Review on Best FREE Website Builders! [2020]
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| Review on Website Builders |
Brace
yourself. This may surprise you. Companies aren't exactly jumping at the
opportunity to give you something for free . I know the good news is with a
little research you can actually make a free website builder work. I've spent the last month trying the top
three website builders and this article is going to be a rapid tour through
them also usually add some put on for websites cover domains, feature
limitations, and anything else relevant.
My work is supported by affiliate commissions. So if you'd like to try Wendy's website
builders. You can click a link to them
in the view description below and I may earn a commission. Okay I don’t want to waste your time so I
will move quickly through the
FREE WEBSITE BUILDERS THAT I DON'T RECOMMEND
constant
contact. constant contact puts a big blue banner ad on free websites. Honestly, it's way too big. Strikingly, strikingly free plan doesn't
include SSL. So when you browse the free
website to get a nonsecure message in browsers like this screenshot (not secure
), not ideal. Strikingly also include ad
that appears when you start scrolling that’s pretty large
WIX
wix makes a strong pay plans, but there free
plan is bad for starters, there is a big ad that scrolls along your
website.
Also,
the subdomain they give free websites is clumsy. This is your username (hello0924.wixsite.com)
and this is your site name( /mystyle).
I'd rather the URL looks something like this (hello0924.wixsite.com/mystyle).
WordPress.com
WordPress.com
first things first. WordPress.com is not
WordPress.org . WordPress.org is what most people mean when they talk about
WordPress. It's the free open source CMS
is not what I would call a website builder . WordPress.com on the other hand,
is owned by a totally separate company and it actually feels more like a
website builder than it does a CMS for example hosting is provided. The major downside is that WordPress.com
randomly inserts ads into your content . there is no way to control over the
ads show is just random. You can even
anticipate in design around the ads
JUST OKAY FREE WEBSITE BUILDERS
Alright next we'll talk about the just okay free
website builders
IMXPRS
XPRS doesn't
put advertisements on free websites, which is awesome. That alone makes it very worth
considering. UnFortunately, the
subdomain, the provide free websites is pretty unusable and there's no way to
edit it
JIMDO
Jim do
launched a totally new editor where you build your website by stacking
sections. Unfortunately these sections
are pretty cookie-cutter. For example,
you can only show or hide elements. You
can't add new elements to section this is just too simple, which is unfortunate
because the ad on free gender websites is really quite small
Google sites.
Here's
the thing Google sites is not really a website builder for like a small
business it's more of a way to connect Google services for a collaboration
tool. For example, the elements used to
build your website are mostly Google products like YouTube calendar map docs
that kind of thing. Is anyone tempted to
choose from and it has six style variations.
You can choose a font color but there's no real meaningful design
customization. So what's the upside
Google sites welders to number one, there's no ads on your website that's
awesome, number two, you can connect to a custom domain but just a heads
up. Adding a custom domain name will
require you to modify your CM records in that takes some technical know-how but
it's also not as hard as as you might think
WEEBLY
Weebly
is really easy to use so is ease-of-use
is important to you. You want to try .many
website builders limit features on free plans, but Weebly actually includes quite
a bit of his e-commerce forms, unlimited pages or even able to use the Weebly
app store .downside of Weebly is the ads scrolls along your page. It's bright blue and pretty intrusive so only
use Weebly if you can live with this
TOP THREE RECOMMENDED FREE WEBSITE BUILDERS
All
right onto my top three recommended free website builders
webflow
is really powerful, but it has a learning curve .personally love flow, but it's
not what I suggest if you're looking for easy to use as that is what I suggest
if you want complete control and flexibility.
The web flow designer gives you the flexibility of front-end coding
without actually requiring you to code you will need understand the
fundamentals of web design, but it allows for far, far more design flexibility
than any other website builder on this list plus web flow includes a CMS in the
free plan.
The CMS lets you create collections which are custom content types. Think of them like a customizable database so for example you could find an article collection and to add articles and then automatically you get new pages for every new article. Beyond that, web flow just includes the small scrolling add on free websites and navigating web close pricing plans can be a little confusing so here's how to do it. You want to sign up for their free account plan and then choose the staging plan for your free website. Wasn't sure what to make of the staging plan. So I asked web flow to confirm that it could be used for publishing a website for free is they had to say a Steve I would think of it like this web flow is free until you want to have more than two projects. If you want to host a website on a custom domain name or if you want to export from a project. So yeah, I take this as approval that the staging plan is essentially free plan
The CMS lets you create collections which are custom content types. Think of them like a customizable database so for example you could find an article collection and to add articles and then automatically you get new pages for every new article. Beyond that, web flow just includes the small scrolling add on free websites and navigating web close pricing plans can be a little confusing so here's how to do it. You want to sign up for their free account plan and then choose the staging plan for your free website. Wasn't sure what to make of the staging plan. So I asked web flow to confirm that it could be used for publishing a website for free is they had to say a Steve I would think of it like this web flow is free until you want to have more than two projects. If you want to host a website on a custom domain name or if you want to export from a project. So yeah, I take this as approval that the staging plan is essentially free plan
Carrd
carrd
is for building one page websites.
That's it, because that focus.
It's also the best website builder for one page websites. For example, all card themes are specifically
for unpaid websites and while technically you can make one page websites in Weebly
or wix they are just not as intuitive as card weebly and wicks are tools. After all, for building websites with
multiple pages. card was designed around a single purpose, creating one page
websites .card also has a very small, hardly noticeable add on free
websites. Finally, if you do decide to
upgrade your find that card is extremely affordable plan start at nine dollars
a year is not per month nine dollars per year.
That is way, way cheaper than website builders like Squarespace or wix.
Ucraft
ucraft my last recommended free website
builder. The number one reason to use ucraft
free plan is that it allows you to connect your own domain name that’s sweet. Otherwise you craft is a pretty solid free
package unlimited pages, Google analytics, SSL, and a decent free subdomain
should you decide you don't want to connect to a domain name. The biggest downside is the ad. If you choose ucraft you'll need to live with
this.
Conclusion
Ucraft
let's you connect a custom domain name (awesome!) but has a pretty big ad.
Webflow
has a great free plan but has a learning curve.
Carrd
is excellent for one-page websites.
Weebly
has a solid free plan but their ad is bright blue.
XPRS
has no ads on their website— which is awesome! Unfortunately the free URL is
quite long.
Jimdo
has a solid free plan but I find their website builder too simple.
Google
Sites is intriguing— you can add a custom domain, which is great! The only
other free website builder to allow this is Ucraft. Unfortunately Google Sites
isn't really for small businesses. They only provide one template.
Constant
Contact's ad is just too big.
Wordpress.com
randomly adds advertisements to your website— there's no way to control where
the ads show. Not great!
Wix
has a great paid plan but the free plan is pretty limited. The free subdomain
is long and unwieldy, the ad is pretty intrusive and they have an aggressive
bandwidth limit.
Strikingly
doesn't include SSL so your website will appear unsecured in browsers like
Google Chrome.
All
right, so in conclusion, there is no single best website builder. Instead, I think there's trade-offs to each
and I hope this article has given you a good overview of those trade-offs. Ultimately, the right tool for you depends on what you need. I
said earlier in the article my work is supported by affiliate commissions. So if you'd like to try on of the website
builders. You can click a link to them
in the description and I may earn a commission.
Let me know in the comments if you spot anything that's out of
date. Website builders tend to be
experimental with the free plans and things tend to change fast so I'll
probably have to redo this article again in a year. Thanks for reading