Best Free Website Builders in 2026
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.
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.
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
Picked by editorial review, informed by G2 and Capterra review volume and rating and by media mentions, the signals behind our category rankings. How we rate
| Tool | Starting price | Rating | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wix | From $2.42/mo | 4.2 1,908 reviews | Beginners who want a true drag-and-drop editor and don't mind a Wix subdomain. |
| WordPress | Free | 3.5 9,793 reviews | Bloggers and content-first sites that want long-term flexibility without vendor lock-in. |
| Carrd | From $9/mo | 4.5 62 reviews | Anyone who needs a simple link-in-bio, portfolio, or landing page and nothing more. |
| Webflow | From $33/mo | 4.5 265 reviews | Designers who want to learn or prototype in a real production-grade builder for free. |
| Framer | From $30/mo | 4.4 177 reviews | Designers and startups who want an AI first draft of a modern, animated site. |
| Strikingly | From $49/mo | 4.1 52 reviews | Solo founders who want a mobile-first landing page and can live with one page. |
| Tilda | Free plan | 4.5 76 reviews | 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 | 4.8 138 reviews | Startups that need one clean, AI-drafted homepage before they build a full site. |
| Durable | Free plan | 4.9 253 reviews | 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.
- Pro: Free plan gives a full drag-and-drop editor plus 500MB of storage and secure hosting, no credit card required
- Pro: Wix's AI site generator can build a starting layout for you in minutes
- Pro: Hundreds of free templates across niches, from portfolios to restaurants
- Con: Your site lives on a wixsite.com subdomain with visible Wix branding in the header and footer
- Con: Bandwidth is capped at 1GB and storage at 500MB, tight for image-heavy sites
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
Light plan cannot accept any payments, Core minimum for ecommerce
Bloggers and content-first sites that want long-term flexibility without vendor lock-in.
- Pro: The core WordPress software is 100% free and open source, no subscription required to use it
- Pro: Thousands of free themes and plugins extend what a starter site can do
- Pro: If you don't want to manage your own hosting, WordPress.com's free plan adds a wordpress.com subdomain with 1GB of storage
- Con: Self-hosted WordPress still needs paid hosting; the software is free but the server isn't
- Con: WordPress.com's free plan blocks plugin installs and custom themes, and shows WordPress-controlled ads
There is no paid WordPress.org plan.
Anyone who needs a simple link-in-bio, portfolio, or landing page and nothing more.
- Pro: Free plan lets you build and publish up to 3 separate one-page sites on a single account
- Pro: All of Carrd's core layout blocks and responsive design are included free, not just in a trial
- Pro: Sites load fast since Carrd outputs lean HTML and CSS with no page-builder bloat
- Con: Each free site is capped at 50 elements and lives on a carrd.co subdomain with a visible Carrd badge
- Con: No custom domains, forms, or embedded widgets until you upgrade to a paid tier
Carrd's pricing is incredibly generous, especially for the entry-level Pro tiers.
Designers who want to learn or prototype in a real production-grade builder for free.
- Pro: Free Starter plan gives full access to Webflow's visual canvas, not a stripped-down demo
- Pro: Includes 50 CMS items across 20 CMS collections, enough to test a real content-driven layout
- Pro: 100+ hours of Webflow University tutorials are free and tied directly to the editor
- Con: Limited to just 2 pages on a webflow.io subdomain, with no custom domain option
- Con: Bandwidth caps at 1GB and forms cap at 50 total submissions, not monthly
Webflow charges separately for Workspace plans (per-seat, for team collaboration) and Site plans (per-site, for hosting).
Watch out
The Starter (free) site plan limits you to 2 pages, 50 CMS items, and a webflow.io subdomain. It is a sandbox, not a production environment.
Designers and startups who want an AI first draft of a modern, animated site.
- Pro: Free plan includes 10 CMS collections and up to 1,000 CMS items, generous for a $0 tier
- Pro: AI website generation drafts a full site from a text prompt in under a minute
- Pro: Built-in animation and interaction tools that most free builders don't offer at all
- Con: No custom domain on the free plan; your site stays on a .framer.app subdomain with Framer branding
- Con: File uploads are capped at 5MB, which limits high-resolution images and video
It's best for individuals and small businesses looking for powerful design and publishing tools without a high initial investment.
