Our Zenfolio review delivers all the information, insight, pros and cons you need to make an informed decision on whether this is the right portfolio website builder for you. 

Finding the best website builder for your portfolio is a crucial step in showcasing your work, demonstrating your talent, and getting in front of a new and potentially profitable audience. Which is best for you will depend on several factors ranging from your technical skills to how you want to represent yourself online. 

Zenfolio is one of the best portfolio website builders on the market, offering a host of tools built specifically to help photographers get their work online and grow their photography businesses. 

Our experts have tested the Zenfolio portfolio website builder, assessing areas including ease of use, tools, and features to help you make an informed decision on whether it might be the best option for you. 

Plans and pricing

Zenfolio offers three paid plans with both monthly and annual payment options. There’s also a 14-day free trial that you can use to test the platform and get a feel for its features and tools 

Portfolio plan

At the cheaper end of the spectrum sits the Portfolio plan. This plan includes a great selection of templates, 15GB of photo storage, and the ability to connect your own domain name. 

PortfolioPlus plan

Upgrading to the PortfolioPlus plan and you will have access to everything in the Portfolio plan, along with a more powerful site editor, 150GB of photo storage, and the ability to sell directly from your website. 

ProSuite plan

Finally, the ProSuite plan gives you everything in the PortfolioPlus plan, plus you will gain access to a suite of powerful features designed for professional photographers, including automated client campaigns and an all-in-one booking, invoicing, and payment solution.

Zenfolio features

Zenfolio’s photography portfolio website builder is backed by a suite of advanced features to help you get the most out of your site. Below we list some of the most noteworthy.

When you sign up for a new Zenfolio account, you will have access to a suite of free photography website templates, mobile-friendly themes, a drag-and-drop editor, and more. 

Showcase your work through public galleries to help you gain more clients. Then, you can create custom photo galleries complete with password protection to help you share work with existing clients. Alternatively, set up a simple online store to sell photos, videos, or other content. 

You will also have access to a suite of advanced marketing tools, with a focus on helping you grow your social followings. Integrations are available for all major social media platforms, and there’s even a range of SEO tools to help you increase your organic search traffic. 

Zenfolio also offers BookMe, an advanced tool that automates booking, scheduling, gallery creation, and commerce for professional photographers.

BookMe streamlines and simplifies a photographer’s daily workflow by automating a multitude of functions that traditionally added hours to a photographer’s workday. The BookMe feature comes as standard on the ProSuite plan or can be added at an additional cost to other plans. 

Interface and in use

To get started with Zenfolio, you can either sign up for a premium plan or take advantage of the 14-day free trial. No credit card information is required to begin the free trial, and the only things you need to provide are a name and email address. 

Once you’re signed up, you will be guided through a simple four-step setup process. Here, you will be able to specify the type of site you want, select an initial design, upload a few photos, and add SEO information. 

The website editor itself is quite simplistic, but it does come with enough tools for you to customize your design. Change color schemes, rearrange or re-order design elements, and add your own content for a truly personalized portfolio. 

Finally, there’s an impressive media management area that lets you upload and organize your photos and videos. Create custom galleries on different pages, add password-protected client galleries, and showcase your work for prospective customers. 

Support

Zenfolio offers numerous support services, including live support and a range of self-help resources. Reach out to the customer service team via live chat, online ticket submission, or email, and expect an answer quite quickly.

You can also book a free one-on-one setup session to get connected with a Zenfolio expert who can help you get your site started. 

Or, take advantage of the great range of self-help resources, which include detailed guides, full webinars, and more.

Zenfolio competition

As far as portfolio website builders go, Zenfolio certainly isn’t a bad option. However, there are some alternatives that are certainly worth considering. 

For example, Wix is known as the world’s most powerful website builder. Take advantage of the platform’s power to build a highly functional, personalized portfolio. It’s similarly priced to Zenfolio, and there are numerous add-ons available through the Wix App Market that you can use to add extra portfolio functionality to your site. 

Squarespace is another decent option, particularly for those who value high-quality designs over all else. It’s known for its excellent portfolio templates, highly attractive designs, and impressive editing tools. And while Squarespace certainly isn’t the easiest website builder to use, its section-based editor allows a passable amount of design flexibility. 

Zenfolio review: Summary

At the end of the day, there’s a reason why Zenfolio is one of the world’s top-rated portfolio website builders. It offers an array of tools to help you showcase photo and video content, along with eCommerce features to help you sell your work, a beginner-friendly editor, and more. 

On top of this, Zenfolio is very competitively priced, has great customer support, and boasts a noteworthy media organization portal. 

The bottom line: If you’re looking for an affordable, highly functional portfolio website builder, Zenfolio should certainly be among your top options. 

Our DreamHost review dives into the features, tools, and usability of this popular website builder from one of the top web hosting companies. Offering everything you need to know to decide whether DreamHost is the best website builder for you. 

The DreamHost website builder is widely considered as one of the best WordPress website builders, offering you all the tools you need to build a powerful website, whilst benefiting from the user-friendly WordPress CMS. 

If you are looking for an affordable, easy-to-use website builder DreamHost might just be the one for you. Simply read on to find all the insight and information you need to make an informed decision. 

Dreamhost website builder plans and pricing

Decoding DreamHost pricing

As you can see from the table above DreamHost offers an introductory offer on each of its plans. This offer lasts for as long as the initial term of the plan, such as 1 month on the monthly plan or 12 months on the annual plan. Once this initial term is over your plan will automatically renew at the standard rate. 

We recommend carefully considering which plan is right for you, as simply going for the ‘best deal’ may see you needlessly out of pocket in the future. 

