7 Best Free Website Builders in 2021

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Let’s build a website together!

Because now is the best time to do it.

After all, it’s free!

Yes, that’s true. You can build your website not only for free but in no time at all. Creating a website has never been easier. No coding, no technical skills, and no website design experience are needed. Those days are over. Today everyone can build a website in a few minutes.

And there is no lack of quality website builders either. There are many great website builders that can help you create your dream website for free. But finding the right one can be a bit of a challenge. It all depends on the type of website you are looking to build. Some free website builders are more suitable for blogs and others for eCommerce shops.

And although free website builders are a great way to test things they might not be the best way if you want to create something more than a basic website. All free website builders are limited in some way. If you are looking to make money by building an online business a free website builder will probably not meet all your needs.

But that doesn’t mean you are wasting your time here. Starting with a free plan will help you better understand what is that you want to create online and how to design professional looking websites in minutes. Before paying for a service is always better to try the free version first and pick the platform you feel most comfortable with.

In the list below I share my 7 favorite free website builders (in random order). All 7 of them have free plans you can join and not just a free trial period. I cover both the pros & cons of each platform and what features you get for free.


Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. This means we may make a small commission if you make a purchase. There are no extra costs to you at all. That is simply how I keep this site (homeemploymentonline.com) up and running. For more information, you can read my Affiliate Disclosure page.


Let’s take a look:

Wix

There is no way you have never heard of Wix before. Everybody knows about it. After all Wix ads are everywhere on the Internet. For some Wix is the best free website builder at the moment. I don’t think I agree 100% with that but the truth is Wix is a very powerful website builder.

Wix’s website editor is one of the best in the market and with hundreds of templates to choose from you can create a high-quality website in a few minutes. Web hosting is also included in their free plan.

Pros

  • Simple and user-friendly editor (drag-and-drop)
  • More than 500 templates (most of which are free)
  • Free web hosting
  • 500MB free webspace
  • No page limit
  • Quality customer support
  • Mobile-friendly templates
  • SEO customization
  • Social media icons, galleries, buttons, stock images, etc
  • Access to the Wix App Market (many apps are available for free)
  • A free Wix domain

Cons

  • Wix sticky banner ad at the top of your website. It stays in place even as you scroll down the page. It appears on every page of your website
  • Your domain name will look like this: yourwixusername.wixsite.com/yoursite – Not easy to remember or a practical one if you want to build an online business.
  • You can’t change your template once your site goes live
  • 500MB storage space is not enough if you are planning to use many images and videos on your site

Although Wix free plan is great sooner or later you will realize it is limited and you’ll need to upgrade your plan. To be honest though the same can be said for every other free website builder. Wix’s premium plans start at $13 per month.

WordPress

Who doesn’t know WordPress? It is the most popular website builder in the world and powers 37% of the entire Internet. WordPress.com is also the most popular CMS (Content Management System) and for many bloggers and small website owners the best open-source platform to create a website for free.

Contrary to what some people say WordPress is not complicated or difficult to use. That doesn’t mean it is the simplest website builder to use either. You just need to familiarize yourself with the platform first and spend some time with it. You won’t find here the usual drag-and-drop editor you get with other builders. But that shouldn’t scare you because WordPress’s free plan is really good.

Pros

  • Plenty of free themes to choose from
  • You can change your template
  • 3GB of storage – Unlimited bandwidth
  • Free hosting
  • Free WordPress.com domain – Your domain will look like this: www.yoursite.wordpress.comWhich is not that bad
  • Pre-installed SSL certificate
  • No hidden costs
  • SEO tools
  • The best choice for creating a blog site or a business site with content
  • Professional-looking sites
  • You can create whatever site you want (blog, eCommerce shop, business site, portfolio website)

Cons

  • Some technical skills may be required
  • Limited availability to plugins for the free plan
  • Not all free themes are highly customizable
  • 2 ads – one at the top and one at the bottom of your site
  • No customer support for the free plan

If you are thinking about starting a blog or small business site WordPress is the best choice. But if you want to create an actual business you need to upgrade to a paid version. Installing plugins is necessary if you want to add features on your site and most of them are not available in the free plan.

