The Best Free Website Builders 2021

It's usually quicker, easier and more efficient to create and edit a site entirely online with a WYSIWYG editor, but if you want complete control over every aspect of your site's design and web hosting, you'll need a desktop-based free website builder.

So whether you're looking to create a site for your business, a new blog, or you just fancy creating an online presence for yourself, here are the best free website builder services to help you out.

* Ucraft – Connect Your Domain for Free

This is an interesting product as they are the only ones that allow you to connect an existing domain name for free! They also include SSL security at no extra cost but note that you will be limited to 15 pages on the free plan. Their cheapest paid plan is called Pro, starts at $10 per month and includes pro features such as multilingual sites.

Ucraft is a relatively advanced website builder, allowing you to fine-tune your styles such as fonts, colors, and spacings. Overall, we found it more complicated, though, than other free website builders as the editor isn’t quite as self-explanatory.

Let’s hope that this business model can work long-term. They are giving away quite a lot for free (which is great!) but it makes us wonder if this is sustainable.

*Jimdo – Website Editing Powered by AI

The good thing about Jimdo is that it won’t cost you an arm and a leg even if you decide to go premium one day. Their cheapest Jimdo Dolphin plan at $9 per month and will allow you to use a proper domain. But even if you have no intention of ever upgrading your Jimdo website you’ll enjoy their very smooth website setup experience.

Not only is Jimdo the fastest loading website builder we found, but their designs are also mobile responsive and look generally pretty good. Jimdo is pretty limited when it comes to features: there is no blog, no app store, or any fancy tools like that. But if you are a beginner and just want to get that website live on the web, you’ll appreciate the simplicity that Jimdo provides.

*Weebly - The quick and easy free website builder

Weebly offers you two ways to build your website. Both involve creating it online, and both are as quick and painless as possible.

The simplest option is to use the basic editor builder which will guide you through a series of questions before automatically creating a site for you. There is scope for customization, but the focus here is really on fast results for anyone who is terrified of designing websites.

A more hands-on approach is available if you decide to use the standard Editor. There are literally hundreds of stylish templates to choose from – and, yes, they are genuinely impressive – which you can tweak and tailor to your needs using a beautiful WYSIWYG editor.

Despite being a cloud-based website builder, Weebly gives you a great degree of control over the look of your site and placement of page elements. You can also liven it up using additional features such as a newsletter and live chat. This power and flexibility make Weebly a good, free website builder to consider.

*Webflow – An Editor That Feels like a Cockpit

Take a heap of functions, add a pinch of visual design and garnish your creation with a nice CMS topping – tadaaa! Your Webflow site builder is ready.

Webflow is a system that falls a bit out of line with all the other regular website builders. This one specifically targets designers, developers and advanced users who want to create a website, but require more design freedom than traditional site builders like Squarespace or Weebly can offer. Although it’s a complex tool with loads of customization options, Webflow still attempts to make it as easy as possible for their users – coding isn’t necessarily required, you get to see your designs immediately thanks to their visual editor, and they offer tons of help material.

*Mozello – Free Multilingual Websites

This Latvian company is one of the smaller players worldwide. What strikes us about Mozello is that they allow you to create a multilingual website for free – something you won’t get anywhere else. The range of features includes a blog, an online store and decent SEO options. Fortunately, the advertisement is just a link in the footer that most of your visitors won’t even notice. 500MB of free storage is included and should be enough for most of us.

The downside is that the editor, albeit easy to use, is really limited compared to its competitors’. Certain elements like a gallery can only be added to a specific gallery page-type, for example. This makes Mozello rather inflexible.

*Mobirise – Installable Website Building Software Usually, we’re big advocates of hosted site builders that run in your web browser. But we do of course acknowledge that some of you are more comfortable with an installable Windows or Mac website software. Mobirise is such a program: you install it on your computer and within minutes you’ll be able to start dragging and dropping a free website together – even when you’re offline. Their templates look quite fresh and offer lots of functionality. The choice is limited to a handful of designs. Also, most of them are paid ones that will set you back $19-$39 (as a one-time payment). It’s also a pity we couldn’t find any blogging functionalities. Once you are happy with your result, you need to publish the site to your own web space. Of course, that’s a lot more complicated than with a hosted website builder as it requires you to set up a FTP connection and upload it to your own web space.

*Mobirise – Installable Website Building Software

Usually, we’re big advocates of hosted site builders that run in your web browser. But we do of course acknowledge that some of you are more comfortable with an installable Windows or Mac website software. Mobirise is such a program: you install it on your computer and within minutes you’ll be able to start dragging and dropping a free website together – even when you’re offline.

Their templates look quite fresh and offer lots of functionality. The choice is limited to a handful of designs. Also, most of them are paid ones that will set you back $19-$39 (as a one-time payment). It’s also a pity we couldn’t find any blogging functionalities. Once you are happy with your result, you need to publish the site to your own web space. Of course, that’s a lot more complicated than with a hosted website builder as it requires you to set up a FTP connection and upload it to your own web space.

*CoffeeCup Free HTML Editor

For people who code, and those who don't.

Site Designer's code-free controls allow you to experiment with high-level features without needing to know how the markup is written.

Your creativity can run wild! Build utilizing a drag-n-drop workflow in a live browser environment. Then style your content in super speed using clickable controls.

CoffeeCup Free HTML Editor is one of a dying breed of web building programs that don't use a CMS (content management system). While not in the same league as the likes of Adobe Dreamweaver, Free HTML Editor packs quite a professional punch. With split screen code/preview views, it's possible to see the effect the changes you make have straight away.

To help you get started quickly, there are a number of templates built into the program, and there are some very nice features such as tag and code suggestions as you type.

For absolute beginners, the program might seem a little overwhelming to start with, but it's worth sticking with – assuming you have some HTML knowledge. There is one slight issue; a number of features, such as spell-checking and code optimization, are only included in the paid-for version of the program. Otherwise, it can make for a simple alternative to a free website builder.