Pros and Cons of Website Builders
Written by Julia Lozanov Web Hosting Expert
Reviewed by Craig Raphael Technical Editor
Updated June 15, 2022
Website Tips
A website builder is a program or platform that allows you to build a website without needing to code. Using a visual editor, pre-made templates and drag and drop features, website builders are a cost-effective entry-level solution for designing and publishing your own website.
Considering that people spend on average 6 hours 58 minutes per day using the internet, you’ll need a web presence to reach your audience.
If launching a simple website quickly is your goal, a website builder is the way to go. But, if you need a website with more room to grow and unique features, a custom website is your best bet.
Before you decide, join us as we examine the advantages and disadvantages of using website builders.
What Is a Website Builder?
A website builder is a program or a platform that allows you to easily and quickly create a website using drag and drop features and plenty of templates to choose from.
Through the website, you will be able to establish your online presence, and the platform will allow you to feature your content, brand elements, and offerings on the website.
In the past, creating a website required knowledge in coding, the ability to think creatively, and the proper budget. Nowadays, building a website is made easy and cheap, thanks to the growth of website builders.
Many companies like Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly, which are at the top of the list for best website builders for 2022, offer platforms where users can create their websites for a very low price or even for free.
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Website Builders vs. CMS vs. Custom Websites
A custom website is a website that is created from scratch, designed to meet your specific needs.
Coding skills are required to create this type of website, without pre-made templates and limited themes. You will have the flexibility and creative license to build your custom website, but it will require technical experience, expertise and a larger budget.
A CMS is software that allows you to make and edit your own website. Unlike a custom website, with a CMS one does not require coding skills.
CMSs are suitable for complex business or personal projects, like business websites, landing pages, portfolios, blogs, web stores, etc. Using themes or a drag and drop builder, you can smoothly get your website launched in no time at all.
Website builders are adequate for all business and personal websites, like blogs, web stores, promo, business projects, landing pages, portfolios, etc.
Website builders give beginners the opportunity to easily and quickly build a fully functional and well designed website, without needing to know how to code.
What To Consider Before Using a website builder
Know your purpose
Before you start creating a website, it's essential to know the site's purpose since different site builders are better fitted for specific objectives.
Price
What’s included in the price? Think about how much you are willing to spend on a website builder and account for domain registration and hosting.
Features
Every website offers different features. Some have excellent templates but offer minimal features. Consider the features you will need long-term.
Ease of use
In case you don't have any knowledge of building websites, it is essential that you find a website builder that is user-friendly, easy to navigate, and intuitive.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Website Builders
Advantages
No coding skills required
No design skills required
Free or cheap packages available
Fast
No need for training
Disadvantages
Various Limitations
Restricted features
Not fully technically customized
Not custom-designed
Domain name issues
Poor Google Rankings & SEO
Lack of Customer Support
Not Suitable for Large Businesses
Slow
Limited Functionality for E-Commerce
Limited Mobile Experience
1. No coding skills required
Writing new code for every aspect of your site doesn't sound easy. You will probably need a lot of caffeine, sweat, and time to do this.
Luckily, with a website builder, you can use the drag and drop interface and make changes to your site. If you want to move any items, you need to drag them to their new location and drop them, and it will only take a couple of seconds.
2. No design skills required
When it comes to the website's design, you have lots of options and flexibility. Even though you have access to the templates that other people have access to, you have many options to customize your websites.
Besides choosing a template, you also decide on the placement of different elements on the page, the formatting, backgrounds, fonts, color options, and elements you want to include on a particular page.
3. Free or cheap packages available
Even though hiring a freelancer or an agency to create your website is a good investment, it indeed is expensive.
A website builder will quickly boost your business marketing efforts if you don't have enough money to hire a professional. In most cases, using a website builder is free or very cheap, which can significantly reduce your expenses.
4. Fast
Hiring a freelancer or agency, or coding your website, will take up a lot of your time. Besides writing hundreds of lines of code, you will also need to test your website to see if everything works. Picking a freelancer or agency takes up some time as well.
If you use a website builder, you will save time since you can create and edit a website in just a few clicks.
5. No need for training
If you're a business using a website builder, your employees won't need training in order to make website changes. Since your website will need an update from time to time, and it will be a lot easier if you don't have to do the changes yourself every time, your employees can help you.
