It is not in itself impossible to create a website for free, just as it is not necessarily obligatory to know how to code. While it is better to call on an experienced web designer, you will find in this article everything you need to start your adventure!
The 7 Best Editors to Create a Website for Free
There are countless free solutions. I have therefore selected the 7 best online editors to create your website for free and easily — all you have to do is choose:
| WordPress.org | WordPress.com | Webflow | Wix | E-monsite | SiteW | SiteW | |
| Intrusive advertising in free offer | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Design | Good | Average | Outstanding | Average | Bad | Bad | Bad |
| Easy to use | Average | Good | Bad | Good | Good | Good | Good |
| Flexibility | Outstanding | Average | Good | Average | Bad | Bad | Bad |
| SEO | Good | Average | Good | Bad | Bad | Bad | Bad |
| I recommend | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
It is important to take SEO into account in order to be visible in Google search results. Most online site editors do not allow you to rank in search results — or at least make it much harder — and if competition is tough, you can forget about it. Yet the importance of SEO for a site is a crucial point for the success of your business on the web.
Flexibility is also very important for adding whatever you want to your website. Every addition you can imagine for your site will not be equally straightforward depending on the services you choose.
Design is for me one of the most important factors, just like SEO. A site visible on search engines is fine, but if the design does not allow you to retain your visitors it is useless. The power of a modern, stylish and beautiful site is an unbeatable trust factor and allows you to stand out from the competition. We can also note its importance for e-commerce sites — visitors must trust your site in order to enter their credit card details.
WordPress.org, the Best CMS on the Market
WordPress.org is the best-known and most widely used editor in the world. This is because it excels in many areas, particularly thanks to its flexibility which allows it to adapt to almost anyone. Its system is open source and completely free, however you will need a hosting package and a domain name for your site. You can always opt for a free hosting / domain name service as Hostinger does. This way you can create your WordPress site for free.
Advantages: WordPress is open source and is the most powerful site creation service that exists since it is packed with a multitude of plugins that can easily modify your site. For example by downloading the WooCommerce plugin you can transform your site into an e-commerce site, or WordPress themes that allow you to create a site as easily as Wix but better.
Disadvantage: Although fairly simple, creating a WordPress site is slightly more complicated than setting up a Wix site.
Create your site for free with Elementor
WordPress.com, the Commercial Version of WP
There is also WordPress.com, not to be confused with WordPress.org. It is in fact a turnkey solution that uses WordPress.org but comes with its own hosting platforms. You can therefore create a site much more easily and for free on WordPress.com, which in reality uses WordPress.org.
Advantage: You do not have to worry about anything — the WordPress setup is automatic and you have nothing to do.
Disadvantages: The commercial version constrains the open-source version of WordPress, making it much less flexible. Moreover, if you wish to move to a paid, more professional offer, you will lock yourself into an expensive and not very advantageous economic system for the price.
Wix, the Simplest and Fastest Site Builder
Wix is unquestionably the simplest and fastest solution on the market for creating a website. It has many pre-made and “modern” sites — enough to find what you are looking for and have your site up quickly.
Advantages: Very fast to set up and the management is simple.
Disadvantages: Not very flexible, limited features, very few possibilities with a free offer, and an expensive economic model.
Webflow, the Best Online Site Builder in the World.
Webflow is unquestionably the online editor for creating the most beautiful site in the world. It would actually be totally impossible to compare it to its competitors when it comes to design features. If you have ever retouched photos with Photoshop for example, the WebFlow interface is the same. You have millions of parameters for adding and modifying anything in any way. It offers a 100% customisable solution for the appearance of your site, and provides design possibilities that push the boundaries — without touching a single line of code.
Advantages: Simply incomparable to all existing solutions when it comes to design. As for everything else, it also performs very well.
Disadvantage: It is difficult to get to grips with. Although its architecture is the most optimised of all, it has so many parameters and features that one quickly gets lost. It does however have excellent free courses available for learning how to use it.
Try Webflow for free
E-monsite, WebSelf, SiteW — Underperforming Site Builders
If you were born before the 1970s or have absolutely no desire to complicate your life when creating your site, and you like ugly (yes, it exists), these solutions will definitely suit you!
Advantage: Easy to use
Disadvantages: Bad design, no flexibility whatsoever, no possibility of ranking on Google (SEO)
Creating a Free Professional Website
If you want a professional site, it is better to call on a site creator whose job it is. Even if at first glance it is easy to use these solutions and easy to get a site for free, your site will not work. You are not a designer, nor a developer. You do not want to look like everyone else with pre-made sites that give your brand no differentiation from others. Indeed, to stand out from the competition that has already been established for a long time, you absolutely must call on a professional. You do not want a free site because of the advertising, and you will probably not have the domain name (your site’s name) that you wanted. Moreover, creating a site without knowledge in the field will make it impossible to rank on Google. Your site will therefore never be visible. And if you share it with your prospects when there is an advertising banner and a bad design, you will destroy your brand identity. A site is fine, but if it produces the opposite of the desired effect, it is worse than having no site at all.
A Free Website — How Is That Possible?
Hosting providers and site editors that offer to create a site for free are not profitable. They will therefore push you using various commercial techniques to switch to a paid offer with very expensive economic models. For what it is worth, I have never seen anyone fail to switch a Wix or E-monsite site to WordPress for example. The only truly high-performing online editor is Webflow. The others are very simple and fast but in reality they will never give you the possibility of having a site that works, even with paid offers.
Our Opinion
If you have a minimum of ambition, you should go for a WordPress (.org) site and a stable and reliable hosting provider. You can completely forget online site editors except Webflow. However in either case, you will have to put in years of work and dedicate entire days to it to create a website that works. As you will have understood, it is absolutely not worthwhile to waste all that time. It is better to call on a professional. It is a trade, and it cannot be improvised.
Creating a Free Website — a Good Idea?
I strongly advise you against creating your website for free — after going live you will want to share it with your clients, run paid advertising, and… it does not work. You can try it yourself if you feel the need but in the end you will lose more money than if you had gone straight to a professional. This also applies to “creating a cheap website“. Moreover, starting this way could destroy your brand identity before it has even been truly created. The first impression is the most important, and once you have given prospects the impression of a lack of professionalism through your website, it will be too late to convince those you have already shared it with.
What Is the Best Site to Create a Free Website?
If you want to create your site yourself for free, and are ready to devote a tremendous amount of time to it in order to have a working site — while knowing that you also want to create your site on a site — the best options are unquestionably Webflow and WordPress. Feeling brave? Do not hesitate to take a look at our article that compares Webflow vs WordPress