

You’ll also be able to add a logo to your webpages if you want personal branding to be a key aspect of your site. As a bonus, you’ll get a free custom domain for an entire year if you opt for any tier above Basic.

After you’ve built your dream website, you can take advantage of the advanced tools Wix offers to grow your blog, sell items in your online store, attract new clients as a freelancer, get your portfolio to the best employers, or simply establish a strong online presence and build a loyal following.

If you’re promoting your services, art you’ve created, a book you’ve written, or anything else you’d like to sell, you can also take advantage of Wix’s SEO, email, and social marketing tools to drive traffic to your website and convert visitors into paying customers.

And if you want to scale up, we rate Wix as the best website builder for small business, as well.

2. GoDaddy — Lets You Build a Website in 15 Minutes for Free

The GoDaddy personal website builder is excellent for creating a super-fast, mobile-free website in minutes. The best part about it is that you can get started with a personal website for free and buy premium features along the way if the need arises, so you’ll only be paying for what you use.

Getting your website off the ground with GoDaddy couldn’t be easier. All you need to do is pick a template, add content, and fill in the personal information, such as the About Me page.

There are hundreds of professional templates at your disposal for a wide variety of different websites, ranging from fashion and beauty, art and design, and photography to personal blogs, travel blogs, and community and nonprofit sites.

GoDaddy is great for websites set up to sell a product or a service, thanks to the variety of promotional tools the website builder offers. For example, the AI-powered GoDaddy Insight tool helps you boost your online presence and connect your target audience with your artwork, photography, books, or other products.

You’ll also have access to SEO, social media, and email marketing tools, which can help you get the word out and grab the attention of the right people, whether you’re simply looking for like-minded individuals to read your blog and share ideas or want to start selling stuff online.

3. Webador — Hands-Down the Best Free Personal Website Builder on the Market

Webador is a super-intuitive website builder that lets you get your site up and running in as little as 10 minutes, even if you have absolutely no previous knowledge or experience. This is possible thanks to a user-friendly editor that lets you quickly customize the professional templates in Webador’s library.

The best part about Webador is the fact it offers a free-forever plan, which is great news if you’re building a website for personal use or as a hobby.

It’s one of the best free website builders on the market since it gives you access to all the essential features, such as free hosting, unlimited storage and traffic, over 50 professional templates, free SSL, access to free stock photos, and 24/7 professional customer support.

The one downside of the free plan is that you don’t get a free custom domain. Instead, you can have the name of your website featured in the URL, but it’ll be with a .webador.com address (e.g., yourname.webaddor.com). Additionally, and understandably, Webador will run ads on your website if you opt for a free plan.

If you opt to upgrade to one of the paid plans, apart from a free custom domain and an ad-free website, you’ll also get access to advanced features like a professional personal inbox, customizable forms, unlimited photo albums, Google Analytics, and more.

All in all, Webador is amazing if you want to get a fairly simple website off the ground and use it as a personal blog or a way to showcase your online portfolio, and we rate it as the best family website builder.

However, if you want to sell anything, you’ll have to upgrade to one of the higher-priced plans, at which point there are other, more cost-effective alternatives.

4. Squarespace — Premium Platform for Making Pro Websites to Sell Products and Services

Squarespace is a robust platform for building professional websites and marketing your products and services online. It can be used for creating personal websites as well, such as blogs and online portfolios, provided you’re prepared to pay the premium price for the platform.

The cheapest Squarespace plan starts from $16/month, which is several times more expensive than the plans of its competitors.

However, you’ll immediately understand why once you see the quality of professionally designed templates in Squarespace’s library. There are hundreds of breathtaking templates to choose from, all of which can be fully customized to fit your needs.

You’ll also have access to dozens of website examples made by other Squarespace users, so you can see just how creative you can get with the platform and get inspired by others to build your dream website.

Other features of Squarespace are geared towards selling products and services online, so it’s a great option if you’re looking to sell something you’ve created or offer professional services to clients.

