The Easiest Website Builders for Beginners in 2024

Compared to Squarespace and Weebly’s website builders, Wix offers a more intuitive drag-and-drop interface, a broader range of pre-designed templates, and many third-party integrations that quickly add advanced functionality to your site.

Wix’s standout features begin with its visual WYSIWYG editor, which makes website building a breeze, even for beginners. You can choose from hundreds of modern, mobile-responsive templates or use the Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) editor to automatically generate a custom site. It provides robust customization options, allowing you to easily rearrange elements, change fonts and colors, add media, and more. Apart from the flagship ADI editor, Wix offers two editor options:

• The Wix Standard editor: With this option, you can choose a Wix template and customize it based on your preferences. You can also start with the ADI editor and opt for the standard editor anytime. Both editors have mobile-friendly options (and you can disable them if you want to). These editors make Wix one of the best website builders for beginners.

• Editor X: With Editor X, you can develop a highly mobile-responsive website compatible with all devices within a few minutes. However, Editor X is more suitable for designers and is equipped with a full suite of advanced options, ranging from grid layouts to custom breakpoints.

Wix offers a range of pricing plans to suit different needs and budgets:

• Free Plan: Ideal for students, hobbyists, or anyone needing a basic website. It offers access to Wix’s templates and design tools but includes Wix branding on the site and does not support a custom domain. It’s a great starting point to test Wix’s capabilities before upgrading to a paid plan.
• Light Plan: This is a suitable site builder plan for digital creators, small businesses, or personal portfolios who want a professional web presence without Wix branding. It allows for a custom domain (free for the first year), 2GB of storage, and basic functionalities for a clean, professional-looking site. This plan is excellent for those who need a fuss-free online presence.
• Core Plan: A good choice for small stores or businesses beginning to scale. It includes 50GB of storage, five hours of video content, and basic e-commerce functionalities to start selling online. The Core plan also allows you to access Wix Analytics and allows up to five collaborators.
• Business Plan: Site builder plan designed for established businesses that need more robust e-commerce features. This plan supports sales, shipping, product reviews, and selling in multiple currencies. With 100GB of storage and the ability to track website performance through enhanced analytics, it’s suited for businesses aiming to significantly expand their online store or service offerings.
• Business Elite Plan: Best site builder plan for large businesses or rapidly growing online stores requiring extensive site functionality and high-end e-commerce capabilities. It offers unlimited storage, the ability to sell unlimited products, advanced marketing tools, and priority support. This plan benefits businesses that manage high-traffic volumes and transactions, offering tools to enhance customer loyalty and collect extensive product reviews.

Wix is an excellent choice for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and individual users looking to build a professional-looking website without coding expertise. Its intuitive website builder interface and massive template library make it a great option for personal blogs, portfolios, online stores, and more.

While Wix offers a variety of features, I also noted a handful of drawbacks:

1. Google Analytics is unavailable on the free or Combo plans, limiting your ability to track website traffic. However, you can use Wix Analytics to track all the essential metrics you need (for duplicating and customizing your reports, you need to upgrade to business plans).
2. Additionally, most Wix plans impose storage limits, forcing an upgrade for continued website growth. The free plan includes Wix ads and restricts users from having a custom domain name.
3. You must select a Wix template wisely, as templates cannot be switched once launched. For any significant changes, you’ll need to complete a site redesign from scratch.

While Wix is suitable for beginners, more experienced developers or those seeking more advanced customization may find Wix’s limitations (such as the inability to switch templates) to be a drawback, in which case they may want to consider a website builder platform like WordPress.

Similarly, those seeking higher design flexibility and stylish palette options might find website builders like Squarespace a much better alternative.

Shopify is known for its easy-to-follow interface and drag-and-drop editor. It excels further by offering comprehensive ecommerce tools, including inventory management, shipping solutions, customizable checkouts, and multiple payment methods, including its own Shopify Payments.

It leverages AI technologies like Shopify Magic for auto-generating product descriptions and Shopify Sidekick for real-time, AI-driven business advice.

An unprecedented number of over 8,000 applications are available at Shopify App Store to allow users to improve the store further, be it in marketing or inventory management. On top of simplicity, powerful features, AI, and a practical user ecosystem, Shopify’s security measures, such as SSL encryption, PCI compliance, and automatic updates, make it the ultimate ecommerce website builder platform.

