During our rigorous research and testing of free website builders, we found that Wix is the best overall. Its free plan comes with a generous number of features and dependable support channels, another plus is that it’s well-liked by customers.
GoDaddy takes second place because of its easy-to-use ADI builder, attractive SEO tools, and the speed at which it allows you to get online. Square Online rounds off our top three recommendations thanks to its free plan that permits selling – a feature that’s usually reserved for premium plans.
We’ve carried out tons of research and tested hundreds of website builders over the years, so we know what matters when it comes to the best free plans. As we navigate difficult economic climates, free website builders might be a wise option to explore.
You can see the full list below, and discover our expert insights on the top six free builders:
The 6 Best Free Website Builders
- Wix – Best overall website builder with a wide range of free features
- GoDaddy – Best for getting online quickly for free
- Square Online – Best for selling online for free
- Webflow – Best free plan with limited ads
- Site123 – Best features suited to hobbies and small projects
- Pagecloud – Best for building with custom code
We used our independent research to create this list, providing you with accurate and reliable recommendations. It’s no secret that free website builders aren’t the best way to build a website – they often come with various limitations, such as displaying ads on your site or a lack of ecommerce tools, making them less than ideal for long-term growth.
To help you make an informed decision, we’ve made sure to include all of the facts in this article – including what each builder does and doesn’t offer.
1. Wix
Best overall website builder with a wide range of free features
Wix is by far the best all-around website builder on the market today.
Wix
Best overall website builder with a variety of free features
- 800+ customizable designs
- Easiest builder to use
- Tons of creative freedom
Free plan available
Paid Plans: $16 - $159 / month
Plenty of features on the free plan
Free plan ads are very noticeable
Wix: At A Glance
Our top choice for the best free website builder is Wix, scoring an overall 4.8 out of 5 in our research and maintaining its high score from last year’s research. Wix is extremely easy to use, comes packed with features – even on its free plan – and gives you total creative control over your site’s design thanks to its drag-and-drop editor.
Its free plan comes with up to 500MB of storage and bandwidth as well as access to essential features, including SEO tools.
Although Wix’s free domain isn’t the catchiest, you can customize it to reflect your brand. This gives Wix an advantage over other builders that give you a domain you can’t edit, such as Site123.
Expert Insights: What We Thought When Using Wix
We used Wix to create a free website for Lucy’s Cupcakes, an imaginary business. The whole building process took about half a day. Wix was easy to use, but still gave us all the creative freedom we needed to make our site look exactly how we envisioned it. We especially like the fact that our template came with the Wix Restaurant app built-in!
What we liked about Wix:
- Customization options – we could drag anything anywhere, making it easy to line things up exactly how we wanted them!
- Template choices & designs – our chosen template already had a menu built-in.
- The undo option – simply hit CTRL + Z to undo changes you’ve made. This is a small but surprisingly useful feature.
- Ease of use – changing text, images, and backgrounds only took a few clicks. Wix even has an image library on hand, which made it even faster!
- Improved SEO features – we noticed a real improvement to Wix’s SEO offering, including a partnership with keyword support tool, Semrush.
- Mobile editor – see how your website looks on mobile devices thanks to Wix’s mobile editor, allowing you to make sure your pages are optimized for every visitor.
What could be improved:
- Onboarding – although Wix is super easy to use, it can feel a little overwhelming when the editor first loads because there are so many options and features to choose from.
- App market – it’s hard to tell which apps are free to use and which apps cost money. We also encountered a lot of loading issues when trying to explore the app market.
- Locked template – you can’t swap your template once your site is live, so make sure you’re really happy with your chosen theme ahead of publishing.
Our Wix demo website: https://carnagelucy.wixsite.com/lucyscupcakes
Wix Gallery
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Wix in Action: Digital Overdrive
Q&A
When did you start using Wix, and how long did it take to build a website?
Why did you start on the free plan? Have you upgraded your plan since?
What do you like most about Wix?
What would you change about Wix?
Did you feel restricted by the free plan? Were you bothered by any ads?
