7 Best Free Website Builders [2024]

Ready to start your own website?

Whether you're looking to build a business website, a personal blog, or just want to start learning web design, free website builders are going to be your best friend. A good free website builder will let you build a professional-looking website that meets your needs, all without spending a cent.

Choose the best free website builder for you and you can have a website up and running in an hour or less!

Of course, figuring out which free website builder will work best for you can be a little more complicated. The best free website builder for small business may not be the best option for you, so we've put together 7 of the best free options and will talk about the pros and cons of each version.

Plus, we'll discuss how each of the free web building sites works for different kinds of websites so you know that your free website builder can handle the kind of website you want to create.

What Are The Best Free Website Builders And Makers?

Each free website builder has its own strengths and weaknesses. Building a website is relatively simple, but it will be even easier if you choose the right free website builder for your needs.

Let's take a closer look at 7 of the best options for building free sites, what they do best, and where each website builder falls short.

Not sure even the best free website builder is the right option for your needs? We've also put together a list of the best website builders, regardless of price, to meet all your website building needs. Whether you're looking to start your own online store, or need a larger website than your favorite free plan can accommodate, one of the platforms on our best website builder review can help.

Want to stick to a free plan? You're in the right place. Let's look at the best free site builders.

1. Wix

In our book, Wix is probably the best free website builder out there. It's a free website builder designed to help people with no coding experience create professional and effective websites quickly and easily.

The drag and drop editor in Wix is particularly effective for most users. It's intuitive, and you can easily rearrange or add features until your site looks and feels the way you want it to.

The drag and drop editor is easy enough for website novices, but advanced users will appreciate its flexibility and power.

Wix has the processing power of a paid website builder, but you'll never have to upgrade to their paid versions if you don't want to. They offer 500MB of storage space, which is more than enough for most people's needs.

Better yet, you can get a lot more features and functions from the free version of Wix than you can get from a lot of other website builders. They even offer users free SEO tools in the free version, so you can track your website's growth and look for opportunities to make your website even more successful.

You also get a free custom domain name on Wix, unlike some other options that add their own branding to your branding if you're using their free plans.

However, the free websites on Wix do have fairly noticeable ads, and the website administrator will see a lot of ads to upgrade to the paid version.

It's also worth noting that even though you have plenty of templates to choose from, even considering this is easily the best free website maker, you can't change the template after you've published. You can still use the drag and drop editor, but you'll either need to upgrade from the free plan or build a new website if you want a new template.

Want to learn more about Wix's free plan? Take a look at our guide, How To Use Wix, and we'll walk you through the process of creating a demo website.

2. Hostinger

Hostinger is a good option if you're looking to create your own free website, but don't want to work with the included hosting options on a free site.

After all, consistent hosting is a must if you want a successful site. Having your own web space won't do you much good if the hosting goes down or if your visitors are struggling with slow service on multiple pages of your website.

Hostinger helps solve those problems by giving users access to a variety of free web builders, with the same features as those web builders' free plans, but with your own affordable hosting.

The hosting packages at Hostinger start remarkably cheap, just $1.99 per month for the cheapest version, and you can still use a free custom domain with them.

The higher cost of hosting with Hostinger, instead of using an entirely free solution, is that the hosting is a lot more consistent. You also have more options and can pay for more hosting services, more storage space, and other perks if you need them.

Hostinger is a good option if you're looking to build a basic site with a lot of consistency, are running a small business, and need the assurance that your host won't go down, or for accessing advanced features needed for larger multi-page sites and more.

Plus, since you have access to a variety of different free site builders through Hostinger you can choose between different free plans, SEO tools, and other perks to build the perfect website.

3. Strikingly

Need a one-page website, or a professional landing page for lead generation? Strikingly is one of the best options for one-page websites because their free plan allows users to create unlimited one-page sites for free.

Users get 5Gb of bandwidth to use, and is a great option if you need a simple company website or landing page, want to do AB testing, or just need practice creating sites in a website creator.