For example, when paid annually the introductory rate for the Shared Starter and Shared Unlimited plans are the same price ($2.95/mo). In this case, the Shared Unlimited plan may seem more appealing, giving you more for the same price. However, if you don’t need the additional tools and functionality, after the introductory rate you will be paying $72 more a year for the extras that you don’t need. 

DreamHost plans explained 

DreamHost’s website builder services come in three flavors. The first one is Shared Starter. It offers DreamHost’s building tools to ease the creation process and will host your site for you. Like the other two options, if you go for one of the yearly plans, DreamHost will give you a domain name of your choice free for the first year.

Shared Unlimited, the next plan up,  allows you to run an unlimited number of websites, as opposed to only one. This is a great deal if you’re planning on creating more than a single site obviously. It also includes an email address. Similar to other plans, the longer you sign up for, the more you save.

Finally, there’s Managed WordPress - which is advertised as offering a “high-performance and hassle-free” service. This is only valid for a single website and offers you unlimited email addresses, making it ideal for large and growing businesses that want a hassle-free website. 

Plus, as long as you pay by card, you will also benefit from a money-back guarantee.

Getting started with DreamHost website builder

Once you’ve chosen your preferred plan, and after having made your first payment, you’ll be taken to your account’s dashboard (you don’t need to choose a domain name right away if you’re not sure what to get - DreamHost will give you a temporary one until you’re ready). It will take a few minutes for everything to be finalised (way longer than some other competing services, but any excuse to walk away from your computer and take a break, eh?).

When you’re ready to carry on, you’ll start the creation process by clicking on ‘Open Website Editor’ from the Home page. This is where you’ll get to select a template you’d like to work with. There are hundreds available, broken down by category such as General, Photography, or Real Estate.  Clicking on one brings up a bigger thumbnail image to give you a rough idea of what to expect. If you’re happy with the style, click on ‘Select’.

In an unusual step, you’re then asked to further define what you’d like to create: either a ‘Base’ template, ‘Five Page’, or ‘Kitchen Sink’. The more you add, the more complex your template becomes, but it also makes it easier for you to replace the placeholder text and images with your own content without you having to do anything else. If you want a blog, don’t forget to tick its box.

This section offers you greater preview options. You can click on links, and check how the site would look like on various devices.

DreamHost website builder WordPress alterations

The next step takes you to the traditional WordPress interface, and if you have experience with it, then you’ll absolutely feel right at home. Hit the customiser though, and that’s where DreamHost’s own interface kicks in. It’s based around blocks, which you can drag to reorder them on the page, remove them, and insert new ones.

You can’t drag any objects anywhere on the page though, but you have some control over the layout, like moving columns around, and increasing the border between specific blocks, for instance.

When it comes to text editing, the options are quite extensive and go beyond what you’d expect from the traditional WordPress interface, with all controls easily accessible from a floating window.

DreamHost website builder blogging

As DreamHost piggybacks off of WordPress, you gain access to that platform’s excellent blogging experience, which includes comments, categories, tags, scheduling, video embedding, you name it, it’s got it. But as a big plus if you’re into layout customisation, all the options offered to you in the page layout can be used just as well when blogging. There’s even an ‘easy SEO’ section to help you get used to creating search engine-friendly posts.

DreamHost website builder support

If you get lost, getting help is always top right of DreamHost’s Web Panel. The knowledge base is filled with well written and clearly illustrated articles which makes it a cinch to find a solution to most tasks. However, if you need more in-depth advice, there’s a ‘contact support’ at the bottom of each of these pages. The system will insist on finding an answer in the knowledge base, but after a couple of tries you can chat to a technical adviser, or submit a ticket for someone to get back to you at a later date.

The refunding side of things is pretty much as effortless as you’d wish it to be. No need to contact anyone by email or via an online text-based chat, or worse still by forcing you to talk to someone by phone to beg to have your money back. DreamHost does it all via their account closure system. After just a few clicks, you account is closed and any refund is automatically processed. Can’t really do better to be frank.

DreamHost website builder review: Summary

DreamHost offers an excellent website building service. Built on top of WordPress, which is one of the most popular platforms out there, their block-based system makes creating and customising a site quick and easy. Shame about the lack of image editing tools.

In our Network Solutions website builder review, we give you all the information, insight, pros, and cons you need to understand whether this is the best website builder for you.

With Network Solutions you can easily build a website on your own, with any knowledge of coding. Alternatively, if you want a professional at hand you can sign up for the professional website design service. This is a great option if you don’t feel ready to build a website by yourself. Using such assistance will save you time and energy. 

If you already have a registered domain somewhere else, Network Solutions includes options for domain transfer. All you need to do is enter your domain name on the main website, complete your purchase, then authorise the transfer.Or if you’re trying to transfer your domain to a new registrar to save money, then Network Solutions likely has a more affordable option. 

Our experts have put the Network Solutions website builder through its paces. Read on to discover what this website builder has to offer. 

Network Solutions website builder pricing and plans

When it comes to website builder services, Network Solutions offers you three plans. They all come with an introductory price for the first month. But if you want to find out how much you will be paying after this period, you have to add the plan to your cart. This isn’t the most transparent approach, and price increases are significant.

The first plan, just called ‘Website’ will cost you $2.95 for the first month, jumping up to $11.94/mo if you pay annually. This comes with a free domain name for the first year (you’re also able to use one you already own), and access to over 150 templates so you don’t have to start creating a site from scratch.