Solo founders who want a mobile-first landing page and can live with one page.
- Pro: Free plan allows unlimited separate sites, each on its own strikingly.com subdomain
- Pro: 5GB of monthly bandwidth on the free tier, more headroom than most free builders
- Pro: Every free site can list one product, useful for testing a single-product store idea
- Con: Each free site is limited to a single page and 500MB of storage
- Con: Strikingly branding stays visible until you upgrade to a paid plan
Strikingly's pricing is fair for basic users but can become expensive for businesses needing more advanced features.
Watch out
Transaction fees (5% Free, 2% Pro)
Creators who want editorial-looking layouts without hiring a designer.
- Pro: Free plan supports up to 50 pages on a single site, more page headroom than most free tiers
- Pro: Access to Tilda's pre-designed content blocks for building magazine and story-style layouts
- Pro: No credit card required to start, and the plan doesn't expire
- Con: No custom domain, and every page shows a 'Made on Tilda' label
- Con: Free plan blocks payment systems and disables Google Analytics and Yandex Metrica
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.
- Pro: Free plan is truly $0 with no time limit, built for hobby projects and simple pages
- Pro: The Notion-like block editor makes publishing a page as fast as writing a document
- Pro: No design skills needed since the layout logic is handled for you
- Con: Limited to one published page and one user on the free plan
- Con: The site sits on a typedream.app subdomain with a visible Typedream badge
Typedream's pricing is fair, offering a generous free tier for basic needs.
Startups that need one clean, AI-drafted homepage before they build a full site.
- Pro: Free plan includes a real, published homepage, not just a locked preview or trial
- Pro: AI drafts copy and layout together, useful for a fast first version of a launch page
- Pro: Blog support is included even on the free tier
- Con: Free plan is limited to a single homepage; anything beyond that needs the Basic plan
- Con: Umso branding and the free subdomain stay until you upgrade
Umso's pricing is quite fair, especially for startups.
Local service businesses that want a live site today without touching a design tool.
- Pro: Free plan includes unlimited AI-generated pages and unlimited traffic, no bandwidth cap
- Pro: No credit card required, and the plan doesn't expire into a forced trial
- Pro: Built-in mini CRM lets you track up to 10 customers for free
- Con: Site is locked to a *.durable.site subdomain, and Durable branding can't be removed for free
- Con: AI image generation is capped at 5 images per month on the free plan
Durable's pricing is fair, especially for small businesses needing an AI-powered website quickly.
Watch out
Annual billing required for 20-30% savings
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
Custom domain support (Essential)
Whether the free tier lets you connect your own domain, or locks you to a branded subdomain like wixsite.com or carrd.co.
Storage and bandwidth caps (Essential)
Free plans typically cap storage at 500MB to 1GB and bandwidth similarly, so image- or video-heavy sites hit the ceiling fast.
Branding removal (Important)
Every builder on this list shows its own badge or footer branding on free sites, and removing it always requires a paid plan.
E-commerce and forms (Important)
Payments, shopping carts, and sometimes even contact forms are gated behind paid tiers on most free plans.
Export or migration path (Nice to have)
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.
- ×
Expert Tips
- →
- →
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. A free plan will not carry a business address, so compare the three-year cost by route before you pick a paid tier.
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.
Cite this page: Toolradar, "Best Free Website Builders in 2026", updated August 2026, https://toolradar.com/guides/best-free-website-builders
Sources
Prices and plan details on this page come from each vendor's own pricing page, re-checked by the Toolradar pricing tracker:
- Wix pricing, checked
- WordPress pricing, checked
- Carrd pricing, checked
- Webflow pricing, checked
- Framer pricing, checked
- Strikingly pricing, checked
- Tilda pricing, checked
- Typedream pricing, checked
- Umso pricing, checked
- Durable pricing, checked
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