Ian Byrd
In 2016 you don’t have to be a programmer and web designer to build a website, you can do it without the code learning. The main advantage of using website design software is saving time and money, especially when you run a start-up or any kind of a small business. If you go this way, prepare yourself! You will face one particularly difficult challenge - choosing a good fit among the incredibly vast variety of online services that you can use to make a website from scratch.
Squarespace is definitely one of the most hyped website builders out there. If you are a common web user and familiar with the world of web design, you would probably have noticed the Super Bowl 2015 promo with Jeff Bridges. The resources pumped into the product promotion were huge for sure. We can only hope that the Squarespace team spends the same energy for their CMS as well.
Aside from the easy-to-use interface, customers get the opportunity to check out very detailed website statistics, including the traffic overview with hourly, daily, weekly and monthly diagrams.
Squarespace also offers a Google Apps subscription, allowing you to connect your domain to email and other Google services.
The website builder is good enough for a non-designer to make a beautiful website. But again, in comparison with other developers the collection of websites offered by Squarespace is not as rich as it could be.
MotoCMS is a website developer, offering two types of website templates: HTML and responsive MotoCMS 3. When purchasing the HTML website template you will get the function of the CMS' previous version. It is not responsive and lacks some crucial tools and widgets.
The latest version of the MotoCMS website builder has been updated with a few pretty cool tools. One of them is Color Picker. This tool allows a user to manage a website's color palette simultaneously in one place. Consisting of five main colors, the tool generates more than five additional tones of each color, so that you can choose the best hue for your design.
What is important is that you don’t have to pay any fees for the tool set offered in the MotoCMS website builder. All the tools and widgets are free.
Also, MotoCMS has recently released a range of templates with blog functionality - made-up websites from various categories with a fully-featured blog inside. One can create, update and remove posts and manage personal blogging activity right in the website builder.
Weebly is a good place to start for people without experience in building websites. One can come to grips with the dashboard very fast and create a website by simply dragging-and-dropping.
There is a good collection of various tools and apps for social media, communication, and e-commerce presented in the App Center. Most of the apps aren’t free and are offered for a monthly payment. Pay your attention that the app price isn’t included in your plan.
Weebly has also developed an Android and two iOS applications to edit your website template right on your mobile device. Maybe that’s why the Weebly developers won’t let you edit your website in the web editor’s mobile preview mode.
*Webflow *is a relatively new addition to the website development market, launched in 2013. At the moment, however, Webflow CMS isn’t supported by most web browsers. Only if using Google Chrome and Apple Safari, you will be able to save your progress.
Despite Webflow CMS’ WYSIWYG system with drag-and-drop functionality, its interface with multi-functional panels and endless subdivisions is optimized rather for die hard web designers than for first-timers in web development. On the other hand, there is an integrated manual tutorial with dozens of videos to get you started.
You can start watching video guides without leaving the web editor, but when you have to spend the time learning how everything works, instead of getting started immediately, this detracts from the user-friendliness of the website.
The good thing about Webflow CMS is that you can create a totally responsive website. Also, the Webflow developers are about to integrate API (application programming interface) in the near future
Strikingly is a good option for building a single-page website promptly and without any fuss. Due to the minimized and user-friendly control panel, a user can easily change the necessary settings.
The website preview is available for desktop, tablet and smartphone. Once you click on the button to check out your website, the preview mode will be opened in a separate window. The undo and redo buttons are also available nearby. To set the layouts you don't have to use containers. There are a few layout pre-sets that can be chosen in one click.
Another cool thing about Strikingly is that you can easily change the template you currently edit into another one without leaving the website builder and losing your progress.