The next plan, ‘Marketing’ offers the same as the ‘Website’ plan, but also adds ‘Local Search’ that submits your business listing to over 100 local online directories and search engines. It costs $3.95 for the first month, but will cost you $19.63/mo after that if you pay annually. 

The third plan ‘Ecommerce’ costs $4.95 (although it is also confusingly advertised at $74.80) for the first month and is a little tricky to understand. 

It appears to come with the same website features as the ‘Website’ package, but this will cost you more ($28.53/mo, when paid annually). You may assume that it costs more because it allows you to sell online. But you actually need to pay extra ($16.58/mo paid annually) in order to sell up to 25 products, get 1GB disk space, and 5GB data transfer. This package also adds the ‘Local Search’ extra on top ($7.68/mo when paid annually). Plus, a set-up fee of $49 is added, although it isn’t clear what this covers. All in, you will pay a total of $682.59 ($56.88/mo) for your first year when paid annually. 

Considering that the ecommerce plan only allows you to sell a measly 25 products (although also advertised elsewhere at 500 products) and costs a significant amount, you would likely be better off going with a cheaper and more powerful alternative such as Shopify that starts at $29/mo, BigCommerce that starts at $39/mo, or Square Online that offers a free plan.

Network Solutions website builder interface

The interface is one of the drawbacks to Network Solutions. Unlike other website builders, like Yahoo, GoDaddy, or Zyro, the interface looks more outdated which might make someone question their templates and services.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to find out how you can view the templates available on their website. You have to go to “renew services” in order to even see what the template packages are. There also isn’t an obvious list of features on their main website which makes them harder to find. 

Network Solutions website builder features

The best feature about Network Solutions is how it gets the job done. You can build your own website easily once you get started and there are plenty of drag-and-drop options to help you save time. Everything is straightforward in terms of actually creating your website. However, when it comes to viewing the features, Network Solutions could make some improvements. The design of the interface is the hardest part to navigate. There’s not a clear list of features that’s easy to access. Similar to how templates are hidden, you need to go to the “renew services” tab in order to find a list of service features. 

Network Solutions website builder alternatives

Network Solutions offers add-ons like CodeGuard and SiteLock that not all competitors provide. GoDaddy, Bluehost, and SiteGround are slightly different from Network Solutions. If you want to build an affordable website and get it up and running quickly, then Network Solutions is a good option. However, if you’re more concerned with how your website looks, then you might want to choose something with a more updated interface.

Network Solutions website builder review: Summary

Network Solutions is a more affordable website builder designed to get the job done quickly. If you’d rather not build everything by yourself, you can always use their professional website design service.

Overall, Network Solutions is a great place to save money on web hosting, especially if you’re looking to transfer your domain name. They provide a variety of services and make building your website simple. You can easily host your website on the cloud or on WordPress. Since you can easily change plans, you can always start with something smaller and build your way up as your website grows.

Our main concern though lies with their terms of services, their lack of transparency about their non-introductory prices, and a deliberately complex way of requesting a refund. All this leads us to wonder just how easy it would actually be for you to cancel your agreement with them, while retaining your data and domain name.

Bandzoogle is a website builder with a difference. Unlike the majority of the best website builders on the market, which are built for a wide range of users, Bandzoogle was created specifically to help musicians get themselves and their music online. 

The platform includes many features that make it easy to showcase your talents, with professional-looking templates designed for artists, along with an easy set up process, including font and colour options, giving users the ability to create a truly unique online presence.

Bandzoogle also allows users to make unlimited sales without charging any commission, which is great for musicians who anticipate making large sales in the future. So if you’re looking for the best website builder for musicians, Bandzoogle is certainly worth considering. 

Bandzoogle pricing and plans

It’s unfortunate that Bandzoogle doesn’t include a pared down free plan you can use for an unlimited time, so if you want to give it a shot, you’ll have to sign up for the 30 day free trial (on the plus side, no credit card details are needed - just your email address and a password, and you’re good to go). You’ll still have the opportunity to cancel your trial at any time, should you decide it’s not the right platform for you. 

Bandzoogle has 4 plans available: EPK, Lite, Standard, and Pro. They can all be tried free for 30 days. You have the option of paying annually or monthly - forking out the lump sum each year essentially gets you two months free.

EPK (Electronic Press Kit) plan

EPK (Electronic Press Kit) is the most basic plan and it is still in beta. This provides you with the ability to create a single page press kit. It comes with hosting and all the basic tools you need such as a music player, tour calendar, contact form, and support. 

Lite plan

The Lite plan is the next up and unlocks the ability to create full websites with up to 10 pages, 10 tracks, and 100 photos. It also adds on the EPK plan with some promotional tools, ability to sell music, and visitor analytics. 

Standard plan 

Step up again to the Standard plan and you get everything from the Lite plan plus an additional 10 pages (20 total), 40 tracks (50 total), and 400 photos (500 total). You also get the ability to sell merchandise through your store. 

Pro plan

The final ‘Pro’ is a great option for serious musicians. You get everything from the standard plan, but now you have unlimited pages, tracks, and photos. Advanced selling and analytical tools are also included alongside the added ability to sell tickets to your shows. 

Getting started with Bandzoogle

Once you start the free trial, you’ll immediately have access to all of the pre-designed themes. Browse through them, check their large previews, and select the one that best reflects your band and its style (they’re broken down into categories such as Rock, Classical, Urban, etc to help narrow down your search).

During the creation process, you can add your own header image and band logo if you have one, but there’s no pressure: you can add this at any time later on. The same applies for all other initial steps: you can skip them all (adding content, setting up a blog, creating a photo gallery, etc), and insert them at a later time.

