The Best Website Builders in Australia

Best for versatility

Wix is a high-performing all-rounder with massive creative scope. It strikes the perfect balance between breadth of features and beautiful designs, which likely explains why it’s the most expensive by far.

A panoply of social media, marketing and customer service tools make Wix the most versatile website creator around. Since our last round of testing, Wix’s features score increased by 18% thanks to its improvements in blogging and internationalisation. Yet these mostly run on apps, which can quickly add costs to your build. The best part, however, is no coding skills are needed for such integrations.

With Wix, you’re not restricted to boxy templates (though there are templates) and can choose to place creative elements exactly where you please. On the downside, Wix does not allow you to switch templates once you publish your website, which is a little restrictive. Some of our test users also felt the editor quickly became cluttered and challenging to use.

If all that sounds like too much effort, Wix ADI (artificial design intelligence) will generate a brand new website for you in minutes. All you have to do is answer questions about your website needs. You can even hire a professional web designer right from the platform via the Wix Marketplace – your own builder within a builder!

Wix has endless options for building creative websites that work for you.

Best for ease of use

Squarespace has come on leaps and bounds in terms of user experience, rising 15% in its ease of use rating. Our researchers were impressed by the low-stress build journey with clear guidance visible on the editor dashboard. It’s also a little nicer on your wallet, scoring 5/5 in value for money compared with Wix’s 4/5.

Moreover, Sqaurespace has the best knowledge centre on the market with great visual and video-led tutorials. “I found this way easier to use than Wix and much less overwhelming,” said one test user, “There's so much less reliance on apps which makes it all feel more streamlined.”

So why didn’t it take the top spot this year? Well, simply put, Squarespace’s sites can’t pull off all the tricks that Wix’s can. Its website features are more limited with fewer customisation options than its major competitor. Though what Squarespace does do, it does very well.

Squarespace takes a no-sweat approach to setting up a slick site.

Best for speedy set up

Faster than a greased weasel with his tail on fire, GoDaddy is the speediest builder around. Automatic build tools, such as the ADI function, mean you’re never more than a few clicks away from a ready-to-wear website.

GoDaddy is ‘quick, clean and professional’, in the words of one test user, and we’d have to agree. GoDaddy’s creations have good site speed and are extremely helpful with SEO. It scores 4.3/5 in value for money as well as boasting improved templates and customisation (which jumped by 14% in our ratings since our last research round).

Despite a 12% overall score increase since our previous research, GoDaddy is not as feature-filled as current competitors. There’s no app market, but inbuilt email marketing tools and decent social media integrations will connect you with followers. You can still create great landing pages, but it’s not recommended for building an online community (for instance, there are no password-protected members’ pages).

Design options are a little inflexible; block elements mean you are unable to resize or move image blocks outside of set parameters. We also feel GoDaddy sites tend to look very similar to each other. At the end of the day, it's not the most sophisticated builder, but it gets the job done.

GoDaddy is the quickest connection to your new online base.

Best value for money

Weebly is the best free platform we can recommend. It offers affordable paid plans and a fair few apps to help you grow your business, as well as pretty solid SEO features.

However, limited marketing, social media and content creation options will leave many businesses feeling cold. Thus Weebly is best for portfolio sites and blogs rather than ecommerce platforms.

Since joining forces with Square, Weebly is clearly the junior player and seems to receive fewer platform updates. One user noted: “The help centre was also really out of date.” It suffers from poor mobile formatting and also recorded the worst server response time across our testing.

Its templates are also less impressive than Squarespace’s, but Weebly is still a good option for business owners without technical skill. We reckon (patient) beginners would get along well with it.

Weebly offers superb value for money and can help your business grow online.