Were you satisfied with the website you made and would you recommend Wix to others?
2. GoDaddy
Best for getting online quickly for free
GoDaddy’s ADI makes it easy to build a website in no time at all.
GoDaddy
Best for getting online quickly for free
- User-friendly with ADI
- Quickest builder to use
- SEO Wiz to help optimize
Free plan available
Paid Plans: $2.99 - $469.99 / month
GoDaddy: At A Glance
GoDaddy is ideal for anyone looking to create a clean, basic website in a short period of time. With its decent free plan, GoDaddy secures second place in our list, scoring an overall 4.2 out of 5.
It is quite user-friendly, coming in second for ease of use in our rankings. This is largely thanks to its ADI functionality, which builds your website based on a few answered questions – saving you tons of time and helps to quickly get your site live. But, since the last time we tested the builder, there have been no significant updates to GoDaddy’s design process, meaning its templates don’t stand out too much when compared with its competitors.
With this in mind, we’d recommend GoDaddy for smaller sites and businesses, or anyone looking to build something that is quite simple in nature.
Expert Insights: What We Thought When Using GoDaddy
When we created our demo site with GoDaddy, it was clear that the builder is easy to use. After answering a handful of simple questions, GoDaddy got to work producing a sleek site. There were even customization tools at the bottom, allowing us to to add our personal touch. You get to play around with themes, fonts, color schemes, and CTA buttons.
What we liked about GoDaddy:
- Easy set up – like Wix, GoDaddy asks you what sort of website you want to create and what your business name is, and then gives you custom themes to work with.
- SEO features – by heading over to “Get found by Google” in the Settings, you can start optimizing your website in just a few clicks. No need to soak up any SEO knowledge before building!
- Efficiency – GoDaddy saves you tons of time thanks to its ADI functionality, making it one of the fastest website builders on the market today.
What could be improved:
- Lack of mobile editor – GoDaddy supposedly optimizes your site for mobile devices itself, but it’s a shame you aren’t given greater control over this aspect.
- Limits on creativity – when it comes to design elements, you can’t move or resize them too drastically. This is especially annoying if you’re trying to make the website layout unique to your brand.
Our GoDaddy demo website: https://lucyscupcakes.godaddysites.com/
GoDaddy Gallery
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GoDaddy in Action: ClothingRIC
Q&A
Why did you start with GoDaddy's free plan?
What were you able to achieve with the free plan?
When did you upgrade from the free plan?
How has GoDaddy's paid plan been for you since?
3. Square Online
Best for selling online for free
Square Online’s free website builder is ideal for small businesses since you can sell on its free plan.
Square Online
Best for selling online for free
- Sell online for free
- Speedy set up
- Mediocre templates
Free plan available
Paid Plans: $12 - $79 / month
Square Online: At A Glance
Taking the coveted third spot on our list, Square Online scores an overall 3.7 out of 5 in our recent round of research. What sets Square Online apart from most of the other free website builders on this list is that its free plan allows you to start selling without spending a cent.
Though its editor and design options can feel restrictive, Square Online makes the setup process super quick, meaning you can get your business online as soon as possible. It is because of this that we’d recommend Square Online for small businesses, entrepreneurs, or startups that want to find their footing in the digital market.
Expert Insights: What We Thought When Using Square Online
Our demo website with Square Online didn’t take too long to set up – the onboarding process was fast, and you can get your claws into your site’s design right away. That being said, its editor didn’t feel very user-friendly or intuitive, especially when compared with Wix.
Its section-style editor limits what you can do with your site, and you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan to unlock advanced design features, such as buttons and icon sets.
What we liked about Square Online:
- The ability to sell – it’s rare to find a free plan that’s suitable for small businesses, and it was very easy to add new products to the website.
- The dashboard – while the editor felt a little clunky at points, Square Online makes navigating between the backend dashboard and your website super smooth.
What could be improved:
- Customization options – Square Online suffers when it comes to design, scoring 2.6 out of 5 in our research, which makes it one of the least customizable builders we’ve tested.
- Help and support – while it does offer phone and live chat support, along with a support center, Square Online doesn’t provide a 24/7 service.
