Skip to content

Website Builder Comparison Chart: 6 Best Website Building Tools and What They Offer

If you are someone who sees coding as gibberish but still wants to design their own site, then you need to get yourself a website builder! Our website builder comparison chart will help you with that.

The platforms we’ll discuss in this post target different users, and come with various benefits and limitations. Some of them are basic blogging platforms; others are fully hosted solutions or developer tools. Therefore, it’s crucial to assess your needs and make an informed decision.

Unfortunately, when you go ahead and start searching for the best website builders out there, you’ll find yourself in a sea of site building tools with no real info to help you choose the best one. Most of the top tools claim to offer a lot, and while that is good, it might not hold water when you subject them to comparison.

With that sentiment in mind, I have tested the top website builders and came up with real information (updated regularly) to help you choose a site builder that has the exact features that are key for you.

📊 Detailed website builder comparison chart

There are quite a lot of things to consider when you’re selecting a website builder. Below is our website builder comparison chart, and, in it, we are going to compare the top contenders across different fields.

The best part about a website builder is that you will have complete design flexibility. You’ll have to consider the amount of traffic and the pricing that goes along with it, though. Overall, the features you’d want might vary. On average, a good site builder will cost you $20-$30 / month (with features essential for monetization).

Website Builder Comparison Chart
WordPress Wix Squarespace Web.com Weebly Shopify
Known for All-in-one blogging AI website builder Beautiful templates AI builder for basic sites Drag and drop tools Top ecommerce platform
Overall rating 4/5 5/5 5/5 3/5 4/5 4/5
Essential features
Free domain
SSL
Themes/templates 200 300 110 40 1000
Responsive
SEO rating 5/5 4.5/5 4/5 3.5/5 4 4.5
Backups Automated (in higher tier plans) Manual Manual Manual No Automated (with apps)
Plugins/apps/extensions 55,000+ 300+ 22 N/A 383 4000+
Blogging features
Archive
Comments
Search feature
Analytics
ecommerce features
Dropshipping friendly
Unlimited products
Scalable business plans
Support
Knowledge base
Phone
Live chat
Email
Help forums
Pricing
Free trial and limit Unlimited 14 days 14 days 14 days
Starting price for a blog $4/mo (billed yearly) $16.00/mo (billed yearly) $16.00/mo $4.95/mo (billed yearly) $10/mo $5/mo
Starting price for ecommerce $45/mo (billed yearly) $32.00/mo (billed yearly) $27/mo $13.95/mo (billed yearly) $12.00/mo $24.00/mo
Annual discount

📋 FAQ

What is a website builder?

A website builder is an online tool that lets you construct your site from scratch without having to learn coding. You can either start by choosing a pre-built template or decide to create your website or landing page from scratch.

What makes website builders better than manually built sites is the excessive design flexibility. You can tweak any element on your website.

Do website builders provide hosting flexibility?

Web hosting is something your site can’t survive without. Website builders usually cover the hosting plan in their packages, but some do allow you to use external hosting services.

Will I get a free custom domain?

When you are just starting out and don’t have a domain name, your site will be hosted under the website builder’s subdomain. Based on the site builder plan, you will get a custom domain name as well.

Some builders, like Wix, will provide you with a free custom domain name on your plan for the first year. After that, you’ll have to pay to keep your domain online – around $10-$15 annually.

What are the other alternatives to website builders?

If you’d like to have more control over your website, you can choose to download the WordPress.org software for free and then have it installed on any web server of your choosing.

WordPress is the most popular website platform on the web (more than 43.2% of all websites use it). More importantly, you can get quality hosting for WordPress for around $3-$4 / month. Having WordPress running on a third-party host will give you complete control of what you have on your site, and how you choose to run it.

👊 More on the companies from the website builder comparison chart

WordPress.com

Website builder comparison chart: WordPress.com

WordPress.com can be a great solution for anyone who wants to build a blog or a simple business website.

How is WordPress.com different from WordPress.org?

WordPress.com and WordPress.org are two different platforms.

The first thing you’ll find on your quest to differentiate the two is that WordPress.com is an all-in-one online tool, while WordPress.org is where you can download the open-source WordPress software as a stand-alone product. You can then take that software and install it on a third-party web server.

WordPress.com is a complete website building solution that doesn’t require external hosting or technical knowledge.

The best part about this website builder is the robust functionality backed by thousands of free WordPress plugins. One of my favorites is the Elementor page builder that lets you customize the smallest thing on your website. The downside is that you’ll need to select a business plan to be able to install WordPress plugins.

That said, you can use WordPress.com even for free if you’re okay with the limited features.

Price-wise, it’s the cheapest of all site builders and will get your personal blog live for just $4 per month. When taking ecommerce into consideration as well, your bill will grow to $45 per month.

 
  • Price from: $4 / mo for blogs or $45 / mo for ecommerce
  • Sites allowed: 1
  • Free trial: (unlimited)
  • Free domain:
  • SSL:
  • Features Rating: 4/5
  • SEO Rating: 5/5
  • Overall Rating: 4/5
 

Wix

Website builder comparison chart: Wix

Wix is one of the easiest to use website builders out there. Their Wix ADI module helps you build a beautiful site on autopilot. This AI-made site can be further customized using Wix’s tools.