Sure, a one-page site is a little more limited than other free builders that let you build multi-page sites for free, but more isn't always better when it comes to good web design. Plus, one page might be all you need for a demo site, to add to your web design portfolio, or to start using ecommerce tools for your small business.

The bandwidth allotment is also relatively generous for a free plan, which is good news because it means that your sites are less likely to lag with high traffic or a lot of content.

Strikingly is fast and easy to use as well. Many users are able to publish a finished demo website within half an hour of starting on the platform, with a custom domain, and a variety of features customized for their site.

That's a lot of power for a free plan.

However, Strikingly's other tools are relatively limited. You'll want to combine their SEO tools with Google Analytics or a similar service to get a full picture of site performance.

4. Weebly

A free Weebly site may be the best website builder for small business, especially businesses that either can't or don't want to pay for their website.

Powerful SEO tools help even novice website owners rank quickly, and Weeble is powerful enough to include everything from blogging tools to an online store in their websites.

However, the free plan on Weebly is a little more limited than some alternatives. You can still get a custom domain, but there will be some Weebly branding included. Support options are also a little more limited on the free plan.

Like Wix, Weebly's free plan gives users 500Mb of space, limited to 10Mb per upload onto the site. Those limitations are fine for new users and smaller websites but can be more limited for advanced users.

Weebly also uses a similar drag and drop editor, so Wix users should feel comfortable in Weebly's editor.

However, there are a few drawbacks. For one thing, if you launch an online store you'll pay a 3% fee per transaction. Weebly also uses pop-up advertisements which can be very distracting.

The good news is that there are lots of upgrade options, Weebly scales easily, their websites offer good mobile optimization, and the paid versions are affordable compared with their competitors.

Search engine optimization is particularly easy on Weebly, so if you're wanting to show up on search engines quickly Weebly may be one of your better options.

5. WordPress

WordPress is probably the best-known free website builder, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best one out there. For one thing, a lot of WordPress's most powerful features are locked behind paywalls, and a lot of people can recognize a free WordPress site without having to look at the URL to spot them.

That said, if you don't mind a little WordPress branding, they can still be a good option. You'll still get a custom domain name, and their free plan still gives you access to their powerful site builder.

WordPress's template library includes literally thousands of free options, and they have a reasonably user-friendly setup process. Like most website builders, you get more power with the paid plan, and you don't get unlimited storage with the free version, but that's not a big problem for most WordPress users.

WordPress is also, particularly user-friendly for users with more than one website, and you can easily switch between the dashboards of different sites with the same login information.

Each web page can be customized independently, and a lot of features can be accessed with a free download.

However, there are a lot of different versions of WordPress, and to get the most powerful free plan they offer you may still have to pay for hosting separately.

6. Webflow

If you're looking for a free web builder that puts a lot of power directly into your hands, Webflow is one of the best options. Webflow offers a lot of free templates, and they'll also help users pick the right kind of template for their industry and niche.

Customization is relatively easy, and you have a lot more customization options on Webflow. You can really get your website to do exactly what you want it to with this building tool.

However, like all free platforms, there are some drawbacks you should be aware of.

For one thing, Webflow has pretty noticeable advertisements on their free sites. Their editor is also a little harder to use than Wix and some of their other competitors, despite being the more powerful option in general.

Shortkeys are incredibly important for navigating Webflow, so you should plan on more of a learning curve with this platform.

Webflow also doesn't include custom domains in their free plan, so your domain name will look a little funky unless you decide to upgrade.

7. Ucraft

Ucraft is a powerful option if you're looking to make websites that are really focused on the user experience. It's a good platform if you want to build an online store, sell online, create a portfolio or showcase, or just prefer image-driven sites to text-driven sites.

On the free version, you will have a Ucraft watermark, but it's just a link and not too distracting in most cases. The watermark is removed if you upgrade to the premium version.

The main drawbacks of Ucraft are the editor and the image-driven templates themselves. The editor isn't that hard to use, but without drag and drop functionality it can be a little harder to rearrange the elements on your web page.