SiteRubix

SiteRubix is a fast, easy-to-use website builder powered by Wealthy Affiliate. It is designed for affiliate marketers and people with no internet marketing experience looking to create a simple high-quality website. Signing up with SiteRubix allows you to build a WordPress site from scratch in a few minutes. Web hosting is also included free of charge.

Now you are probably thinking why not use WordPress directly instead of SiteRubix? Because here you’ll also get 10 step-by-step video lessons on how to build your site with WordPress at no extra cost. Wealthy Affiliate is one of the best affiliate marketing training platforms in the world and can teach you how to build a profitable business online.

Pros

  • Easy-to-use
  • User-friendly
  • 10 free video lessons
  • 12 themes to choose from
  • Mobile-friendly websites
  • Quality support
  • 2 WordPress plugins
  • No ads
  • 1 free SiteRubix domain – Your domain name will look like this: yoursitename.siterubix.com.
  • Free hosting
  • Virus and malware protection
  • Writing platform
  • SSL certificate (HTTPS)
  • Access to a keyword tool (Jaaxy) – 30 searches for free
  • Content gets backed up every 24 hours
  • No hidden costs

Cons

  • One free website per account
  • If you want to use your domain name and not a sub-domain you must upgrade

Building a site on SiteRubix is a two-minute process. If you struggled with WordPress before you should try it. If you are looking to create a blog or an affiliate site SiteRubix is a good choice. But like with every other free website builder SiteRubix also has its restrictions. Adding more features to your website or learning more about affiliate marketing requires you to become a premium Wealthy Affiliate member (costs $49 per month).

For more information you can read my Wealthy Affiliate review here.

Weebly

Weebly is another popular website builder powered by Square. Building your website using Weebly’s drag-and-drop editor is very easy. You can create a professional-looking website in no time. Weebly is also considered one of the best eCommerce website builders. So, if you are more interested in creating an online store Webbly’s free plan is a good place to start.

Pros

  • 500MB of free webspace
  • Free hosting
  • SEO tools
  • No page limit
  • SSL certificate
  • Free apps from Weebly’s app market
  • Your domain name will look like this: yoursite.weebly.com – Which is not bad
  • Drag-and-drop editor
  • Plenty of templates to choose from
  • Mobile responsive templates
  • Lead capture forms

Cons

  • Distracting footer ad
  • You’ll have to upgrade to sell online unless you are in the US

Weebly’s free plan is one of the best on the market. But setting up a legitimate online store and monetizing it will require you to upgrade. The eCommerce feature is unfortunately limited (and not available in every country). Weebly paid plans are starting at $5 per month.

Site123

Creating a website with Site123 is very easy. Site123 is a simple and user-friendly website builder that can help you set up your site in minutes. You can easily create a blog or an online store. Although their editor is a bit different compared to the other builders on this list it is still very easy to use.

Pros

  • 500 free web storage and 1 GB of bandwidth
  • SSL certificate
  • Free hosting
  • SEO tools
  • Provides customer support via live chat
  • A logo maker is included
  • Access to hundreds of quality images
  • Easy to use
  • Mobile-friendly website designs
  • No annoying ads
  • Unlimited number of sites per account

Cons

  • Your domain name will look like this: yoursite.site123.me – It ends in”.me” and not in “.com”
  • No drag-and-drop editor
  • No themes to choose from
  • Customization options are limited

One last thing you should know about the Site123 free plan is that there are no website templates for you to choose from. You decide the type of website you want to build (blog, portfolio, etc) and you get a default website design. You can edit images, change the fonts and colors, and customize it to your liking.

Webnode

With more than 40 million users Webnode is a very popular website builder. Webnode’s editor is fast and easy to use. Their templates are great for blogs, personal sites, and simple business sites. It is a good choice for those looking to create something simple and don’t want to spend a lot of time editing and customizing it.

