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The best website builder for most users is Wix. The popular website builder is packed with industry-leading web-building features, features over 1,000 customizable templates, and offers the most reliable customer support center out of every web builder we tested. Simply put, Wix is a safe bet for beginners and experienced users alike.
If you’re looking for an ultra-low learning curve, Squarespace is the easiest website builder for beginners to get started with. The design-focused builder also offers a range of professionally designed templates, making it a great option for creative businesses like photographers and designers, while Shopify is the most competitive option for users making online stores.
Whether you’re a creative business with a penchant for design, an ecommerce vendor looking to sell big, or someone who needs an easy website builder to start a side hustle, we’ve rounded up the best website builders on the market. In this guide, we outline their price points, as well as what they’re best for, before diving into more detail.
What Is the Best Website Builder?
Here’s a breakdown of all the best website builders. Click the links for in-depth reviews and pricing information for each website builder.
- Wix – Best overall website builder
- Squarespace – Easiest to use
- Shopify – Best for ecommerce success
- GoDaddy – Best for getting set up quickly
- Hostinger – Cheapest starter plan
| Price | Free Plan | Number of templates | Rating Overall score based on features, value, support, ease of use, and customer score | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |  | |
|
| |||||
| | | | | | |
| Over 2000 | 187 | 864 | 20 | Over 150 | |
| 4.8 | 4.6 | 4.4 | 4.1 | 4.1 |
Scroll down to find the best website builder for your particular needs or skip straight to our website builder comparison page to weigh up the top solutions at a glance. Prices are accurate as of Summer 2025.
Test Summary
Wix has an impressive array of features that will lend themselves to almost every business specialism. For instance, if you’re a dentist, the builder’s industry-specific themes recommend relevant services you can add to your website and even have pictures of dentist surgeries in its stock image bank.
However, if you’re looking for a modern alternative, I was really impressed with how uncluttered Squarespace’s interface was, and how easy it was to navigate. For instance, it was really easy to add products to my ecommerce site and edit them to suit my liking. I’d be weary about using Squarespace’s AI site builder though, as I found it made my website look quite generic and similar to a lot of websites that are already out there.
When I used Shopify, I was impressed with how many customization options the platform offered. While these features may get lost on smaller businesses with simpler site needs, I can see it being really useful for large ecommerce stores that use the builder to handle multiple processing like online ordering, shipping, and fulfillment. GoDaddy, on the other hand, offered much less scope for customization, but its fuss-free functionality will probably lend itself well to users building a starter website.
1. Wix
- Best overall website builder
- Pricing from: $17 per month
Wix is an all-in-one website builder that excels in most major areas. From front-end design options to digital marketing, the software offers every feature you need to build a successful site. In fact, Wix had the most website features in our research by a wide margin, beating out Squarespace and Shopify for the top spot.
Check out our Wix review for more information
Pros
- Unrivaled selection of website features across design, sales, and support
- AI features can create site in 60 seconds
- Quality free forever plan available
Cons
- No template switching once published
- Number of features can be overwhelming for some beginners
- Steep price increase for scaling businesses
- Light: $17/month
- Core: $29 per month
- Business: $39/month
- Business Elite: $159/month
- 10% off any plan with code TAKE10
- 14-day free trial available
Wix key features
Simply put, Wix has an outstanding array of features to give you maximum control over your website and your end-user experience. From SEO and marketing to blogging and booking, Wix’s vast feature catalog makes it ideal for businesses with advanced site needs – that don’t want to invest tons of money into hiring a professional. We’re big fans of Wix, here at Tech.co.
With over 2,000 available templates to choose from, Wix is a more capable website builder than many of its contemporaries. Combine this with the platform’s drag-and-drop editor, which helps you edit your website to your liking, and businesses should have no doubt that the builder is capable of creating a site that stands out from the crowd.
Wix lets me edit the content, color, and style of the text on my website, and move it wherever I want on my page. Source: Tech.co testing
Even better, if your site needs are more complex or specific, you have access to Wix’s 800+ strong App Market, allowing you to seamlessly integrate the product with a range of free or paid add-ons — from ecommerce, to design, and everything in between.
The Wix App Market provided plenty of third-party integrations to help build out our site. Source: Tech.co testing
By and large, Wix offers a very positive user experience. It is intuitive and easy to use, with a simple drag-and-drop modular editor and excellent help and support options should you get stuck. However, the sheer number of options at your disposal does mean that it can get confusing.
Our researchers noted some concerns with the dashboard, which they thought was too crowded. In particular, some of them ran into difficulty while trying to navigate to Wix’s SEO features.
