A website is a major part of a brand and portfolio. Its aesthetic should stand out and make an impression. You may think you need to know how to code to have a modern and technical page, but with a website builder, you don’t need to have any technical experience. Most builders come bundled with web hosting, giving you more peace of mind to work on your website’s visuals rather than worry about anything technical. I’ve thoroughly researched and tested website builders and web hosting companies to curate the ultimate list to help you find the best website builder for your needs.
What is the best website builder in 2025?
Website builder | Free trial | Starting price | |
---|---|---|---|
Best overall website builder overall | Wix | Free plan and 14-day trial | $17 a month |
Best value website builder | Hostinger | 7-day free trial | $3 a month |
Best AI site builder | Squarespace | 14-day trial | $16 a month |
Best for e-commerce | Shopify | 3 days free | $29 a month |
Wix is the best website builder overall because of its flexible yet simple site editor, spectacular server performance and unusually fast customer service. Additionally, Wix offers a full suite of tools for building a service-based business website, including appointment booking tools and monetizing content, plus basic e-commerce tools on all plans. However, its cost — starting at a hefty $17 a month — can be prohibitive for personal websites.
Hostinger is the best budget website builder, with starting prices as low as $3 per month, making it ideal for personal sites. The Hostinger website builder also offers a small but mighty selection of templates, rapid AI site generation and flexible design tools. Moreover, Hostinger’s website builder uses the same top-notch servers as its regular web hosting plans, which provide some of the fastest site speeds I’ve experienced during my web hosting tests.
Best website builders of 2025
Pros
- Over 900 templates
- Easy-to-use and flexible site editor
- Great server performance
- Fast customer service
- Robust security
Cons
- AI site generator is terrible
- E-commerce is limited to higher-tier plans
- Strict storage limitations on most plans
Wix is the best website builder overall. The company is one of the biggest players in the website builder game, powering more than eight million live websites, according to Built With. After testing Wix myself, I can see why it’s so popular: The templates are great, the servers offer fast and reliable performance, plus the customer service is better than the competitors’. While Wix works well for many folks, from freelancers to small businesses, its comparatively high starting prices might deter some hobby bloggers.
Who it’s best for
Wix is an excellent website builder for freelancers, consultants and other service-based business owners. The attractive templates and flexible designer help you create your site quickly and get back to your primary work, while tools like appointment booking and course creation simplify key business tasks.
You can also use Wix for a personal site or blog, but the cost can be prohibitive if you’re not generating any revenue, especially when you factor in the storage limitations on lower-tier plans — limits you won’t encounter with similarly-priced tools like Squarespace. These limits — starting with space for just 20 large pages — are far lower than Hostinger’s, which offers enough room for at least 1,000 pages on its lowest-tier plan.
Moreover, you may not want to choose Wix if you’re not confident in your ability to commit to a site template for the long term, as Wix makes it surprisingly complicated to switch templates. You’ll also want to avoid Wix if you want to build a website with AI, as the AI site generator only seems capable of producing websites that look like they came out of the mid-2000s. I recommend using Squarespace if you want to build a website with AI.
Why we like it
Wix impressed me with its massive collection of over 900 templates for nearly every purpose and industry imaginable. While some of these templates were ugly or outdated, most are highly professional and can be turned into a website with minimal editing.
The Wix site editor offers a great balance between flexibility and ease of use, with clearly labeled features, drag-and-drop functionality and a wide range of pre-formatted media blocks to help you get started. The mobile site editor, a feature unique to Wix, simplifies optimization for phones, an incredibly important task now that over 61.5% of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices.
Server performance was excellent during my week of hands-on testing, with 100% uptime. In my experience, Wix not only lives up to its above-average 99.99% uptime guarantee but possibly even exceeds it. Average site speed was also great, coming in well under the recommended maximum of three seconds. In fact, Wix had better site speed than most web hosts I’ve tested, though it’s not quite as fast as Hostinger or Shopify.