Ucraft templates are also designed for sparse copy, which can make fitting the information you need on your website a little more challenging. It can be done, but you may need to get creative, or use very streamlined copy, to get the results you're looking for.

Unfortunately, Ucraft also doesn't include SEO tools or blogging functions in their free plan, which means that your website will be a little more limited in those respects.

That said, for image-driven web design, this is a powerful and effective option.

What Are The Pros And Cons Of Free Website Builders?

Building a website is always going to be about weighing the pros and cons of different options, starting with the website builder itself!

If you're thinking about using a free website builder there are some pros and cons you should consider before you're committed. After all, there is a reason paid plans do exist, and sometimes free options just won't do what you need them to.

Pros:

• Affordability
• Free website builders are usually easy to use.
• Good for website novices
• Perfect for bloggers
• Good way to start an online business
• Easy to transition to paid versions
• Great way to test different websites or copy

Cons:

• Limited storage limits your options
• Hosting may be less consistent
• Not as many tools
• Harder to monetize free websites on average
• Platform branding is common
• Little or no control over advertisements

Of course, most website building platforms let users upgrade to a paid version pretty easily, so if you realize that the free website isn't as powerful as you need you can make a switch.

How Do You Choose The Best Free Website Builder For You?

Choosing the right website builder for you can be complicated, but it doesn't have to be. Here are some tips to help you figure out which website builder will work best for you.

Consider What Kind Of Website You Need

The first thing you need to figure out is what kind of website you're building. For instance, WordPress is widely considered one of the best builders for blogging sites, but has more limitations if you want to monetize a free site.

Meanwhile, a platform like Ucraft might be perfect for a photographer but probably doesn't offer the kind of website a book review blogger needs.

If you need e-commerce tools especially you should check to make sure your chosen platform supports e-commerce in their free sites.

What SEO Tools Do You Need?

For casual website owners you might not need a lot of SEO tools, but businesses and web designers looking to create a portfolio should prioritize SEO and mobile optimization.

Look at what kinds of SEO information you can get from the free version of your web builder, and consider reviews from experienced users. Do the included tools give you the information you need to create an effective SEO strategy?

Some platforms offer basic tools, while others are more powerful for free.

How Much Web Design Experience Do You Have?

A simple drag and drop editor like Wix's is a good option for novices who don't have much web design experience.

But other web platforms, like Webflow might be a better option if you already have the experience to navigate complicated web design tools used on many google sites. 

Better yet, if you have some coding experience, consider whether the platform lets you edit code directly. Some platforms, like WordPress, include tools designed for novices with direct code access that lets experienced users make detailed customizations that aren't otherwise possible.

But if you can't code, or need something special like video backgrounds, you might be better off with Wix or Weebly's high degree of coding-free customization or another website which uses artificial design intelligence to help you build your site. 

Company Reputation and Customer Support

The last thing to consider is the company offering the website builder themselves. For instance, WordPress has a lot of customer support options, but not all of them are available for free users. Other platforms, like Hostinger, might have more customer support options at higher tiers but are limited at the most affordable levels.

You should also consider reviews of each company's customer support. If the most common support ‘solution' for free users involves upgrading to a paid package, that might not be the right web builder for you.

A good way to test a website’s customer service before you begin using a program to build your free website is to fill out one of their online contact forms and see how long it takes them to reply. If it takes them over a week, or they don’t reply at all, you have your answer. 

It is also a good practice to request demo websites from a website builder before you sign on to use their practices. This will allow you to get an idea of what they offer before you sign up for a free subdomain. 

How To Build A Website For Free (Free Domain & Hosting)

Looking for a resource to help you build your first website from start to finish? This video will walk you through the process of creating a free Wix website, from creating a brand new account all the way through to a live and functional website.

Even though this video is focused on using Wix, a lot of the skills and processes you'll use work in other free website builders. Free website platforms tend to have a lot of overlap, so you'll get a good feel for working in any website builder.

Best Free Website Builders FAQ