Our Square Online demo website: https://lucys-cupcakes.square.site/
Square Online Gallery
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Square Online in Action: Marieke Mertz
Q&A
When did you start using Square Online?
Why did you start on the free plan? Have you upgraded your plan since?
What do you like most about Square Online?
Did you feel restricted by the free plan? Were you bothered by any ads?
Were you satisfied with the website you made, and would you recommend Square Online to others?
4. Webflow
Best free plan with limited ads
Webflow is best suited for web designers and those that can handle large amounts of customization.
Webflow
Best free plan with limited ads
- Advanced customization
- Section block editor
- Industry-specific themes
Free plan available
Paid Plans: $14 / month
Webflow: At A Glance
Webflow scores an overall 3.4 out of 5 in our recent research, a score that is largely supported by its impressive design tools. To put it simply, this website builder has web designers in mind, rather than beginners.
Instead of the usual drag-and-drop editor that Wix and GoDaddy offer, Webflow works with padding and section block areas. This format will feel familiar for website owners who are used to large amounts of customization – but for your first website, this could be quite an overwhelming design process.
Expert Insights: What We Thought When Using Webflow
We went ahead and tested Webflow for ourselves with our fake business, Lucy’s Cupcakes. The building process took a couple of hours because of how different it is from the popular drag-and-drop editor. It’s safe to say that without any prior knowledge of using section block areas and overlays, it’ll be a little difficult to navigate at times.
Thankfully, Webflow has a virtual design assistant that gives you an in-depth demo of how everything works before leaving you to it!
What we liked about Webflow:
- Template choice and designs – Webflow makes it clear which templates are best for which industries, offering users a pretty wide selection of free templates (when compared with other builders).
- Creative freedom – Webflow gives a lot of creative control to users and its free plan comes with an array of customizable features.
- Efficient navigation – Webflow relies on the use of short keys and right-clicking to remove or add elements, which streamlines the whole design process.
What could be improved:
- Ability to drag elements – although Webflow is designed with web designers in mind, it would be useful to include a drag-and-drop editor functionality to make it beginner-friendly! We’ve seen how well this works with Wix because the feature really improves the user experience.
Our Webflow demo website: https://lucys-cupcakes-e53b96.webflow.io/
Webflow Gallery
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Webflow in Action: Fit Design Agency
Q&A
When did you start using Webflow, and how long did it take you to build a website?
Why did you start on the free plan? Have you upgraded your plan since?
What do you like most about Webflow?
What would you change about Webflow?
Did you feel restricted by Webflow's free plan? Were you bothered by any ads?
Were you satisfied with the website you made, and would you recommend Webflow to others?
5. Site123
Best features suited to hobbies and small projects
Site123 is a simple builder, ideal for personal websites and hobbyists.
Site123
Best features suited to hobbies and small projects
- Uses ADI to build sites
- Bountiful app market
- Basic website features
Free plan available
Paid Plans: $12.8 - $97.5 / month
Site123: At A Glance
Site123 is ideal for beginners who want to create a nice, simple website – ideally something personal rather than professional. Thanks to its ADI builder, Site123 is super easy to set up, but it won’t be the right fit for you if you’re looking to get creative and push the boundaries of your site’s design.
It’s very limited, scoring an overall 2.8 out of 5 in our recent round of research – a 16% drop since last year’s research. This puts Site123 miles behind our top three free website builder choices.
Expert Insights: What We Thought When Using Site123
The main thing we noticed about Site123 was the design assistance it offers while you build. From creating your basic site for you to providing font pairings and complementary color suggestions, it helps guide you from start to finish. That being said, you aren’t given that much control over your site’s design!
What we liked about Site123:
- How friendly it was – if you have zero tech skills and want a fairly hands-off building experience, Site123 is a perfect choice.
- 24/7 chat support – Site123’s live chat is there to help throughout the building process, which is great if you get stuck.
- Building support – simply choose your industry and site name, and Site123 takes care of the rest for you. It builds you a basic site, and even offers font and color suggestions!
