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Beginner
02-21-2016, 05:18 AM
Just curious to know, what website builders are best for you and why?

Owen
02-21-2016, 01:21 PM
Just curious to know, what website builders are best for you and why?

Weebly because it is very easy to customize and let's you export the code.

anilverma
02-21-2016, 11:04 PM
Weebly, Wix, Jimdo are some generic website builder options.
If you want to build a content management system (Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal) are good.
If you want to build a ecommerce application (Opencart, Magento, PrestaShop, Shopify) are some options.
And if you want to build an enterprise web applications from scratch, try frameworks like Spring MVC, Play, Laravel, Rails, etc.

Beginner
02-22-2016, 01:29 AM
Thanks a lot for your opinions guys

UK Content Writer
02-22-2016, 06:50 AM
I tend to avoid any kind of website builder, they're good if you are just starting out but you can soon outgrow them because they're just not as flexible as CMSs such as Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla etc.

trunker
02-24-2016, 12:27 AM
I started with Weebly but ended up 100% WordPress. Why? In the beginning I had no idea what I was doing and Weebly was what seemed like an easy option. WordPress my look intimidating at first but it allows you to do a million times more.

Cashbrain
02-24-2016, 11:35 AM
I used godaddy.com to build mine. I wanted to do something a little quicker just to get some information out there incase someone was looking. I will most likely for to WordPress after a small growth in the business

ChiefDesignStudios.com
02-24-2016, 04:46 PM
Just curious to know, what website builders are best for you and why?

Over 15 years of working in the changes in this field I think this is a matter of how much time you want to spend on development. If you are wanting to save time and have an easy quicker way to make changes later you may want to use builders like Wix and others that are online based web editors. If you don't mind the extra time and effort you can choose to use software (another extra cost) like Dreamweaver to then FTP your files to a host, structure the site files, etc....A little more involved and is why the automated solutions from companies like Wix are so popular. The price difference is really the software because you will pay someone for hosting (bandwidth, disk space, etc.) and someone for the domain..If going the hard build via FTP you will incur software cost and another in between company that you may have to deal with to resolve any issues you may run into.

If this is a question based on a business structure (building sites for clients) I would recommend using a user friendly automated editor online version (like wix) for customers. It's a great solution for getting beginners to take over site edits once you design them. They handle any user support issues, spend their money on R&D, and provide an easy way for you and your client to make changes. The downside to using companies that are easy and an automated option to a builder and editor is that they are limited.

You may not be able to do things you or a client may need in a build like in depth back end process, user and member management, and some other things..Good news is that they are making headway towards being able to do these things allowing for some companies tie into their back end and partnering which is very attractive to companies selling web based services.

I would say depends on the application to better answer the question of what is the recommended builder. What is the application? Personal or for designing for customers?

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BizAdvisor
02-24-2016, 09:55 PM
Perhaps I'm the last unsung web developer that still appreciates the outdated, though never obsolete, SiteBuilder. Why? It's simple enough to allow clients to maintain and update their own sites and make minor modifications; i.e WYSIWYG... Yet, it also allows experienced developers to implement stylesheets, HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery... or any other coding platform their tiny, little hearts desire to implement. I have yet to come across any website that cannot be developed using dumb, old SiteBuilder. In fact, I'm pretty confident that I could have easily developed the $835,000,000 HealthCare.gov website using SiteBuilder, without any defect or glitches, for under $100... Just sayin'.

Fulcrum
02-24-2016, 10:12 PM
In fact, I'm pretty confident that I could have easily developed the $835,000,000 HealthCare.gov website using SiteBuilder, without any defect or glitches, for under $100... Just sayin'.

You mean you would deliver a working product without gouging the government - err taxpayer?

BizAdvisor
02-24-2016, 10:34 PM
You mean you would deliver a working product without gouging the government - err taxpayer?

Wait... Did I say $100? I meant $100,000. No, wait... $1,000,000. Better yet, $1,000,000,000! Take that America!

Harold Mansfield
02-25-2016, 10:15 AM
Of course I'm going to suggest WordPress and running your own site, owning everything, and being in complete control with no limitations, but I understand that's more than some people can or want to handle especially now that there are what seem to be simpler options. (man, that wasn't passive aggressive at all :) ).

