Not many people know how to code these days, and only a few are ready to start learning this complicated art. The reason for it is quite obvious: the skill of coding requires a lot of effort, talent and is highly time-consuming. Luckily, with the emergence of website builders, there is no necessity to bother oneself with technical side anymore.
Website creators complete all the difficult work for you and, as a result, you get an awesome website of your own in no time – it will take you only several hours to launch it. But, the problem is what web builder to fall for. This review may help you with making the right choice. We are going to compare three popular platforms to see what they offer their prospective clients.
MotoCMS
MotoCMS is a user-friendly website builder with a lot of up-to-day design features. The interface is clear and comprehensive, so there is no learning curve in working with this platform. The web builder offers the clients many advanced and innovative options. MotoCMS is developing rapidly providing its customers with new tools and templates on regular terms.
Templates
There is an incredible selection of over 400 excellent and professional templates from MotoCMS for different industries. The offers cover all market niches you can imagine. You will be able to find a beautiful template which matches your needs whether you are a small pet shopkeeper or an owner of a big consulting firm.
Editing
MotoCMS offers an amazing selection of ready-to-use pages. There are up to 17 variants of pre-set pages to choose from. The number depends on the template you decide to go with. But for quite traditional pages like Home, Contacts, About, and Galleries, you will find pages for Events, Testimonials, Events, Team, and so on. Besides that, you are free to add as many pages as you wish by clicking Add button. If you need to make a copy of any page or to delete a page, you can do it easily as well. Moreover, you can set any page as your Home page.
When it comes to editing, the best feature MotoCMS offers you is its Block Editor. This is particularly helpful if you want to save time and get a beautiful website since the only thing required from you is to arrange pre-made blocks the way you think most suitable. It is simple because the builder is equipped with drag-and-drop functionality. You can customize each block by changing its setting and adding your information or uploading the images. There is a big library of stock images to help you.
The website builder also provides you with a rich set of high-quality widgets. There are such categories as Structure, Basic, Media, Galleries, Social, Media, Blog Elements, and more. You can drag-and-drop any of them in the necessary place and enjoy using them.
There are a lot of important settings you can use to make your website work more efficiently like General, Update, Analytics, Code Injection, Mail, Integration, and Redirects.
eCommerce
This website building platform has some templates designed to answer all e-commerce needs. With MotoCMS you can build a store by using as many items as you need. You can manage all your orders, work with customers, customize templates up to the smallest detail, change the necessary settings (like taxes, currencies, payments), add images, organize products into categories and catalogs, create discounts and coupons, and so on.
Blog
MotoCMS supplies the clients with excellent blogging tools. To start with, you can edit the template not only for the Blog page but also for the post page. The user gets the possibility to give the post with a name, change its URL, add images and a short description, decide on whether allow comments or not, change the post status and visibility, modify the post SEO, and inject code if necessary.
Support
MotoCMS give reliable 24/7 support to all its clients. You are free to choose the way to contact the team. There are such options as a phone call, live chat, and e-mail. The company offers many tutorials with a lot of pictures. You can also use the knowledge base, watch video tutorials, read free e-books created by the company, and submit a request using the help center.
Pricing
You can try any MotoCMS template for free for 14 days. If you make up your mind to buy it, MotoCMS templates cost from $199 to $229 including free 24/7 support and templates updates for one year.
Weebly
This well-known fast growing brand provides you with everything you need to start a website. Its user-friendly and intuitive interface will make creating your website an easy task. The website builder is equipped with drag-and-drop functionality. Fast speed of loading and a right level of the security against spam and hackers are its positives as well. Moreover, Weebly provides hosting for all its websites. Although Weebly is a little slow with upgrading - new tools appear not that often, only twice a year.
Templates
Weebly offers several categories of themes (Online Store, Business, Portfolio, Personal, Event, and Blog). In each category, there are from 6 to 14 variants to choose from. The great news is that you can change templates without losing your work with one click.
The designs of the templates are not very elaborate. Nevertheless, you have a possibility to change the situation because Weebly gives access to the templates’ HTML / CSS codes. You can customize the design, but a bit of code knowledge is necessary to fulfill this task. If you are a complete newbie, you are limited to changing font style and the color scheme.
Editing
Weebly has over 40 pre-set layouts to choose from when you get started. So, if you don’t have any design talent or you are pressed for time, you can use one of them to make your website look more beautiful. Editing with Weebly is quite simple.