Customer service — the place where even many of our top-ranking hosts failed — was fast and helpful, despite some initial miscommunications. The main caveat here is that you’ll have to ask to speak to a person twice, as the AI bot doesn’t automatically connect you with a human representative when you ask a complex question. Wix is the only company I’ve tested that doesn’t automatically send you to a customer service rep on the first ask.
Wix also goes beyond the industry-standard SSL certification and firewall protection to provide additional security through DDoS protection, two-factor authentication and 24/7 security monitoring. These security measures are significant when compared to most traditional web hosting plans, but are fairly standard for website builders — you’ll get the same benefits from Shopify and Squarespace.
Pricing
Wix has a free plan, but the bandwidth and data restrictions mean it’s mostly useful for testing the software before purchasing. Paid plans range from $17 a month to $159 a month. At the low end, this pricing is similar to Squarespace — Wix’s top competitor in the website builder space — but the highest-tier plan is far more expensive than the $99 charged for Squarespace’s most expensive plan.
Moreover, the $17 a month plan comes with a strict data limit of 2GB, which may only be enough for 20 pages if you’re using numerous high-resolution images or other large files on every page. The entry-level plan is only suitable for small, static websites. If you’re running a blog or another type of website with frequently added pages, you’ll need to upgrade your plan fairly early in your journey.
The Core plan, which costs $29 a month (billed annually), provides significantly more storage, plus access to appointment booking and other Wix tools for service-based businesses. Core also includes basic e-commerce features with a maximum of 50,000 products, but it won’t give you sales tax or shipping tools available through similarly priced plans from Squarespace and Shopify.
Pros
- Great server performance
- Great long-term value
- Robust security
Cons
- Must sign up for a four-year contract to get the best discount
- Live chat customer service is AI-powered and reaching a human support rep can take a while
Hostinger is the best value website builder on the market. The company is a fast-growing web host, having expanded its revenue by 57% in 2023 alone — and it’s earned this growth by providing some of the most user-friendly website creation tools I’ve tested, including an intuitive website builder.
Who it’s best for
Hostinger is an excellent choice for hobbyists and bloggers who want to quickly create a website without spending a lot of money. You’ll get an incredible deal — $3 a month for your first term — if you sign up for a full four years of hosting, and even a one-year term (priced at $4 a month) is much less expensive from Hostinger than a one-year contract with a website builder company like Wix or Squarespace. Renewal prices are also great, starting at just $8 a month if you stick with a four-year contract.
Small businesses can also get a lot out of Hostinger’s excellent design tools and server performance. There’s even an affordable store builder plan, starting at just $4 per month and providing access to basic inventory and shipping management tools. Moreover, you can increase audience engagement by creating a web app with the recently launched Hostinger Horizons, an AI tool that lets you create simple apps like word count trackers and publish them on your Hostinger site for an additional monthly fee.
Unfortunately, Hostinger’s store builder limits you to 500 product types, making it unsuitable for larger stores. Like most website builders, Hostinger’s store builder is proprietary, so switching to a new host can be difficult. It’s worthwhile choosing a different site builder from the beginning if you expect to expand your store beyond the product limit. You’ll also want to pick a different website builder if you prefer to receive customer service via phone or email, as Hostinger only offers live chat support.
Why we like it
I had a great time testing Hostinger thanks to its strong server performance, easy-to-use dashboard and highly affordable hosting plans. I also appreciated how easy it was to create a website, whether starting from the highly attractive designer-made templates for the website builder or using the AI site generator. You can get the basics set up in just a few minutes and the editor is intuitive enough for most users to complete their websites without assistance.
Hostinger had 100% uptime during my week of testing, surpassing its 99.9% uptime guarantee. Moreover, Hostinger’s site speed is well under the recommended three-second maximum. Of the best website builder companies, only Shopify outmatches Hostinger’s site speed.