Bandzoogle features

Populating your website with content is a very straightforward affair. Click on ‘Add a section’ to choose from the list of options displayed during the creation process.

You have the ability to add as many sections as you need, across multiple pages, thereby creating an enticing resource for your fans, and if you have experience of other more traditional website builders, you’ll find Bandzoogle very easy to get to grips with.

Even the blog section offers all the basics you’d expect, including categories, comments, and being able to schedule your posts.

Unsurprisingly, the features that stand out the most are options for selling music, merchandise, and tickets. Everything you need as an artist is easily available, so if you’re looking for a template that’s ready to go, you can customise the colours, fonts, and photos to create a website that highlights your style. SEO options are generated automatically from the content on your page, making it easy for Google to pick up the right keywords. 

Bandzoogle competition

The largest competitors to Bandzoogle are Wix, Bandvista, and Mymusicstream. Bandvista has very similar pricing to Bandzoogle, and also doesn’t include a free plan. Bandvista also includes a music player and options to sell merchandise, but its templates aren’t quite as professional looking and modern as Bandzoogle's. 

Is Bandzoogle right for you? Summary

Bandzoogle is a great website builder for anyone in the music industry who wants to sell albums, merch, and tickets to shows on a personalised website.

Instead of building your website from scratch, this easy to customise web host makes building a website a breeze. You won’t need to spend time learning HTML or other programming languages. All of the templates are creative and built for music-enthusiasts. It’s also easy to transfer your domain over to Bandzoogle if you already own one. Bandzoogle promises fast page loading, so music fans won’t get stuck while waiting to download a soundtrack. Because it’s music-specific, the built-in SEO will help Google recognise key terms from your website, making it easier for people to find your band online. 

Overall, Bandzoogle is a helpful tool for anyone in the music industry looking to create their own website. 

Moonfruit is a popular website builder service, whose options are a little more basic than some of the competition, with the company offering only a small number of responsive templates. Still, these can be customised by tweaking individual details or dragging and dropping full content blocks. Your pages can include image galleries, forms, maps, social feeds, embedded videos and more.

Moonfruit's Basic plan gets you a single site with 500MB of storage, unlimited pages, but no specific bandwidth limits. Even though it costs £6.38 ($9.59) a month, this still includes Moonfruit branding.

Moonfruit's Professional plan loses the ads, thankfully. It supports up to five sites, a maximum of 10GB storage, and gives you a free domain voucher. As we write, the Professional plan looks to be good value at £5.39 ($6.99) a month, but this is a "limited offer". Normally it's a more average £10.79 ($13.99). It must be noted however that this “limited offer” has been available for nearly three years as far as we can tell.

• Interested in Moonfruit? Check out the website here

Back in January 2018, two further plans, Ecommerce Lite and Ecommerce Pro, were listed as "coming soon". Neither of these are present since at least January 2020.

Moonfruit offers a free 14-day trial, and even if you sign up after that, the company says it will refund your money if you cancel within 14 days. This isn't automatic – you must ask the support team via live chat – and if you've registered a domain through the plan, that cost will be deducted. But overall, the Moonfruit policy is much like any other, and you should have no difficulty getting a refund, if you need one.

• Also check out our roundup of the best website builder software.

Getting started

Creating your Moonfruit account is easy, and works much like most other services: enter your email, a username and password, or sign up directly using your Facebook or Google accounts. Follow up by choosing your preferred Moonfruit subdomain (yourname.moonfruit.com) and once you’ve verified your email address, you're taken directly to the editor, which almost looks like a blank page.

There’s a section for the Header, one for the Footer, and a middle section to design your page. But where are all the elements you need to start building? If you're hoping for an instant site you can modify and use right away, there's a good chance you'll be disappointed.

There’s a sidebar to the left which reveals options to add more pages to your site, insert new sections to an existing page, and an upload feature to include files to your site.

In the Settings section, you can add a favicon (the small icon that represents your site in a browser tab), and images that would appear on Facebook when your site is shared there. There are also built-in options to connect your site with Google Analytics and Google Search Console, potentially giving you much more information about your website and its visibility on Google.

Editor

The closest to templates we could find were in the sidebar’s ‘Sections’. From there you’re offered a long list of thumbnails. Being tiny, they’re not that easy to see and don’t even zoom in when you click on one to offer you a better idea of what you’re choosing.

There are eye-catching Hero sections (an important element to highlight a key feature of the site), page bodies in various styles, navigation tools, and layout sections which organise your content in various column formats.

Drag one you like to the main section of your blank site. It’s then ready for you to customise.

Some website builders impress you immediately with their flashy visuals and depth of features. Moonfruit, well – not so much. We’ve already explored the left sidebar, but now that you’ve added a template to your page, clicking on any element reveals a contextual menu on the right, as well as a few buttons at the top of your selected element.

These buttons are there for quick edits and shortcuts: Copy, Duplicate, Delete, and a Help button which opens the support page for that object type. There are undo and redo buttons top right of the page, and you can save the project whenever you like.

The contextual menu on the right changes its options depending on what’s selected. Click on a text box for instance and you get Text, Position, Background, Links, Outline, and Animation. Select an image instead, and those are replaced by Link, Settings, Position and Animation.

Clicking on any of these menus reveals the parameters that can be changed. We particularly liked the Animation options as they give your page a bit of visual flair which can be fun.

Prior to adding a template to your page, the left Sidebar’s Elements section was greyed out. But now, you can select it and see all options available to you.