Pros

  • Your domain name will look like this: yoursitename.webnode.com
  • No page limit
  • Easy-to-use editor
  • Free hosting
  • Professional-looking templates
  • Mobile responsive designs
  • You can add Google AdSense
  • No intrusive ads

Cons

  • 100MB storage space in the free plan – which is not much
  • No app store
  • The free plan is very limited when compared to other website builders in this list
  • Most features are not available in the free plan

Webnode’s free plan is kind-of-limited. At least in my opinion. But it is still an easy way to build your site. In the long run, though their free plan will not cover you. Webnode’s paid plans are not very expensive starting at $3.95 per month (Limited Plan) with their most expensive plan costing $19.95 per month.

Webstarts

A smart user-friendly website builder that can help you build your first website. There are hundreds of professional-looking templates for you to choose from. You can customize your page in any way you want. You can resize it, add new elements, and change the colors. With Webstarts you won’t waste any time trying to figure out how their editor works. Building your site is a fast and easy process.

Pros

  • 1GB web storage space
  • Unlimited number of pages
  • Easy to use editor
  • Video tutorials
  • Access to live chat
  • Templates can be changed at any time
  • Your subdomain name will look like this: yoursite.webstarts.com

Cons

  • No eCommerece features
  • Your free site won’t be mobile-friendly
  • No SEO tools
  • No multimedia features

Webstarts is a reliable and user-friendly website editor. You can build a beautiful website in a few minutes. But its free plan is unfortunately very limited. If you want to create anything else other than a basic site you must purchase one of the premium plans. There are two paid options priced at $7.16 and $19.99 per month.

Conclusion

Free website builders are a great way to build your first website. It is always better to try different options before committing to one. After all, not all website builders are ideal for every type of website. Some are perfect for blogs and personal business sites and others focus more on eCommerce.

All 7 website builders mentioned in the list above allow you to maintain your free site for as long as you like. In other words, their free plans are not free trials that after a week will expire and ask you to upgrade.

But you won’t find a free website builder without restrictions. Every one of them is limited in some way. If you are looking to monetize your site sooner or later you will need to unlock those premium features. Building a profitable high-quality website for free is in my opinion unrealistic.

The best thing you should do is choose a website builder that you like (for affiliate marketing I recommend Wealthy Affiliate) and go for it!

Stop wasting your time.

Build your site now!

I hope this post was useful! Leave a comment below and tell us what’s your favorite website builder. Also, don’t forget to share it with your social media friends!


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8 Responses

  1. Hardik says:

    Good list. Wix and WordPress are considered to be best by far.

  2. Nic Castle says:

    Site Rubix is an excellent product I have transferred domains to the host and the customer service has been excellent. when I have needed any help, it has usually been through my lack of knowledge and customer service has acted quickly and given me the help I needed. In the past, I have used other “big named “hosts and the service has been lacking and the customer service far below what is offered by Site Rubix.

  3. Drea Marlow says:

    Hi, great overview of the most common free website builders! I am just about 6 weeks into building my first website and also my first online business and I have to say I highly recommend to join a program that provides you with the website builder, but also with training and support when you need it. In the 6 weeks of my journey so far, I have hit a wall a view times, if it hadn´t been for the community on the platform I am using, I would have probably not gone any further. I started with a siterubix site and soon after converted to my own domain and I am a member of Wealthy Affiliate, which I highly recommend. As outlined above, this platform offers great training, hosting, a wordpress tool and so much more and above all the community for 24/7 support. It is worth gold!

  4. Ismeglamour says:

    Wix is a very good site building platform, I used them for some months before joining wealthy affiliate and then using the SiteRubix available for all its users for free.

    For me, I think WordPress remains the best among all as they remain on the top charts because of their super services…I definately recommend WordPress.

  5. Joy says:

    Hello there! this is an amazing review you have got here. I am very sure this review will help others who come across it as its helping me at the moment. My favorite among them is the WordPress which I have been able to use in opening two of my websites and it was extremely easy to operate for me.

  6. Misael H says:

    You have officially given me a great amount of options that I was not even considering before I had ran into this site. I must say that you have officially helped me out and given me a different perspective of what I need to look for in a website builder. I thank you very much for this and for providing the information in such a detailed manner

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