Best Free Website Builders in 2026
The real $0 plans compared, from Carrd's one-pager to Wix's drag-and-drop editor, including exactly what you give up until you pay.
Wix is the best all-around free website builder for beginners who want a true drag-and-drop editor. Carrd is the fastest way to ship a free one-page portfolio or landing page. WordPress is the only pick that is free software forever, not just a free tier, though you still pay for hosting. Webflow and Framer are the picks for designers who want a professional, animation-capable editor before spending a cent.
Of the 10,000+ tools Toolradar tracks, 40 in the Website Builders category offer a genuine free tier, not just a free trial that expires. That number is smaller than most "free website builder" roundups suggest, because plenty of tools that advertise a free plan actually gate publishing, custom domains, or even basic hosting behind a paywall.
We verified each pick's free tier directly against its current 2026 pricing page rather than relying on marketing copy, confirmed the tool is still active and maintained, and ranked by how much a real site can accomplish for $0. Builders that only offer a time-limited trial, or that quietly killed their free tier since launch, were cut even when they showed up in our initial research pool.
Top Picks
Based on features, user feedback, and value for money.
| Tool | Starting price | Rating | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wix | From $2.42/mo | 4.3(10,866) | Beginners who want a true drag-and-drop editor and don't mind a Wix subdomain. |
| WordPress | Free | 3.9(24,779) | Bloggers and content-first sites that want long-term flexibility without vendor lock-in. |
| Carrd | From $9/mo | 4.5(57) | Anyone who needs a simple link-in-bio, portfolio, or landing page and nothing more. |
| Webflow | From $33/mo | 4.5(265) | Designers who want to learn or prototype in a real production-grade builder for free. |
| Framer | From $30/mo | 4.4(176) | Designers and startups who want an AI first draft of a modern, animated site. |
| Strikingly | From $49/mo | 4.1(54) | Solo founders who want a mobile-first landing page and can live with one page. |
| Tilda | Free plan | 4.7(59) | Creators who want editorial-looking layouts without hiring a designer. |
| Typedream | Free plan | n/a | Notion users who want that same writing-first workflow for a public website. |
| Umso | From $25/mo | 4.8(12) | Startups that need one clean, AI-drafted homepage before they build a full site. |
| Durable | Free plan | n/a | Local service businesses that want a live site today without touching a design tool. |
Beginners who want a true drag-and-drop editor and don't mind a Wix subdomain.
Wix is a solid all-in-one website builder at reasonable prices, but costs add up fast once you factor in payment processing, apps, and the steep jump to Business Elite.
Watch out
Payment processing fees: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction on top of plan cost
Bloggers and content-first sites that want long-term flexibility without vendor lock-in.
WordPress.com's pricing is generally fair, offering a good progression of features for its cost.
Watch out
Annual commitment for advertised prices
Anyone who needs a simple link-in-bio, portfolio, or landing page and nothing more.
Carrd's pricing is incredibly generous, especially for the entry-level Pro tiers.
Watch out
Higher site counts require Pro Plus
Designers who want to learn or prototype in a real production-grade builder for free.
Webflow charges separately for Workspace plans (per-seat, for team collaboration) and Site plans (per-site, for hosting).
Watch out
Workspace + Site plans are separate bills. A Core workspace ($19/seat/month) with 3 seats plus one CMS site ($23/month) costs $80/month, easy to underestimate when evaluating pricing.
Designers and startups who want an AI first draft of a modern, animated site.
Framer's pricing is quite generous, especially with its robust Free tier and the accessible Basic tier at $10/month for custom domains.
Watch out
Usage-based pricing on Scale tier
Solo founders who want a mobile-first landing page and can live with one page.
Strikingly's pricing is fair for basic users but can become expensive for businesses needing more advanced features.
Watch out
Domain add-on: $24.95/year
Creators who want editorial-looking layouts without hiring a designer.
Tilda's pricing is quite fair, especially for individuals and small businesses.
Watch out
Storage limits could be restrictive for media-heavy sites.
Notion users who want that same writing-first workflow for a public website.
Typedream's pricing is fair, offering a generous free tier for basic needs.
Watch out
No annual discount mentioned
Startups that need one clean, AI-drafted homepage before they build a full site.
Umso's pricing is quite fair, especially for startups.
Watch out
No annual discount mentioned, monthly billing only.
Local service businesses that want a live site today without touching a design tool.
Durable's pricing is fair, especially for small businesses needing an AI-powered website quickly.
Watch out
Annual billing required for 20-30% savings
Other Website Builders worth considering
Beyond the editorial top picks, these are also strong choices we evaluated.
What Is a Website Builder?