The Build section of the template offers you a toolbar equipped with some basic tools which you drag-and-drop directly into your page. You have the possibility to change main settings (General, SEO). You are also able to invite editors, so more than one person can edit the site.
If you need some tools beyond the ones Weebly provides you with, you are welcome to Weebly Apps Center. You can choose from a great variety of Apps and add them to your website easily. Though, do take into account that not all of them are free.
eCommerce
Weebly also has some really good E-commerce tools. A free version allows you to use only a few of them. To enjoy the convenience of the advanced tools, you must upgrade to one of the paid plans.
Blog
Blogging functionality in the free version is quite primitive. You can share your posts with the help of social sharing buttons and drag-and-drop the content for each post. There is also a possibility to change the commenting system (choosing between Facebook and Disqus) and spam protection. Still, even if you use a paid plan, the tools will be far from perfect. You will be able to choose the date of posting and postpone it if necessary, and that’s it.
Support
Weebly is good at supporting the clients. You can contact the team via e-mail 24/7. If you prefer Live chat, it is available Monday – Friday 6 am – 6 pm PST / Saturday – Sunday 8 pm – 5 pm PST. You can also use the phone to ask for assistance. With Weebly, you have access to the Help Center with online tutorials. There is also a Community Forum where you can get answers to your questions.
Pricing
The Weebly website builder is free to use, but you are supposed to get a paid plan to get advanced features. Each solution fits a different kind of business. There are two types of plans: for websites and for stores.
Webs
Webs has been around since 2001, and its popularity is increasing as more and more people choosing it each year. At the moment there are more than 55 millions websites working online with Webs. The company aims at creating fully functional websites for small businesses. Of course, you may build any type of website with Webs, but the tools are more small businesses oriented. This drag-and-drop platform is quite simple to deal with due to the convenient module system.
Themes
Webs provides its clients with a broad variety of beautiful themes. The range of categories is pretty wide from Arts and Entertainments to Real Estate (around 450 in total).
You have the freedom to customize the theme the way you like by changing fonts, colors, and backgrounds. Within backgrounds, you can choose among Image, Texture, and Patters. You can also change header, body, and footer.
Editing
The web creator provides you with 5 basic pages: Home, About, Photo Gallery, Contacts, and Blog. If you use a free plan, you can’t add more pages. But with one of the paid plans, you get the possibility of creating additional pages to answer your needs.
There are two types of pages you can build: normal pages and specialty pages. With normal pages, you have 6 different layouts to use while starting a new page. Specialty pages are devoted to a specific aim (e.g. forum or guest book) and you can find the one you need at the Apps store.
Several sets of different tools can be used to customize the pages: Popular, Combos, Structure, Media, Social, Commerce, and Other. You are able to apply any widget just by drag-and-dropping it where you want. The module system allows you to add, edit and delete modules (such as pictures, texts, galleries) with several clicks.
eCommerce
To start building your online e-commerce you need to add Web Store directly to your website. The e-commerce tools offered by this web builder allow you to manage item categories and present multiple images of your store items. With paid plans, you can also introduce product search, add custom domain name and inventory tracking. The number of items to feature in the store depends on the plan. With the free plan, there can be only 5 products, but with the Pro Plan, the number of products is unlimited.
Blog
With this platform, a user can type the content, add photos or videos, create necessary links and edit an HTML source. You can also decide who will be allowed to post blog entries and comments. The Webs also gives the possibility to manage blogs by creating and editing blog categories. To publish the post you just need to click the Post new entry button.
Support
If you are using the free plan, you will get support only through the forum discussion. But if you go with one of the paid plans, the situation changes dramatically. The more expensive your plan is the better support you get. The Starter plan gives you the right to have an e-mail support. With the Enhanced plan, you get both e-mail and live chat support. The Pro plan allows you to enjoy the convenience of the phone support alongside with the mentioned above ways of supporting. The knowledge base is very helpful, but those who prefer pictures and videos may be disappointed because of the great amount of the text.
Pricing
You can use Webs for free as long as you are satisfied with the features you are provided with. If you need more, there are 3 paid plans to upgrade to. The Starter plan is aimed at the creation of basic websites, and the Enhanced plan is ideal for businesses. As for the Pro Plan, it answers the needs of online stores.