I sent a buddy over to Squarespace about a year ago and with no skills or understanding of anything he managed to put something together for his dads new business. Yes, it's limited compared to what I'm used to, but I could see how if he had any copy writing skills and some decent images how he could have made something solid there. It's not bad. Of course he doesn't have any of those skills, so the site doesn't present that well and looks like it is DIY.

If all you need is something with basic functionality it's a good option. Again, copy writing and images are what makes or breaks how much professionalism you're going to get out of any site builder. Unfortunately there's no way to drag and drop that.

bob1978
04-10-2016, 06:17 AM
Just curious to know, what website builders are best for you and why?

Notepad for a long long while, then I moved on to Wordpress. It's fine, but I realized it just takes up too much of my time going around its limitations. Besides that, it was slow as heck. When I realized this, I stopped using that and decided to develop sites from scratch. Now it runs smooth and fast, and are built specifically to my specs without inefficiency. Moved on from Notepad by the way, use Sublime Text 3 now ;)

Harold Mansfield
04-10-2016, 01:39 PM
Notepad for a long long while, then I moved on to Wordpress. It's fine, but I realized it just takes up too much of my time going around its limitations. Besides that, it was slow as heck.
It's all about the build and the hosting. A lot of hosting, especially shared hosting, isn't good for a WordPress site running a lot of plug ins. and it depends on what plug ins. There are some that will drag a site down to a halt especially on shared hosting. Also every cache plug in doesn't work well on every server. WordPress doesn't run slow out of the box and it doesn't have to run slow when running add ons.

But again, some people just don't want to fiddle with all of that and I understand.

UpwardCrawl
04-10-2016, 01:41 PM
It depends...I like to use word-press for blogging. Word-press give full customization and has a wide range of plugins.
For eCommerce i use Wix. It's fast and easy with great seo benifits. You can use wix for free and pay for upgrades later.

bob1978
04-11-2016, 11:33 PM
It's all about the build and the hosting. A lot of hosting, especially shared hosting, isn't good for a WordPress site running a lot of plug ins. and it depends on what plug ins. There are some that will drag a site down to a halt especially on shared hosting. Also every cache plug in doesn't work well on every server. WordPress doesn't run slow out of the box and it doesn't have to run slow when running add ons.

But again, some people just don't want to fiddle with all of that and I understand.
Yes, it's most definitely the build of the theme I purchased. I used the same host for other Wordpress sites I own, they all run smoothly. The only difference was the theme. The features provided by the theme wasn't all that different compared to my other sites, so there wasn't much of a reason for it to run that slowly. I could've used another theme certainly, but those didn't express just the right feeling I was trying to get across to my audiences. Towards the end, I realized it's just unwise leaving it all up to themes to solve my specific needs. Learning development and tweaking it exactly to how I want it, was a much more wise decision.

ElevateMedia
05-05-2016, 06:25 PM
Wordpress is best in my opinion. It might seem difficult to use at first but its actually pretty simple to use. Plus if you cant figure something out the answer is always a click away, GOOGLE!!!

HannahMax
07-12-2016, 04:08 AM
It depends on the scale of your site and the purpose of usage. Here, Magento, Prestashop, Shopify, Wordpress or BigCommerce are most popular one. You may concern these and choose the one which is suitable for you.

Sarah K
09-23-2016, 06:20 PM
I use Wordpress as a content management system. Although it can be a pain to do specific customizations in, it's great for blog or article based websites and has a ton of plugins to make life easier. It also ranks really well in Google, if you have a good SEO template.

For custom work, I use Frontpage. I have Dreamweaver as well, but I just find Frontpage easier to work with for my needs.

Owen
09-24-2016, 12:06 AM
Update: SquareSpace is the best for an online service.

tonyradford
10-08-2016, 04:23 AM
For building simple sites I would use WordPress. However imo it has its limitations - the interface is cluttered and a bit confusing, and managing a lot of content is difficult. Security is a bit of a problem also.

For sites that have a lot of content or require a lot of design tweaking or some integration with other applications I recommend - modx.com

MODx is a fabulous platform both for developers and for users.

Krystsina
10-16-2016, 05:30 AM
I love SquareSpace because of the templates they provide and not complicated system of building the website.

redfirewebsites
10-24-2016, 03:12 AM
We can answer this from 2 perspectives - one as a seller of websites and businesses online and the other as what our clients want / need.