Hostinger’s website builder also includes more robust security than most traditional web hosting plans, including things like malware scanning and DDoS protection on top of the industry-standard SSL certification and firewall protection. However, it doesn’t offer some of the more advanced security protocols you’ll get from other website builders, such as two-factor authentication and 24/7 security monitoring.
The only downside is the mediocre customer service, which is conducted entirely through an AI-powered live chat. While I was impressed with the bot’s effectiveness, I spent over 30 minutes waiting for a person when I had an advanced issue — time that could result in a significant loss of traffic or revenue if your site is down. However, you likely won’t need to deal with customer service often — I’ve only used it a few times in over a decade of hosting my own sites — so this shouldn’t be a deal breaker unless you prefer phone or email support.
Pricing
Hostinger offers two website builder plans, with the first one starting at $3 a month ($8 a month on renewal) when you choose a four-year contract. However, you don’t need to sign up for a four-year contract to pay less than you would for another website builder; even at one year, Hostinger’s basic website builder plan only costs $4 a month ($11 a month on renewal). This plan also includes significantly more storage than Wix, though it isn’t as generous as the unlimited storage offered by Squarespace and Shopify.
E-commerce features are restricted to the Business Website Builder plan, which starts at $4 per month (renews at $9 a month) with a four-year contract. Like the basic website builder plan, this plan is still affordable on a one-year contract ($5 a month to start and $14 per month on renewal), but the introductory discount isn’t quite as steep with the shorter term. Its relative affordability makes it great for starting an online store with minimal investment, but there is a limit of 500 product types, so you may want to choose a different host if you plan to build a broad product range.
Pros
- Beautiful templates
- Collaborative AI website builder
- Good server performance
- Robust security
Cons
- Poor customer service
- Some site editing processes are more complicated than they need to be
Squarespace is a fantastic website builder with one of the best AI site generators I’ve tested. Its beautiful templates and solid server performance have made it a big player in the website builder space, powering more than five million websites (and many of your favorite podcasts). I was also thoroughly impressed by the Squarespace Blueprint AI, which works with you to create a truly unique website — including customized text and images for every page — in minutes.
Who it’s best for
Squarespace is an excellent choice for busy professionals looking to create portfolios or small business websites without a significant time investment. The built-in templates are highly attractive, and you’ll also get access to Squarespace Blueprint AI, making it the best AI website builder.
However, Squarespace has the same downfall as Wix: its cost — starting at $16 a month — is significant, especially for a personal website that won’t generate revenue. If you’re building an e-commerce website, you’ll also have to deal with significant transaction fees charged by Squarespace (in addition to regular payment processing fees) that can majorly cut into your profit margins.
Squarespace isn’t great for users who need a lot of help, as the customer service is incredibly slow and, in my experience, might not respond at all. There’s also no phone service whatsoever, so you’ll want to avoid Squarespace if you prefer communicating with customer support via phone.
Why we like it
Squarespace makes it easy to create a beautiful site. The templates are some of the best I’ve seen, with great visual balance, color schemes and font selections. The AI builder is uniquely collaborative, letting you choose key aspects of your site — such as brand personality and fonts — to help it create a website that matches your vision. No matter which option you choose, you’ll have an attractive site in minutes, with minimal need to alter design settings.
Squarespace only offers the industry-standard 99.9% uptime guarantee (meaning your site shouldn’t go down for more than 10 minutes per week), but it exceeded this guarantee with 100% uptime during my week of testing. Squarespace’s site speed wasn’t quite as solid — with slower loading times than the other website builders I tested — but it did fall under the recommended three-second maximum.
Squarespace secures all of its websites with various advanced protocols, including a specialty firewall with DDoS protection, two-factor authentication and 24/7 security monitoring. Its security protections put it firmly ahead of Hostinger’s and bring it in line with Wix and Shopify.