Shopify has announced numerous new features to streamline certain aspects of running an online shop or increase sales conversion. The most noteworthy is Shopify Subscriptions, a new app capitalizing on the rising popularity of subscription ecommerce. It allows the creation and management of subscriptions directly within the Shopify ecosystem.

Furthermore, Semantic Search for Shopify Plus merchants has been introduced, which is an AI-driven search tool. It improves the customer shopping experience by better understanding natural search language queries, ensuring users find what they are looking for.

• Shopify Basic Plan: The Basic Shopify plan offers essential ecommerce features for small businesses. It includes a full-featured online store, unlimited product listings, and basic shipping options. You also get 24/7 customer support and integration with Shopify Payments and third-party gateways, along with basic reporting and analytics. It’s an economical option but lacks the features of a full online store.
• Shopify Plan: The Shopify plan is ideal for growing businesses. It includes all features of the Basic plan, plus advanced shipping options and professional reporting tools. This plan provides a more robust set of tools for managing a larger store, with enhanced shipping rates and detailed analytics.
• Advanced Shopify Plan: This plan caters to established businesses with high growth potential. It includes all features from the Shopify plan, with the addition of advanced reporting tools, calculated shipping rates, and a more detailed analytics dashboard. The Advanced Shopify plan is best for businesses needing in-depth insights and advanced features for complex operations.
• Shopify Plus Plan: The Shopify Plus offers custom pricing for large enterprises and high-volume businesses. It provides a full-featured ecommerce website builder with unlimited product listings, custom shipping options, and advanced analytics. Additional benefits include customizable checkout experiences, a dedicated account manager, and priority support, making it ideal for large-scale operations with specific needs.

Shopify excels as a website builder for small and medium-sized enterprises aiming to establish or enhance their online presence. It stands out for entrepreneurs seeking a straightforward, potent, all-encompassing ecommerce solution that doesn’t demand extensive technical skills.

With its adaptability across numerous retail, fashion, and electronics sectors, Shopify supports a broad spectrum of products and services.

Squarespace shines in its ability to deliver stylish, SEO-friendly, modern websites that cater to diverse user needs, but it’s a particularly great website builder for artists and creatives. It offers a seamless user experience and low learning curve, allowing users to create SEO-friendly websites without much hassle.

With hundreds of beautifully designed templates and extensive customization options, Squarespace excels in content-focused features and integrates seamlessly with Acuity for scheduling and appointments. The drag-and-drop editor is intuitive and user-friendly, allowing beginners to rearrange page elements and customize the designs.

Squarespace provides integrated ecommerce functionality in its higher-tier plans, which, according to our testing, allows for a smooth online selling experience. Its advanced ecommerce plan also offers features like inventory management, secure checkout, and customer accounts, justifying its price tag.

Squarespace offers four pricing plans (and no free plan) suitable for various needs:

• Squarespace Personal: This plan includes a simple website with a free custom domain, SSL security, and unlimited bandwidth. It is an excellent option for creating a simple, fuss-free personal site, as you do not need any advanced requirements.
• Squarespace Business: This plan improves the previous offering by providing add-ons like premium integrations, complete customization abilities, and advanced website analytics, catering to small businesses that need basic online transaction capabilities.
• Squarespace Basic Commerce: This plan is tailored for growing e-commerce businesses. It equips users with product reviews, on-domain checkout, and the ability to cross-promote products on Instagram—all without incurring transaction fees.
• Squarespace Advanced Commerce: This top-tier plan pulls out all the stops, adding powerful features like abandoned cart recovery, subscription selling, and comprehensive commerce APIs to maximize sales and streamline operations for high-volume online shops.

Squarespace is an excellent website builder for a wide range of users, including:

• Creatives who want to showcase their portfolio.
• Entrepreneurs who want to increase their digital visibility.
• Bloggers seeking advanced, user-friendly blogging solutions.
• Nonprofit organizations that want donation-enabled sites.
• Individuals and freelancers showcasing their work.

While Squarespace caters to a diverse audience, it may not suit users with highly specific or complex ecommerce requirements. In these cases, users may find better-suited website builders like Shopify or WordPress for greater flexibility and customization.

Just answer a few questions, and GoDaddy’s design editor will build a website based on your responses. You can also opt for GoDaddy’s pre-designed templates and customize them to your preferences.

As mentioned, one of GoDaddy’s advantages is its 24/7 customer support team. GoDaddy offers 24/7 phone support alongside an online chat option. There is also a huge knowledge repository, which will provide DIY solutions if you are stuck with an issue. Apart from these factors, there is also a dedicated community forum to solve customer queries and answer their feedback.