Functionality includes building an online store, scheduling appointments, selling classes and courses, creating an exclusive community with member-only access, and marketing your business via email and social media.

5. Shopify — Leading Platform for Building an Online Store

Shopify is the most popular ecommerce platform on the market, so if you’re looking to create an ecommerce site to sell your hand-crafted goods, jewelry, e-books, recipe books, or pretty much anything else, look no further.

The website builder is super-intuitive and comes with literally thousands of themes to choose from for any type of online store. So, whether you’re selling toys, makeup, shoes, or anything in between, you’ll find a dozen different templates to suit your website in seconds.

You’ll also get instant access to all the crucial tools, apps, and integrations you need, including a built-in image resizer for those crisp product photos, stock photos, SEO tools, a QR code generator, and a wide variety of other assets.

The best part about Shopify is that it lets you add unlimited products to your online store, so you can have as many product categories and pages as you need.

This is by far the best option for solo entrepreneurs who want to get into dropshipping, as you’ll have everything you need in one place, including payment processing options, so you can launch your store and start selling right away.

That said, the obvious drawback of this platform is that it’s exclusively created for ecommerce, so you can’t run a blog or use it to create a portfolio and feature your work. It’s also quite pricey, so you’d have to start making money fast in order for the investment to pay off.

6. Square — Good for Selling Small Quantities of Hand-Crafted Items

Square is another decent option if you want to quickly make a website that allows you to sell items to a wide audience, be it a book you’ve written, hand-crafted jewelry you’re making, custom-made wood furniture, or anything in between.

The best part about Square is that you can get started for free. You’ll have access to an easy website builder with built-in SEO tools, as well as dozens of professional website templates specifically designed to help you generate sales.

You’ll be able to fully customize the website layout and change everything from fonts and colors to images, product pages, and website navigation. The platform lets you add images of products, promotional videos, book covers, banners, and a variety of other elements to grab your visitors’ attention.

Square also gives you access to crucial ecommerce tools you’ll need, so you’ll be able to offer a variety of payment options to your customers, effortlessly set up inventory tracking, pickup, and shipping, promote your store on social media, and monitor the performance of your website and marketing endeavors.

If you upgrade to a paid plan, you’ll also get a free domain name for an entire year and access to advanced website customization options, such as time-based offers and discounts, personalized reordering, featured items, and more.

7. Ucraft — Super-Responsive Website Builder with a Free Plan

Ucraft is another super-responsive website builder that lets you create any type of website you want, whether it’s a portfolio to showcase your photography skills, a CV website to make it easier to land that dream job, a fashion blog, or anything else you’ve envisioned. The only limitation is your own creativity.

In addition to hundreds of templates for different niches and use cases and a simple drag-and-drop website builder, Ucraft provides you with invaluable resources in the form of step-by-step guides, tips, and best practices.

While this means you’d have to invest some time to get the most out of the platform, it also gives you all the tools you need to create a breathtaking website, even if you have zero previous experience. For inspiration, you can also look at gorgeous websites created by other Ucraft users.

The basic version of the personal website builder is free, so you can test out the platform and get your website up and running without committing to a monthly subscription. The free plan lets you create up to 15 web pages, includes SSL security and Google Analytics, and gives you access to technical support 24/7.

Premium plans add a variety of SEO, designer, and blogging tools to the mix, as well as let you create multilingual websites and allow you to add payment options if you want to start selling products or services online.

8. IONOS — The Fastest Website Builder Thanks to its Built-In AI Assistant

IONOS offers an intuitive website builder with a built-in AI assistant to help guide you through every step of the process. Once you’ve selected one of the many professional templates, the AI can handle the rest, including design, images, and text, based on your input.

Thanks to its AI, IONOS is the best option for creating your own site in seconds. This is by far the best option for creating a decent-looking website, if you don’t need precise control, especially since pricing starts at $1/month for the first six months – putting the provider among the cheapest website builders you can find.

In addition to the templates and the AI website builder, you’ll have access to all the features and functionality you need to succeed online. These include an intuitive content editor, the ability to let your visitors schedule appointments, add-ons to start selling on social media, and comprehensive website analytics.