There’s one major drawback to Squarespace, though: I experienced lackluster customer service during my week of testing, completely failing to reach anyone via live chat and waiting several hours for a response to my support ticket. Thankfully, many users won’t need customer service often. In more than 10 years of running websites, I’ve contacted customer service five or six times. This means customer service probably won’t impact your Squarespace experiences much, if at all.
Pricing
Squarespace prices range from $16 to $99 a month when you select an annual plan. These prices are relatively affordable for a website builder, with the low- and mid-tier options coming in slightly below comparable plans from Wix and significantly below comparable Shopify plans. This difference becomes more pronounced at higher tiers — Wix’s most expensive plan is $159 a month and Shopify’s is $299 a month. However, it’s still significantly more expensive than the handful of dollars you’ll pay for Hostinger.
Professionals looking to create a portfolio or small business website can stick with the $16 a month plan, which offers unlimited storage and bandwidth, plus basic marketing tools. You’ll also get e-commerce functionality, but Squarespace will collect some hefty transaction fees: 2% for online store transactions and 7% for digital content and memberships. These are in addition to the roughly 3% charged by most payment processors, so you’ll actually be losing 5% total on online store transactions and 10% on membership fees.
You can skip the online store transaction fees by choosing the Squarespace Core plan priced at $23 a month (billed annually). However, Squarespace will still collect 5% transaction fees on digital content and memberships. You’ll have to pay $99 a month (billed annually) for the Advanced plan if you don’t want Squarespace taking a chunk out of your profits (payment processor fees will still apply).
Pros
- E-commerce-focused website builder
- Email marketing tools, including automation
- Massive shipping discounts
- Tools for in-person sales
Cons
- Starting plan is expensive
- Customer service may be poor
Shopify is the top e-commerce website builder on the market, offering excellent store templates, extensive inventory management tools and shipping discounts that can save you a fortune if you’re selling physical products. It’s probably the most well-known e-commerce website builder, and my hands-on testing confirmed that the company deserves its strong reputation.
Who it’s best for
Shopify is the best website builder for e-commerce stores, especially if you’re selling physical products and can take advantage of the significant shipping discounts. The point of sale system also makes Shopify a great choice if you hope to sell at pop-up markets or open a permanent physical store in the future.
However, Shopify may not be a great choice if you’re on a tight budget. The lowest-tier plan starts at $29 a month, billed annually, so you’ll need to invest a lofty $348 upfront.
You’ll also want to avoid Shopify if you’re building a personal site or blog. The cost is prohibitively expensive and both the templates and the builder itself are optimized for creating an online store. It is technically possible to build a blog or hobby site with this builder, but you’ll find better templates — and more affordable prices — for those purposes elsewhere.
Why we like it
While I found getting started with Shopify slightly more difficult than other website builders, its e-commerce optimized templates and product page creation tools thoroughly impressed me. Its AI website builder, while not as spectacular as the collaborative Squarespace Blueprint AI, offered quick generation of multiple templates, giving you some choice in your site’s initial appearance.
Moreover, Shopify provides several marketing tools, including abandoned cart recovery, email marketing software and automated marketing workflows. Most website builders either offer these tools as extensions — often with additional fees — or don’t provide them at all, making this one of Shopify’s most notable benefits.
Shopify also offers benefits specifically for selling physical products, like the significant (up to 77%) shipping discounts for USPS, DHL and UPS. You can also use the Shopify Point of Sale system to sell products at in-person events or even run a checkout at a permanent physical location. If you’re selling internationally, Shopify makes creating a multilingual web store easy.
On the digital side of things, Shopify has the best site speed of any host I’ve tested, coming in at less than two seconds. I did have some problems with uptime due to an issue with my site’s connection to the servers, but customer service was able to reset this for me, and my site had 100% uptime during the week after the reset. This suggests that Shopify has the best server performance of all the popular website builder companies.