What could be improved:
- The quality of design – it’s no secret that Site123 provides limited creative freedom, scoring 1.9 out of 5 in our design research. This would be less frustrating if the designs were stylish and modern, but they’re very outdated. Our Lucy’s Cupcakes site was easy to build, but the result looked old and bland, especially when compared to the site we made using Wix.
- The free domain – the domain you get with your free Site123 plan is a jumble of letters and numbers, and you’re unable to customize it. This makes your site look incredibly unprofessional.
- Basic website features – Site123 offers very simple website features and limited storage with its free plan. While you’ll get a little more power with the paid plans, it still feels like the bare minimum.
Our Site123 demo website: https://5f35237f568e3.site123.me/
SITE123 Gallery
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Site123 in Action: Yuval Eizik
Q&A
How long have you been using Site123?
Why did you start on the free plan?
What were you able to achieve on the free plan?
When did you upgrade from the free plan and why?
What do you like most about Site123?
Is there anything you'd change about it?
Would you recommend Site123, and why?
6. Pagecloud
Best for building with custom code
Pagecloud’s free website builder is more suitable for people with technical experience.
Pagecloud
Best for building with custom code
- Not ideal for beginners
- Lots of customization
- Drag-and-drop editor
Free plan available
Paid Plans: $20 / month
Pagecloud: At A Glance
Completing our list of the top six free website builders is Pagecloud, scoring an overall 2.5 out of 5. While it’s still impressive enough to make our final list, Pagecloud is let down in almost every research category, particularly when it comes to ease of use.
Users looking for a free website builder are typically beginners or are building their very first website, and Pagecloud has a steeper learning curve than most.
Expert Insights: What We Thought When Using Pagecloud
When building our demo website with Pagecloud, the editor and dashboard were fairly easy to navigate but it didn’t feel as intuitive or user-friendly as other builders, such as Wix. In fact, we faced a lot of slow loading times when editing and some steps felt unnecessarily complicated. For example, you can edit text directly on the page, but editing an image opens up a separate menu.
We were also disappointed to find out that Pagecloud’s free plan only allows you to publish one page. If you want additional pages, you’ll need to upgrade to a premium plan.
What we liked about Pagecloud:
- Customization – Pagecloud gives you a ton of creative freedom thanks to its detailed editor. If you have the time to figure it all out, you can build something wonderful.
- Drag-and-drop editor – the familiar drag-and-drop style makes it easy to format the pages to your liking.
- Icons and buttons – we really love Pagecloud’s library of icons and buttons to add to your website, which is something we haven’t seen from other builders.
What could be improved:
- Autosave feature – without an automatic save function, it’s incredibly easy to accidentally lose any progress.
- Site speed – when building our demo site, the editor took a while to load and it even crashed our browser at one point.
Our Pagecloud demo website: https://lucys-cupcakes.mypagecloud.com/
Pagecloud Gallery
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What’s Important in a Free Website Builder?
Free website builders might seem too good to be true, but we’re here to demonstrate why this isn’t always the case.
A question we often get asked is: how do these free website builders make their money? Is there something sketchy going on? Luckily, it’s all super safe and above board. These website builders operate on what’s known as a “freemium” business model, whereby the customers who want to pay for extra features effectively fund those who are happy with a limited plan – no strings attached.
That said, there are some elements that you should pay close attention to when deciding on which free website builder to choose.
To create this ranking of the best free website builders, we drew upon our extensive research and user testing for each website builder as a whole. We then combined this with a specific focus on their free plans, investigating whether or not the builder ticked these boxes:
Clear Domain Name
Free website builders won’t let you link up a custom domain name, but what does the auto-generated one look like? For example, a format like Site 123’s domain (https://5f35237f568e3.site123.me/) could make your site look quite unprofessional.
Low Upgrade Cost
Upgrading to a paid plan comes with clear benefits, so it’s good to know how much this would cost.
Minimal Advertising
You don’t need us to tell you that a website plastered with ads won’t look as good as one without them! Our screenshots should help you evaluate the ads of each website builder, helping you to decide on the least intrusive option.