When a member of our product testing team made a mock website using the builder, they felt like it would have taken them hours to familiarize themselves with the full feature catalog. Unfortunately, Wix’s impressive functionality resulted in slower loading times too, which would likely be frustrating for users who need to build a website in a rush.
Despite these pitfalls, Wix’s step-by-step guide helped us get to grips with the platform quite quickly. What’s more, if you don’t want to follow manual steps, Wix AI features also help to make the web-building process a bit easier for the uninitiated.
Like today’s AI chatbots, we just had a simple conversation with Wix ADI about what we wanted on our website. Source: Tech.co testing
What's New With Wix in 2025?
- In May, Wix launched an AI visual design platform, Wixel, that allows users to create unique pages for their site, including editing existing photos and generating new designs.
Wix Pricing
Wix offers four main plans: Light ($17 per month), Core ($29 per month), Business ($39 per month), and Business Elite ($159 per month).
While the builder’s monthly packages aren’t as cheap as GoDaddy or Squarespace, you do get more money, justifying its slightly larger price tag. If your restaurant can do with the bells and whistles offered in its premium packages, you’re also able to make a website for free with Wix’s free plan. However, you won’t be able to create a custom domain with this tier, so it won’t be for everyone.
Check out our guide to Wix pricing for more information
| Plan | Price paid annually The price per month you'll pay if you choose to be billed annually | Bandwidth | Storage | Ecommerce | Support | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | |||
| Light | Core | Business | Business Elite | |||
| 3 GB | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | |||
| 2 GB | 50 GB | 100 GB | Unlimited | |||
| | | | | |||
| 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | Priority |
2. Squarespace
- Best for seamless user experience
- Pricing from: $16 per month
Squarespace is another website builder that’s strong across the board. In fact, during our research, Squarespace only marginally missed out on the top position, falling just short of Wix due to its smaller feature catalog and limited help and support options in comparison.
We loved the process of using the tool, however, which helped it to the highest user experience score, helped by its stunning templates and intuitive interface. In fact, those scores made it the best website builder for creative entrepreneurs in our research. This is partly due to its high content tools score, which sees the website builder offering many features that allow users to display content, like accordions, tabs, and carousels.
Pros
- Easiest website builder to use across our research
- Plenty of content-focused features for blogging
- Integrates with Acuity for booking and appointments
Cons
- Limited language support for international businesses
- AI site builder creates fairly generic output
- Performed poorly on-site speed tests in our research
- Basic: $16/month
- Core: $23/month
- Plus: $39/month
- Advanced: $99/month
- 10% off with code 'TC10'
- 14-day free trial
Squarespace key features
While the platform doesn’t offer as many templates as Wix, every one of Squarespace’s 187 (and counting) options is completely customizable and has been crafted by professional designers. This means that sites are easy to build, design, and edit, and it’s virtually impossible to make the end result look bad.
Check out our Squarespace review for more information
Squarespace let me filter its professionally designed templates by topic and business type. Source: Tech.co user testing
Squarespace is rightly lauded for its design capabilities, with an AI website builder that has significantly improved since our previous round of user testing. This time around, our researchers noted that the builder had a “sleek” design and improved customization options, as well as clear step-by-step guidance to hold the users’ hand throughout the process.
However, the team did note some concerns with the builder’s AI text generation capabilities, but to be honest, this is pretty common across the industry. Additionally, while Squarespace excels in aesthetics and usability, the software itself is slightly less customizable than Wix, and site speeds can run a little slower than competitors like GoDaddy due to its weighty designs.
Check out our guide to Wix vs Squarespace for a full comparison
Squarespace Fluid Editor made adding content easy for our team. Source: Tech.co user testing
What's New with Squarespace in 2025?
- As of June, users can now set up triggered emails for end customers who buy on their Bio Sites without needing to switch between tools.
- By the same token, users can now create automated email campaigns to auto-respond when customers submit forms.
Squarespace pricing
Squarespace offers four web-building packages, Basic ($16 per month), Core ($23 per month), Plus ($39 per month), and Advanced ($99 per month).