You’re able to drag new objects to your page via that menu: text, images, galleries, buttons, video (YouTube, Vimeo), music (Spotify, SoundCloud), Google services (Maps, Search, Calendar), social media elements (Facebook pages, comments and likes, Twitter feeds, Instagram, Pinterest and more), and a good range of form-related services that includes Wufoo, Google Forms and Moonfruit's own form objects.

Some basic edits are still very straightforward. Not happy with that button caption? Double-click it, type a new one, press Enter. You can edit the contents of text boxes in much the same way, including changing text styles and colours, inserting lists and adding links.

Moonfruit limits the customisations you can apply to many page objects. You can't manually resize, or drag-and-drop a button, for instance. The most you can do is set it to align to the left, right or centre of the page, and to size it automatically, or to set the width to a percentage of the page.

But on the plus side, the editor does have many integrated ways to tweak each object. Even a simple button allows customising text style, size, colour, hover colour, button shape, border style, link type and destination (new or same window).

Whatever changes you make can be previewed at any time in desktop, tablet or mobile views. 

Media

Moonfruit's media handling abilities are much like the rest of the service – they cover the basics, but don't have quite the power or customisation options you're likely to want.

Add a single image, for instance, and you can't precisely resize or position it. Image editing features are restricted to settings for brightness, contrast and saturation. Even those are only available in limited 25% increments from 0% to 200%, 

An Image Gallery control supports filmstrip, gallery and slideshow views. There are a few tweaks – enable or disable autoplay, set various arrow styles – but nothing to set your design world alight.

Video support is limited to embedding single YouTube or Vimeo clips. There's no video wall or anything more complex, although we did find one interesting option in the menus: you can set the background of any element to a stock or YouTube video.

Audio support is a little more capable, with the ability to embed Spotify playlists or SoundCloud content.

Bonus options include the ability to embed Instagram and Pinterest content, as well as PhotoSnack slideshows, and an HTML Snippet option may allow you to use content from some other sites.

While this will cover simple websites, other builders give you much more. Moonfruit does provide a decent file manager for managing your content. Upload website images and you can organise them into folders, view them as grids or lists, and sort your media by name, size, or age (the newest first, or oldest). Files can then be added directly to images boxes or galleries without having to re-upload them every time.

Blogging and e-commerce

Moonfruit doesn’t offer any type of blogging features. There is an Element designed to integrate a WordPress.com blog though. Essentially, you must create and manage your blog on WordPress.com (which you can do for free), and the Moonfruit widget simply displays the URL of that blog in a box on your site.

This approach works in the most basic of ways, but it doesn't look great, and not being able to manage the blog and website together could make your life more complicated. Even something as basic as coordinating the images and colour schemes of both sites will take some time and thought.

Moonfruit also has no e-commerce solution. Not even a PayPal button.

Support

Moonfruit provides a web knowledgebase where you can search for details on any part of the service. It's always accessible from a Help icon within the editor, or you can browse it at any time from help.moonfruit.com.

We moved on to explore Moonfruit's knowledgebase, anyway. This has a reasonable number of articles, but they're generally short and lacking in detail.

Confusingly, the knowledgebase covers the same topics for both Moonfruit's old editor and the new one, so most keywords will return a lot of articles that won't help you. Worse still, the site doesn't clearly explain which is which, beginning some titles with 'V6', others with 'Responsive Editor', and hoping users will guess correctly.

('Responsive Editor' is the latest of the two, and yes, that would have been our first guess, too. But we shouldn't have to guess at all, and at the very least, all V6 articles should now have a top line explaining that they refer to the old editor, not the current one, making it clear to everyone what's going on.)

It can be confusing since the older ‘V6’ editor had blogging features, and even years after upgrading to ‘responsive’, those instructions are still there even though blogging is no longer supported. Talk about confusing your customers.

Final verdict

Moonfruit is a basic website builder which currently lags well behind the competition in terms of power, features, ease of use, support, visual appeal and just about everything else.

• We've featured the best small business website builder

You might also want to check out our other web hosting buying guides:

• WordPress
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• Best website hosting

Better known for its other services, you may be surprised to learn that GoDaddy also offers one of the best website builders on the market. 

GoDaddy’s website builder boasts a simple to use interface and reasonably priced packages. In fact, it even offers one of the best free website builder plans. So, if you already use GoDaddy for your web hosting or as your domain registrar, or if you are just looking for a great stand alone option, its website builder is well worth considering.

Our expert reviewers have gotten hands on with the GoDaddy website builder, including all the features and tools it has to offer. Now we have created this review to give you all the information and insight you need to make an informed decision on whether GoDaddy is the right website builder for you. 

Getting started with GoDaddy website builder

After having answered a handful of simple questions, GoDaddy creates a few sample pages for you, which can all be seen in the sidebar to the right.

The interface is very simple to use and understand: to edit a page, simply mouse over a section. As it highlights, click on it. The tools you need either appear in the sidebar, or hover near the highlighted section itself. This makes it one of the easiest website builder platforms around, and provides the tools you’ll need to quickly build your website.

There are chevrons to reorder your pages’ sections, and a big plus between sections to add another. You’re offered a list of different types of sections to add to your page, such as Introduction, Photo Gallery or Livestream, with most offering you various layouts to choose from.

Adding a gallery is a very easy affair: choose it from the ‘Sections’ menu, select the look you prefer, and GoDaddy automatically populates it with stock media based on the business description you typed in when you first set up your site.

Obviously you can customise this, either by adding your own photos or choosing different stock images. Each one can be individually captioned. The only image processing you have at your disposal is to set photos to black and white, and crop them. If you need to edit them more extensively, this has to be done outside of this service.

