The 5 best basic website builders

Most people landing on a small business site want two things: to confirm what you do, and to find a way to reach you. That's the whole job of a basic website, and it's the one Yola website builder is built for. Home, about, services and contact can be easily generated with AI Wizard using a professional template, so you're not designing anything from scratch. Hosting, mobile layouts and the SEO basics are all set up for you.

What setting up your Yola site actually looks like

The starting point is a template, not an empty page. You tell it what the business does, the AI-assisted setup turns that into drafted pages, and what loads in the editor is a working website with home, about, services and contact already in it. Nothing sits empty waiting for you to design it.

Then it's your own words and photos going in where the drafted ones are. The services block holds what you sell, described the way you'd say it out loud. The contact form is customizable, so you decide which details a visitor gives you before you reply, and inquiries arrive in your inbox. Phone screens are handled automatically from the same page you just built, so there's one layout to keep tidy rather than two. On the free plan you can do all of that and look at the result before paying.

What makes Yola a basic website builder

This list turns on how much of a short website arrives already built, and these are the Yola pieces that do that.

• Ready-made blocks
  About, services, contact, a contact form, galleries, pricing, testimonials and an FAQ all arrive as blocks that are already designed.

• AI Website Builder
  Tell it what the business does and it drafts every page, ready for you to make final changes.

• Customizable contact form
  You set the questions the form asks, and the inquiries it collects come straight to your inbox.

• Intuitive interface
  Click the text you want changed and type. There's nothing to learn before the next edit.

• Responsive website
  The phone version is built from the page you made, so there's only one layout for you to build.

Who benefits most

Yola works best for a business owner who wants the essential pages up and expects to edit them without help.

SITE123 is aimed at someone who has never built a website and would rather answer questions than open an editor. The setup runs one step at a time, and a website with home, about, services and contact comes out of it without you making a single design decision. Responsive web design, hosting and 24/7 support come with it, and an annual plan includes your own domain for the first year along with an SSL certificate.

The limit is how close you stay to the template. There's little freedom to move things, so the layout you end up with is the one the setup handed you, and it's less suited to a website that gets complex or grows fast. On the free plan you get 250MB of space and a subdomain like yourname.site123.me rather than a domain of your own.

SITE123's best features as a basic website builder

Judged on getting the essential pages online with as few decisions as possible, these are the parts that carry SITE123.

• Responsive web design
  The pages you set up work on a phone without a separate mobile build.

• Free website domain
  Your own domain comes with an annual plan for the first year.

• Personal blog
  If you do want to post updates, blogging is part of the feature set here.

• 24/7 website support
  Someone is available at whatever hour you're actually doing the building.

Who benefits most

SITE123 works best for an owner who wants each step decided for them and won't mind the layout that comes back.

Weebly comes from Square, which is why card payments and selling are built in. The editing is old-fashioned drag and drop, so you pull a text block or a photo into a column and the page holds its shape around it. For four pages that's as much editor as anyone needs, and the free plan runs with no end date on it.

Age is what costs Weebly points here. It looks and feels dated beside the rest of this list and it changes slowly, so the four pages you put up will look older than the same four pages built elsewhere. The free plan carries Square ads and no domain of your own, which makes it a way to try the editor rather than a way to publish.

Weebly's best features as a basic website builder

On a list judged by what arrives ready and how easy the next edit is, these are the Weebly parts that count.

• Professional web templates
  The pages open on a design you can then change, rather than on nothing.

• Mobile
  A phone version of the website comes out of the same build.

• Lead Capture
  Visitor names and emails collect inside Weebly instead of in a second tool.

• Free SSL Security
  An SSL certificate comes with the website, so browsers show it as secure.

Who benefits most

Weebly works best for an owner who already sells through Square and wants an editor with nothing extra in it.

GoDaddy now starts from a written description. You type what the business does, and it generates a website from that with no coding involved. One click deploys the result, and hosting, forms and analytics come with that deploy, so the essential pages are live and reachable quickly. Changing the text and images afterwards spends no AI credits, which is worth knowing, because generating does.

What comes back tends to look like everything else it generates. Design flexibility is limited and the templates feel generic, so two websites built this way can read as the same website with different words in it. The free start also runs on a GoDaddy subdomain rather than a domain of your own.