Like Wix and Squarespace, Shopify secures websites with an advanced firewall featuring DDoS prevention, two-factor authentication and 24/7 security monitoring. This makes it more secure than Hostinger and most traditional web hosting companies.
I also had a generally positive experience with Shopify’s customer service. The knowledge base is extensive, the live chat bot is well trained and when I needed a person, it only took a few minutes to get through to one. My problem with uptime turned out to be a rare one, so I needed to speak with two reps before it was resolved, but both reps were professional and helpful. Overall, it was the best experience I’ve had with customer service from a website builder — though I have encountered better service from traditional web hosts like Ionos and SiteGround.
Pricing
Shopify’s pricing ranges from $29 a month to $299 a month, based on annual contracts, making it one of the most expensive website builders, but its extensive e-commerce features and shipping discounts make it well worth the cost if you’re selling physical products. Investing in Shopify also means you won’t need to purchase a separate point of sale system if you decide to sell at pop-up markets or launch an in-person location.
How to choose the best website builder
Site purpose
If you’re building a professional portfolio, you’ll probably appreciate the elegant design and moderate flexibility of Squarespace. If you’re building a coaching business — or any other type of service-based business — you might consider Wix for its appointment booking tools. If you’re building a hobby site or you’re on a tight budget, you might want to consider Hostinger. If you’re creating an e-commerce store, you’ll probably want Shopify.
Ease of use
Every website builder lets you create a website without code. Beyond that, there are many differences between website builder interfaces. Some are more intuitive, making it easy to move from one area of site design to the next. Others use complicated processes that can be difficult to grasp if you’re not technically inclined. A steeper learning curve may mean a longer site-building process.
Most website builders offer either a free trial or a perma-free plan. You can use them to get a feel for the website builder you’re interested in before you commit to a long-term plan.
Design flexibility
Some website builders have limited options for fonts and color schemes, while others limit your ability to move content blocks. This can be great if you’re creating a personal site or a professional portfolio and you don’t want to spend a lot of time making small design decisions. If you want to create something unique, you’ll want to choose a website builder with more flexibility and spend more time fiddling with every individual setting. You can read in-depth reviews, watch tutorials or test website builders through their free trials to determine if the tool you’re considering has the flexibility you need.
E-commerce features
Do you plan to sell products on your site? If so, will selling products be just one part of your site (like a blog with a merch store) or will it be the focus of your site? If it’s the former, most website builders will work for you. If it’s the latter, you may want to choose a specialized website builder for e-commerce like Shopify.
You’ll need to pay attention to the plans if you’re choosing a website builder that isn’t fully focused on e-commerce. Some, like Wix, restrict e-commerce features to higher-tier plans. Others, like Squarespace, charge steep transaction fees on lower-tier plans — and these fees are in addition to payment processing fees, not instead of payment processing fees. This means you’ll have to either increase your prices to cover those fees or be prepared to lose some money on every sale.
You’ll also want to pay attention to other e-commerce features such as checkout customization, inventory management, shipping calculation and automated sales tax calculation. Most website builders offer at least some of these tools but they may only be available on certain plans or have other restrictions. Wix, for example, only includes automated sales tax on up to 500 transactions per month even on the highest-tier plan.
AI availability and functionality
Most website builders offer AI site generation, which builds a site for you in a couple of minutes based on your site title, description and purpose. However, the quality of these tools varies. Some, like the Wix AI tool, generate sites that look like they came right out of 2008. (Unless you enjoyed the MySpace era, that’s not a good thing.) Others, like Squarespace, build beautiful websites. If you want to use AI site generation, read in-depth reviews or watch YouTube tutorials to see how each website builder’s AI tools work.
Before you build your website with AI, though, I recommend reading up on the ethical and legal concerns surrounding AI. Many Generative AI tools are trained by scraping content from the web, often without consent from or compensation for the original creators. Some companies are embroiled in copyright lawsuits because of this, including a lawsuit against Stable Diffusion. As of writing this article, it’s also impossible to copyright entirely AI-generated work in the US without human authorship of some kind.
