Why you should not build a website on a site builder: pros and cons

Today anyone can build a fully working website from scratch. And you do not need design, layout or programming skills to do it. It is enough to use one of the many site builders available. But if it is that simple, why do serious companies keep turning to professional web studios? Let us look at the main advantages and drawbacks of using such tools and at whether building a site on a builder is worth it. 

Table of contents:

• What are website builders?
• Site builders: pros and cons
• The drawbacks of online site builders
• A review of the best site builders
• WordPress
• Joomla
• Tilda
• Squarespace
• Wix
• uCoz
• Website development at the Art-Sites studio 

What are website builders?

Site builders — are online services that let you create your own website easily and quickly, with no need to write code. 

To build a site on such a service you do not need to know programming or markup languages, or to have professional coding skills. You can do the work yourself without involving programmers, web designers or other specialists. All you need — is to register with the service, choose a domain, set up the design using the editor's basic blocks and fill the site with content.

The program at the heart of any site builder — is a content creation, editing and management system (CMS). It can be fairly simple and straightforward, which is convenient for blogs, portfolios, landing pages or business-card sites, or quite complex, with many functional modules, which makes it possible to build an online store, for example.

The files of the current generation of builders sit in cloud storage, which lets them run in browsers. Using them requires no downloading or installing software on your computer. All the files are hosted on the provider's server, which lets you work with the site at any moment and from any device. 

Good builders offer a large number of attractive templates, an easy-to-use interface and tools that let you adapt a website for practically any industry. They contain an editor and the controls needed to drag and drop text, headings, images, video, buttons, tables, fields and forms. Many have a mechanism for placing orders and taking payments.

Site builders: pros and cons

On site builders such as Joomla, Squarespace, Tilda and Wix, any user can create their own website without much difficulty. But where is the catch? Below are the pros and cons of builders that you should know before deciding how exactly to build your site.

The advantages of using site builders

• No programming skills needed

Site builders are made for people who have no technical programming skills. Most platforms use drag-and-drop technology and a convenient user interface, which lets an ordinary person enter text, upload images and move any element with a simple click and drag of the mouse — all without writing any code.

• Low cost

Creating a site with an online builder does not require a large budget. As a rule such platforms are free, charge a minimal monthly fee or offer a free trial period followed by one of the paid plans. Many include free hosting and a domain name. 

• High development speed

Building on a site builder is the fastest way to create and launch a website. Depending on the complexity of the structure, a service can be built in anything from a few hours to a few days. 

The drawbacks of online site builders

The main problem with most site builders is that although they are a decent starting point for launching an online business, they should not be used to create a professional web resource. Let us look at the main drawbacks that make a real difference when working with such platforms.

• Limited options for customising functionality

Most services have functional limits set within the free trial period. They can include access to the online store, site analytics, SEO tools and plugins. To get tools beyond the basic set you have to move to a more extensive paid version.

• Templated design

Most builders offer ready starter templates with a standard structure and appearance, often with no way to refine or change them. Sites built within the same builder frequently look alike.  

• Poor SEO on such sites

The SEO services that come with these builders often turn out to be ineffective, inflexible or outdated. Even the paid versions frequently limit SEO configuration. And search engines do not much like such websites. 

• A limited number of pages

Many free online builders limit the number of pages you can create. Some allow only up to five published pages. For most sites that is not enough, and increasing the limit requires moving to a paid plan.

• No domain name

Builders often do not allow you to use your own URL. They assign an address that combines your company name with their own URL. Instead of mycompany.com, for example, the link to your site looks like this — mycompany.wix.com. 

• Low speed

Builders often generate bulky HTML. Each page can weigh up to 10 MB. That has a negative effect on the site's loading speed. Shared hosting also slows things down.

• Difficulty moving the site to another host

In essence, the site you build is the property of the builder's developer. If you move to another CMS or to separate hosting, the site's content has to be transferred by hand. 

• Limited storage

Such platforms can limit the amount of SSD storage for your files. You may have only a couple of megabytes, which seriously restricts how much content you can host and rules out high-quality images.

A review of the best site builders

The well-known site-building services keep improving and adding new features. Every builder has its strong points and can deliver certain functions. Here is a closer look at the most popular platforms.  

WordPress

WordPress — is free, open-source website software written in PHP that uses a relational database for storage (MySQL is supported). It is by far the most widespread CMS today. More than 60% of all websites on the internet run on WordPress. The platform offers practically unlimited scope for improving a site through extensions, plugins and themes. Flexible configuration of page structure and appearance, plus tens of thousands of design templates, make an excellent base for non-standard design. In WordPress you can build blogs, a corporate portal, a business-card site, a landing page, a news resource, a forum, a longread and more.

Joomla

Joomla — is a very popular, well-known open-source platform, second only to WordPress in popularity. It is a free engine for building various sites with a simple, intuitive interface, and suits those without much web design experience well. It stands out for its huge collection of themes and extensions. It lets you create responsive sites that look good on any mobile device.

Tilda

Tilda — is a WYSIWYG site builder aimed largely at creating landing pages and longreads. The interface is logical, clear, attractive and structurally simple, and the control panel offers intuitive navigation. Tilda provides many tools for customising design and the ability to manage and edit content blocks. It is a worthy choice for building a landing page and other kinds of single-page project. 

Squarespace

Squarespace — is a fairly popular platform on which you can launch a site without much difficulty. It lets you manage the layout and placement of various blocks. There are also special Squarespace extensions that expand its functionality. It offers users more than a hundred templates that adapt easily to smartphones and tablets. E-commerce options, integration with PayPal and G Suite, SEO tools for promotion and the integration of social media widgets and buttons are all available.

Wix

Wix is among the most popular hosting platforms in the world. This online builder offers a large number of settings and powerful web design tools. Besides many templates that can be adjusted for different device types, the system has an HTML5 editor and dozens of apps for extending a site's functionality.

uCoz

uCoz — is a website hosting service with PHP and MySQL support, built on its own full CMS. It stands out for a simple registration process and a simple user interface. It offers a wide range of templates for the graphic design of a site. It has a dedicated SEO module that lets you configure fields for search engine optimisation, which makes uCoz the best online site builder for promotion.

Taking all of this into account, it should be clear that building a website on a site builder can be a decent option for blogs, landing pages, promo pages and non-profit organisations with a limited budget. But it does not suit a professional business. Anyone intending to create a solid, large project that generates income needs quality design, SEO-ready code and a set of specific features. In that case it is better to turn to professionals and order a site built from scratch, without a builder, at a web agency.

Website development at the Art-Sites studio 

The web studio Art-Sites has been building websites since 2013, and it is one of our main areas of work. When starting any project we first analyse the client's business, study the competitive market and identify every strength so that we can put the emphasis on it. This meticulous approach from every member of our team lets us create sites that stand out not only for their high-quality, original design and functionality, but also for the income they bring the client. 

We take a flexible approach to pricing: the cost of developing a site is discussed individually with each client, taking their means and needs into account.