Looking for user-friendly website building platforms that help you manage your website? Here’s the list of top website building tools & platforms for 2019.
Estimated reading time: 15 minutes
If you are looking forward to getting your own web application for your business, don’t just pony up the cash and go to a web developer. Before you do that, you need to know all about web development so that your investment is best used.
I know you’ve already looked up online for some web design inspiration, there are a billions of them out there to choose from.
What have you decided?
What platform do you think suits your business?
What tools you should be using?
To help you figure out which is the best website builder for you, we’ve put together a really interesting line-up of our favorite tools and platforms so that you can choose the right one for your business.
Remember, every free website builder on this list also offers a set of premium packages, which could make your website even better.
Options like expanded storage and bandwidth, as well as features often lacking from their free counterparts.
Premium plans also remove unwanted ads on your webpage and removes the subdomain housed in your website URL, which is a must if you’re breaking into a professional field.
But if you ask me, you get what you pay for.
Which also doesn’t mean that you need to spend a load to have a great website, so it is important to consider how professional you want your website to look.
Put in a little effort to know what tools and platforms makes a good website with little amount to spend.
I guess its time to check out some of the coolest and best free website builder for small business.
Webydo offers really advanced cloud hosting, standard- compliant code, and a Photoshop-like design studio where you can work your magic.
If you are a professional designer, it is easy to create and manage a stunning responsive website, that too code-free.
When you use Webydo, you can add any file type to the media library and then incorporate videos, shapes, texts, and even ecommerce widgets for online stores in their site design.
They’ve also introduced a brand new feature hovering elements that always slay on screen whenever you are scrolling down.
Let’s take a look at an e-commerce platform.
If you are planning on building an ecommerce website, Shopify is arguably the king of e-commerce based platforms.
It currently powers over half a million e-commerce websites world-wide, even though the best options are not really for free, it offers some of the most flexible and most affordable plans that will work for you whether you have a really small business or something much larger.
It offers a ton of templates and themes you could choose from, so that you can out your store together exactly as you want, and if you think you might need something more advanced in the future, it’s really easy to find an expert to help you.
Its prices start from $29 per month.
You will find this website builder in almost every blog recommending the best website builders.
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While wix offers more flexibility in terms of customization over other website builders, the unbridled freedom also makes it easier to create lackluster designs if you don’t know what you’re doing.
But wix will not allow you to revert to older version of your website by using site history which you need to keep an eye on, and includes robust integration with a wide array of third-party services like calendars and Instagram feeds.
Moreover, the service allows you to separately customize an accompanying mobile site.
However, Wix doesn’t allow you to switch templates if you’ve already stated a project and it only offers 500MB of storage and 1GB of bandwidth if you opt for the free package.
Nevertheless, you could always upgrade them including domain tools, and the prices range from $5 to $25 per month.
The Visual composer is the most popular drag and drop page builder that makes pages layouts and front-end and back-end editing so much easier.
Most of the complex page layout could be created in minutes by editing and adding columns and rows of text, photos and many other elements with a single click.
The page features in Visual Composer are known as elements and there are endless possibilities provided that are easy to select.
Elements include rows and columns, buttons, text, borders, shading, images and much more.
If you are looking for something which makes you standout of the crowd, it’s Dunked!
It lets you create some of the most beautiful and responsive online portfolio without even touching a line of code.
Dunked provides responsive designs that are retina ready and allow you to create an online portfolio without any coding difficulties as mentioned before.
You can choose from a growing collection of professionally designed templates, that are pixel-perfect, customizable and easy to use.
Each template in Dunked is fully responsive and will adapt itself to any kind of mobile device from an iPad to any kind of Android device.
Adjusting layout, colours and typography using a selection of preset options; there’s also advanced CSS editing for those familiar with website markup.
Edicy is a tool for managing your content and offers website hosting and building services through a cloud-based platform.
Web developers, design agencies and anyone else can gain access to host of its paid or free features.
Web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Internet explorer, Opera and also Safari are some of them Edicy supports, although Edicy can generally support on most of the browsers which are not mentioned earlier.
ALLYOU is an online portfolio tool for creatives.
It is very easy to use and easily customizable; you could literally feel like a web designer with this tool.
The services are free including cloud hosting and they have a lot of upgrade options to offer for professionals which aren’t for free ofcourse.
Squarespace will get you a lot of attention; it helps you create some of the most out of the box designs and for a good reason.
It’s designs are sleek and full of features, beautiful and also inexpensive.
It only costs you about $12 per months for the basic package, with rates topping out at $40 a month for its commerce package.
But the $12 a month nets you unlimited storage and bandwidth, but a restriction to 20 pages. You also have full e-commerce integration and an included SSL security certificate.
The more expensive packages offer a greater number of pages, as well as lower transaction fees and free AdWords credits.
The modern website builder allows you to create an HTML5-compliant site with a heavy focus in commerce, yet, it also hits its stride when it comes to analytics tools and its resounding ability to accommodate mobile devices.
Buttons for adding and editing content line the left-hand side of the straightforward interface, as well a button for quickly previewing how your content will look once it is live, all of which follow to your respective theme.
Squarespace’s integration with third-party widgets isn’t as impressive as other website builders, but the Developer platform does give competent users the ability to insert their own HTML, CSS and JavaScript coding if they want to add further functionality to their site.
They also provide some very informative tutorials for importing pages from other sites and moreover, provides forums and even workshops to get you up to speed regarding nearly all aspects of the site.
However, you cannot customize the mobile experience and the platform lacks on-page ad tools, but there are a lot to be said for its hands-off approach and immense selling capabilities.