Free SSL Certificate
Most website builders include a free SSL certificate as standard, but a couple of them don’t. Without an SSL certificate, your website will display as “Not secure” to visitors. You can buy an SSL certificate separately for around $10 per year.
Sufficient Storage
Most free website builders have a cap on the amount of content you can upload to your site. If you know you want to include lots of images or videos, be mindful of how quickly you’ll reach this limit.
Easy to Use
There’s no point in finding a website builder that ticks the boxes above only to discover it’s clunky and frustrating to use. We’ve given an indication of how easy each website builder is to use, based on our research and user testing.
Ecommerce Functionality (Optional)
If you need to sell through your free website builder, this limits your options a little. Keep an eye out for website builders we’ve flagged as allowing you to sell on a free plan, like Square Online.
How Do I Create A Free Website? (Step-by-Step)
One thing all the website builders in our ranking have in common – in addition to being free – is that they are easy to set up. The process and learning curve differ slightly from builder to builder, but here are the steps you can expect:
- Sign up with the website builder. This will require an email address, password, and possibly a username.
- Choose a template or answer the design assistant’s questions. This is the first fork in the road – most builders will let you select a template to work off at this stage, but some will use design assistance to mock up a website for you based on your answers to a few questions. We’ve specified when this is the case.
- Add in your own content. Get rid of placeholder text and images, and replace these with your own.
- Tweak and customize your design. If you want to, you can further customize your design by testing out new layouts and colors – even switch to a new template. Most builders let you switch templates after publishing, but keep in mind that Wix doesn’t.
- Press publish! At this point, your domain name will be generated, and your site will be live for the world to see.
This process could take anything from 15 minutes to a few hours, depending on how much you switch up in steps three and four.
Is It Worth Upgrading to a Paid Plan?
As we’ve seen, free website builders can do a lot, but paid plans allow for a lot more. Paid doesn’t have to mean expensive – you can take advantage of premium features for as little as $9 per month.
The most common advantages of paid plans include:
Removing Ads
When you’re trying to achieve a professional image, it’s better to have no ads instead of subtle ads – and upgrading your plan will leave your site ad-free.
Connecting a Custom Domain Name
Again, yoursite.com is a whole lot better than yoursite.yourwebsitebuilder.com, and a whole lot more memorable, too.
Access to More Storage and Bandwidth
As your site grows and your traffic increases, you might outgrow your free plan. You may need to upgrade to increase your storage or make your website accessible to more people. Many paid plans offer unlimited storage and bandwidth, so you can have total peace of mind.
Ability to Sell
Most free website builders won’t let you unlock ecommerce capabilities until you’ve upgraded to a premium plan– apart from Square Online, which does let you sell on its free plan. If you have a small business or want to sell products and services to customers, you won’t be comfortable with a free plan for long.
Advanced Website Features
The features and tools needed to take your business or hobby to the next level will often be waiting for you in a premium plan, so make sure you take a look!
While there’s no pressure to upgrade to a paid plan at any stage, we think it’s always worth checking out or trialing a plan at some point. We know it can be nerve-wracking to invest money in a new business, project, or hobby, but there’s an element of “fake it till you make it” here. With the added professionalism of a paid site, nobody needs to know that you’re not far more established.
Our Testing Methodology
At Website Builder Expert, we pride ourselves on sharing data-led recommendations with our readers. To bring you the best free website builders on the market, our in-house research team has put over 50 builders through our expert research process. To review and compare the builders fairly, we investigate important areas such as:
- Website features
- Design flexibility
- Value for money
- Help and support
- Customer satisfaction
- Ease of use
Within each of these categories, we focus on specific sub-criteria to assess where each builder falls in our rankings. Naturally, each category also has a different weighting attached to it, which is dependent on how important it is to our users. Take a look below to see how we’ve weighted each of the categories to generate the overall scores of the builders on this list.
