Best Free Website Builders 2022: The Definitive guide List

Due to its appealing SEO features and better design functionality, Wix came out on top as our overall winner in our thorough study and testing, while GoDaddy came in second. Weebly comes in third as a good option for small enterprises.

Every website builder on this list has been thoroughly tested, and demo websites have been developed so you can see the results for yourself. Continue reading to see the entire list and learn more about the top 10 free builders from our experts.

Here are the 10 best free website builders:

  1. Wix – Best All-Around Website Builder.
  2. GoDaddy – Quickest and Most Effective Builder.
  3. Weebly – Ideal for Small Businesses.
  4. Jimdo – Small Online Store Builder.
  5. Webflow – Best For Designers.

#1. Wix


Best All-Around Website Builder

Wix is without a doubt the greatest free website builder available today.

wix.com logo
  • 500+ customizable designs
  • Easiest builder to use
  • Tons of creative freedom

# Free plan available

# Paid Plans: $14 – $56 / month


PROS

  • Plenty of features on the free plan
  • 250+ apps to add more power to your site
  • Free SEO wizard helps gain more traffic

CONS

  • Free plan adverts are very noticeable
  • Can’t switch templates after publishing
  • Cheapest upgrade costs $14/month

Wix: At A Glance

Wix is simple to use, has a lot of features, and provides you complete creative control over the appearance of your site owing to its drag-and-drop editor.

Although Wix’s free domain isn’t very memorable, you may tweak it to fit your company’s identity. This provides Wix an edge over other builders like SITE123, which give you a domain that you can’t change.

Expert Insights: What We Thought Of Using Wix

We used Wix to construct a free website for a fictitious company named Lucy’s Cupcakes, which took around half a day to complete. Wix was simple to use, yet it still allowed us the creative control we needed to design our site precisely how we wanted it. We really enjoy the fact that our template already includes the Wix Restaurant app!

What we liked:

  • The creative flexibility – we could drag anything and place it anywhere we wanted, making it simple to arrange things precisely how we wanted!
  • The template options and designs — the template we picked already included a menu area.
  • The undo tool allows you to undo changes by pressing CTRL and Z at the same time. This is a little feature that is unexpectedly handy.
  • It was quite simple to change the text, graphics, and backgrounds with only a few clicks. Wix even has a picture library on standby, which sped things up even further.

Wix is the builder our users were most impressed by

88% of people in our user testing would recommend Wix. Build your free site to find out what all the fuss is about!

#2. GoDaddy


Builder who is the quickest and most efficient
GoDaddy is a good all-around option for creating a website. GoDaddy is great for getting any small business off the ground, thanks to its user-friendly design templates and SEO Wiz tool.

  • User-friendly with ADI
  • Quickest builder to use
  • SEO Wiz to help optimize
  • Free plan available.

Paid Plans: $9.99 – $19.99 / month

goddady logo

GoDaddy: At A Glance

GoDaddy is great for anyone who wants to build a simple, clean website in a short amount of time. It has a user-friendly ADI feature that develops your website based on a few answers to a few questions. GoDaddy has made some significant modifications to its design process since the last time we evaluated the builder, with new and enhanced templates and customization capabilities – which is why it has easily ascended to number two on our list!

Although it lacks some of Wix’s more complex SEO tools, the SEO Wiz feature stands out as a quick and easy way to assist optimize your site.

Expert Insights: What We Thought Of Using GoDaddy

The builder is beautiful and straightforward to use, as we discovered when we made our demo website with GoDaddy. GoDaddy set to work creating a clean site with personalization tools at the bottom to give a personal touch by just answering up to three questions. You may experiment with different themes, fonts, color schemes, and CTA buttons.

We appreciated the following aspects of GoDaddy:

  • Mobile Optimization– yep, you can preview how your site appears on GoDaddy’s mobile editor view! You may adjust the picture and letter sizes in this way to make it seem beautiful on any device.
  • Simple to Set Up – similar to Wix, GoDaddy asks you what kind of website you want to build and what your company name is before providing you with custom themes to work with.
  • Basic SEO features– In the Settings area, go to ‘Get discovered by Google’ and answer a few simple questions to begin optimizing your website. There’s no need to brush up on your SEO skills before getting started!

GoDaddy’s free plan will get you a professional site in a matter of minutes.

GoDaddy is great for getting any small business off the ground, thanks to its user-friendly design templates and SEO Wiz tool.

#3. Weebly


Small Businesses Will Love It
Weebly is one of the most user-friendly free website builders available, with a superb small business plan.

