It’s easier than ever today to create a great looking website because of tools like website builders. 10 years ago, only a couple products existed in this space, and their capabilities were lacking. But today, there are a number of players with great website builders packed full of features.
The best website builders allow you to create professional looking websites within minutes. Because of the large number of templates the best companies offer, you can literally be up and running in less than 20 minutes. Another benefit of a website builder is that most offer an all-inclusive package. Meaning you can purchase your domain, get web hosting, and have access to the builder functionality, all for one price.
Here’s a list of some of the best website builders of 2019.
| Company | Tech Review (30 points max) | Customer Satisfaction (15 points max) | Visit |
| Site123 | 27 | 15 | [maxbutton id=”1″ url=”https://www.site123.com/”] |
| Wix | 27.5 | 7.2 | [maxbutton id=”1″ url=”https://www.wix.com/”] |
| Sitebuilder | 30 | 9 | [maxbutton id=”1″ url=”https://www.sitebuilder.com/”] |
| Weebly | 17.25 | 7.7 | [maxbutton id=”1″ url=”https://www.weebly.com/”] |
| WordPress.com | 15 | 8.2 | [maxbutton id=”1″ url=”https://www.wordpress.com/”] |
| Jimdo | 17.25 | 6 | [maxbutton id=”1″ url=”https://www.jimdo.com/”] |
| Squarespace | 18 | 5 | [maxbutton id=”1″ url=”https://www.squarespace.com/”] |
You really can’t go wrong with any of the above site builders. But you may find that some have more capabilities in certain areas of that your business specializes in. Lets take a closer look at each of these builders, and see what they do best.
Wix is one of the best options out there for website builders. Chances are if you have done some research, you’ve already heard of Wix. They’ve been in business since 2006, and can claim a perfect A+ BBB rating.
Wix is consistently ranked either the best, or at the top by multiple companies who monitor website builders performance.
They are known for their very large library of website templates. This includes over 500 templates for practically any industry. On top of these templates, Wix offers a great drag-and-drop feature. This allows you to customize the look of these templates so certain elements appear where you’d like. If you prefer, you can also start from scratch, and use these features to develop an even more customized look.
In addition to their templates which already offer good functionality out of the box, Wix offers an App Market. This allows you to build out your site with even more functionality. If you have the need for more advance functions like eCommerce, forms, calendars, e-mail marketing, Wix has you covered for these things, and much more.
Wix has good customer support, although it has been criticized for its lack of live chat capability. As with most companies these days, they’d prefer to point you towards helpful online support documentation. If you cannot find an answer to your question online then you do have the option to request a call back. Again, it would be better if you had an actual phone number to call, but this practice is not uncommon.
Squarespace is another website builder that has been around for a long time and has a good reputation. Surprisingly they’ve been around longer than Wix, but seem to have come on stronger in the past few years. They get especially strong reviews when it comes to their eCommerce capabilities.
Squarespace has a good library of templates. It does not have as many as some competitors, but most businesses will have no problem finding something that works for them.
Squarespace is more limited when it comes to design, and also lacks a 3rd party app marketplace. There are limited options in terms of how you can format each template and the sections within them. The benefit to this limitation is that it allows Squarespace sites to have beautiful mobile designs with no extra work. That’s important in today’s world as more and more people are using mobile devices to read about and purchase products. Ultimately there is plenty of design flexibility for most business needs. If you need ultimate flexibility, you might consider something more complex like a content management system.
Squarespace also offers 24/7 customer support via email, and has live chat during the week for a limited number of hours. Phone support would be nice, but for the majority of issues, live chat is capable of solving the problem.
Another one of the best website builders is Weebly do to it’s nice design features. They also have an easy to use drag and drop function. One other nice part about Weebly is the ability to build a website for free. You will have to allow some advertising, and use a Weebly sub-domain, but it’s an option for someone just learning.
As for templates, Weebly has all you need for the majority of businesses out there. Again, because of these easy-to-use templates coupled with drag-and-drop design, you can be up and running with your website in a matter of minutes.
Weebly is also very good at customer support, and offers a variety of ways for people to contact them. You can open a support ticket via email 24/7. Foir more direct assistance, they also offer live chat support, and phone support for limited hours each business day.
If you are looking for a very simple and easy-to-use website builder, then Sitebuilder might be good for you. Sitebuilder does not come with as many features as some of the other website builders we’ve discussed. While it has a large library of templates, the quality of design has been called into question at times. At the end of the day, Sitebuidler can handle most businesses who are in need of a simple website without the need of building large amounts of extra functionality.
Sitebuilder has good support, with a combination of email, live chat, and phone support being offerred. They also have an extensive online knowledge base that can be accessed before going for one-on-one support. Overall, their support matches up well with others in the industry
While you might know GoDaddy as the place to go when you need a domain name, it also offers a lot of other services. Just as most website builder companies will now sell you a domain name, GoDaddy also has its own website builder called GoCentral.
For the time being GoCentral lands in the middle of the pack when it comes to website builders. But if your site is hosted with GoDaddy, and you want the simplicity of everything in one place, GoCentrals’s website builder has a decent offering for most basic websites.
As with most of the website builders, you can get up and running in a matter of minutes. With GoCentral, after you login, you are takent through a few different steps to get the basics of your business, and presto you have a professional looking website. Pretty amazing when you think about what it used to take to get a website up and running even in its most basic form.
As with all of the good website builders, the site is automatically created with good responsiveness for mobile devices.
One area where GoCentral gets less than perfect marks so far is design flexibility, but it appears they are working to give customers more options everyday. GoCentral offers plenty to a business looking for basic functionality. But if you are need to design changes, or additional functionality through 3rd party apps, you may want to look elsewhere.
On the support front GoDaddy offers the same as many of the other website builder companies. They have 24/7 phone support along with live chat. Having been in business for quite some time, they also have a very large knowledge base and online forum.