- Website features – weighting: 20%
When it comes to website features, there are plenty of sub-criteria to focus on. We compared the number and quality of the features on offer, such as whether it has an app market, what its blogging functionality is like, whether it can hold its own when it comes to SEO and marketing, and we examined its domain name and email address offerings. We also made sure to carry out a site speed analysis, too.
Because the website features you’ll have access to will make up the meat of your website and determine what you can and cannot include, this category carries a hefty 20% weighting.
- Design functionalities – weighting: 20%
When you create your website, it’s important that you have everything you need to make it look and feel exactly how you want it. As a result, within this category, we paid special attention to the templates and themes on offer, whether the builder offers ADI functionality, how flexible the design is, and whether you can switch your template when you feel like it. We also looked at the overall UX of the builder, as well as whether it offers an image editor and how easy it is to edit on mobile.
First impressions are important and the aesthetics of your site play a huge role in this. Besides, the level of creative control available is key to your personal building experience. As a result, we weighted this category at 20%, making it equal to website features.
- Value for money – weighting: 10%
Everyone wants to know if they’re getting good bang for their buck. T judge the value of each builder, we looked at whether they offered a free plan or a free trial, as well as analyzing the average pricing plan on offer. Finally, we weighed up the features on offer compared with the price you pay.
We’ve weighted this category at 10% because we know that businesses that are just starting out usually look to keep their costs as low as possible.
- Help and Support – weighting: 10%
It’s important that website builders offer a good help and support system. As a result, we analyzed what customer support options are available, how good the knowledge feature is, and how that all stacks up against the cost of the starting plan. We also took a look at what restore options each builder offers, just in case you ever have to restore an older version of your site.
This category carries a weighting of 5% because, although it is still important, you’re less likely to need to use these tools when compared to the ones that fall into the website features and design functionality categories.
- Customer Satisfaction – weighting: 25%
This category is all about what other users thought of the builder. The sub-criteria here includes other review site scores, Trustpilot scores, brand recognition, overall market analysis, and how likely other users are to recommend this builder.
Of course, everyone’s opinions are different, but we believe the best indication of a builder’s merit comes from those who have and do use it. As a result, this is our highest weighted category at 25%.
- Ease of use – weighting: 20%
This category focuses on one thing: how easy the website builder is to use. To judge this, we carry out real-life tests, tasking groups of everyday people to use the builders and share their feedback. We focus on small business owners and entrepreneurs because we know these are the people who make up the bulk of our readers.
No one wants to use a website builder that’s really difficult to get to grips with. Given that many of our users haven’t built a website before, ease of use is one of the more important categories, which is reflected in its weighting of 20%.
In addition to the categories above, we also try the website builders ourselves to help with determining the final scores. We create free demo sites that allow us to get first-hand experience with a platform’s strengths and weaknesses. We aim to create a site that’s as authentic as possible, containing multiple pages and elements.
Best Free Website Builders: Conclusion
We’ve guided you through the pros and cons of the top six free website builders, as well as the advantages of upgrading to a paid plan if necessary.
Let’s have a quick recap: Our list of the top six free website builders ranks Wix as the best overall website builder with a score of 4.8 out of 5, thanks to its impressive and generous free plan. GoDaddy takes the silver medal, offering a speedy setup time and a beginner-friendly ADI builder. Rounding off our top three is Square Online, which allows you to sell online for free.
The 6 Best Free Website Builders
- Wix – Best overall website builder with a wide range of free features
- GoDaddy – Best for getting online quickly for free
- Square Online – Best for selling online for free
- Webflow – Best free plan with limited ads
- Site123 – Best features suited to hobbies and small projects
- Pagecloud – Best for building with custom code
Just remember, free website builders nearly always limit the features and functions that are available to you. While this might be acceptable at the start, it could prove extremely frustrating further down the line.
This is why we suggest you make the most of the free plans by building, playing, and experimenting with the different website builders, but we don’t recommend staying on a free plan forever.
If you’re serious about your website and want other people to take it seriously as well, then you’ll need to upgrade to a premium plan at some point.
There’s no rush either because there the website builders on this list have no time limit on their free plans. So, enjoy trying out our favorite free builders – come back and let us know which one you liked the most!