It’s basic, but is works and it looks good.

The ‘+’ top right of the Sidebar not only allows you to create new pages for your site (there doesn’t appear to be a limit to how many you can have), you’re also given a choice how the information is presented in the navigation menu, and even have the ability to add a URL or even create a drop down menu.

Placing links to pages in the Footer is another option, and so it making a page private - this means that only specific people which you invite can see those pages.

Blogging on GoDaddy website builder

The blogging section is quite nice, and if your needs are simple, you’ll be very happy with this feature.

Everything you need to create a blog is right there: adding headings, URLs, bold, italicise, bullet points or numbered list, you’ve got it.

We quite liked the fact you can add images within your post and even choose how to align them - to the left or right of a paragraph, or on its own. You also have the option to add a caption and crop the image (by zooming into it). Sadly there doesn’t appear to be a way to resize the image so it sits better within your page.

Videos can also be inserted just as easily. You can upload them just as you would an image, or paste the video’s URL (this works for most sites we tried).

Once written, you have the option to publish your post immediately, or schedule it, which isn’t something we see in many free website builder plans.

Ecommerce features on GoDaddy website builder

Activating the Shopping section is done differently than any other, by clicking on its button, bottom of the sidebar. For such a complex addition to any site, it looks pretty simple to use. If you’ve got a Square account, you can import your inventory from there, which would be an excellent time saver. CSV files are also supported.

Adding a new product manually is very straightforward, be it physical or digital. There’s a place for photos and videos, a description, category, inventory, variations, shipping cost, and even additional extras like engraving or gift wrapping.

When it comes to accepting payments, GoDaddy offers you three options: PayPal, Stripe or Square, with very clear descriptions as to which service offers what. PayPal is selected by default when you create a store. There’s also an ‘offline payment’ option (cash/check/bank transfers), should you prefer.

GoDaddy website builder appointment features

There’s a very clever feature to GoDaddy’s Website Builder and that’s Appointments. This allows you to set up and schedule client meetings, one-off classes and recurring courses. Everything can be done online, even payment.

Clients are sent email reminders automatically, and you can set up when you’d like those reminders to be sent. Additionally, text messages can also be used - but this feature could incur a cost.

GoDaddy website builder publishing

When it’s time to publish, your free options continue since GoDaddy will host your site for you and give you a [yourbusinessname].godaddysites.com URL. If you want to connect your site to a specific domain name however, you have to pay for the privilege.

GoDaddy website builder pricing and plans

Note: If you pay for 1, 2, or 3 years upfront GoDaddy offers a discount that lasts for the duration of the period you have signed up for. This saving, along with the renewal rate (once the initial sign up period is over) are illustrated below.

GoDaddy allows you to explore its website building service free for 30 days. When you’re ready to upgrade, four plans are open to you:

The first one is called ‘Basic’. This plan includes all the basic website features you would expect such as an SSL certificate, ability to connect a custom domain, and access to customer support. You also get other benefits including up to 100 email marketing sends a month, 5 social posts, 1 social media platform support, and free professional email (for one year). 

‘Standard’ provides more flexibility and space to grow your website, offering increased limits for email and social media, as well as built-in SEO options.

‘Premium’ supports unlimited social media platforms and posts, as well as up to 25,000 email sends a month. There are also additional features, such as recurring appointments, one-time group events, payments for appointments, as well as reminders. 

Finally, ‘Ecommerce’ expands on the above by offering a range of ecommerce features, such as product listings, flexible payments and shipping, promotional features, as well as marketplace selling.

GoDaddy website builder review: Summary

If you’re on the lookout of a service that allows you the flexibility and creativity to design your own web presence, with a flexible layout that will look good on any screen, you should definitely take a look at GoDaddy’s web builder offering.

• We've featured the best small business website builder

Strikingly is an unusual competitor when it comes to the best website builder platforms. Unlike most, Strikingly targets those who are looking for a powerful single-page website builder. This means the tools on offer are specialized to these types of websites. 

However, within the realms of single page websites, Strikingly provides a surprising broad range of features and tools such as image galleries, blogs, custom forms, even a simple web store (with no transaction fees). There are many useful supporting features, too: responsive templates, video backgrounds, password protection, social media feed integration, and more.

Plans are competitively priced and the platform even offers one of the best free website builder plans on the market. 

Our experts have taken the time to test the features, tools, and ease of use of Strikingly. Now we have created this guide, highlighting our findings and giving you all the information you need to decide whether Strikingly is the right website builder for you. 

Strikingly plans and pricing

Strikingly has three main plans on their website. Because of the organized interface, it’s really easy to find prices. Each plan is cheaper if you sign up for the annual plan. Strikingly does offer a free plan so you can test out the website builder before pulling out your credit card. Here’s a summary of the paid plans: 

The Limited plan includes your own domain name, 50 GB of bandwidth, and 1 GB of storage per website (up to 2). This plan is great for entrepreneurs or small business owners who want to get their ideas or products online. 

The Pro plan includes up to three pro sites and unlimited bandwidth. You’ll also have 20 GB of storage and access to all the pro features like pop-ups, HTML, and JavaScript. 

The VIP plan includes everything in the Pro version except a lot more storage - up to 100 GB. You can include multiple members with this plan to help manage your site. 

If you want a custom email address for your website (e.g. example@yourwebsite.com) you will need to pay an extra $25/year on top of plan options. 