GoDaddy’s Website Builder stands out for its user-friendly and robust features. A key highlight is the builder’s seamless integration with GoDaddy’s mobile app, which allows users to manage their sites whenever needed.

This cross-device functionality is particularly beneficial for busy entrepreneurs who need to quickly update content or respond to customers from their mobile devices, making it one of the best website builders for small businesses.

Apart from this aspect, various integrated marketing tools, including search engine optimization and email marketing features, help users enhance their online presence and engagement. Our test website with GoDaddy loaded in just 1.1 seconds, quicker than Google PageSpeed Insights’ minimum recommended speed of 2.5 seconds.

However, I did identify a few setbacks:

1. GoDaddy’s SEO wizard could be more robust. While the Wizard assists the users in creating SEO-optimized keywords, meta tags, and canonical URLs, it does not completely optimize the site.
2. A site created with GoDaddy cannot be transferred to another hosting service provider except for a WordPress site.

• Basic Plan: This plan is ideal for individuals or small businesses who need a simple online presence. It allows you to connect your own domain and eliminate GoDaddy branding, which is essential for a professional appearance. It also includes appointment booking tools for service-based businesses or consulting firms that need to schedule sessions without third-party apps.
• Premium Plan: This plan is suitable for businesses ready to enhance their marketing efforts. While the Premium plan does not offer e-commerce capabilities, it offers unlimited social media integrations and the ability to schedule and post directly from the GoDaddy dashboard, which is valuable for social media marketing businesses.
• Commerce Plan: This is the only GoDaddy plan with full e-commerce functionality, allowing you to list and sell products directly from your site. It supports physical and digital products and integrates features like product reviews, email marketing, and more. It also has features like integrated marketing tools that may be useful for some users.

GoDaddy is an ideal solution for individuals or small businesses seeking an all-in-one website builder and domain registrar. Its affordable pricing, coupled with its easy-to-use editor and 24/7 customer support, can benefit beginners, who can seek instant help whenever they want. Likewise, the built-in ecommerce tools and marketing add-ons are helpful for small business owners with limited technical experience.

Weebly provides a set of comprehensive ecommerce tools, even in its free plan, which is a lucrative feature for businesses who want to grow online. Its a solid option for any website builder beginner interested in creating a website from scratch. It features a broad selection of modern, responsive templates that ensure that websites look professional on any device.

Weebly’s ecommerce functionality provides essential features like inventory management, secure checkout, and shipping integrations. Furthermore, Weebly offers features such as a built-in video hosting platform that allows users to embed high-quality videos directly on their sites.

It also has advanced site security features, including SSL encryption and DDoS protection as standard, ensuring user data and site interactions are secure.

• Free Plan: This plan best suits individuals new to website building who wish to explore basic features. It includes SSL security, 500 MB of storage, and essential SEO tools. However, it displays Weebly ads, provides a ‘.weebly’ subdomain, and is ideal for individuals needing a simple online presence.
• Personal Plan: Priced at $10 per month when billed annually, this plan allows for connecting a custom domain. However, it still displays Square ads (Weebly’s logo) and removes Weebly’s branding from its footer. This plan suits individuals or small businesses requiring a simple site without Weebly’s branding.
• Professional Plan: At $12 per month (billed annually), the Professional plan is tailored for small to medium-sized businesses or groups needing advanced site features like site search, video backgrounds, and membership registration. It offers a free domain for the first year, removes Square ads, and includes password protection for pages, making it ideal for businesses looking for a more branded and feature-rich online presence.
• Performance Plan: This top-tier plan is geared towards serious e-commerce sites. It includes all the features of the Professional plan plus enhanced e-commerce capabilities such as item reviews, shipping labels, and abandoned cart emails. It also provides priority support. This plan is perfect for businesses that require extensive e-commerce features, detailed analytics, and advanced marketing tools.

Weebly’s ecommerce capabilities provide a solid foundation for small to medium online stores, making it a solid pick for those just starting in online retail or looking to expand their operations online.

However, large businesses or those with intricate and specific ecommerce needs might find Weebly restrictive. In this case, more scalable ecommerce website builders, like Shopify, would be a better option.

I was impressed by how easy Jimdo’s website builder was to use, with its simple drag-and-drop interface, AI integrations, and access to a range of stylish block elements like slideshows and banners.