GoDaddy's best features as a basic website builder

Measured by how much of a short website it hands you in one go, these are GoDaddy's strongest parts.

• AI site generation
  A description of the business turns into a website, and no coding is asked of you.

• One-click deploy
  Hosting, forms and analytics arrive with the website in the same step.

• Text and image editing
  Changing words and pictures later costs you no AI credits.

• Privacy policy and terms
  Both are generated from vetted templates, so two pages you'd otherwise write are handled.

Who benefits most

GoDaddy works best for an owner who wants a first draft written from a description and doesn't mind a generic look.

Strikingly is built for one-page scrolling websites and it's very good at that. You click anything to edit it, the change publishes instantly, and a website can be live in minutes. Sign up and contact forms, galleries, video backgrounds and mobile-optimized output are all part of it, so a single page can carry your offer and a way to reach you.

A website with home, about, services and contact in it is a multi-page website, and that's where Strikingly runs short. It's limited for multi-page websites, which is why it sits at 6 out of 10 here on covering the essential pages. The free plan shows Strikingly's branding and lets you sell one product.

Strikingly's best features as a basic website builder

Strikingly earns its place on speed and on how little it asks of you, so these are the parts worth knowing.

• Click anything to edit
  You change what's on the screen and publish it in the same minute.

• Sign up and contact forms
  A visitor can get in touch from the page with no separate tool involved.

• Mobile-optimized websites
  The page works on a phone with nothing extra for you to arrange.

• Galleries and video backgrounds
  Photos and moving backgrounds go on the page without design work.

Who benefits most

Strikingly works best for an owner whose whole offer fits on one long page.

Final recommendation

Yola is the basic website builder to choose when the essential pages have to look finished and stay easy to change.

The biggest hesitation for anyone choosing a basic website builder is the worry that a website with only the essential pages will look unfinished, or that you'll be stuck the first time something needs changing. Yola is built around removing that specific risk. The worry usually starts with empty pages, because a builder that hands you a blank canvas leaves you designing a services page you've never designed before. Yola's blocks come to you already designed, and the AI-assisted setup fills home, about, services and contact from a few answers about the business, so day one shows you a website that already works, with the four pages filled in. Later on you click the words you want changed and type, which is why the second edit is a short job rather than a project. It doesn't remove the concern entirely. The ready-made blocks leave out a blog, so if regular posts are part of your plan, settle how you'll handle them before you commit.

When to choose Yola

Choose Yola if you want:

When another builder might fit better

What to look for in a website builder

Every website builder here can put four pages online, so that on its own tells you nothing. The difference is how much of each page arrives already designed, and how quickly you can change a line of it a month later.

1. Which pages arrive already built. Ask whether about, services and contact come as sections that are already designed, or whether you assemble each one out of empty ones. That single answer decides how much of your first evening goes on designing rather than writing.

2. How people get in touch. A website nobody can reply to isn't finished. Check that a contact form comes with the plan, and check whether you can change the questions it asks.

3. How easy the second edit is. Every builder puts its effort into the first build. Time how long it takes to find one line of text a month later and change it, because that's the job you'll do most often.

4. Whether separate pages are the point. Some editors are built for one long scrolling page. If you want home, about, services and contact to be pages of their own, make sure the editor treats them that way.

Our methodology

We compared these five website builders on how much of a website with home, about, services and contact arrives ready to use, and on how easily an owner with no technical background changes it afterwards, using each vendor's own published feature list.

Feature counting had no part in it. A builder can list plenty of features and still leave you designing a services page from nothing, and putting that page up is the job this shortlist is about.

• Essential pages. Do about, services, contact and a contact form exist as ready-made blocks?

• Starting point. Does the setup draft a first version, or do you begin from something closer to empty?

• Getting in touch. Does a form come with the plan, and can you change what it asks a visitor?

• The second edit. How long does it take to change one line of text a month after launch?

• Separate pages. Does the editor treat home, about, services and contact as pages of their own?

• What it assumes you know. Can an owner with no technical background finish the website without going to look for a help article?

Each rating follows from how the builder handles those jobs for somebody doing them for the first time.