Finally, I recommend avoiding AI if you’re concerned about climate change, as AI uses an enormous amount of power and water.
Storage
While most website builders offer unlimited storage, some companies like Wix have strict storage limits, making it important to consider how many pages — and the types of pages — you’ll be creating. A good rule of thumb is that you’ll need 1GB of storage for 10 large pages (product pages with several high-resolution images) or 100 small pages (blog posts with one or two images). You can use these estimates to figure out exactly how much storage you’ll need for your website or take the «more is better» approach and buy the highest storage plan you can afford.
Bandwidth/data transfer
Technically, bandwidth is a measurement of how much data your site’s server can send to visitors per second. However, most companies use bandwidth interchangeably with data transfer, which dictates how many visitors your site can have in a month.
Most popular website builders offer unlimited bandwidth (sometimes called data transfer, depending on the web host), so you won’t have to think about this much. Some companies, like Hostinger, do state limits on monthly visitors for their plans. Make sure you know the bandwidth/data transfer model of any website builder you’re considering.
Uptime
Uptime is the amount of time your site spends online, typically expressed as a percentage. Most web hosting companies offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee, promising that server issues won’t cause your site to go down for more than 10 minutes per week. Some website builder companies guarantee 99.99% uptime, which means your site shouldn’t go down for more than two minutes per week because of server issues. These guarantees are important because users who can’t access your site will probably go somewhere else. This can result in lost traffic and, if you’re running a business website, lost revenue.
Site speed
Visitors expect your site to load quickly. In fact, the percentage of people who leave your website after viewing only one page — known as the bounce rate — increases by 32% when load time goes from one to three seconds. Website builders often use two protocols to improve site speed and avoid this problem:
- Caching — A method of keeping information in a special type of data storage connected to the server’s CPU instead of the more traditional RAM. This allows data retrieval to occur at the CPU speed, which is faster than RAM speed, so visitors’ devices can load your site more quickly.
- Content delivery network or CDN— A network of interconnected servers in radically different geographical locations. For example, a content delivery network may include servers in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. When your site data is distributed across a CDN, users’ devices can pull data from the server closest to their location rather than relying on a server on the other side of the globe. This can improve site speeds for international users.
Customer service
You should have 24/7 access to customer service through your preferred method of communication, like email or live chat. Some companies offer phone service as well.
Hours aren’t the only important factor, either. Your website builder’s customer support representatives should be quick to respond and trained well enough to help you with a variety of issues. This is especially important if you’re starting a business or e-commerce website, as downtime and other issues can result in lost revenue. We’ve shared customer support details from our hands-on reviews in this article to give you a better understanding of how each website builder company treats its customers.
Pricing
Most website builders use one of two pricing models: traditional web hosting pricing and simplified website builder hosting.
Traditional web hosting pricing comes with a significant introductory discount if you sign up for one or more years. You’ll have to pay up front for those years, but you’ll save a lot of money over the lifetime of your contract. However, your payment will increase significantly (often by $10 or more per month) when the contract renews.
Simplified website builder hosting charges the same amount yearly, with no introductory discounts or renewal price hikes. This makes it easy to calculate long-term costs, but you’ll often pay $15 or more per month from the get-go.
You’ll also need to consider additional expenses. For example, many website builders include your domain free for the first year, then charge $20 to $30 for domain renewal every subsequent year. You may also need to buy extensions for things like advanced marketing tools.
How we test the best website builders
My hands-on testing starts with a deep analysis of each website builder’s plans and features to assess value and flexibility. From there, I read reviews on sites like Trustpilot to evaluate the website builder’s trustworthiness and overall reputation. I also review the company’s Better Business Bureau profile and consider the number of open complaints.
