the 5 best drag and drop website builders

In this article, I’ll talk about the best drag and drop website builder options. Later, I’m going to talk more about them as a concept – and whether drag and drop builders are still….relevant.

Drag and drop website builders make creating a highly customized website a breeze. Just being able to choose a preferred element and putting it anywhere you want on the website is a very natural, intuitive website building experience.

best drag and drop website builders

However, it’s not so easy to find the best drag and drop website builder.

Each website builder is different, and do things their own way – some users end up getting charmed by the promises only to purchase a builder and realize that it absolutely doesn’t fit their needs!

This is why I’ve done all the hard work – purchased the plans of several website builders and tested all of them myself. And in this post, I’ll share my findings so you can make an informed decision on your next purchase.

What am I going to talk about?

Well, drag and drop builders come in all shapes and sizes. They have different themes, different editing experiences, and often, vary a lot in their pricing!

Some website builders bank on extreme simplicity, some go for business features. Others go the different way entirely and prioritize advanced design options over everything else!

There are a lot of things to unpack. So which builder is the right one for you and your goals? Let’s find out.

the best drag and drop website builder - the list

I boiled down this list to include the top 5 options and talked about their themes, editor, and pricing in detail.

These are the best drag and drop website builder options:

Wix: (Ultimate drag and drop website builder customization experience)
BoldGrid: (Free drag and drop software to make WordPress easier)
Elementor: (Advanced editor for WordPress)
Weebly: (Makes building a drag and drop website simple)
Sitejet: (Detail-oriented website construction for professionals)

1.WIX

When it comes to customizability, Wix is the ultimate drag and drop website builder. The Wix editor allows you to drag elements anywhere on the page, including on top of one another. Plus, Wix offers more than 500 themes to get you started and extensive functionality for eCommerce – making it a powerful online tool to build just about any kind of website anyone could ever need.

wix themes

With over 500 themes available for all of its users, Wix has a very solid library for those looking to get started with its editor.

drag and drop website builder wix themes

The Wix’s themes are organized into 70 different sub-categories, each related to a specific industry.

All of Wix’s themes are fully responsive for mobile devices and tablets. One complaint that I have with Wix — and to be fair, it’s a big one — is that you can’t change themes after you start designing your website. That means that even though Wix adds new themes frequently, you’ll have to start building your website from scratch if you ever wish to jump ship.

wix editor

Now, let’s talk about the main event here – the drag and drop editor.

When you first enter Wix’s drag and drop website builder software, the experience can be overwhelming. There are menus across three sides of the screen and additional editing menus pop up as you move your mouse across elements on the page.

Plan to set aside a few hours just to familiarize yourself with the Wix editor before you fully dive into designing your website.

drag and drop website builder wix editor

But once you find your feet – you’re in for a treat.

One of the features that sets Wix apart from other drag and drop website builders is the sheer number and diversity of element styles that it offers. There are more than 20 different categories of elements available within Wix, representing hundreds of individual elements. The ‘Add’ menu allows you to preview elements, which is helpful for finding the right styles for your website.

drag and drop website builder wix add menu

The drag and drop website builder software gets even better when you go to place elements on the page. There are absolutely no limitations on where you can put them. If you want to stack several elements on top of one another or partially overlapping, Wix will let you do that.

Helpfully, though, Wix also offers gridlines and snap-to-content functions. The right-hand menu offers features for aligning and layering elements. While it can be slower to create a grid-patterned page in Wix than in other website builders, I really appreciated the flexibility for making a page with a unique layout.

The only significant complaint I have about the Wix editor is that site-wide settings are relatively scarce. If you want the same font or text color across your website, for example, you need to set it on every single page. This means that setting up a large, customized Wix website takes a bit longer than with other drag and drop website builders.

But other than that, it’s a solid editor – by far the best drag and drop website builder option out there for me.

ADDITIONAL FEATURES

Wix has a lot to offer beyond just a highly customizable editor. In fact, it’s one of the most comprehensive website builder platforms that I’ve come across.

