There are many website builders in the market today ranging from Weebly and Squarespace to WordPress and 1&1 among others. However, not all of them meet each userâs specific needs and preferences. It is also difficult to try out each available website builder to determine the best of them all. Here is a summary of the pros and cons of the current top website builders to help users narrow down their choices.
Wix
One of the most attractive features of Wix is its wide selection of over 280 professional templates. The templates are all designed to help users come up with their own customized designs. Wix also features a very intuitive and easy to use drag-and-drop interface. It is simple to use with a good selection of building blocks or elements including images, text, and slideshows. Its support infrastructure is also great.
Weebly
In terms of ease of use and user-friendliness, Weebly website builder is among the best in the market. It comes with an easy to use and clean drag-and-drop interface to provide users with a simple but effective website builder. It has also been popularized by its wide range of templates which are not actually the best but fair enough to work with especially for first time website creators with little web design knowledge. Weebly has a free account but users can get more templates and functionalities with a premium account.
Squarespace
Squarespace is well known among website creators for its designer templates that provide users with beautiful, clean, rich, and minimalistic imagery. This is a website builder with sophisticated templates that have a high quality and well polished finish. Its templates are also responsive which means that users can re-size their browsers to automatically adjust images and slideshows especially on mobile devices. However, despite the smooth stylish templates, Squarespace needs to work a little more on customer experience and support.
WordPress
WordPress has emerged as a popular website building tool for bloggers. It is designed for people who want to create bolgs covering diverse interests as well for e-Commerce and other non-blog sites. It has a large support community too including designers and programmers of WordPress themes, plugins, and other tools. However, the major disadvantage of WordPress is the fact that it is not easy to use. There is a steep learning curve before one can become an expert in WordPress. It is a free website builder but the technical challenges involved in using WordPress has led many of its users to seek for specialists to design and maintain their websites which, in the long run, becomes an expensive affair.
1&1
In comparison to the rest, 1&1 offers one of the best website builders today. It provides a practical, easy to use, and affordable website building platform for all types of users. It is designed to allow users the freedom of creating attractive yet functional websites in the shortest time possible. Another great feature of 1&1is the fact that users can have all their siteâs needs such as designing, hosting, promotion, and advertising in a single platform. There are other extra features at 1&1 such as free domain, Google Analytics, and a 30-day money back guarantee.
SITE123
One of the fastest growing website builder on the market is SITE123. The platform offers tools for building all kinds of business and personal websites. Basic plans start at $10.80 per month. SITE123 is best regarded for its user-friendly editor as coding knowledge is not required to build websites. The SITE123 editor does have a surprising amount of customization options and a huge selection of templates and website structures. SITE123 is also noted for its approach to online security, as all of their websites are SSL encrypted for user protection. The service features multiple payment plans based on what kind of website the user needs. Lastly, they are famous for their exceptional 24/7 live chat support, something that is unique in the industry.
What to look for in a good website builder
Despite the pros and cons discussed in the options above, there a few things a user needs to look for before choosing a website builder. Ideally, users should look at each optionâs features, ease of use, hosting, graphic imaging tools, and the kind of help or support provided by the website builder developers or company.