12 Best Website Builders for Making Your Website for Free

I've built sites with most of the builders below — portfolio pages in Carrd, a family site on Google Sites, client drafts in Wix — and the honest headline is this: "free" gets you a real, publishable website in 2026, but on the builder's subdomain with some branding, until you pay for a custom domain. That trade is fine for a portfolio, a club, a résumé site, or a small business getting started.

This list has been on TechBii a long time, and the refresh mattered: three of the original twelve (Web Start Today's builder, Webs, Moonfruit) no longer exist as products. The twelve below are all alive, working, and offer a genuinely free way to build.

Quick answer: For a truly free site, Google Sites or Carrd costs nothing ever. For room to grow, Wix or WordPress.com free tiers give you a full editor now and paid upgrades later. Squarespace and Framer make the best-looking sites but are really trials or badge-branded free tiers — check the limits before you commit.

The 12 builders at a glance

Pricing changes often — treat paid upgrades as "check the pricing page," not gospel.

1. Wix

Wix is the default answer for good reason: a true drag-anywhere editor, the largest template library in this list, and an app market for forms, bookings and stores. The free plan is fully functional — you just live on a `wixsite.com` subdomain with Wix ads until you upgrade (paid plans start around $17/month).

Watch out for: templates lock you in — switching templates after building means rebuilding. Pick carefully at the start. If you later outgrow it, moving content (say, to WooCommerce) is possible but not one-click — see our guide to transferring products from Wix.

2. Squarespace

Squarespace produces the most consistently beautiful sites here — its templates are why photographers and restaurants choose it. One honesty note: there is no permanent free plan, only a 14-day trial (paid plans from around $16/month billed annually). It's on this list because people constantly assume otherwise and deserve the truth up front.

Watch out for: the trial is short; have your content ready before you start it.

3. Google Sites

Google Sites is the only builder here that's genuinely, permanently free with no ads: sign in with a Google account, build, publish to a `sites.google.com/view/…` address. It's spartan — limited styling, no blog engine — but for a club page, event site, résumé, or team wiki it's unbeatable, and it integrates with Google Drive, Forms and Maps natively.

Watch out for: it's not built for blogging or e-commerce; treat it as a clean brochure site.

4. WordPress.com

Don't confuse this with self-hosted WordPress: WordPress.com's free plan gives you the world's most-used blogging platform on a `wordpress.com` subdomain, 1 GB of storage, and ads they show (not you). If your site is primarily content — blog, essays, news — this is the strongest free foundation, with paid tiers unlocking plugins, themes and a custom domain later.

Watch out for: the free plan can't install plugins or run ads of your own. And when a site grows serious, many teams graduate to custom development — the trade-offs are real, as covered in why WordPress shops often prefer custom code over builders.

5. Carrd

Carrd proves one page is enough for a lot of jobs. Free accounts get up to three sites on `.carrd.co`, and the editor is the fastest here — I can build a decent personal page in twenty minutes. Pro (a one-time-affordable yearly plan, from $19/year) adds custom domains, forms and widgets.

Watch out for: it's one-page by design. Multi-page needs mean Wix or WordPress.com.

6. Framer

Framer started as a design tool and became the builder of choice for startups that want a modern, animated site without code. The free plan publishes to a `framer.website` address with a Framer badge; paid plans (from a few dollars a month) remove the badge. If you want your site to feel like 2026 rather than 2016, start here.

Watch out for: heavier templates load more JavaScript than Google Sites or Carrd — fine for most, but not the lightest option.

7. Weebly

Weebly (owned by Block/Square) pairs an easy editor with Square's store tools, so it's a sensible free starting point if selling a few things is the goal. The free plan runs on a Weebly subdomain with ads; Square's processing powers payments when you upgrade.

Watch out for: development has slowed compared to Wix or Framer — it's stable more than it is evolving.

8. Jimdo

Jimdo's angle is speed: its AI assistant drafts the site from a few answers, and you refine from there. It's a German company (GDPR-friendly by default), which matters for EU users, and the free plan publishes to a Jimdo subdomain with ads.