The Wix App Market is a good example of how Wix enables you to build a complex, business-oriented website without much coding. If you can’t find elements you need available in the Wix Editor, chances are the App Market has them. There are hundreds of apps, free and paid, contributed by both the Wix team and third-party developers.

drag and drop website builder wix app store

With Wix apps, you can integrate your website with services like Dropbox, PayPal, and Blogger. Alternatively, there are add-ons for tracking product inventory for eCommerce shops and for analyzing customer data. Adding an app to your website is as easy as adding an element in the Wix editor.

wix drag and drop builder pricing

Wix is an all-in-one website builder, meaning that all plans include hosting. While there are free Wix plans available, you can’t use your own domain name, there’s a massive Wix ribbon on your site at all times, and it’s also limited to 500 MB of storage and bandwidth.

Therefore, you should consider choosing a premium plan. Paid Wix websites start at $13 per month, adds a free domain, and removes ribbons – but a lot of users will want to upgrade to a $17 per month ‘Unlimited’ plan for unlimited bandwidth.

drag and drop website builder wix regular pricing

If you need to add an eCommerce store to your Wix website, plans start at $23 per month.

Wix eCommerce plans allow you to accept payments on your website and there are no commissions.

PROS

Over 500 attractive themes
Hundreds of well-designed elements to choose from
Drag and drop elements anywhere on the page and on top of one another
Wix App Market with hundreds of add-ons

CONS

Cannot change themes after you start designing your website
Designing a custom site might take a bit of effort

2.BOLDGRID

WordPress is a super powerful and highly customizable content management system, used by nearly a third of the world’s websites. But it’s in no way a drag and drop website builder.

Or…is it?

BoldGrid is a drag and drop website builder designed for WordPress. It simplifies the process of setting up, building, and maintaining a WordPress website, and offers more than 200 themes and gives you access to the entire WordPress platform.

drag and drop website builder boldgrid homepage

Most editing apps for WordPress require you to figure out the installation process. But when you sign up for BoldGrid, the platform installs both WordPress and BoldGrid together and launches your website. While this builder doesn’t offer hosting services of its own, you can easily connect your BoldGrid website to any third-party host.

boldgrid themes

BoldGrid comes with more than 200 themes, all of which are completely free. They’re organized into a handful of industry categories, which makes it easy to find the right theme for your website. All BoldGrid themes are responsive for mobile devices and tablets.

drag and drop website builder boldgrid themes

On top of that, you can use thousands of WordPress themes as long as they are compatible with BoldGrid. The only catch is that there’s no way to know if a theme is compatible before trying it.

But still, this means that the options for choosing a theme for your BoldGrid drag and drop website are virtually unlimited.

boldgrid editor

The BoldGrid editor offers only the most basic functions of a drag and drop website builder. Where you can place content elements on the page is controlled by your theme - you can’t simply drag and drop content anywhere you please. If you want to place elements somewhere your theme doesn’t allow, the only option is to change your theme.

drag and drop website builder boldgrid editor

The BoldGrid editor is also limited in terms of the number and diversity of content elements offered. While there are basic options for text and images, you won’t find advanced elements that act like widgets or offer creative designs. Furthermore, many of the more interesting content elements are limited to BoldGrid Premium users.

Still, I loved how simple it is to design a basic website with the BoldGrid editor. Certainly, the editor is less focused on “do whatever you want to do”, and more on “make a beautiful website without messing up”.

The learning curve was indeed a very short one. I was able to figure out what all the editor’s menus and options did in less than 10 minutes. And building a custom website was a matter of just a few hours. I appreciated that BoldGrid lets you clone content elements, since that made it easy to create a consistent style across pages.

additional features

The main thing that BoldGrid offers beyond the drag and drop website editor is the Easy SEO plugin. When activated from the BoldGrid dashboard, this plugin automatically tracks keyword density as you enter content on your site. It also automatically helps fill in header tags, page titles, and descriptions so that your website can be found by search engines.

drag and drop website builder boldgrid seo

It’s also important to keep in mind that BoldGrid integrates relatively well with the broader WordPress environment. The drag and drop software is designed to work with the WooCommerce plugin for running an eCommerce site.

You can also install and activate plugins as for any WordPress site, although just like with themes, there might be some compatibility issues – so stay vigilant.

boldgrid drag and drop builder pricing

BoldGrid is an attractive drag and drop website builder because of how inexpensive it is. You can get started for free – you’ll only need to get a hosting provider for your website.

However, if you wish to get some premium themes and features, consider paid plans, that start from $2.50 a month.

