As the number of dynamically developing e-businesses and social communities is growing, the demand for online content management systems has also increased.
Although there is numerous drag-and-drop website builder software available to create webpages, most of them offer a limited set of tools for creating websites with comprehensive functionality.
Consequently, people who want to build websites often face tough tasks as they don’t know which drag-and-drop website builder to use.
To help the users with their choice, I have done comprehensive research on available options and created this article with a comparison of top free drag-and-drop website builders sharing the main benefits, pros, and cons.
The research was based on data provided by official websites, forums discussions, reviews, and comments of users.
In this article, I am going to share my findings and recommendations for the best free drag-and-drop website builder.
The options that I am going to review are Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, Webflow, and Elementor (WordPress).
The main criteria that I have used to rank them are the number of elements available for building websites, usability – features, ease-of-use, UI/UX design, etc.
Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of each one.
Wix’s Drag and Drop Website Builder
Wix is considered to be one of the most popular drag & drop website builders on the market that provides a wide range of website design and development tools.
Wix lets you create a professional-looking website simply by dragging and dropping elements around the screen.
It includes 2,000+ stunning templates to choose from, a massive library of icons that you can use to make your own, an HTML5 code editor, a source code control option, and other exclusive features.
Wix is said to be one of the fastest and easiest ways to create your website.
According to Wix’s official research, 65% of their users were able to get started with a new project in less than 30 minutes after signing up for an account.
Wix Ease-of-Use and Building Interface
If you visit Wix’s official website, you’ll notice that the company focuses on ease-of-use of its tools and service.
For example, they have several demo websites for different purposes: business, booking, photography, etc to show you how your future website will look like.
Wix offers drag & drop functionality to add text boxes, images, galleries, videos, links, etc.
There are also several shortcodes where you can insert specific content that might be required for your websites, such as a contact form or map location.
To use them you need to click on the ‘Text’ button in the toolbar and then select the shortcode you want to insert from a drop-down menu.
Pro: Wix has a very intuitive and easy-to-use drag & drop builder interface that supports all modern devices, including smartphones and tablets.
With Wix, everything is built from scratch in HTML5 to make it look on any device perfectly.
Con: The only thing that might bother you is advertisements.
According to Wix, they display less than 20 ads on each website that is being created. So you might see some of them at the bottom of your website screen and others within the interface, but they are not positioned where they are distracting from your work.
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Squarespace’s Drag & Drop Website Builder
Squarespace is an easy and affordable solution for building your website, blog, or online store.
Its drag & drop functionality makes it easy to create a great-looking website you can show off to friends, family, or customers in just minutes.
You don’t need any coding experience at all.
The Squarespace template library offers a large collection of templates that you can use to get started with your project.
It includes options for business, portfolio, blogs, and eCommerce stores so you can create just about anything you can imagine.
Squarespace Ease-of-Use and Building Interface
The squarespace interface is very clean and simple to use.
The menu button on the left side of the screen allows users to choose the page they want to work on.
Squarespace templates come fully equipped with shortcodes, which means you can create a site quickly and easily without writing any code.
If you need to customize your template or use features beyond the library of included templates, Squarespace has a visual editor with point-and-click shortcuts that let you change elements as easily as clicking a button.
Pro: Squarespace offers a great variety of themes that can be used for different purposes, including business websites, portfolios, or blogs.
Con: Creating your custom template is not possible like in other drag & drop builders.
Building a website from scratch using the visual editor takes more time and effort.
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Weebly’s Drag & Drop Website Builder
Weebly is an award-winning tool that allows anyone to create a beautiful website.
With Weebly you can design and publish your professional-looking website in minutes, with no coding required.
It offers more than 100+ pre-made website templates for different purposes, each of which is responsive and mobile-friendly.
You don’t need any design or coding experience. Everything is done for you by the drag & drop interface that makes customizing your pages extremely simple and quick.
Weebly’s Ease-of-Use and Building Interface
The drag & drop editor allows you to add images, text, galleries, videos, and links.
Its builder is easy enough that even a child can use it. This is not surprising because Weebly was developed by actual web designers who knew how difficult building a website could be.
You can also use the shortcodes to insert specific content or features you might need. It can be a contact form, video, or gallery. You just need to find the right button in the menu and then select what you want from a drop-down menu.
Pro: Weebly offers more than 100+ beautiful pre-made templates designed specifically for business.
Con: You cannot upload your design files and edit them.
The website builder doesn’t let you customize your templates as the others do.
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Webflow’s Drag & Drop Website Builder
Webflow is an online drag-and-drop tool for creating websites, custom web pages, and e-commerce stores.
It allows you to build a deep level of interactivity into your website designs without writing any code.
It also seamlessly supports responsive design so that you can create beautiful cross-platform websites with ease.
Webflow’s Ease-of-Use and Building Interface
It has tons of features, including a Responsive template library of more than 1,800 templates for every type of site.
An intuitive visual code editor for editing the HTML and CSS code that makes up your design.
Hundreds of pre-built components allow you to customize each aspect of your website without having to come up with the design yourself.
Pro: Webflow lets you build your site on three levels: It gives you the option to use its drag-and-drop interface which is easier for beginners.
It also offers a visual editor where you can edit the HTML and CSS code of your design, similar to other tools.
You have also an option to write direct code in a traditional text editor for complete flexibility.
Con: You cannot upload your design files and edit them.
Elementor’s Drag & Drop Website Builder
Elementor is a lightweight and fast front-end page builder. It is an all-in-one tool for designing websites, landing pages, eCommerce shops, or blogs with a drag-and-drop interface.
Elementor’s Ease-of-Use and Building Interface
The very first thing you will notice when working with Elementor is that you have all the necessary elements on one page, which was specially designed to be fully responsive.
You will get a visual editor with a drag & drop builder and a live frontend preview.
It has tons of features that are very useful for creating complex designs like unlimited layouts, pre-designed templates, and styling options.
Pro: It offers live frontend editing which allows you to see how your website will look on any device directly from the editor.
Con: You cannot upload your design files and edit them.
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In Conclusion…
If we compare their main features, all these drag-and-drop website builders are unmatched by any other tools out there: easy, simple, powerful, and flexible.
They are the perfect solution for small businesses that have a limited budget and do not need to hire in-house web developers or specialists.
These website builders will boost your online visibility and help you achieve success with over 718 million people using them every month.
Ali is a digital marketing blogger and author who uses the power of words to inspire and impact others. He has written for leading publications like Business2Community, Inc. Magazine, and Marketing Profs. When not writing, he enjoys spending time with his family.