10 Best Website Builders Of 2024 – Forbes Advisor

Why We Picked It

Wix is one of the most popular website builders because it offers something for everyone. You can use the free plan to create a website, but you’ll be on a subdomain and have Wix display ads. The lowest-priced plan is a bit limiting, but you have access to lots of free apps to extend your site’s functionality.

General Features

I used Wix a long time ago and as I recall, I liked the simplicity of its site editor. The dashboard and site editor have changed slightly since then, so it was like I was a new user all over again. In fact, it took me a while to realize the button I needed to press to get to the website editor was in the top right corner, which didn’t feel intuitive to me. But to be fair, I had previous experience and my expectations were wrong.

Wix now uses sections to help you design a website, which can either be helpful or annoying. Adding sections is as easy as choosing the category of section, such as a welcome message and then the style of section. After that, you just drag and drop it into a cordoned off area and fill in with your content. A separate box with settings opens where you can adjust font, text size and effects in a text box, for example.

There’s a point during setup where you can choose the type of website you’re building (portfolio, blog, restaurant, online store, e.g.) and the prompt tells you that it will personalize your dashboard to fit your website’s goals. I changed mine from portfolio to blog to restaurant and nothing changed.

A new feature for Wix is an AI generator for design. I tested a welcome message for a restaurant site (Medieval Meals). I added a few key notes that should be included and the AI sort of got it right, though the image it chose made zero sense and the text was a little odd, so I needed to adjust both. I don’t think I’d use it in the future because it didn’t save me much time, but as it gets better in time, it could be a helpful tool.

The sections Wix offers are generic and I was a bit disappointed, but maybe my expectations were too high. I still think Wix is a great option for restaurants to build their websites, but there were no sections specifically for creating a menu, which was surprising. I had to build it from scratch.

I think one of my favorite features is the AI image creator that’s built into Wix’s site editor. I described the type of image I wanted and it created precisely what I needed. I would argue that the image creator is better than the text generator. The only thing I don’t love (and this is probably because of the snap-to-grid style of Wix’s site editor) is that I can’t position anything where I want it, like slightly left of center.

Extras

Wix offers so many extra features that many of its competitors don’t. In fact, I’d say Wix is probably the best option for restaurants and hotels that need a website because it includes specific features for these types of businesses. As far as the standard extras that I typically look for in a website builder, Wix offers almost all of them. I could easily add meta descriptions and titles and there’s built-in email marketing included in all paid plans.

The only thing that I was disappointed to see was that I couldn’t swap themes and keep my content. Honestly, I expected Wix to have changed this feature to keep up with competitors that allow you to switch website templates any time.

Pricing

I appreciate a few things about Wix’s pricing plans. First, the website builder offers a free plan, which is great for trying out the builder to see if it’s what you want. Second, pricing is fair given that the low-priced plan includes a free domain name for the first year, lead capture forms and email marketing features.

Although I would never choose the Business Elite plan, I appreciate that Wix includes so many features for development, e-commerce, data management and customized reporting tools. However, it’s $159 per month (billed annually), which is expensive for the industry.

Reputation

Wix fares well in user and reviewer ratings: The lowest rating I found was 3.7 and the highest at 4.9 (out of five stars). Personally, I’m a fan of Wix and its support. I had no trouble contacting an agent when I needed help figuring out how to connect my domain (which is an easy process, but I needed to test support).

Standout Feature

Wix offers one of the biggest template libraries for an all-in-one website builder. There’s more than 900 designer-created templates. Not all of them are winners—some look very dated—but most are modern and fit for multiple industries.

Who should use it?

Wix is a great option for new small business owners, especially those who want to try running an online store. Although the e-commerce plans seem pricey, Wix’s plans are comparable to competitors.

Learn more: Read our full Wix review.