Next, I purchase the website builder’s lowest-tier plan and create a test site, evaluating the purchase process and site editor for ease of use. I then spend one week monitoring uptime and performing speed tests to assess server performance. I also contact customer service through every available communication method to evaluate response times and helpfulness. And finally, I compare the website builder’s plans to other popular companies’ offerings to determine their overall value.
Our web hosting services testing process offers additional insight, including how I determine each company’s exact rankings.
Other website builders to consider
GoDaddy
While our hands-on testing for GoDaddy focused on traditional shared hosting, the main benefits — great server performance and good customer service — are things you’ll also experience using the website builder.
I also enjoyed how easy it was to use the GoDaddy website builder. The design tools, SEO tools and marketing tools are clearly laid out so you can perform essential website management tasks in minutes, even without previous experience. This is achieved in part through limiting its functionality — the GoDaddy website builder doesn’t offer the same level of customization as others on this list, but the functionality is enough for creating a personal site or a portfolio meant to be the digital equivalent of a business card.
GoDaddy’s Basic website builder plan starts at $10 a month (billed annually) and increases to $17 a month on renewal. This plan lets you create up to 50 pages and accommodate 10,000 monthly visitors on your site. However, you won’t get a custom domain. Domain registration costs an additional $20 to $30 per year. You’ll also need to pay $107.78 per year for the Web Security add-on if you want firewall protection, DDoS prevention and malware scanning/cleanup.
Read our GoDaddy review.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is built for medium- to large-scale online stores that can cash in on the lack of added transaction fees and unlimited product variants. The editor has a lot of features and flexibility when you’re getting set up. Those features and tools — like product variants and tax rates — will probably come in handy as you grow or if you’re already at scale.
However, BigCommerce has over 200 one-star reviews on Trustpilot. While this is a smaller number of negative reviews than Shopify or Squarespace, it’s more statistically significant considering that BigCommerce only powers 35,000 active websites.
BigCommerce plans start at $29 a month for unlimited storage, bandwidth and product creation. You’ll also get inventory management tools for up to four locations.
WordPress.com
When most people talk about WordPress, they’re usually referring to the free, open-source software available through WordPress.org. This software is very powerful, but you’ll need to perform various tasks like updating the software and installing plugins for things like SEO.
WordPress.com is a hosting company that uses a modified version of the WordPress.org software as a website builder. The Gutenberg editor at its core (and the core of WordPress.org tech) uses content blocks with drag-and-drop functionality to make editing individual pages easy, while the Customizer lets you edit the overall appearance of your site. Moreover, WordPress.com updates and secures this software, so you don’t have to worry about it.
However, there are some issues with WordPress.com. You can’t access most of the themes that make the WordPress.org software so flexible, and you can’t install any plugins on lower-tier plans. E-commerce plans are also extremely expensive, starting at $45 a month, and many Trustpilot reviews suggest that you won’t get what you’re paying for.
Still, WordPress.com may be worth considering for its good blogging tools, decent user interface and generous free hosting plan. You can also get paid WordPress.com plans starting at $4 for 6GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth.
Duda
Duda is a specialized website builder for designers and agencies. The builder offers several stand-out features, such as personalization tools that help you optimize the messaging each visitor sees and collaboration tools to help you work with other designers and clients.
All Duda sites are secured with SSL certification, an advanced firewall with automated DDoS prevention and customizable access controls. Duda servers are continuously monitored through automated malware scanning and updated with frequent security patches to eliminate vulnerabilities as they arise.
The pricing model is where Duda falls apart. Plans start at $19 a month, which is in line with other website builders, but there are some caveats: you’ll only get customer support via email and you won’t get any e-commerce features. In fact, you can’t get e-commerce features through the main plans — you’ll have to buy a separate e-commerce subscription to start an online store. This subscription starts at $6 a month and only includes up to 100 products, whereas other popular website builders don’t restrict the number of products you can have at all. Even Hostinger, which does restrict the number of products you can display, allows for up to 500 products — and at a lower price point.
Website builder FAQs