Best Online Website Builder Wix Weebly WordPress Yola...
Writing for the web, but fancy keeping all your own affiliate and adsense revenue? Building your own websites is an option. And it's never been easier. A raft of website builders are now online, where you can create websites ranging from all-singing-and-dancing flash sites to fully-functioning store fronts. Here's an overview of some of the best.
Wix
Flash website builder with great-looking templates
Yola
Drag and drop website builder for techno dummies
Weebly
Web Builder with unique template import tool
WordPress
Blog with website building features
Pyxxi
Free web builder with unique navigation tools and product/article finder
Others
Moonfruit, Jimdo, MySpace and Volusion are some of them, but there are many more.
Wix
Flash-only website builder, which has the best selection of templates but among the highest costs.
Pros
- Sites are well-designed and professional - good-looking templates come with pre-designed pages, such as a home page and a contact page
- Easy Drag and Drop wysiwig (What You See is What You Get) page editor.
- Flash widgets make creating menus, mini-pages, and animations a snip
- Can be used in conjunction with other blogs and web builders, such as MySpace and Word Press
- No popup ads
Cons
- Quite expensive (see below) if you do not want to display Wix ads, which shout that your website was "Free"
- Your site uses Flash, which has it's own disadvantages. Among them, usability, for example, the back button won't work, slower load times and accessibility - not everyone has the Flash plugin installed
Free Stuff
Hosting is free with a Wix subdomain, Wix ads and logos and a free template
Extras
- Use your own domain (registered elsewhere) for around $4.95 a month.
- Get rid of Wix ads and logo too - from $9.90 a month
- Wix Widget-only plan is from $5.95 month
- Ecommerce Packages start at $24.90 (special offer: $15.90 for first six months)
Portability
Low. Embedding the wix code into a web page not hosted by Wix seems to be against their terms and conditions, except for Widgets. In addition, such sites won't be able to utilize Wix's search engines features.
Update 2012
Wix now has an HTML 5 editor, in addition to a Flash editor. Sites created in HTML5 will display on devices which do not support Flash, although HTML5 support varies from browser to browser and no current browser supports it 100%.
Yola
Simple drag and drop page editor with a good choice of widgets and tempates
Pros
- Good Picture Editing tool, which includes cropping, red-eye correction and optimization
- Good selection of widgets including Google Maps and You Tube Videos
- Can edit raw HTML
- Can have different banner pics on different pages
- Works with paypal shopping cart
- No popup ads
- Free use of custom domains registered elsewhere
Cons
- Not completely wysiwig - some elements look slightly different when published
- Yola's page editor is quite limited, so realistically some knowledge of html and css is needed to customize the templates, which are pretty basic and all quite similar
- Yola is only free with a Yola Link: "Make a free Website with Yola" - not great for a business website
Portability
Yola sites can be downloaded as zip files and moved, but you will need a server with quite a long list of requirements, including php.
Free Stuff
- Free hosting at Yola subdomains
- Up to five sites with a 1GB or storage per site, which should be plenty unless you're publishing video
- Free templates
- Free use of custom domains registered elsewhere
Extras
- Custom domains: $19.95 a year for registration
- Premium styles: from $19.95
- Remove Yola Link for $9.95 a year
- Yola Pro: from $44.95 a year, includes removal of Yola link, 25 sites but not domain registration
WordPress
Although WordPress is best known as a
blog host, it can also be used to build entire websites. As well as
sophisticated blogging tools, users get a choice of some pretty good
templates, and basic page editing tools.
Pros
- Can nest pages
- Templates better than Yola and Weebly
- Tonnes of widgets
Cons
- Very basic editor - you can only customize templates by editing the CSS, access to which costs extra
- Premium templates are only available on sites privately hosted (costs about $6 a month)
- Link back to WordPress - calls your site a blog
- Navigation is a bit primitive - links just get put down the side
- Restricted layout - all pages have one column and a sidebar
- Occasional popup ads with free hosting
Extras
- Custom CSS upgrade: $14.97
- Domain mapping: $9.97 a year
- Domain mapping and regisration: $14.97 a year
- Domain registration only: $5.00
- Extra memory starts at 5GB - $19.97
- No Ads: $29.97
- Unlimited Private users: $29.97
- Video: $59.97
- Premium themes - about $69 each
Portable
Yes - but only with WordPress hosts, which start from about $6 a month
Weebly
Beginner-friendly website builder similar to Yola
Pros
- Can import templates, making the site a useful CMS (Content Management System) for sites and templates created elsewhere by designers and programmers
- No pages/bandwidth restrictions
- Publish at your own domain and Weebly will still host your site for free
- Create subpages and menus
- You can add adsense but Weebly will take a hefty 50% of your revenue
Cons
- Wysiwig editing is even more limited than Yola's, so knowledge of CSS and HTML is really essential to create anything decent
- Templates not great - perhaps slightly better than Yola's
- Blogs won't work on sites not hosted by Weebly
Free Stuff
- Hosting is free at Weebly subdomains or your own domain name (registered elsewhere), but your site will have a Weebly link
Extras
- To remove the Weebly link, you will need to either pay to host your site elsewhere or sign up for a Pro Account - $4 a month
- Domain registration (via Register.com) is $33.95 a year
Portability
Yes. You can download a zip. Weebly links will be removed.
Other Website Builders
Pyxxi
Pyxxi Online Website Builder includes a wysiwig editor, advanced navigation and time-saving tools.
Pros
- Unique navigation tools include a finder, dropdown menu builder and lists of products or pages
- Quite powerful wysiwig editor - boxes can be moved and colored, columns resized and banners edited
- CSS editor for advanced users with custom media queries
- Pyxxi generates static websites, which can be run on any server
Cons
- Not many templates
- No hosting at custom domains: sites have to be downloaded and hosted elsewhere, for example at 1and1 or another host
Best of the Rest
Moonfruit, Jimdo, MySpace and Volusion are some of them, but there are many more.
Which is Best?
That depends on what you want. If you already have a template or you're going to get a designer/programmer to build one, then Weebly might be best, as you could import it.
If you really just want a blog with a few extra pages then WordPress is probably best. If you want a product finder, you're already paying for web hosting and/or you want to build lots of sites, then Pyxxi may be for you. Flash devotees can choose between Wix and Moonfruit.
It's worth remembering that none of these web builders are really free - not if you want your own domain, no ads on your site and a half-decent template anyway.
