The 5 best responsive website builders

Yola is the best responsive website builder for a small business owner with customers on every kind of screen, because a Yola website is responsive from the start. Responsive means the same pages read properly on a desktop, a tablet and a phone. All five website builders here do that. Two of the five website builders hand you separate phone controls to work in. With Yola there's one page to arrange, and it adapts to each of those screens on its own.

What setting up your Yola site actually looks like

You open a template, a website design you fill in, and say in a line or two what the business does so the AI-assisted setup can draft the pages around it. What comes back already fits a phone, a tablet and a desktop, because that's the way Yola builds rather than a setting you go looking for afterwards. So the only layout in front of you is the wide one.

From there you swap the drafted wording and photos for your own. Ready-made blocks such as a gallery, a services list or pricing arrive already designed, and they keep their proportions as the screen gets narrower, which is what stops a tablet turning a neat section into a squeeze. You decide what the customizable contact form asks a visitor, and the inquiries it collects reach your inbox. The free plan covers building and previewing the whole website, so you can see all three sizes for yourself before any money is involved.

What makes Yola a responsive website builder

This list turns on where the narrow layouts come from, and these are the parts of Yola that answer it.

• Responsive website
  One website stretches and shrinks to a phone, a tablet and a desktop, so there's a single set of pages to look after.

• Mobile Optimized
  The narrowest screen is covered while the pages are being built instead of afterwards.

• Ready-made blocks
  A gallery, a services list or a pricing section arrives already designed, and the design holds as the screen narrows.

• AI Website Builder
  A few answers about the business draft the first version, and it fits every screen from that moment on.

• Customizable contact form
  You choose what the form asks, so somebody reading on a small screen can send an inquiry without hunting for the details.

Who benefits most

Yola works best for an owner who wants one arrangement to cover every screen size and no narrow-screen version to keep going.

Squarespace leads with design, and the templates are the reason. They are award-winning and polished before you touch them, pages are put together from sections, and Squarespace's own account is that those sections keep the design consistent and working on phones. Responsive design sits on its feature list as well, so a visitor on a small screen gets the sections you assembled.

What carries the narrow screens here is that structure holding itself together, which is a fair arrangement for an owner who enjoys the look. The cost is everything around it. There's no free plan, only a 14-day trial, so your own check at every width has a fortnight on the clock, an element you drag snaps to the Squarespace grid instead of landing where you point, and with no open add-on store, whatever Squarespace leaves out stays off the website.

Squarespace's best features as a responsive website builder

Squarespace is judged here on what its sections do once the screen gets narrower.

• Responsive design
  The small screens are produced from the same sections you edited.

• Drag-and-drop editing with Fluid Engine
  Dragging happens inside a section, and the section is what keeps the result in order.

• Customizable website templates
  The starting design is finished already, so most of the look is settled before you begin.

• Preview alternate styles
  Another style can be tried over your own content before you commit to it.

Who benefits most

Squarespace works best for an owner whose first concern is how the finished pages look, and who is content inside a set structure.

Webflow sets the ceiling on this page, and it gets there visually rather than through code you write. Its own strengths put it as close control over how the site looks at every screen size, responsive web design is on the feature list, and what comes out the other end is clean, W3C compliant HTML and CSS. On the question this page asks, that's the deepest answer of the five website builders here.

The same control is the work. Webflow says to expect weeks rather than an afternoon and calls itself the hardest builder here for a beginner, and its own account of what it's at heart names designers and developers. So each width comes out right when somebody sets it right, and a good result rests on skills the tool assumes you already have. It's also more tool, and more cost, than a small business website needs.

Webflow's best features as a responsive website builder

Webflow earns its place here on how much of each screen size it puts in your hands.

• Responsive web design
  Every width is something you set yourself, inside the editor.

• Build CSS grid-powered layouts visually
  The framework holding a page together is drawn on screen rather than typed out.

• Clean, W3C compliant HTML and CSS
  The code behind the page follows the standards browsers are built to read.

• Reusable and editable components
  A piece you correct once is corrected everywhere it appears.

Who benefits most

Webflow works best for an owner with design skills to hand who wants every screen size decided deliberately.

Framer is design software that publishes websites. Anybody whose day already runs on design tools moves quickly in it, animation and reusable pieces sit in the editor, and hosting and publishing are taken care of. A free plan on a Framer subdomain is there to try that on.