Watch out for: less template choice than the leaders; the AI draft is a starting point, not a finish.

9. Webnode

Webnode is strong where many builders are weak: multilingual sites. Building in several languages is part of the core flow rather than a paid add-on, which makes it a favorite for local businesses serving more than one language. Free sites run on a Webnode subdomain with ads.

Watch out for: the blog and store features are basic compared to WordPress.com and Weebly.

10. Yola

Yola has been around since 2007 and still offers a genuinely free plan with hosting included — verified on their site in 2026 — plus an AI builder and straightforward upgrades (custom domain free for a year with annual premium plans).

Watch out for: a smaller template library and community than the big names.

11. WebStarts

WebStarts remains a working drag-and-drop builder with a free subdomain tier. It's not flashy, but it does the job for a basic personal or small-business page.

Watch out for: the editor and templates feel dated next to Wix or Framer; the upsell prompts are persistent.

12. GoDaddy Website Builder

If your domain already lives at GoDaddy, their builder integrates cleanly: AI-assisted setup, appointment booking, and basic e-commerce, with a free tier on a GoDaddy subdomain. Paid plans unlock the custom domain and remove ads.

Watch out for: it's designed to funnel you into GoDaddy's broader ecosystem — fine if you're staying there, less portable if you're not.

How to choose in 30 seconds

Paying nothing, ever → Google Sites or Carrd. Building something that will grow → Wix or WordPress.com. Visual polish matters most → Squarespace (paid) or Framer (free tier). Selling soon → Weebly or GoDaddy. And once the site is live, the real work is traffic — our guide to getting more Google traffic to a small-business website is the natural next read. For a deeper editor comparison, see our no-code website editors guide.

FAQ

Are free website builders really free?

The good ones genuinely are — Google Sites, Carrd, Wix, WordPress.com and others let you build and publish forever at $0. The trade is a branded subdomain (yourname.wixsite.com), the builder's ads on free tiers, and platform limits on storage or features. You pay only when you want a custom domain or those limits removed.

Can I get a free custom domain?

Rarely. Free plans always use the builder's subdomain; a custom domain (yourname.com) costs roughly $10-20/year wherever you buy it. The common exception: some annual paid plans — Yola and Hostinger do this — include a domain free for the first year. Budget for the domain; it's the cheapest credibility you'll ever buy.

Which free builder is best for a small business?

Wix, for most: the editor handles real design work, bookings and basic store tools are included, and upgrading later doesn't change your URL structure overnight. If the business is EU-based and privacy-sensitive, add Jimdo to the shortlist. If the site is essentially one page — services, hours, contact — Carrd is faster and free forever.

Can I move my site to another builder later?

Partially. Text and images move easily; layouts don't — each builder's templates and editor are proprietary, so switching usually means rebuilding. Two exceptions worth knowing: WordPress.com content exports cleanly (it's the open standard), and e-commerce products can be exported as CSV — see our Wix to WooCommerce transfer guide for how that works in practice.

Do free websites show up on Google?

Yes — free subdomain sites get indexed like any other site. What holds them back is the same thing that holds every new site back: thin content and no backlinks, not the subdomain. Publish genuinely useful pages, keep the site fast, and register it in Google Search Console; our small-business Google traffic guide covers the sequence.

What happened to Webs, Moonfruit and Web Start Today?

All three from our older lists are gone as builders: Webs (Vistaprint) shut down, Moonfruit closed and its domain now hosts an unrelated directory, and Web Start Today became a design agency. If you built on any of them, export whatever you can from archived copies and rebuild — the current generation of free builders (above) makes that a weekend job, not a month.

Related reading

• Tips to improve your site with no-code website editors
• Why WordPress developers prefer custom code over builders
• How to get more Google traffic to your small business website
• How to transfer products from Wix to WooCommerce

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I've built free-tier sites for portfolios, clubs and small businesses over the years — tell me what your site is for in the comments and I'll narrow this list to one.