Squarespace pricing is pretty good, but it can’t compete with the likes of Wix, Hostinger, or GoDaddy, which all scored higher than Squarespace in terms of value during our latest round of testing. For a full breakdown of each plan, check out the pricing table below.
| Plan | Price paid annually The price per month you'll pay if you choose to be billed annually | Price paid monthly The price per month you'll pay if you choose to be billed monthly | Staff accounts | In-person credit card rates | Transaction fees | Advanced analytics | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | |||||
| $25/month | $36/month | $56/month | $139/month | |||||
| 2 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | |||||
| 2.9% + 30¢ | 2.9% + 30¢ | 2.7% + 30¢ | 2.5% + 30¢ | |||||
| 2% | 0% | 0% | 0% | |||||
| | | | | |||||
| See Pricing | See Pricing | See Pricing | See Pricing |
3. Shopify
- Best for unparalleled ecommerce success
- Pricing from: $5 per month
Shopify is a powerful website builder, but it really shines when it comes to ecommerce. With a range of sales tools under its belt, from wholesale channels to advanced inventory management, Shopify should be your top pick if you’re looking to build a site that sells. In fact, our research suggests it’s the best ecommerce web builder on the market right now.
Scalability is another big plus for Shopify, particularly compared to top competitor Wix in the ecommerce space. For one, Shopify allows for unlimited products even on its cheapest plan, while Wix only allows for up to 50,000 products no matter which plan you go for, so enterprise businesses might have trouble with larger inventories.
Pros
- Vast selection of third-party integrations and apps
- Robust customer support including 24/7 options
- Excellent generative AI features to craft content
Cons
- Messy interface between back and front end
- No free domain, must pay extra
- Short 3-day free trial to try platform before you buy
- Starter Plan: $5/month
- Basic Plan: $29/month
- Retail Plan: $79/month
- Shopify Plan: $79/month
- Advanced Plan: $299/month
- Transaction fees from 2.9% + 30¢
Shopify key features
While Shopify prides itself on its selling features, it’s more than equipped to build a high-quality, specialized website. From drag-and-drop tools to mobile responsive design, Shopify’s site-building toolkit is second only to Wix in terms of website functionality – even if the drop-off between the two is quite big.
It can also claim some of the best design features on the market. Again, there’s a gulf between Shopify and the next best provider (Squarespace), but Shopify is very credible in its own right. The platform’s AI site builder can spin up a new site in seconds, or you can choose from 269 themes, both paid and free.
Speaking of AI, during testing, we were impressed by Shopify’s AI product description tool, which allowed us to generate marketing copy for our brand in no time at all.
The platform has also recently unveiled Shopify Magic, which includes Sidekick — an AI-powered assistant that responds to user-generated prompts — and instant content generation functionality for emails and blog posts.
Check out our Wix vs Shopify guide for more information
Shopify AI helped us write descriptions for products directly on the site. Source: Tech.co user testing
Shopify does leave a little to be desired when it comes to the user experience. Our researchers ran into difficulty when it came to editing SEO settings, as well as using the email marketing builder, and navigating the platform in general.
Check out our Shopify review for more information
What's New with Shopify in 2025?
- Shopify officially unveiled its “Summer ’25 Edition” in May 2025, which features several new additions to its service. Among them, a new AI Store Builder allows users to generate a new virtual store from just a few prompts.
Shopify pricing
While businesses can use Shopify Starter to start selling on social media for $5 per month, if you’re looking for a full online store, you’ll need to fork out $29 per month for Shopify Basic.
Shopify’s other plans, Shopify ($79 per month), Retail ($79 per month), and Advanced ($299 per month), are all priced quite steeply as well, contributing to Shopify’s terrible value score. In fact, Shopify received the second-lowest value score across our research.
Shopify’s pricing structure is a little hard to get your head around though, so read our guide to Shopify website builder pricing or refer to our table below for more information:
| Plan | Price paid annually The price per month you'll pay if you choose to be billed annually | Price paid monthly The price per month you'll pay if you choose to be billed monthly | Staff accounts | Reporting | Gift cards | Online credit card rates | In-person credit card rates | Transaction fee if not using Shopify Payments | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | ||||||
| $39/month ($1 for first three months) | $105/month ($1 for first three months) | $399/month ($1 for first three months) | N/A | ||||||
| 2 | 5 | 15 | Tailored | ||||||
| Basic | Standard | Advanced | Bespoke | ||||||
| | | | | ||||||
| 2.9% + 30¢ | 2.7% + 30¢ | 2.5% + 30¢ | Bespoke | ||||||
| 2.6% + 10¢ | 2.5% + 10¢ | 2.4% + 10¢ | Bespoke | ||||||
| 2% | 1% | 0.6% | Bespoke |
4. GoDaddy
- Best for getting set up quickly
- Pricing from: $10.99 per month
GoDaddy is another popular website builder that prides itself on lighting fast site speeds. While it’s a bit less feature-dense than Wix and Squarespace, it contains all the necessary tools needed for smaller businesses like independent cafes or retailers — from drag-and-drop capabilities to mobile optimization.
