Best Website Builders for UK Businesses in 2026

Wix came out on top as the all-around best website builder in our most recent round of testing, maintaining the top spot for the fourth year in a row. What keeps Wix on top is its versatility. It’s suitable for a wider range of users and businesses, compared with competitors, while still delivering quality features.

Of course, it’s not the only option out there. Squarespace has stayed strong in second place, with better design features than Wix and a lower learning curve, while relative newcomer Hostinger has jumped up to third place, thanks to great improvements in the quality of its designs and its excellent value for money.

Comparison of Top UK Website Builders

Before we get into our detailed review of each website builder, here’s a quick side-by-side comparison of their core features:

1. Wix: Best All-Round Website Builder

Wix came out on top as the all-round best website builder, owing to its versatility and integrated marketing and ecommerce tools. Here’s what you need to know:

• Forever free website builder plan
• AI website builder and drag-and-drop editor suitable for beginners
• 900+ templates, more than any competitor
• Integrated marketing and ecommerce tools

What do we like about Wix?

In the past few years, Wix has focused on developing its artificial intelligence (AI) tools, which have greatly improved its usability and sped up the creative process. For example, Wix has one of the best AI website builders on the market.

What we like about it is that, unlike its key AI rival, Hostinger, Wix’s AI website builder can produce a wide variety of different website designs based on the same prompt.

This variety is also present in Wix’s pre-built templates, should you skip the AI and go for a design. Wix offers a library of over 900 templates, exceeding the industry average of 150 found in competitor platforms. They span a huge number of topics, including some missing from competitors Squarespace and GoDaddy, such as education.

This makes Wix a viable option for any type of business, organisation, or individual looking to create a website.

Circling back to AI tools, we were also impressed by Wix’s use of AI for image generation and editing. Besides Hostinger, Wix is the only website builder on this list to offer an AI image generator, but Wix goes one step further by also letting users use AI to help them remove backgrounds and objects in images.

Another one of Wix’s strong suits is its wide array of built-in tools, especially its marketing and sales features. Besides GoDaddy, Wix is the only website builder on this list to offer built-in logo, email campaign and social post creation tools.

Plus, businesses can start selling products or services from the £16 per month Core plan, as well as integrate sales with online marketplaces, such as Amazon, and social media platforms, such as Facebook.

This is a similar level of ecommerce functionality offered by industry giant Shopify, with the added bonus of Wix’s excellent website design tools, making it a great ecommerce platform for small businesses.

What could be improved about Wix?

One of Wix’s key faults, which unfortunately hasn’t been fixed in years, is that you can’t switch website templates once you’ve published your website, an action all Wix competitors let you make. This means Wix isn’t the best option for indecisive creators or businesses that envision a rebrand in the future.

Additionally, while Wix has certainly made strides to make its platform more user-friendly, some of our testing participants were still overwhelmed by Wix’s dashboard and had trouble navigating more technical sections, such as the search engine optimisation (SEO) dashboard.

For this reason, Wix isn’t the best option for total beginners or non-tech-savvy users, who’ll do better with simpler website builders, such as Hostinger or GoDaddy.

Finally, Wix charges slightly high payment processing fees of 2.1% + £0.20 for businesses that choose to process payments with Wix Payments. Competitor Shopify has a similar starting fee. However, it gets lowered on more expensive plans, whereas Wix’s fee is the same on all its plans.

To get lower fees, you can always process payments through a third-party provider, such as Stripe, since Wix doesn’t charge an additional fee for using another provider to process payments, unlike Shopify.

You can find more details on Wix’s highs and lows in our detailed Wix review, and for a direct comparison with its top rival, see our Wix versus Squarespace review.

Wix pricing

Wix offers a 14-day free trial on its premium plans, with several plans to choose from. Only three of these offer the chance to sell online, so look carefully at the features included in each one. Here’s the full breakdown of Wix’s pricing:

2. Squarespace: Best for Creatives and Service-Based Businesses

Squarespace is our top pick for creatives, businesses in aesthetics-oriented industries and service businesses, thanks to its stunning website designs and excellent built-in booking tools. Here’s what you need to know:

• Mid-tier pricing, ranging from £12 to £79 per month
• Newly-launched AI builder and editor with grid layout for easy design and customisation
• The most attractive website templates on the market
• Advanced booking management tools with built-in Acuity app

What do we like about Squarespace?