Strikingly interface

The interface is very easy to navigate. There are also a few apps to integrate your site with other services. These don't offer anything like the range of services seen in Wix and Weebly, but they cover many of the basics: Google Maps, SoundCloud, Google Calendar, PayPal, Wufoo forms, Ecwid stores, Facebook and Disqus comments, and a general Embed box for adding tweets, Giphys, and more.

The settings dialog reveals some interesting advanced tweaks. Pro account holders can define custom actions which might be visible to users on a mobile device (calling, texting, finding directions). You're able to use a custom Favicon (the icon for your site in a browser tab), and set the icon used when your site is shared on social media. A collaboration feature allows inviting colleagues or friends to help develop the site. Everyone gets their own login, which means there's no need to share your password with others.

Strikingly features

The Strikingly editor groups most of its controls and options in a well-designed sidebar. A navigation map shows you the content sections in the current page. You can reorder them, delete them, and add new elements. You can adjust site-level details including fonts, colors and animations.

The right-hand side of the screen is reserved for a view of the current page. The editor overlays some buttons on this, allowing you to change layouts, provide a new background (including video support), and more. But otherwise the page looks much as it will in your browser, and a few elements work in the same way (clicking the menu buttons will scroll to their page sections).

Editing in Strikingly is more about working with prebuilt components than going your own way. For example, one section in our template contained two images, the first with text to the right, and the other underneath with text to the left. The editor allowed us to replace and edit the images, enter and reformat text, customize the layout (alignment, whether we preferred columns or rows, should the media be on the left or right) and more. But we couldn't add a new element which didn't fit the section format, like a button, or tweak existing elements by resizing or dragging them.

Strikingly alternatives

There are many website builders out there - Wix, Squarespace, and Jimdo are just a few. What makes Strikingly different is how it automatically saves your work. Whatever you add or tweak, Strikingly does a good job of protecting you from accidents and mistakes. This ensures that whatever happens, you'll never lose too much if something goes wrong. And even after saving, you can keep tapping Undo to reverse all your recent changes.

Site previews are another highlight. Buttons to preview your work in desktop, phone and tablet views enable you to check that your pages work across all devices. Another option allows viewing the live site, which means if you've noticed a problem and gone back to the editor to change something, you can view the results immediately. It's a thoughtful touch which will save you time and hassle when tuning your website.

Strikingly review: Summary

The Strikingly website builder isn't as powerful or customizable as the top competition, but it's very user-friendly. You might even say it notices the things you need to add to your website. With Strikingly, you can easily build a good-looking site that’s complete with a blog. You can set everything up within a few minutes. If simplicity is key, add Strikingly to your shortlist.

Strikingly is an unusual competitor when it comes to the best website builder platforms. Unlike most, Strikingly targets those who are looking for a powerful single-page website builder. This means the tools on offer are specialized to these types of websites. 

However, within the realms of single page websites, Strikingly provides a surprising broad range of features and tools such as image galleries, blogs, custom forms, even a simple web store (with no transaction fees). There are many useful supporting features, too: responsive templates, video backgrounds, password protection, social media feed integration, and more.

Plans are competitively priced and the platform even offers one of the best free website builder plans on the market. 

Our experts have taken the time to test the features, tools, and ease of use of Strikingly. Now we have created this guide, highlighting our findings and giving you all the information you need to decide whether Strikingly is the right website builder for you. 

Strikingly plans and pricing

Strikingly has three main plans on their website. Because of the organized interface, it’s really easy to find prices. Each plan is cheaper if you sign up for the annual plan. Strikingly does offer a free plan so you can test out the website builder before pulling out your credit card. Here’s a summary of the paid plans: 

The Limited plan includes your own domain name, 50 GB of bandwidth, and 1 GB of storage per website (up to 2). This plan is great for entrepreneurs or small business owners who want to get their ideas or products online. 

The Pro plan includes up to three pro sites and unlimited bandwidth. You’ll also have 20 GB of storage and access to all the pro features like pop-ups, HTML, and JavaScript. 

The VIP plan includes everything in the Pro version except a lot more storage - up to 100 GB. You can include multiple members with this plan to help manage your site. 

If you want a custom email address for your website (e.g. example@yourwebsite.com) you will need to pay an extra $25/year on top of plan options. 

Strikingly interface

The interface is very easy to navigate. There are also a few apps to integrate your site with other services. These don't offer anything like the range of services seen in Wix and Weebly, but they cover many of the basics: Google Maps, SoundCloud, Google Calendar, PayPal, Wufoo forms, Ecwid stores, Facebook and Disqus comments, and a general Embed box for adding tweets, Giphys, and more.

The settings dialog reveals some interesting advanced tweaks. Pro account holders can define custom actions which might be visible to users on a mobile device (calling, texting, finding directions). You're able to use a custom Favicon (the icon for your site in a browser tab), and set the icon used when your site is shared on social media. A collaboration feature allows inviting colleagues or friends to help develop the site. Everyone gets their own login, which means there's no need to share your password with others.

Strikingly features

The Strikingly editor groups most of its controls and options in a well-designed sidebar. A navigation map shows you the content sections in the current page. You can reorder them, delete them, and add new elements. You can adjust site-level details including fonts, colors and animations.

The right-hand side of the screen is reserved for a view of the current page. The editor overlays some buttons on this, allowing you to change layouts, provide a new background (including video support), and more. But otherwise the page looks much as it will in your browser, and a few elements work in the same way (clicking the menu buttons will scroll to their page sections).

Editing in Strikingly is more about working with prebuilt components than going your own way. For example, one section in our template contained two images, the first with text to the right, and the other underneath with text to the left. The editor allowed us to replace and edit the images, enter and reformat text, customize the layout (alignment, whether we preferred columns or rows, should the media be on the left or right) and more. But we couldn't add a new element which didn't fit the section format, like a button, or tweak existing elements by resizing or dragging them.

