In modern business, the concept of a "website builder" is no longer surprising. These services, which allow people without programming skills to create their own websites quickly, have proven their worth.
Typically, website builders also provide support, training assistance, and products that are well-protected against hacking. This is why the popularity of such services is growing year by year, leading to the creation of new website builders and the improvement of existing ones to remain competitive.
But what criteria should these services meet to gain popularity among modern users?
In our view, there are five "must-have" criteria:
- Ease of learning.
- User-friendly interface.
- A sufficient variety of templates.
- Effective customer support.
- Flexibility (the ability to customize the service to meet individual needs).
Based on these criteria, we studied the market for modern website builders and selected five that we believe meet these standards best.
This is a Ukrainian website builder that truly embodies the concept of a "builder." Its simple editor is intuitive: you choose ready-made blocks and place them one on top of the other. At the same time, you can also create completely unique blocks.
Weblium strikes a good balance between flexibility and simplicity, ensuring that even a novice can create a website with professional design. The mobile version of the website is automatically created but can be adjusted in a special mobile version editor.
In addition to great landing pages, portfolios, and corporate websites, Weblium can help you create a small online store (100-200 items) or an online showcase. While it doesn't include store filters or a customer cabinet, it does offer access to discounts, variable products, and product import/export options.
You can enable integrations with Ukrainian business services and connect one of 15 payment methods (including mono, LiqPay, and Fondy) to your Weblium website.
Weblium's advantage is its pricing. Ukrainian users can choose between the StartUp plan for $5/month (with limited business features) and the Unlim plan for $8/month (with all business features).
Wix is a true "multi-tool" among website builders. You can create almost any type of website with it. However, its editor can be quite complex. You can freely drag and drop elements on the website layout, but this can sometimes make the site look messy or unprofessional.
The first rule when working with Wix is to take the time to explore its editor. If you have a sense of design, are willing to spend 3-4 days learning Wix, and have prior experience with website creation, you can create a modern site with a unique design. Note that due to the editor's features, additional time may be needed to adapt your site for mobile viewing.
The platform also offers a huge app and integration marketplace, though many require payment. There are over 700 templates, but only about a third are modern.
Wix's business capabilities allow for various online entrepreneurship formats or the creation of a large online store with hundreds or thousands of products. For beginners, Wix has a simplified editor called Wix ADI, while professionals can use Editor X. Each Wix user has a tailored option.
For beginners on Wix, there is the simplified Wix ADI editor, while professionals can use Editor X. Every user on Wix has their own "option."
An interesting website builder because its creators managed to combine user-friendliness for design beginners with advanced features for various business formats. Choose Squarespace for creating landing pages, portfolios, and modern design business card sites. Squarespace templates are designed specifically for such purposes.
If you find it challenging to deal with content layers on Wix and always have to check element alignment, Squarespace makes your design neat thanks to content dragging within the grid. You'll also appreciate the ability to embed social media widgets on your site to display content from them.
This platform offers not just an online store but also ready-made solutions for the hospitality industry, restaurants, trainers, ticket sales, and content distribution. However, note that payments can only be accepted via Stripe, Square, or PayPal.
With a basic business subscription at $23, this website builder charges a 3% commission on each of your sales.
So, in summary, Squarespace is great for creating a small stylish website. For business sites in Ukraine, think carefully (and given the costs, think twice).
This website builder seems to combine extremes.
On one hand, beginners will find a clear editor with a small number of useful page blocks whose content is easy to edit. On the other hand, it can be difficult to set a color scheme for the entire site at once, and some blocks act as extensions and don't always display correctly on mobile devices.
On one hand, subscription prices are not as high compared to competitors. A site with business capabilities will cost from $10 per month. On the other hand, with the basic subscription, you can't remove the Weebly logo from your site. While you get powerful eCommerce features (such as sidebar filters or abandoned cart recovery), SEO settings on Weebly are quite limited.
Payments can only be accepted via Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, and Square. This is another "minus" for Ukrainian users.
We recommend this builder for creating portfolios, corporate websites, business card sites, and small online stores. However, be sure to study this builder's features before subscribing, as it has both many "pros" and "cons."
Shopify is not just a website builder but a large platform for organizing and scaling online businesses. You will have access to 6,000 marketing apps and tools for sales in various channels (e.g., social media).
The site editor allows for fairly simple designs, so there is no point in using Shopify for landing pages or corporate sites. Most templates are paid.
The price of this website builder is high. There are three plans: $24/$69/$299 per month. Additionally, you will pay a 2% commission on sales if you use a payment method other than Shopify's. So, if you're building a large online store for the international market, Shopify is your choice.
In Conclusion
This article is merely a subjective evaluation of certain website builders.
Of course, our opinion is not the standard, and you might prefer a completely different service not included in our top picks.
However, in this material, we tried to compile for you a list of the most useful website builders designed for various tasks.