Squarespace is a little late to the game when it comes to AI, only launching its AI website builder in late 2024, a full year after Wix. However, we think it was worth the wait.

Squarespace’s AI website builder offers a step-by-step approach, allowing for more creative control over the final product and, unsurprisingly, the websites the AI website builder came up with were very attractive and modern-looking.

Squarespace is known for its aesthetic website designs, and its pre-built template library is full of sleek styles. On top of this, it’s easier to customise a template while still maintaining a cohesive layout on Squarespace, compared with other website builders. Its drag-and-drop editor has a unique grid layout, making it easy to align elements.

Great design isn’t all Squarespace has to offer. It’s got a particularly great set of booking tools, making it a great option for service-based businesses. While rivals Wix and GoDaddy also offer built-in bookings management, Squarespace has specialised scheduling and booking management software that allows for better organisation.

With Squarespace, you’ll get access to its Acuity app, a dedicated scheduling software that allows you to create a customised bookings page, set availability for different staff and across different locations, and send automated reminders to clients, among other features.

And, of course, Squarespace has ecommerce tools, which means clients can pay online and even store card information for next time.

What could be improved about Squarespace?

Squarespace recorded slower load times than competitors like Hostinger in our independent site speed testing, likely due to its reliance on high-resolution imagery.

A slow site speed can be irritating for your customers but also negatively affect your SEO ranking due to a higher drop-off rate from site visitors feeling impatient while the site loads. A rival that performed extremely well in this department is Hostinger, although its designs aren’t as eye-catching as Squarespace’s.

Additionally, although Squarespace has tools for selling online, it doesn’t offer any card machines or POS hardware for selling in person. This isn’t a requirement of a website builder, but competitors Wix, Shopify and even GoDaddy now all offer equipment for selling in person.

Lastly, Squarespace, along with Hostinger, is one of the only website builders on this list that does not offer over-the-phone support. If you want to get live support fast, we recommend Wix or Shopify.

If you need a closer look at what’s included, check out our Squarespace review.

Squarespace pricing

Squarespace’s price plans come with a 14-day free trial, including its two ecommerce plans. Also, don’t forget you can save 10% on Squarespace by using code EM10 at checkout.

3. Hostinger: Best for Creating a Website With AI

Hostinger is the best website builder for creating a site with AI, drafting a complete website in under 30 seconds, largely thanks to improvements in the quality of its AI website builder and AI tools. Here’s what you need to know:

• Cheap plans with a maximum price of £14.95 per month
• AI-focused website builder designed for fast content creation
• Impressive AI blogging tool capable of drafting long pieces
• Fastest site-loading time of any builder we tested

What do we like about Hostinger?

Hostinger only launched its website builder in 2023, making it the newest entry on this list. From the start, the website-building experience was centred around using AI to create a website fast. Hostinger remains one of the fastest ways to build a website, with its AI assistant only requiring two prompts before drafting a website in 30 seconds.

Hostinger’s AI builder now generates modern layouts utilising stock photography, marking a significant improvement over previous versions. The layouts used to look quite dated and were full of strange AI images, whereas now they look more modern and utilise stock images.

Like Wix, Hostinger still gives you the option of generating AI images, and, although the quality of the images has improved, we would still recommend using real pictures.

Hostinger has also improved its AI writer, which is now capable of crafting entire blog articles and multi-paragraph entries. Although we would recommend editing the copy before sending it live (it can be quite bland), there’s no doubt that Hostinger’s AI writer can speed up content creation compared with other builders, such as Wix, whose AI writer can only produce short copy.

It’s also very easy to create a blog with Hostinger’s editor since there’s a dedicated button in the editor’s sidebar menu that, when selected, creates a whole new blogging section filled with blank entries.

On top of that, Hostinger had the fastest site-loading speed of all the website builders we tested, which is good for sites like blogs, that host a lot of content, and also makes Hostinger a great option for users who expect frequent website visitors.

What could be improved about Hostinger?

Hostinger does not have any built-in marketing tools, unlike Wix, GoDaddy, Shopify and Squarespace. On top of this, since it doesn’t have an app market, it’s not possible to make up for this by integrating third-party marketing apps into the website.

