There are many website builders available online nowadays. Depend on your need, each of them offer different packages and features. However, the most important element of a website builder is its simplicity and user friendliness. It's built for people who want to set up a website quickly without having to worry about coding and other web development technical issues.
To cut it short, by eliminating all possible web development technical parts, a standard website builder should allow user to do the following:
- Choose from wide varieties of website templates.
- Add & remove section of the website. (Slider, gallery, button, form, etc)
- WYSIWYG content editor. Usually allow user to compose the content inline.
With these standard features, it's up to the website builder to create the most intuitive, usable and user friendliest interface to help user speed up the web publishing process. For example, DudaOne has one click setup. By entering URL of your existing site, it will pull all your existing content to the new template. Some builders have drag-and-drop capability so you can add or remove content or design element easily.
This time, we have gathered top 5 website builders that equipped with features that will speed up the web publishing process.
DudaOne
Duda has developed unique algorithms that scour the web for relevant content of a business that already has on the Internet, be it on an existing website, Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, Google Places, etc. They are able to collect all this content (images, text, videos, etc.), make sense of it, and automatically place it into their beautiful templates - and just with a click of a button. This means users don't have to create everything from scratch, hence, you will able to save a lot of time, effort and money.
Duda was built from the ground up as a multi-screen platform. All sites built on Duda are optimized for desktop, tablet and mobile. They go beyond responsive design by allowing users to modify the content per each device. This means you can hide content, add content, change navigation and more per device. All templates are mobile first responsive layout, view all templates
Good news is - you can try this for free. DudaOne has one free plan and two paid plans. Latter 2 plans will allow custom domain name.
Highlight: Auto Creation, Responsive templates, Multi Screen (Customize the content per device), drag & drop interface, Business-driving widgets. View all features.
Weebly
Weebly has a drag-and-drop backend interface to allow user build the layout they want. They have a collection of elements, from basics like text, images, galleries to complex elements such as slideshows, forms, videos and maps. You get to choose from their theme library. They have over 20 themes and all follow the conventional design - logo in the top left and navigation in the top right, if you can't find the one you need, there are third party weebly theme providers online too.
In term of mobile support, Weebly use a different approach. You will get a desktop version and mobile version. It's not responsive, but they will use the same content, so you just need to enter the content once. Hence, you can have a different design for both mobile and desktop. Some people might find it annoying and they prefer responsive layout.
Highlight: Drag & Drop Interface, Desktop & Mobile can have different design, Third party themes. View all features.
Wix
Gone are those days when Wix is a popular Flash website builders. Flash is not longer the best solution and it's being replaced by HTML5 & CSS3 and Javascript mainly because the latter are mobile friendly, SEO friendly and easier to maintain. Now, Wix is another popular website builder to create HTML5 websites.
Similar to DudaOne and Weebly, Wix also uses drag-and-drop technique to allow user add & remove content easily. With some little features such as snap to grid, you can make a more precise layout. You can add widgets to your website. Wix has a dedicated app store that allow you to integrate apps into your website. Sample apps are Instagram feed, Google Map, Calender, Live chat etc.
One thing cool about Wix is its theme collection. They have a large collection of themes with unique designs. However, once you have chosen a template, you won't able to change it because each of its template has its own unique structure. As a result, if you wanted to switch to other template, you will need to start over. Similar with Weebly, you don't get responsive layout. You will get a desktop website and a mobile website.
Highlight: Easy to use Drag & Drop Interface, Desktop & Mobile can have different design, Huge collection of themes, eCormmerce solution, Wix App Market. View all features.
Squarespace
Squarespace is one of the popular choices. It has a state of the art LayoutEngine that makes editing content and layout enjoyable. It also has a built-in image editor called Aviary. To ensure you can edit your website anytime and anywhere as long as there's Internet connection, they have created iPhone, iPad and Android Apps for managing your website.
Smilar to DudaOne, Squarespace's templates are completely responsive too. Good thing about this is you get the same branding and design throughout desktop and mobile. Besides that, you can use Squarespace as a blogging platform. Similar to WordPress, it comes with standard blogging features such as scheduled posts, social sharing, commenting system and Search Engine Optimization.
Highlight: LayoutEngine, In-app analytics, Responsive templates, Built-in Image Editor, Blogging Platform. View all features.
Virb
Virb is another good candidate. Unlike the rest of the website builders mentioned above, Virb doesn't have drag-and-drop content editor. Instead, it uses the standard WYSIWYG rich text editor. As a result, you won't get much flexibility out of it. No fancy elements but just text, images and links. Virb is designed in a way that you don't have to worry about the design, just focus on the content and they want to make it as simple as possible. For complex elements, you will need to add it as page. Some example page types are Gallery, Audio, Blog, Events, Store etc.
It's not as flexible as the rest but this come with an advantage - you can switch between themes easily without have to fiddle with your content. ALl themes are completely responsive but you won't able to customize the content per device just like DudaOne.
Highlight: Responsive templates, Rich Text Editor, Social Integration, Different Page Types. View all features.
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