For example, with this Premium Bundle plan, you can remove the BoldGrid branding from your website and get access to premium content elements. Overall, considering that even paired up with hosting, this package might not exceed $10 a month, it’s a pretty sweet deal.

PROS:

Simplifies the overall confusing WordPress experience
200 built-in themes plus access to the entire WordPress theme library
Simple website editor with basic drag and drop functions
Works with WooCommerce and most other WordPress plugins

CONS:

Content placement is limited by your theme
Relatively few content element styles available
Potential for code conflicts between BoldGrid and WordPress themes or plugins

3.ELEMENTOR

Elementor is a solution that aims to make WordPress simple and approachable even for the complete beginners. It’s a downloadable, flexible drag and drop builder, that includes a wide variety of content elements.

However, it’s not the pure “do whatever you want” experience. While you have some control over the layout of your site, you’re still limited to a column-based grid for placing content.

Another thing worth noting, this builder requires a bit more work to set up. You need to install WordPress on your own host and then install and activate the Elementor plugin. However, with a good host, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

elementor themes

Elementor offers more than 300 professionally designed themes, any of which would make a great choice for your website.

What’s interesting about themes in Elementor is that, unlike with most website builders, they’re not designed to be site-wide.

Instead, themes can be applied to a single page, and you can actually use a different theme for every page.

This is great for customization. However, you’ll want to be careful about using multiple themes across your website. Especially for small websites, it can make your site feel less cohesive for visitors and make it more difficult to navigate content.

One of the most exciting features of Elementor is the theme designer available to Pro users. With Elementor, you can actually design your own theme from scratch in the same way that you’d design a page. This feature is most useful for commercial web designers since you can reuse your custom page themes across any number of future WordPress sites.

elementor editor

The Elementor editor strikes an impressive balance of flexibility and simplicity. The editing interface is relatively intuitive and it’s easy to drag content onto your pages.

The only significant limitation is that content elements can only be placed in columns, which are defined by your page template.

Other than that, it’s all about that sweet sweet drag-and-drop action.

One especially nice feature of Elementor is that you retain control over little details like padding around content elements. This is something that most other drag and drop website builders leave out, but with Elementor you can precisely determine how all of the content on the page looks together.

drag and drop website builder page display
I also really liked that Elementor keeps track of all your revisions. If you want to go back and undo a set of changes or do a before and after comparison of your website’s appearance, all you have to do is click around the revisions panel.

Perhaps best of all, Elementor’s content element offerings are unparalleled. Elementor itself comes with around 30 widgets, with an additional 50 available for Pro users. On top of that, there are a number of WordPress plugins designed to offer even more content elements for use in Elementor.

additional features

Elementor has a lot of solid features that should be helpful for website owners. However, a lot of the good stuff is hidden away from free users and instead, is available with an Elementor Pro plan.

Here’s what they are:

Business owners will be glad to know that Elementor integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce. There are a number of Elementor themes designed for online store pages, which is one way in which being able to use multiple themes across your site is quite useful.

Going even further, Elementor applies its drag and drop editing interface to allow you to design popups for your website. That’s a major plus for online stores, which can advertise sales and other special deals. There are a number of predesigned popup themes, or you can design your own popup from scratch.

drag and drop website builder elementor popups.

elementor drag and drop pricing

If all you want is a powerful drag and drop website builder free for WordPress, you can use Elementor for free. Many third-party plugins that add to the content elements available in Elementor are also free to use.

However, if you’re interested in selling online – definitely go for a Pro plan. It costs $49 per year for one WordPress website. This plan gives you access to premium Elementor themes, WooCommerce integration, and the popup and theme builders. If you need to get up and running quickly, or if you want a highly customized website, the Pro plan is well worth the cost.

And if you’re looking to build more than 1 site, there are plans that allow for that as well. For instance, the Expert plan allows you to build 1,000 sites. Which, let’s be honest, is more than enough – even for a decent-sized agency.

drag and drop website builder elementor pricing

PROS:

Themes can vary across your website’s pages
Intuitive website editor allowing fine-tuned elements
Builders for custom page themes and popups
More than 300 professional themes available

CONS:

Requires installing WordPress yourself
Content layout is limited to the column format

4.WEEBLY

Weebly is a straightforward and affordable all-in-one drag and drop website builder, specifically suited for selling online. There are some limitations to the editor experience, such as the fact platform limits you to arranging your website content in a grid pattern, but in exchange, the editor is super simple to master even for complete beginners.