Luckily, with a website builder, anyone in the company can make tweaks to the website without training.
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1. Various Limitations
There are some limitations when it comes to transferring your site to another platform because most website builders don't offer that option. Since website builders have their program and script to run, their HTML editors are created solely for them. So if you want to move to another website, you will have to start all over again, from scratch.
2. Restricted features
A lot of website builders that are free limit the number of pages that you can create. For instance, per website, you will be allowed to build up to five pages. However, in order to expand your brand and your content, you will probably need more pages. Also, free builders limit some features like plugins, analytics, access to an online store, or an SSL certificate.
3. Not fully technically customized
Even though you can make your site have a great appearance, you need to be okay with the templates provided to you since you cannot add your own templates. Also, the HTML version of the page cannot be viewed.
4. Not custom-designed
Even though the drag and drop feature is really easy to work with, you might run into some problems. There are limits to what you can do with a drag and drop platform, and the lack of customization might be a problem for you. This can cause your site to look generic since you will be using templates that other people are using.
5. Domain name issues
Since using your own URL isn't allowed with free plans; the website builder will provide you with a free URL. However, the free URL will be made up of your business/personal name and their own URL. So, for example, instead of having katysjewerly.com as a URL, you will get katysjewerly.wix.com., which doesn't look too professional.
6. Poor Google Rankings & SEO
Most website builders don't fully and genuinely integrate lead generation or SEO into the process of creating a website. Messy and unstructured codes are quite common when it comes to website builders, which is damaging on SEO. Google likes websites that follow a certain order and are organized which you probably won’t get with website builders. Website builders don't have many SEO optimization techniques.
7. Lack of Customer Support
With a free builder, you might not get any type of customer support, which is understandable since you're not paying anything to use the builder. However, if you run into some issues, you will have to figure them out on your own. The only thing that will be left for you to do is to ask for advice on online forums and hope that someone will answer.
8. Not Suitable for Large Businesses
Business websites need professional features like SEO coding and quality design. If you have a design that doesn’t look professional, most customers won’t visit your website twice.
9. Slow
When you build a site with a free website builder, it will load much more slowly when compared to a website you will build using a paid platform. In order to provide a good user experience, you need to have a website that will load fast.
10. Limited Functionality for E-Commerce
Website builder platforms have very limited eCommerce features. You will hit the wall once you start needing some more complex features like integrations with third party apps, wholesale pricing, local delivery, advanced shipping, and so on.
11. Limited Mobile Experience
To have proper mobile viewing for your website, codes are very important. When it comes to mobile optimization, many website builders have limitations. Since desktop browsing has been surpassed by mobile searches, it is really important that a website is accessible through mobile.
Website Builders: Key Considerations
Advertisements
One of the key considerations when it comes to website builders are that advertisements appear on the website if you're using a free plan. This can be frustrating and may have a negative effect on the user experience of your site.
Hosting
Even though website builders typically come with an included hosting, it is impossible to move or transfer your site to a different hosting. Like we previously mentioned, if you're looking to transfer or export your site to another platform, you will need to start from scratch.
Cost/Affordability
Even though web builders might seem like a better option when it comes to cost, it's not always the case, especially not when you need many extra functions. When you do, it may end up as a more expensive solution than a custom website.
With website builders, you pay for the drag and drop features which are easy to use. Compared to a self-hosted WordPress site where you just pay for web hosting and the website builder is free. With website builders, the fee might be monthly.
Suitability
When it comes to sustainability, web builders are more suitable for smaller businesses. However, they aren't fit for professional, medium, and large companies due to their cookie-cutter look and restricted features.
Consider Using a Website Builder if:
You want a simple website
Website builders have enough functionality to run a simple website.
You want a website that will be launched fast
With a website builder, you can launch a website in a short span of time.
You want to manage the website easily
Managing a website with the drag and drop feature is simple.
Consider a CMS/custom website if:
You want Flexibility
Since CMSs are massive platforms with a comprehensive array of customization options and features, they can run any type of website.
Easy to migrate
If there's a chance you will want to transfer your site to another platform in the future, CMS makes migration easy.
Customizable
If you want a website that’s highly customizable to fit your requirements, a content management system will allow you to do that.