A website builder is software that lets you design, publish, and host a site without writing code, usually through a drag-and-drop editor, pre-built templates, or an AI generator that drafts a layout from a prompt. Free website builders bundle basic hosting into the free tier, so the $0 plan is not just an editor demo, it's a live, published site.
What "free" means varies a lot between tools. Some, like Wix and Carrd, give you a real editor and real hosting but restrict you to their subdomain and branding. WordPress is free for a different reason: the underlying software is open source, though you still pay for hosting separately unless you use WordPress.com's own free hosted plan. Knowing which kind of free you're getting matters more than comparing feature checklists.
Why Starting Free Matters
For a portfolio, a landing page, a side project, or a business idea you haven't validated yet, paying for a website builder before you know you'll keep the site is a bad trade. A genuine free tier lets you test the idea, the audience, and the platform itself before committing money.
The risk is picking a free tier that can't actually do what you need, then discovering the limit only after you've built the site. A builder that caps you at one page, blocks custom domains, or disables analytics on the free plan can quietly cost more time than it saves, since moving a finished site to a different builder usually means rebuilding from scratch.
Key Features to Look For
Whether the free tier lets you connect your own domain, or locks you to a branded subdomain like wixsite.com or carrd.co.
Free plans typically cap storage at 500MB to 1GB and bandwidth similarly, so image- or video-heavy sites hit the ceiling fast.
Some free tiers allow just one or two pages (Webflow, Typedream, Umso), others allow up to 50 (Tilda) or effectively unlimited (Durable).
Every builder on this list shows its own badge or footer branding on free sites, and removing it always requires a paid plan.
Payments, shopping carts, and sometimes even contact forms are gated behind paid tiers on most free plans.
Whether you can take your content elsewhere if you outgrow the free tier. Open formats like self-hosted WordPress travel easier than closed builders.
Mistakes to Avoid
- ×
Assuming 'free' means a free custom domain too. Nearly every builder here keeps you on their subdomain, like wixsite.com, carrd.co, or webflow.io, until you pay.
- ×
Picking a builder based on the free tier's page limit alone, then hitting a wall when e-commerce or forms turn out to be paywalled too.
- ×
Building a real business site on WordPress.com's free plan, then discovering you can't install the plugin you need because plugins require a paid plan.
- ×
Not checking bandwidth caps before adding video or high-resolution photography, which can blow past a 500MB to 1GB free-tier limit fast.
- ×
Treating an AI-generated first draft from Framer, Durable, or Umso as a finished site instead of a starting point that still needs editing.
Expert Tips
- →
Start on the free plan of the builder you'd actually pay for later. Migrating a Wix site to Webflow, or vice versa, means starting over.
- →
If you only need one page, don't overbuild on Wix or Webflow. Carrd, Typedream, or Strikingly ship a single page faster and stay free longer.
- →
Check where the branding sits before committing. A Wix footer badge or 'Made on Tilda' label is easy to miss in the editor but visible to every visitor.
- →
For a site you plan to keep past six months, price out the cheapest paid tier now. Some jumps, like Framer's $10 a month, are modest; others are steep.
- →
If you want free software with no subdomain trade-off, self-hosted WordPress on a $3 to $5 a month host is often cheaper long-term than upgrading a SaaS builder's paid plan.
The Bottom Line
Wix covers the widest range of free use cases, Carrd is unbeatable for a single page, and WordPress is the only pick that's free software forever rather than a free tier. Whichever you choose, expect a subdomain and visible branding until you pay: of the 10,000+ tools Toolradar tracks, only 40 in the Website Builders category offer a genuine free tier, and none of them hand over a custom domain for nothing.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best free website builder in 2026?
Is Wix actually free, or is it a trial?
Wix's free plan does not expire and does not require a credit card, so it's a genuine free tier, not a trial. It comes with 500MB of storage, 1GB of bandwidth, and a wixsite.com subdomain with Wix branding, and it does not include e-commerce.
Can I use a custom domain on a free website builder?
Almost never. Wix, Carrd, Webflow, Framer, Tilda, Typedream, Strikingly, Umso, and Durable all keep free sites on their own subdomain and require a paid plan to connect a custom domain. Self-hosted WordPress is the exception, since you buy the domain and hosting yourself and the software stays free.
What's the catch with free website builders?
The catch is almost always branding, a subdomain, and tight limits on pages, storage, or bandwidth. Webflow's free plan caps you at 2 pages, Typedream and Umso cap you at 1 page, and Wix caps bandwidth at 1GB, so a free plan works well for testing or a simple site but rarely for a growing business.
Which free website builder is best for a portfolio?
Carrd and Typedream are both built specifically for single-page sites like portfolios, and both have genuine free tiers. Strikingly is a close third if you want a mobile-first layout with room to add one product listing later.
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