On top of the eCommerce features and the editor, Weebly also stands out for offering a mobile editor and excellent features for SEO, and analytics. It’s a solid all-in-one business tool.

drag and drop website builder weebly homepage

weebly themes

Weebly only offers around 50 themes for users to choose from, which looks like very, very little compared to top competitors such as Wix (that’s because it IS). However, Weebly puts a lot of attention into making the platform’s themes stand out, and overall, I really liked the stylish and modern appearance of its themes.

One of the best things about Weebly is that you can change themes at any time. All of your content and style customizations will be retained, so there’s no risk in seeing if another theme can make your content pop more after you’ve designed your site.

weebly editor

The Weebly editor trades customization for ease of use. Unlike Wix, the editor isn’t overwhelming when you open it. On the other hand, your options for customizing content and placing it on the page are also much more limited as it has to follow the set composition.

Most importantly, Weebly doesn’t let you place content anywhere on the page. Instead, your theme dictates a three- or four-column grid and you can only place elements within that grid pattern. If you want to make an element bigger, for example, you’ll need to spread it to take up an entire extra column on the page.

Still, this makes putting the pages of your website together in Weebly go extremely quickly. If you don’t mind the cookie-cutter layout of Weebly, it’s easy to get a custom website up and running in just a few hours.
The other important limitation to Weebly is the lack of exciting content elements. While Weebly has basic elements for text, images, and forms, there are no stylish elements that combine text and images to catch the attention of visitors to your site.

additional features

Weebly has a lot of other features to offer beyond the drag and drop editor, particularly for business owners.

One of the most unique features is a mobile app. The Weebly mobile app allows you to edit your website on the go as well as keep in touch with visitors and customers from anywhere in the world. This is a major advantage to Weebly, in particular for business owners who are frequently traveling.

drag and drop website builder weebly app
On top of that, Weebly has an app market to supplement the built-in content elements and tools for eCommerce. While this app market is not as massive as some of the competitors’, it does go a long way towards supplementing the functionality of the Weebly editor. Thankfully, Weebly is adding apps at a quick and constant rate and the market should expand as the Weebly user base continues to grow.

Best of all, Weebly offers incredible support for eCommerce stores. The eCommerce editor makes it easy to create new products and to track sales and inventory. Plus, a detailed analytics platform allows you to understand your customers, combine sales statistics from online and physical retail, and build basic email marketing campaigns.

The availability of this wide range of tools, combined with the simplicity of the Weebly editor, is the main reason to choose this drag and drop website builder. Weebly’s prime focus is on selling, and that’s reflected in the way the entire platform is designed.

weebly drag and drop pricing

Weebly is relatively affordable compared to other all-in-one drag and drop website builders. A free plan allows you to build a basic website, although you can’t connect your own domain, your website’s littered with Weebly ads, and you are limited to 500 MB of storage.

All of these problems go away with the paid plans, that start at $5 per month and come with a domain name for one year – which makes this option quite cheap.

Even eCommerce plans are inexpensive, starting at just $12 per month. However, if you run a large online store and need advanced marketing features, plan to upgrade to the $25 per month ‘Business’ plan.

Overall, Weebly is a solid option for those looking to sell online. While not the most customizable in terms of design, this drag and drop website builder is a simple, powerful option to help your business.

PROS:

Simple, user-friendly drag and drop editor
Highly affordable paid plans
Mobile app for editing your website and managing customers on the go
Excellent support for eCommerce

CONS:

Content placement is restricted to a grid pattern based on your theme
Element styles are extremely limited
Only around 50 themes to choose from

5.SITEJET

Sitejet is a powerful drag and drop website builder designed for more than just regular users. In fact, it’s fully made for businesses and website building agencies.

In addition to a flexible editing interface, Sitejet offers tools for project and team management. While the drag and drop editor can be slightly overwhelming, it’s perfect for website creators who want to tightly control the design process.

sitejet themes

Sitejet offers over 100 modern and sleek themes for users to choose from. That might seem like a small number in comparison to website builders like Wix and Elementor, but most users won’t have a problem finding a suitable theme. Plus, the templates are organized according to different industries so it’s easy to find a good starting point.