Another ground where Wix defeats WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace (okay, all of them) is a highly scalable pricing module. For instance, the business plans are broken into four sub-plans that will let you pick and match the features you need. You can select Wix pricing plans based on features like subscription, shipping discount, level of support, loyalty marketing, and so on. Shopify also offers scalable plans. However, you’ll notice a huge gap between each plan.

 
  • Price from: $16.00 / mo for blogs or $32.00 / mo for ecommerce
  • Sites allowed: 1
  • Free trial: (14 days)
  • Free domain:
  • SSL:
  • Features Rating: 5/5
  • SEO Rating: 4.5/5
  • Overall Rating: 5/5
 

Squarespace

Website builder comparison chart: Squarespace

Squarespace is great for complete beginners to website building.

While it has some limitations, I like their templates more than the other site builders here. Though Wix is tough competition, Squarespace templates are the best by far!

What’s slightly disappointing with Squarespace is their lack of a straightforward backup module. While I don’t believe that Squarespace won’t restore your site in case of trouble, there’s no immediate access to these tools on user level.

On the plus side, Squarespace has cheap prices to get started with. Currently, the entry-level plan is $16.00 per month.

 
  • Price from: $16.00 / mo for blogs or $27 / mo for ecommerce
  • Sites allowed: 1
  • Free trial: (14 days)
  • Free domain:
  • SSL:
  • Features Rating: 5/5
  • SEO Rating: 4/5
  • Overall Rating: 5/5
 

Web.com

Website builder comparison chart: Web.com

Web.com is an AI-powered website builder that can create your site within minutes. All you have to do is answer some questions, and the tool will design your pages based on your needs and preferences. You can then edit them with the drag-and-drop builder.

If you’re looking for an enterprise solution, Web.com isn’t the best option as it’s mainly designed for small websites. However, if you just want to set up a blog or a basic site for your online store or small business, Web.com can help you get started right away.

 
  • Price from: $4.95 / mo for blogs or $13.95 / mo for ecommerce
  • Sites allowed: 1
  • Free trial:
  • Free domain:
  • SSL:
  • Features Rating: 3/5
  • SEO Rating: 3.5/5
  • Overall Rating: 3/5
 

Weebly

Weebly

Weebly is a regular in our roundups of the best website builders. Simply put, Weebly is a great website builder with a lot of drag-and-drop tools and hundreds of useful extensions.

It shows great compatibility with add-ons. Furthermore, the professionally made templates will give your website an elegant touch (and all for a competitive price too).

That said, some features are not there, such as bookings. And, you might find it challenging to do more significant customizations to your designs.

 
  • Price from: $10 / mo for blogs or $12.00 / mo for ecommerce
  • Sites allowed: 1
  • Free trial:
  • Free domain:
  • SSL:
  • Features Rating: 4/5
  • SEO Rating: 4/5
  • Overall Rating: 4/5
 

Shopify

Shopify

Shopify is most known for its top-of-the-line ecommerce tools. Quite frankly, if you want to build an online store of any kind, Shopify is likely the best platform to use for that! It comes with all features that an online store might need and a straightforward customization module.

If you want to build another type of website – not ecommerce – then you will have more control of your site with the other site builders. Shopify isn’t your ideal tool for blogging or classic online publishing, for example. Still, it’s hard to hold this against it; Shopify was meant to be a great ecommerce platform first of all, and that’s what it is!

 
  • Price from: $5 / mo for blogs or $24.00 / mo for ecommerce
  • Sites allowed: 1
  • Free trial: (14 days)
  • Free domain:
  • SSL:
  • Features Rating: 3.5/5
  • SEO Rating: 4.5/5
  • Overall Rating: 4/5
 

🤔 Website builder comparison: pick your winner

Finding the right website builder for your needs is quite tricky. You will have to decide which features are your priority and which you can live without. Nevertheless, something to look for in all website builders are things like design flexibility, good pricing, scalability, and ease of use. Apart from those, your choice will come down to one or two key features that you deem necessary.

These key features might vary, and it is due to this reason that a website builder for small business might not be a good site builder for designers.

Don’t forget to join our crash course on speeding up your WordPress site. Learn more below:

 
Pulkit Bhardwaj

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Or start the conversation in our Facebook group for WordPress professionals. Find answers, share tips, and get help from other WordPress experts. Join now (it’s free)!

Most Searched Articles

Best JavaScript Libraries and Frameworks: Try These 14 in 2024

In this post, we look at the best JavaScript libraries and frameworks to try out this year. Why? Well, with JavaScript being available in every web browser, this makes it the most accessible programming language of ...

30 Best Free WordPress Themes for 2024 (Responsive, Mobile-Ready, Beautiful)

If you're looking for only the best free WordPress themes in the market for this year, then you're in the right place. We have more than enough such themes for you right ...

12 Best WordPress Hosting Providers of 2024 Compared and Tested

Looking for the best WordPress hosting that you can actually afford? We did the testing for you. Here are 10+ best hosts on the market ...

Handpicked Articles

How to Make a WordPress Website: Ultimate Guide for All Users – Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced

Many people wonder how to make a WordPress website. They’ve heard about WordPress, its incredible popularity, excellent features and designs, and now they want to join the pack and build a WordPress website of their own. So, where does one get ...

How to Start an Ecommerce Business: Ultimate Guide for 2024

Is this going to be the year you learn how to start an eCommerce business from scratch? You’re certainly in the right place! This guide will give you a roadmap to getting from 0 to a fully functional eCommerce business. ...