From a website sellers point of view - wordpress is by far the easiest platform for clients who have limited experience with design / development - indeed for us its quite easy to put up a new site relatively quickly and configure it to how the client wants. Wordpress has limitations compared to others such as Joomla which IMO is a much better content management system then Wordpress. As for the security aspect its also dependent on the server where your website sits - there are many factors that come in to play when a website gets hacked - for example if your on a shared hosting platform and one of the other websites on that server has insecure code allowing exploits it is possible they can then use this to access your site (depending on how the hosting is setup).

For beginners - Wordpress is best suited - lots of tutorial videos on youtube and a smaller learning curve.
The more advanced will usually want to use Dreamweaver or something similar for "total" control over the code on the site.

BizAdvisor
10-25-2016, 01:26 AM
Whether the website builder is WYSIWYG or strictly coding... I'm pretty sure I can rock any website builder like a video game.

DizzStudio
10-26-2016, 11:17 AM
It all depends on the complexity of the website you are about to build up. If its an easy one then definitely a Wordpress despite all the structure limitations it has so far

abdulrahman
10-26-2016, 05:40 PM
Definitely it's WordPress as when I was a beginner the online entrepreneur works with me on WordPress so I found it very easy to use and I didn't use any website creation tools every after using Wordpress

damienzero
11-05-2016, 12:43 AM
Anyone here code their own websites using html and css? Recently I stumbled onto a thread in another business forum about web development. The majority of the posters claimed learning html was easier and superior over using website builders. The idea of doing freelance web development motivated me to start learning how to code, at times it is difficult but I enjoy it. I know most of the reply's on this thread are directed towards building a website for you own business, but what method would be best for someone who wants to start freelancing with the intention of tuning it into a business?

turboguy
11-05-2016, 09:53 AM
If you are going to start freelancing you really need to learn HTML and CSS. Learning PHP or another server side language is also helpful. There are lots of web designers who will create web sites based on WordPress. Even doing that there are times the HTML and CSS needs to be modified. I doubt that any even remotely professional web designers use something like Wix to create web sites for their customers. I am sure some freelancers may, but notice I used the word Professional.

The better web designers may use Wordpress or some other CMS but will make their own custom theme and not use a standard theme and just modify the content.

damienzero
11-08-2016, 12:16 AM
Thanks turboguy,
The way I see it HTML and CSS are the foundation of web development.

damian.scott.2009
11-08-2016, 12:55 AM
There are lot of them but generally speaking most popular online platform today is WordPress also there are Joomla and Drupal which is a little bit more complicated for beginners but still good enough and maybe even better than WordPress.

Heidi Sturrock
11-17-2016, 09:05 PM
I also am a HUGE fan of Weebly. I use it to build all of my client websites. I also enjoy wordpress for SEO purposes, but this requires additional development skills over Weebly.

journalist55
03-02-2022, 10:21 AM
I have used both Wordpress and Wix. I like both because they are self explanatory, pretty quick and free to use, unless you want to upgrade which is an option as well. Both of these platforms allow you to customize the look of your site. However, Wordpress can be a little tricky when editing the look of it, the platform is not the easiest to customize. It can be a little hard to move things around.

ofesak
05-12-2022, 02:16 PM
If to use Wordpress the fastest page builders are Elementor and Divi. However, if you have coding skills you can proceed with a more professional approach to building a custom theme, custom clean markup, and ACF fields. It will result in a significantly higher site performance which is currently a pain point for many online businesses. In this article (https://www.ecdevstudio.com/blog/correct-decisions-in-web-development/) I've described other advanced techniques, but it requires some skills in website development.

degadar
05-21-2022, 03:17 AM
Many years since this thread was started, I'd still say WordPress. Our Parentshield.co.uk (https://Parentshield.co.uk) site is performing very well for us, and that's pretty much standard WP with Neve theme out of the box with Woocommerce. Gets good Page Speed scores and no issues.

turboguy
05-22-2022, 10:18 PM
I do think WordPress does much better on SEO than other web site builder options. It also offers more portability. If you build a site on Wix or similar programs and want to change hosting you have to start over from scratch where with WordPress you can move to a new host with one click. There are more options to customize your site with thousands of plugins available. There are also tons of free tutorials on YouTube.