It also doesn’t have an app market, which is a pretty big ding, but for users trying to keep it simple, GoDaddy is a good fit. Check out our guide to the most customizable website builders if you’re committed to building a highly unique website.
GoDaddy’s drag-and-drop builder let me edit the layout of different elements, but its customization options were quite restrictive. Source: Tech.co user testing
Pros
- AI generated websites in two steps (30 seconds)
- 24/7 phone support available for all plans
- Free forever plan can publish site
Cons
- No mobile website editor to modify pages on the go
- Overly generic website design with fewer templates than other builders
- No app market to branch out functionality across your site
- Basic: $9.99/month
- Standard: $11.99/month
- Premium: $14.99/month
- Ecommerce: $20.99/month
GoDaddy key features
GoDaddy actually scored pretty poorly in terms of website functionality, especially when compared to the likes of Wix and Shopify. Where it excels is in its user experience, with our team placing it above the likes of Shopify and even Wix in this area.
What’s more, GoDaddy has some decent design features, including over 100 high-quality design templates, a simple drag-and-drop editor, and mobile-optimized sites. However, its reliance on artificial design intelligence (ADI) makes it less suitable for users looking for a distinct website that stands out from the crowd.
What's New with GoDaddy in 2025?
- When it comes to new features, GoDaddy isn’t the most forthcoming provider on the market. In November 2024, the platform unveiled new granular font options for users to customize font colors throughout their website, rather than just one uniform color.
- The provider also recently introduced GoDaddy Airo, a new feature that comes with every domain purchase.
When I was building my website I could use GoDaddy’s AI text-generation tools to get the ball rolling. Source: Tech.co user testing
While GoDaddy also lacks advanced SEO features like canonical tagging, which can be found in builders like Wix, its search engine tools do most of the heavy lifting for you, picking out specific elements of your site to optimize.
If you’re looking for fast site speeds, GoDaddy won’t let you down. The website builder boasts an impressive page load time of 280ms due to its reliance on multiple data centers. This is even faster than leading solutions like Wix and Squarespace.
The platform has also recently unveiled GoDaddy Airo, an all-in-one AI tool that’s included with every purchased GoDaddy domain. With Airo, you’ll get a fully AI-generated logo for your site, a whole site, with social media ad creation, email marketing, customer insights, and SEO capabilities.
Read our GoDaddy website builder review for an in-depth summary of the product.
GoDaddy pricing
All of the GoDaddy pricing packages, Basic ($10.99 per month), Standard ($11.99 per month), Premium ($14.99 per month), and Ecommerce ($20.99 per month), are all fairly generous, featuring website hosting, custom domain options, and round-the-clock support. This, combined with the solution’s affordable entry price, has helped GoDaddy to an excellent score for pricing.
To learn more about GoDaddy’s different pricing tiers, take a look at the table below:
| Plan | Price paid annually The price per month you'll pay if you choose to be billed annually | SEO | Ecommerce | Social media integration | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | ||
| | | | | ||
| | | | | ||
| | | | |
5. Hostinger
- Cheapest starter plan
- Pricing from: $2.69 per month + 3 months free
For users who are fond of Wix’s software but not its price tag, Hostinger will be a great alternative. The website builder is competent and cost-effective but doesn’t overwhelm users with choices like our frontrunner Wix.
The solution is extremely easy to navigate too, offering the second-best user experience, behind only Squarespace. Its AI website tool is particularly intuitive, and we found that platform navigation has markedly improved since our last round of user testing.
Pros
- AI generated site in three steps (60 seconds)
- Built-in heatmap for advanced site analytics
- Language translations capabilities
Cons
- No app market for third party integrations
- No email marketing in any paid plans
- No free trial or free plan for users
- 30-day money back guarantee
- Plans from: $2.69 per month
- Free domain included (first year)
Hostinger key features
Unfortunately, Hostinger’s prioritization of AI over fundamental features makes it hard to recommend for those in need of advanced functionality. With one of the lowest website feature scores in our research – certainly the lowest out of the providers we’ve covered in this piece – Hostinger’s site-building tools aren’t as strong as its rivals, with a complete lack of SMS or email marketing tools.
On top of that, Hostinger doesn’t have its own app store either, unlike Wix and Shopify. This limits the software’s potential and makes it less suited for larger businesses that may need to integrate other services into the website builder.
Read our full comparison of Hostinger vs Wix if you’re stuck between the two web builders.