You’ll also get a free domain name for up to one year, a free professional email inbox, and AI SEO tools to ensure your website rings highly on Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

9. Weebly — Flexible Site Builder for Creative Individuals

Weebly gives you the creative freedom to fine-tune every element of your website to your preference, so it’s a perfect option for people who don’t mind spending a bit of extra time to learn the tool and design a stunning website that’s guaranteed to grab the attention of every visitor.

As you would expect, you’ll find plenty of free website templates in Weebly’s library, so you’ll have the framework to get started from the moment you register on the website.

But that’s not all — you will also receive step-by-step guidance in the form of starter guides, as well as access to planning tools so you can envision how your website will turn out before spending hours on a draft you’ll end up discarding.

The service is completely free for personal use, so you can play around with all the different tools and design options until you’re satisfied with the end result.

You can also leverage the free plan to create a fully functional online store in case you want to start selling products to a local or global audience. You’ll be able to add unlimited items, add descriptions for each, and create filters and search options to make it easier for your customers to find exactly what they’re looking for.

With paid plans, you’ll also unlock a range of integrated marketing tools so you can get the word out about your website or online store on the web and on social media.

10. Systeme.io — Ideal Website Builder for Affiliate Marketing Sites

Systeme.io is a simple and easy-to-use website builder designed to help beginners get a personal website up and running in no time, whether it’s a blog, a site for your dropshipping business, or an affiliate marketing website.

It offers customizable templates and gives you the freedom to rearrange the layout, choose colors, add text, images, and videos, and play around with other elements such as buttons and email newsletter signup forms.

What’s unique about Systeme.io is that the website builder is just one of the tools you get access to when registering an account.

In addition to the simple drag-and-drop website builder and dozens of templates, Systeme.io lets you create a sales funnel, capture qualified leads, integrate an evergreen webinar on your homepage, and send promotional emails to your entire mailing list with a single click.

The best part about Systeme.io is that you can get started for free, with no credit card required. With your free account, you’ll get access to a sales funnel builder, a blogging platform, A/B tests for your website copy, payment processing integrations, one-click upsells, and a variety of other tools to help your website succeed.

The Best Tools for Starting a Website Compared

Here’s a comprehensive reference table of the best platforms for building a personal website so you can get a better overview and see how they compare head-to-head:

Key Features to Consider When Exploring How to Make Your Own Website

There are plenty of factors you need to consider when choosing which website builder to use to create your site.

To help save you valuable time and spare you the headache, we’ve put together a comprehensive list of the key elements you need to pay attention to:

• Ease of use — You won’t be able to fully utilize the most complex editor tools without previous knowledge and experience. That’s why it’s best to opt for a website builder with an intuitive, easy-to-use editor so you can quickly customize everything you need.
• Template library — If you don’t have a clue how to make a website from scratch, you don’t need to worry. All you need to do is choose a website builder with free professional templates and edit them to fit your purpose. Most solutions on our list come with hundreds of templates, so this shouldn’t be an issue.
• Stock photo library — One thing people often overlook when creating a website is stock photos. Unless you’re planning on uploading your own photos, you’ll need a few stock photos if you don’t want your website to be bland. In that case, opt for a provider that offers a stock photo library.
• Customization options — If you want your personal website to turn out as you envisioned it, make sure that you choose a website builder with fully customizable templates. While they’re a great framework, it would suck to be locked into a particular design choice or can’t add or remove elements from pages.
• SEO features — If you want to attract people to your website, whether to share your stories from a travel blog or sell products and services, you’ll need to make sure it’s fully SEO optimized. SEO can be tricky if you don’t know what you’re doing, so it’s best to find a tool that offers SEO optimization tools and provides actionable insights, guiding you through every step of the process.
• Social features — If you’re proud of your website and want to share a new blog, promote your services, or showcase your portfolio on social media, you should be able to do so with a single click of a button. For this purpose, website builders with built-in social sharing options are the number one choice.
• Marketing features — If you want to take it a step further, there are quite a few providers that offer email marketing and paid advertising services alongside their website builders.
• Tutorials and other educational resources — To make the most out of the website builder, you should take the time to read useful guides and watch how-to videos. That’s why providers like Shopify, which has a large free resource library, are always a great choice.
• Customer support — If you ever get stuck or do something that messes up your entire website, you should be able to rely on customer support to quickly sort the issue and provide technical advice and guidance. Opt for a company that offers 24/7 professional customer support, and you’ll never be left to your own devices.
• Affordability — Last but certainly not least is the pricing. Carefully go through all the different pricing plans to see what’s included and compare the value you get for your money with different providers.