Jimdo’s AI website-building capabilities, known as Jimdo Dolphin, streamline the website creation process. All you need to do is simply answer a few questions about your business and preferences, and Dolphin will generate a tailored website complete with optimized layouts and content. This AI-driven approach ensures a user-friendly experience, making it accessible even for those with no technical skills.

I also found the domain registration process straightforward, though the annual cost to renew a custom domain is relatively high compared to most website builders.

Jimdo’s search engine optimization tools can automatically fill in meta titles and descriptions, though I noted the need for alt text editing as a shortcoming. While Jimdo doesn’t offer robust internal marketing features, its ease of use and professional AI-driven design options make it a solid choice for small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Another huge highlight is that, unlike website builders like Squarespace and Shopify, Jimdo does not take a commission from your online sales, allowing you to retain more profit. Additionally, Jimdo automatically saves your edits, ensuring no work is lost.

However, Jimdo does have a few potential drawbacks:

1. Jimdo’s ecommerce segment could be much better on various fronts. For example, if you set up an online store with Jimdo, its website builder provides only basic features, irrespective of your chosen plan. There are no options to set up your inventory and order management features, which are now the norm for most e-commerce website builders.
2. Inventory syncing option is absent in Jimdo’s e-commerce plans. This means you must manually update your stock levels, which can be cumbersome.
3. Adding alt tags to images is not possible in Jimdo. Businesses focusing on maximizing digital visibility may find this a huge setback. Since alt tags play a vital role in improving the SERP rankings of a site, the lack of such an option may not sit well with small businesses and bloggers alike.

• Play Plan: This free website builder option is ideal for individuals who need a basic online presence without financial commitment. It allows the creation of up to 5 pages and includes basic features like contact forms and free images. Still, your site will display Jimdo advertising and operate under a Jimdo subdomain.
• Start Plan: This plan is for small businesses or local service providers. It supports up to 10 web pages and offers 10GB of bandwidth and 5GB of storage. Key features include a free domain name for the first year, ad-free experience, marketing and SEO tools, and customer support.
• Grow Plan: Expanding on the Start plan, this plan provides additional benefits, such as faster customer support response times and the ability to set up more detailed websites with various types of content, such as press releases, events pages, or galleries. This plan is ideal for SMBs that require a more substantial website to cover their expanding activities and services.
• Business Plan: The first of Jimdo’s specific ecommerce plans, the Business Plan includes essential ecommerce features designed for small to medium-sized online stores. It offers product management, order processing, and basic payment options. Users benefit from integration with PayPal and Stripe and can access various shipping and tax options. The plan also provides tools for managing inventory, creating promotional codes, and tracking sales with built-in analytics.
• VIP Plan: The VIP Plan enhances the ecommerce experience with advanced features for larger or more complex stores. It includes everything in the Business Plan, plus additional functionalities like priority support, advanced reporting, and integration with more payment gateways. It also offers increased customization options, such as personalized checkout experiences and enhanced shipping and tax management, catering to businesses with higher demands.

Thanks to its AI-powered tool, Jimdo Dolphin, Jimdo is one of the best website builders for anyone looking for an easy and efficient website-building experience. For companies keen on leveraging social media, Jimdo enables the seamless integration of social media feeds into the website.

Likewise, Jimdo is also useful for artists, particularly musicians, bands, and songwriters, as it integrates with popular audio and video hosting services such as SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Anchor, Vimeo, and YouTube.

Despite its broad applicability, Jimdo may not be ideal for businesses or individuals requiring extensive ecommerce capabilities or complex website functionalities. In those cases, website builders like Shopify or WordPress may be more suitable.

Ucraft stood out to me as a budget-friendly, feature-rich website builder for beginners due to its combination of affordability and ease of use. It offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor that simplifies website creation without requiring coding skills.

The website builder provides a range of modern, customizable templates that help users build professional-looking sites on a budget. Ucraft’s competitive pricing includes essential features, even at lower-tier plans, such as SEO tools and ecommerce capabilities.

One of the main features of Ucraft is its custom visibility setting (i.e.) you can create pages that only users with passwords can visit (more like the admin pages found in WordPress dashboards). It also has a geo-targeting feature, which lets you customize your traffic preferences. In this way, you only focus on the location you want to, improving your local visibility levels.

Ucraft’s free plan offers SSL security, up to 15 pages, and integration with Google Analytics, which is available for unlimited use with a wide selection of templates. Additionally, some paid plans come with a free custom domain, adding extra value. With solid customer support available, Ucraft you’re sure to get the assistance you need while enjoying an accessible and intuitive experience.