Hostinger’s AI heatmapping feature let me gain valuable insights into user engagement on my website. Source: Tech.co testing
What's New with Hostinger in 2025?
- In May 2025, Hostinger unveiled new functionality to improve its service. Among its list of improvements, the platform has made its AI platform, known as Horizons, 20 times faster – it can now create a project preview in 1.2 seconds, which is down from 25 seconds.
Hostinger pricing
Hostinger offers two website building plans, starting with the Premium Website Builder, at just $2.99 per month with 3 months for free if you commit to a 48-month term. The next plan, Business Website Builder, starts at $3.79 per month with 3 months for free if you commit to a 48-month term.
However, with Tech.co, you can get Premium Website Builder for just $2.69 per month, with 3 months for free, if you commit to a 48-month term. What’s more, you can also get the Business Website Builder for $3.41 per month, with 3 months for free, if you commit to a 48-month term.
Ultimately, this is what separates Hostinger from the rest of the pack and earns it a place on this list – those rock-bottom entry prices.
| Plan | Price paid monthly The price per month you'll pay if you choose to be billed monthly | Domain included | Transaction fees | Ecommerce | AI content generator | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | |||||
| | | |||||
| | | |||||
| | | |||||
| | |
Buying Guide: How to Choose a Website Builder
Your online site has the power to make or break your brand, so it’s important to select your website builder wisely. There are a lot of factors to consider when it comes to choosing a website builder, and we’re here to break down some of the most important ones.
Purpose of Website
Are you trying to launch an online store or just need an informational page? Do you want to write a blog or are you simply setting up a portfolio? You absolutely need to answer these questions before embarking on your search for the best website builder. Each provider offers a different set of features for these particular website types, and you won’t be able to pick the right one until you know exactly what you need.
Budget
Obviously, understanding how much you’re going to pay for a website builder is one of the most important things to consider before making your decision. Prices range pretty dramatically from provider to provider and, more importantly, from pricing plan to pricing plan, and the features you get with each can vary dramatically. Subsequently, be sure to stick to your budget, as you should be able to find something that works for you.
Ease of use
If you’re a beginner when it comes to website builders — or business software in general — ease of use should absolutely be a factor you consider. Some website builders are very intuitive, while others offer advanced features that can get confusing for newbies. This can be hard to discern from feature listings and price plans, which is why we’ve done some extensive research on the topic to give you some help.
How Did We Rate the Best Website Builder?
We take our impartial research and analysis seriously, so you can have complete confidence that we're giving you the clearest, most useful product recommendations.
After conducting an initial exploration to identify the most relevant, popular, and established tools in the market, we put them through their paces with hands-on testing to see their real strengths and weaknesses. In this case, we put 16 website builder products to the test across 398 areas of investigation.
Based on years of market and user needs research, we've established a website builder testing methodology that scores each product in six core categories of investigation and 33 subcategories; this covers everything from customer feedback to design, ease of use, and more.
Our main testing categories for website builders are:
- Website Features: the capabilities and functionalities offered by a website builder, e.g. blog functionality, SEO capability, and marketing capacity.
- Design Functionality: the aesthetic appeal and visual layout of a website created using a website builder. It encompasses aspects such as page templates and customizable themes.
- Customer Satisfaction: external customer opinion. This is the feedback and ratings given by customers who have used a particular website builder – the market position and reputation a website builder holds.
- User Experience: how user-friendly and intuitive a website builder is for people with varying levels of technical expertise.
- Value for Money: the balance between the cost of a website builder and the benefits it provides. It considers factors such as pricing plans, subscription models, and available features.
- Help and Support: the assistance and resources available to users when they encounter issues or need guidance while using a website builder.
When it comes to calculating a product's final score, not all testing areas are weighted evenly, as we know some aspects matter more to our readers than others, which are simply "nice to have." After hundreds of hours, our process is complete, and the results should ensure you can find the best solution for your needs.
At Tech.co, we have a number of full-time in-house researchers, who re-run this testing process regularly, to ensure our results remain reflective of the present day.
Our Verdict: Wix is the Best Website Builder
If you’re after a reliable website builder, you can’t go wrong with Wix. It offers the best feature suite of any other product we’ve tested, is easy for newbies to get started on, and has quality low-cost and free versions.
Squarespace is a better choice when it comes to ease of use, though, scoring the highest user score in our research. GoDaddy is another excellent choice for beginners, as it offers tools to get you site live in only 30 seconds. Finally, a good online store starts with Shopify, considered by many to be the best ecommerce website builder on the market.