Who the tool was made for is the thing to weigh. Framer names design teams and marketers as its customer and says plainly that it's aimed at design teams rather than a non-technical owner, so how the narrow screens end up looking follows whoever is doing the designing. What Framer publishes about its features doesn't describe how those narrow layouts are produced, and unrecorded isn't the same as absent, so that's a question to put to Framer rather than an answer. It's also why Framer sits in the middle of the second score column instead of at the bottom. Leaving later means rebuilding, since the website can't be exported, and billing runs on four separate meters, people editing, AI use, visitor traffic and content items.

Framer's best features as a responsive website builder

Framer belongs on the shortlist for the speed a designer gets out of it, so these are the parts doing that.

• AI design agent
  A first version of the design is drafted inside the editor.

• CMS
  Repeating content, such as a list of services, is looked after in one place.

• Hosting
  Publishing the website and keeping it online come with the product.

• Core Web Vitals
  How the pages perform for a real visitor is reported back to you.

Who benefits most

Framer works best for an owner whose design work already happens in software like it, or who has a design team to hand it to.

Wix sells control and it has the most of it here. Anything can be dragged anywhere on the page, down to the exact spot, the template library is enormous, and the add-on store brings bookings, memberships, events or a full shop. For the narrow screens Wix keeps a Mobile site editor, a view of its own where the phone layout gets shaped.

Wix's own weaknesses put the price of that freedom plainly. Once the desktop build is finished, the narrow layout usually wants a pass by hand, and it wants another one after each change, so one page keeps turning back into two pieces of work. That's why Wix sits last of the five website builders on having no small-screen work left for you, while the control it gives over the narrow screen is real and belongs to whoever will spend the time on it. So much freedom also makes a cluttered page easy to build without meaning to.

Wix's best features as a responsive website builder

On this page Wix stands on how much of the narrow screen it hands over, and who is left holding it.

• Mobile site editor
  A view of the phone layout on its own, which is where the adjusting happens.

• Drag & drop editor
  An element stays exactly where you put it, anywhere on the page.

• Website templates
  A very large library, so the starting point is never an empty page.

• Web hosting
  Hosting comes with the plan instead of being arranged somewhere else.

Who benefits most

Wix works best for an owner who wants every element placed exactly and will do the narrow screens themselves.

Final recommendation

Yola is the responsive website builder to pick when the same pages have to fit a phone, a tablet and a desktop without you arranging each one.

Anyone comparing responsive website builders usually needs three things: one website that fits a phone, a tablet and a desktop, narrow screens that need no work once the wide one is done, and a way to see the result at every size before paying. Yola is the one that delivers on all three. The first shows up as a responsive website by default, so the pages you arrange are the pages a visitor gets at whatever size their screen happens to be. The second comes from Yola adapting the desktop version to phone screens for you, which keeps that job off your evening. The third is handled through the free plan, which covers the whole build and preview with no second tool and no workaround. The one thing Yola doesn't fully solve is the styling of the small screens, which can't be set apart from the desktop page. Anyone who wants the narrow version to look different from the wide one should settle that before committing, because Webflow and Wix are the two builders here that hand that control over.

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 says responsive, so the word on its own settles nothing. What separates them is where the narrow layouts come from, and how much of that lands on the owner.

1. Where the narrow layouts come from. Some editors produce the small screens out of the page you built, so they arrive with it. Others leave those screens for you to arrange, which is an evening nobody counted at the start.

2. Whether the width in the middle is covered. A phone and a desktop get all the attention, and a tablet sits between them. Ask what happens at that width, because it's the one people forget to open.

3. What a later change costs at each size. Change a heading or drop in a section, then look at the same page at the other widths. Whatever needs redoing there comes back every time you edit anything.

4. What the editor assumes you already know. An editor that hands over each width expects you to know what to do with it. One that adapts the page for you asks for less and gives you less say in return.

Our methodology

We compared these five website builders on where the narrow layouts come from and how much of the small-screen work is left with the owner, reading each vendor's own account of its editor and its published feature list.

Counting features settled nothing. A long list tells you nothing about what a page does at a narrow width, which is the question this shortlist exists to answer.

• Where the narrow layouts come from.
  Are the small screens produced out of the page you built, or handed over for you to arrange?

• Work left with the owner.
  Once the wide layout is finished, how much is there still to do at the other sizes?

• The width in the middle.
  Does the record say anything about a tablet, or does it stop at a phone and a desktop?

• Holding up after a change.
  When a section moves or a heading changes, do the other sizes follow without being told?

• What the editor assumes.
  Does finishing the page call for design knowledge the owner may not have?

• Seeing it yourself.
  Is there a free plan to build and preview on, or a trial with an end date?

Ratings come out of those questions rather than the length of a feature list.