Ucraft offers a range of pricing options tailored to your needs depending on whether you just need a simple website or ecommerce capabilities.

• Free Plan: Ideal for beginners. This plan allows you to explore Ucraft’s basic features, including some design tools for creating a website, and test the website builder platform before committing financially.
• Website Plan: Ucraft’s paid website plan offers a more comprehensive set of tools compared to its Free plan. With it, you can connect a custom domain and remove Ucraft branding. This plan includes additional templates and design customization options, along with essential SEO tools. It’s suitable for small businesses or personal websites needing a more professional appearance.
• Ecommerce Starter Plan: This plan is designed for users looking to set up an online store. Includes all the features of the Website plan plus ecommerce functionalities like product management, a shopping cart, and payment gateway integrations. You can also connect a custom domain and benefit from essential SEO tools and design customization.
• Ecommerce Growth Plan: The Growth Plan includes all features of the Starter Ecommerce plan but with expanded ecommerce capabilities. It offers advanced product management, additional sales channels, and enhanced analytics. It also provides access to more templates and design options, along with priority customer support.
• Ecommerce Unlimited Plan: This plan provides all features available in the Growth plan adding unlimited possibilities. You’ll get access to all design and customization options, advanced ecommerce features, including unlimited products and orders, and comprehensive analytics. This plan also includes priority support and additional integrations, making it suitable for large businesses or those with complex needs.

Ucraft is best for beginners looking for a budget-friendly solution who need an easy-to-use website builder with essential features. Its intuitive drag-and-drop editor allows newcomers to create and customize websites without coding experience.

The free plan is ideal for personal projects or testing the website builder before buying, while the affordable paid plans provide access to additional features like custom domains and ecommerce tools.

A robust all-in-one solution, Hostinger comes with a range of customizable templates, ensuring users can easily create a professional site.

Hostinger’s AI-driven functionality allows users to generate website designs and content based on simple prompts, maximizing performance. Beyond these stand-out features, Hostinger’s website builder offers a user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface and a comprehensive suite of essential website management tools.

These innovative features streamline content creation and offer insights for optimizing user engagement through heatmap analysis, optimizing the sites’ performance. For entrepreneurs venturing into the ecommerce space, Hostinger provides a comprehensive ecommerce toolkit. This suite has an extensive product range with a commission-free structure and supports nearly 20+ payment methods.

Bloggers, too, will find value in Hostinger’s dedicated features for blog management, facilitating content scheduling, categorization, and audience engagement through subscription forms.

• Premium Plan: This plan is ideal for personal projects, bloggers, or small businesses that need essential features at an affordable rate. It provides an easy-to-use interface and around 150 templates. However, the premium plan doesn’t support features such as AI heatmap, marketing and SEO tools, AI Writer, and Image generator, which are exclusive to the Business Plan.
• Business Plan: Aimed at small to medium-sized businesses, this plan offers enhanced features such as unlimited bandwidth and storage. It supports a larger product catalogue, includes advanced tools and analytics (such as AI heatmap, AI writer, DALL-E supported image generator), and is scalable for long-term growth.
• Cloud Startup: Hostinger’s Cloud Startup Plan includes 3 GB of RAM, 2 vCPUs, and 100 GB of SSD storage, ensuring fast performance and ample space for growing websites. The plan provides access to daily backups, a free SSL certificate, and a content delivery network (CDN) for enhanced security and faster loading times. You’ll also get a user-friendly control panel and 24/7 customer support. This plan is best suited for small to medium-sized businesses or individuals who need more resources and reliability than basic shared hosting but still want an affordable and easy-to-manage solution.

Note that the above prices are for the first subscription only, and the price increases slightly upon renewal. That said, for some plans, the renewal price is cheaper if you choose one of the longer subscriptions.

Hostinger is best for beginners looking for an easy website builder that also includes reliable web hosting and domain registration. Its all-in-one package, which includes web hosting, domain registration, and the website builder, provides a seamless and streamlined setup experience.

With its drag-and-drop editor, AI tools, and 150+ templates, is ideal for artists, photographers, and freelance professionals. Additionally, the builder offers essential marketing integrations, mobile editing, and e-commerce features like 0% transaction fees, which can benefit small business owners.

However, Hostinger may not be the best website builder for large enterprises with complex needs. In those cases, website builders like WordPress with managed hosting solutions or CMS platforms like Drupal/Joomla paired with professional web development services may be more appropriate.