Strikingly alternatives

There are many website builders out there - Wix, Squarespace, and Jimdo are just a few. What makes Strikingly different is how it automatically saves your work. Whatever you add or tweak, Strikingly does a good job of protecting you from accidents and mistakes. This ensures that whatever happens, you'll never lose too much if something goes wrong. And even after saving, you can keep tapping Undo to reverse all your recent changes.

Site previews are another highlight. Buttons to preview your work in desktop, phone and tablet views enable you to check that your pages work across all devices. Another option allows viewing the live site, which means if you've noticed a problem and gone back to the editor to change something, you can view the results immediately. It's a thoughtful touch which will save you time and hassle when tuning your website.

Strikingly review: Summary

The Strikingly website builder isn't as powerful or customizable as the top competition, but it's very user-friendly. You might even say it notices the things you need to add to your website. With Strikingly, you can easily build a good-looking site that’s complete with a blog. You can set everything up within a few minutes. If simplicity is key, add Strikingly to your shortlist.

Webflow is arguably one of the best website builders for those who want to maintain code-level control over their website - without having to actually write any code. 

This makes Webflow one of the best website builders for agencies and freelancers, allowing users to create highly bespoke sites with practically boundless possibilities. Ideal for building clients' websites tailored specifically to their needs. 

Webflow also offers users access to countless helpful resources. So even if you don't currently have the knowledge and experience you need to use their powerful tools, it isn’t hard to learn everything you need to know. 

So, if you think one of the most flexible website builders might be right for you, read on to discover everything Webflow has to offer. 

Plans and pricing

When you start using Webflow, you’ll have the option to choose between site plans and workspace plans. Site plans are for personal websites, blogs, and small businesses. Within site plans you will have access to both general site options and ecommerce options. Account plans are targeted more towards professionals, making them ideal for agencies and freelancers. 

The Starter plan is their entry level option and is totally free. It includes everything you need to try Webflow. There’s no credit card required for setup and you can use it for an unlimited time. It includes access to a Webflow.io domain, 50 CMS items, and 50 form submissions. 

The Basic plan costs $14.00 per month when you pay annually or $18.00 billed monthly. This gives you everything from the paid plan, plus extra site pages (150) and an allowance of 250K visitors. The CMS plan costs $23 monthly (paid annually) or $28 paid monthly, for this you get 3 website editors, site search, and 250GB of bandwidth. 

The Business plan costs $39.00 per month when paid annually ($49 paid monthly). It includes everything in the CMS plan, plus extra bandwidth (400GB), extra editors (10), and form file upload. For anything above and beyond the Business plan you can contact Webflow for a bespoke package. 

When it comes to ecommerce there are 3 options to choose from. Standard at $29/mo (paid annually) or $49/mo (paid monthly). This comes with 500 ecommerce items, 2000 CMS items, a 2% transaction fee, and all the features of the CMS plan.

Plus is $74/mo (paid annually) or $84/mo (paid monthly). You get 5000 ecommerce items, 10,000 CMS items, and no transaction fee (plus everything from the Business plan). Advanced is $212/mo (paid annually) or $235/mo (paid monthly). This gives you 10,000 extra ecommerce items on top of everything from the Plus plan. 

If you need a workspace plan, you have 3 options. The Starter plan is free and comes with access for one user, unlimited paid hosted sites, two webflow.io staging sites (with 2 pages and 50 CMS items), 2 agency guests, and 2 free commenters.

The Core is $19/mo (paid annually) or $28/mo (paid monthly) plan gives you extra users, staging sites, and commenters, as well as page password protection and the ability to use custom code. The Growth plan is $49/mo (paid annually) or $60/mo (paid monthly) - it gives you more users, unlimited staging sites, and publishing permissions. 

You can also contact Webflow about personalized packages for any needs which exceed these plans.

Interface

The interface is very easy to navigate - you can access all of the free templates and start using them right away. It’s also easy to find any of the website building tools and features. Everything on Webflow is very well-organized. For example, if you’re looking at templates and want something for a photography portfolio, all you need to do is select free templates and then start searching by category, the style you want, or by features. Tons of examples will show up for you to look through. The organization and free easy access makes finding a template quick and easy.  

Features

The best feature is the Webflow University 101 Crash Course videos. 

The videos are designed to teach you how to use Webflow and give you all the tricks to make website building a smooth process. The videos are organized into different lesson categories, and most of them range from 5 to 15 minutes in length. 

Anyone can enrol in Webflow University for free and access all of the videos. Even if you’re using the Webflow free version or just want to learn more about building a website, these videos are a great resource.  

The competition

Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace, are just a few of the top competitors to Webflow. Wix does offer a free trial for an unlimited time, however, it doesn’t even compare to Webflow’s free storage space - Wix includes 50 MB while Webflow offers 10 GB. Also, not many web hosts offer free videos to help you get started. Overall, Webflow does a great job against giant competitors such as Wix and Squarespace. 

Webflow review: Summary

No matter what stage you’re at with building a website, there’s a lot of options on Webflow that could take your website to the next level. The downside is how you can’t export CMS content, however, you will have access to plenty of free materials. Webflow comes with an entire library of video resources, hundreds of free templates, and you can use the free version for an unlimited time. The interface is also very organized - it doesn’t feel like you’re using a cheap web host. Templates look professional and everything is well organized. Overall, Webflow is a great web host, especially if you want to learn new tricks for making website building a lot easier.