How to Create Your Own Website

If you’re not sure how to get started, here’s a step-by-step guide that will take you through the process of how to create a personal website with Wix – which we rate as the best website builder for personal websites. You’ll be surprised by just how easy it is to get started.

Step 1 — Choose a Website Builder

The first thing you need to do is choose a website builder and create your account. For this guide, we’ll use the Wix personal website builder as an example.

To start building your personal website, visit the official Wix website and click the Get Started button.

Fill in your information to register an account, or simply choose to continue with your Google account.

Step 2 — Select What Type of Website You’d Like to Create

After logging into your Wix account or proceeding with Google, go through the prompts on the screen and select what type of website you’d like to create.

You’ll be automatically redirected to your Wix Dashboard, where you’ll be required to provide a website name, select the goals for your site, and choose the Wix apps you’d like to add to the site.

Step 3 — Design Your Website

From the dashboard, click the “design your website” option. Then, choose to customize a design template and pick from the hundreds of professional templates in Wix’s library.

After you find the one you like, simply mouse over it and click “Edit” to get started.

Step 4 — Customize Every Element of the Website

Once you’re in the editor, you can customize every element of the website template, including the colors, images, font, navigation, and more. Play around with all the options in the sidebar until you’re satisfied with how your website draft looks.

Step 5 — Create Website Content

Finally, populate the website with your content. Upload images, write website copy, add links to buttons, and complete the finishing touches. If you don’t want to do it yourself or aren’t confident in your abilities, you can let the Wix AI handle this step for you.

Step 6 — Publish Your Website

Double-check every page to make sure everything’s in order, then click “Publish” in the editor to make your website live. Congratulations, you now know how to build your own website, and your personal website is live on the web.

More Website Builder Guides

Here are our other website builder guides in case you need more information before making your final decision:

• Best website builders, according to Reddit
• Cheapest website builders
• Top website builders for small businesses
• The best real estate website builders
• In-depth Systeme.io review

Conclusion – What is the Best Personal Website Builder in 2023?

There are many great website builders on the market, so the choice comes down to what type of site you want to create and how much time and effort you’re willing to invest in making your dream site a reality.

Plenty of providers let you create a website for free, which is always a good idea if you don’t have previous experience. You can always upgrade to a paid plan down the line if you want to access more advanced features and functionality.

After reviewing and comparing the top 10 solutions for building custom websites, we found Wix to be the best option overall. You can get started for free in seconds and create your own website from scratch or by using one of hundreds of professional templates.

Click the button below to try out Wix in practice completely free of charge and see first-hand why it’s the best personal website builder on the market.

How to Make a Website FAQs

Aleksandar Stevanovic

• 

Aleksandar Stevanovic

Alex is a Senior Software Content Writer at Techopedia. He focuses on creating reader-oriented comparison pages, reviews, research pieces, and editorials. With nearly a decade of experience, he’s written for numerous leading brands across various niches, such as The Tech Report, Bitcoincasinos.com, CEX.IO, Forbes, Business2Community, and many more. His expertise in cybersecurity has made him a popular authority on privacy tools such as VPNs, password managers, blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, and antivirus software. You'll find Alex working on cars, playing guitar, and cooking fantastic food in his spare time. You can reach Alex on Twitter: @stevanovic_alex

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