Voog is built on a simple drag and drop interface that’s reliant on the horizontal menu bar located at the bottom of the page, one that gives you the option of adding text, movies and photo galleries.
But it has only a handful of themes to choose from, but each theme is amazingly responsive and optimized for whatever the platform users might be using, be it an iPad or a smartphone.
If you are someone who is looking for a more customizable platform, you might be a bit disappointed, though it renders the site as one of the easiest to use for people who have no idea about designing.
However, the silver lining of Voog is its multilingual component, an option which lets you create or translate your site in different languages around the globe.
Few services offer such a feature, which makes the platform a standout for about 6 Euros a month, if you are planning up an international web based store, you will receive 2 GB of storage and access to the open API for the price, while offerings that are more expensive bestow you with additional storage and pages.
WordPress is arguably the best custom website builder, not just in the list but globally. more than 60% of the custom websites out there are built on WordPress.
Started as a platform for blogs it is now a platform for any kind of website, you name it WordPress could make it, from e-commerce to business websites WordPress has it.
I don’t think any platform in the world could possibly offer the amount of customizable features as wordpress, the number of templates, themes and plugins are infinite.
The learning curve is steep, but hey! what about the long-term capabilities and the level of customization it offers. However, wordpress excels when it comes to ready-made themes, mobile-optimized templates and widgets that allow you to include everything from comments to images.
WordPress also has features replicating Google Analytics, which will help you track the numbers coming in on your website, and most importantly 3GB of storage space and unlimited bandwidth.
If you want to create a site for free without getting hobbled by a lack of features, give Jimdo a try.
All of its plans offer everything you need to create a professional-looking HTML5 – powered website, including templates, photo galleries, google maps integration, plenty of storage and unlimited bandwidth and its easy to put everything together.
Step up to one of its paid services starting from $5 per month and you will get your own domain,
an online store, widgets and stats.
BigCommerce is a great way to create a beautiful ecommerce website with off the shelf responsive templates featuring plenty of customization options.
Its storefront editor enables you to change your site’s look without coding, while you can also go completely custom using HTML, CSS and other code libraries.
The basic plan will cost you $29 per month for a full features online store, and if your business takes off then BigCommerce can scale to suit your needs.
In the whole list, Tumbler is the least complex tool. But it also has a very limited selection of built-in tools, it’s not fit for something like a web storefront or a forum.
But if all you are looking for is a static page or a basic blog, the service might be just what you need.
It’s useful for handling simple text and images with periodic updates, it works just fine.
Even though its toolset is similar to competitors like bloggers, the interface is much more user-friendly.
Regardless of a simple setup, Tumblr themes are surprisingly customizable.
There are thousands of free and paid options available across the web, including those posted on Tumbler’s native service and other available for manual installation.
Users can customize any theme, including the default ones, though you would be needing a working knowledge of HTML and CSS to make any extensive modifications work.
But Tumbler is completely free, including hosting and bandwidth – the service has no premium tiers. Analytical tools are lacking, but users can connect individual Tumblr sites to a custom domain for free.
Strikingly claims that you could build a website in 30mins using their tools, and not just a website but also a beautiful one.
Sounds a little optimistic for those with no website building experience, its extensive list of positive reviews and testimonials would suggest its developers aren’t just blowing hot air.
Major takeaway from strikingly is that it’s very much focused on single-page websites.
Although that’s not to everyone’s tastes, it’s something that a lot of other website builders make more complicated that it needs to be.
If that’s the kind of site you want to put together, strikingly is one of the best.
It offers 25 themes to pick from, and that numbers are growing though. But there are limitations on font choices and coloring, for the most part the editing tool has enough options that you can differentiate your site from your fellow strikingly users.
With a very simple free package for those who want to try out the service, Strikingly offers $8 and $16 per month packages which are far from extortionate and offer access to the website building tool and some interesting features.
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Each offers a bundled domain name and registration, ecommerce store access and 24/7 support.
Blog support is limited compared to the likes of WordPress, but it’s there and Strikingly has its own iOS and Android applications so you can edit your website and view analytics while on the go.
The IM Creator was introduced in 2011 and ever since its release, it became one of the top HTML5 website builders online. The IM Creator hosts a huge library of stunning website templates in a long list of categories from sports to medicines to business and academics
You can start using IM creator immediately after registering for free.
Start off with a blank page or choose a design of your choice from a library which contains hundreds of customizable website templates.
Since it is an HTML5 website builder, every website you create with it should work fine with all major mobile platforms.
These tools and platforms might make your job easy and not put a hole in your pocket.
However, there is a downside to most of these services.
One fine day you might change your mind or bored of the current host and you would want to migrate to another one. Then my friend you will likely be out of luck.
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Why?
Because of the custom code they use to display your site.
Only a few services let you take your site to another web hosting service.
The most complete example of this is Weebly, which lets you download the standard site server folders. Squarespace offers some transferability by letting you output your site in standard WordPress format, which you could take to another provider that specializes in managed WordPress hosting.
Bold Grid, which doesn’t currently make the cut off for this table, also offer ability to transfer some elements of your site.
Conclusion
Well guys! As you’ve just seen a number of beautiful tools and platforms you could choose from for building your custom website, a few factors are to be considered when choosing one of them.
You need to know everything about your website first and then choose the tool and not the other way around.
Experimenting is good but it consumes a lot of time. So, spend time to determine the tool for your website and then get started.
But hey! If you need more advice on this, comment down below.
Moreover, if you want us to build a cool web application for you, Contact Us!
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