  • Most scalable features
  • Professional free domain
  • Quick and easy to set up
  • Free plan available
  • Paid Plans: $6 – $29 / mon

PROS

  • Great SEO prompts to help beginners rank
  • Subtle Weebly branding in free domain
  • Huge app store to scale your free site

CONS

  • Limited free plan features and support
  • Editing tools lack creative freedom
  • Pop up advert is bright and distracting

Weebly: At A Glance

Weebly includes a drag-and-drop editor that is comparable to Wix’s and is incredibly user-friendly. Weebly stands out as the best free website builder for small companies because of its ease of use, outstanding SEO features, semi-professional free domain, and plenty of opportunity for development to expand your website.

In terms of its feature score, we saw that the platform has decreased 16 percent since our previous research, and currently has a grade of 3.5 out of 5 stars. We attribute this to its slow server response time and mobile-friendly design!

If you live in the United States, you may even sell from your free Weebly site, which is a significant benefit given that 62 percent of US customers currently purchase online more than they did before the COVID-19 outbreak. You will, however,

Expert Insights: What We Thought Of Using Weebly

Weebly seemed very novice friendly when we established our sample site — setting up the site was simple. However, it felt much more limited than Wix, with fewer templates to choose from and editing tools that appeared to be outdated.

We loved the following aspects of Weebly:

  • they’re useful for following design best practices.
  • How simple it was to set up – similar to Wix, Weebly asks you what kind of website you want to make and then offers you pre-made templates to get you started.
  • Its user-friendly suggestions — Weebly makes it tough to erase something by accident; it double-checks everything first, which is beneficial!

Weebly’s free plan is one of the most generous

Weebly is the perfect platform for small businesses, and one of the easiest website builders to get to grips with.

#4. Jimdo


An excellent ‘pre-store’ Option
If you want to put up an online store and sell through your website afterwards, Jimdo is a wonderful free website builder to use.

  • Sell for free
  • ADI and coding options
  • Connect online profiles
  • Free plan available
  • Paid Plans: $9 – $39 / month

PROS

  • Cheapest plan to remove adverts later
  • Subtle footer ad isn’t too noticeable
  • Does lots of design and SEO work for you

CONS

  • Drag-and-drop tools are difficult to use
  • Template designs aren’t the most modern
  • Only 56% of our users recommend Jimdo

Jimdo: At A Glance

Jimdo’s team is dedicated to assisting you in creating a free website, and the interface is made simple so you can get started right away.

Overall, we’d suggest Jimdo to anyone looking for a quick and simple website to serve as a backdrop for an online Facebook store or something similar. With Jimdo, you may sell up to five things for free, and upgrading your plan to build up your store later is simple (and inexpensive).\

Expert Insights: What We Thought Of Using Jimdo

As you construct, you’ll notice that Jimdo prioritizes simplicity. To aid you, there are question mark tooltips strewn over the editor, and adding photos, editing text, and switching backdrops is all done with ease.

jimdo

Looking for a simple storefront?

Jimdo is ideal for building a simple storefront for your ecommerce business, whether you’re already selling on social media or just starting out.

#5. Webflow


Not sure which free website builder is best for you? We can help with that!

In our rigorous research and testing, Wix came out on top as our overall winner, whilst GoDaddy placed second, thanks to its attractive SEO tools and improved design functionality. And Weebly scores third as an ideal choice for small businesses. 

We tested every website builder on this list, and created demo websites so you can see the results for yourself. Read on to check out the full list below, and discover our expert insights on the top 10 free builders.

Webflow: At A Glance

Web designers would like this website builder. Webflow uses padding and section block regions instead of the drag-and-drop capability that Wix and Squarespace provide. For consumers that are used to a lot of customisation, this will be a very comfortable structure, but for a newcomer, this may be a very intimidating design process.

Expert Insights: What We Thought Of Using Webflow

With our demo company, Lucy’s Cupcakes, we went ahead and put Webflow to the test. Because of how different it is from Wix’s famous drag and drop editor, the construction process took a few of hours.

It’s reasonable to assume that navigating without any prior understanding of section block regions and overlays will be challenging at times. Thankfully, Webflow offers a virtual design assistant that walks you through every step of the process before leaving you to it!

What we loved about it:

  • Webflow makes it apparent which templates are suitable for different businesses, and it has a very large selection of free templates compared to other builders.
  • Webflow allows consumers a lot of creative power, and even the free plan comes with a lot of adjustable options.
  • Webflow depends on the usage of short keys and right-clicking to delete and add items, making the design process much more simplified in general.

Do You Need a Website Builder That Offers Advanced Customization Tools?

Webflow is ideal for users who want to get more out of their design process!