Helpfully, you can change themes in Sitejet at any time. The platform also allows you to create your own site template if you don’t like any of the available options. Of course, this feature is more suitable for professional designers who can recycle that theme for future Sitejet websites.

sitejet editor

The Sitejet drag and drop editor absolutely nails it on the side of customization – which can even make it somewhat frightening upon first use. There are several menus, and clicking on any content element brings up even more sub-menus. Thankfully, a series of popups help guide new Sitejet creators through the editing process. And if you have at least some prior website design knowledge, you should feel right at home in just a few hours.

drag and drop website builder sitejet editor
That said, the number of customization options is quite impressive. You have near-total control over all of your content elements, including the ability to place them almost anywhere on the page and to size them however you like. You can even customize menus down to the level of title and link target.

This level of control is great for serious designers, but it can make the Sitejet editor feel clunky to basic users compared to competitors like Wix. The editor gets easier to handle the more you use it, but it never felt fully intuitive to me, and putting together a few basic pages took quite a while.

But once again, and I know I’m repeating myself – experienced designers will absolutely love the level of customizability they’re given.

additional features

What really sets Sitejet apart is its suite of features for managing a business. In particular, Sitejet includes a workflow optimization interface that allows you to track projects, bill time, and stay on top of client requests. That’s something you won’t find in almost any other drag and drop website builder.

drag and drop website builder sitejet list
Even better, Sitejet is designed to integrate with the online tools your business is likely already using. You can add payment processors like PayPal and Stripe to your website as well as integrate Google Analytics, Salesforce, and social media accounts. These integrations give you a huge amount of flexibility for using your website as an extension of your business.

drag and drop website builder sitejet apps
However, note that Sitejet doesn’t have built-in support for eCommerce. Instead, you’ll need to build an online store using a third-party platform like Ecwid and then integrate that into your website. The integration works well, but it means you can’t manage online selling directly through your Sitejet website.

sitejet drag and drop pricing

Sitejet plans start at $5 per month if you pay for a full year up-front. This is extraordinarily cheap given the power of the Sitejet editor and the business management tools included with the platform. You’ll need to buy a domain name for your website, but otherwise, Sitejet doesn’t put any limits on your content storage or bandwidth.

drag and drop website builder sitejet plans
The primary limitation to the basic Sitejet plan is that you can only have one user account. If you have a team operating on your website, upgraded plans are available for $19 or $89 per month. Note that Sitejet also offers a 30-day trial so you can test out the platform before committing.

Overall, Sitejet is a solid option for those looking for a professional, customizable drag and drop website builder experience.

PROS:

100 built-in templates and ability to design your own
Powerful drag and drop editor with detailed customization options
Workflow optimization interface and numerous integrations for businesses
Basic plans are very inexpensive

CONS:

Editor can be overwhelming and might not feel intuitive
No built-in support for eCommerce
No free plan available

what is a drag and drop website builder?

Now – let’s talk a bit more about the concept of such builders. What exactly are they…and do you need even need one?

Drag and drop builder is a builder that allows you to create a custom website by dragging and dropping (hence the name!) pre-made elements onto your selected theme – and arrange them as you wish.

This means that you get to see exactly what your website will look like as you’re building it. If you don’t like how your content is arranged on the page, you can simply click and drag different elements to move them around.

The best builders go far beyond text boxes and basic images to offer creative elements like logos, combined text and image elements, and beautiful galleries.

But here’s the thing:

Many website builders do exactly the same thing without being drag-and-drop.

For example, let’s take Squarespace – one of the greatest options we found when searching for the best website builder.

It has all the aforementioned pros of the drag and drop website builder software. It includes beautiful themes, custom elements, and allows you to see how your website looks as you edit it.

But by default, it’s not drag and drop, because Squarespace doesn’t use the key element – dragging and dropping a bunch of elements from a menu to your website. And I’ll fight anyone who tells me otherwise.

Back in the day, 2006-10-ish, when most website builders were still in their infancy, you either had to choose between the options of “code things yourself”, or “drag and drop elements on an interface”. But now, the technology has moved past these two options and there are plenty of great website builders that will offer you a simplified page builder experience without getting the shiny “drag-and-drop” badge. They simply do things their own way and some users may like that.

That being said, a lot of people still prefer the simplicity and intuitiveness of drag and drop website builders. If you’re one of them – then absolutely choose one of the 5 options I picked above. After all, such a concept got popular for a reason.