Add to this the fact that Hostinger has a 500-product limit on its only ecommerce plan and limited shipping tools (there’s no integration with third-party shipping apps), and it’s not the best option for online sellers looking to grow their ecommerce business. A great alternative is Shopify, which has no product limit and plentiful integrations with marketplaces and shipping apps.

Finally, although Hostinger does have an integrated booking tool, it’s very rudimentary, and the availability calendar was quite glitchy when we tested it. We recommend GoDaddy if you want to build a website fast with AI but need reliable booking management tools.

Read our full review of Hostinger here for more details on its features.

Hostinger pricing

Hostinger only has two website builder plans: the Premium Website Builder plan, designed for creating an informational website, and the Business Website Builder plan, which gives you access to ecommerce features and advanced AI tools.

Pricing changes a lot depending on how long your contract is, but it starts at £1.95 per month:

The way Hostinger displays its pricing on its website is a little confusing because it makes it seem like its two plans only cost £2.49 and £3.29 per month, forever.

In reality, this is a discounted price you’ll get in your first term if you sign up for a long-term contract and pay for the whole term upfront instead of month on month. Still confused? Let’s take a look at the £2.49 per month Premium Website Builder plan.

If you sign up for a four-year contract, you’ll pay £2.49 per month for your first term, which is the first four years. After that, the plan is renewed at a higher price, but it’s still a cheaper price than paying monthly.

Lastly, pay attention to the terms — you’ll actually need to pay the entire fee upfront. That means on a four-year contract, you’ll be paying for four years upfront every time the contract renews.

4. Shopify: Best for Growing an Ecommerce Business

If you need to create a website for your ecommerce business and have plans to grow and expand, Shopify is the best option on the market. Here’s what you need to know:

• Higher price tag reflects scalability, with a $2,300 USD enterprise plan for large businesses
• New AI website builder for quicker setup
• Extensive sales and shipping tools and integrations
• Mobile-optimised websites with the ability to customise the layout

What do we like about Shopify?

If you run an ecommerce website, we strongly recommend Shopify above the other contenders to help your store run smoothly. With over 8,000 apps to choose from in its App Store, Shopify helps create a solid ecommerce ecosystem.

It can manage high volumes of stock, assist in shipping, promote your products and link with review sites to showcase your customers sharing the love about your brand.

Plus, with its newly launched AI website builder (released in late 2024), it’s become easier and faster to create an online store with Shopify. Although the results weren’t as innovative as Wix’s AI website builder, they’re attractive enough to be ready to use. Plus, with the help of Shopify’s AI writing tools, you can speed up product listing by getting it to write descriptions for you.

Shopify is also miles ahead of the competition when it comes to integrating in-person and online sales. It offers fully fledged EPOS software and hardware, earning it a spot on our list of the best EPOS systems, something rival GoDaddy’s basic EPOS system didn’t achieve.

It’s also easy to create a website that’s mobile optimised with Shopify, which is crucial for online retailers since a lot of shopping is done on mobile.

Not only do Shopify websites automatically optimise their layout for mobile, but it’s also the only website builder on this list to also optimise layout for tablets. Plus, it’s possible to edit the mobile and tablet layout so it’s exactly to your liking.

Shopify’s SEO tools help increase the chances of your site getting seen, too. You can easily edit essential SEO elements like page titles, meta descriptions, URLs, and image alt text with the builder, and Shopify automatically generates a clean site structure and sitemap to help search engines crawl your store.

What could be improved about Shopify?

Although the addition of more AI tools has made Shopify easier to use, it’s still not the best option for novice users looking for a simple website. Shopify is designed for running an omnichannel sales business, so its backend is packed full of features, which can be overwhelming.

Plus, while it’s wonderful for sales-focused businesses, Shopify would not be our first choice for those looking to get creative with their website. It works best for those with something to sell, and it’s not as design-focused as it is functionality-focused. For a creative-friendly option, we recommend Squarespace.

Finally, one of Shopify’s biggest downsides is its pricing. It has the highest starting price and the highest maximum price of any website builder on this list. If you’re looking for a cheap way to sell online, you could consider Hostinger, but if you’re serious about ecommerce, Shopify is worth the price.

If you want more information before making your decision, read our full Shopify review, and if you want to know how Shopify stacks up against our top pick, see our Shopify versus Wix article.