The best DIY kit for your website?
Four tools
There are many accessible DIY kits which come with handy templates for creating a website. We tried out four popular tools: Jimdo ( http://www.jimdo.com ), Squarespace ( http://www.squarespace.com ), Weebly ( http://www.weebly.com ) and Wix ( http://www.wix.com ).
User-friendliness
When it comes to user-friendliness and an intuitive “drag & drop” approach, we think Wix and Weebly score best. This doesn’t mean that Squarespace and Jimdo have a complex or inaccessible interface, but the other tools are just a little bit easier to use. Interestingly, Wix continually adds new functions and options, while with Weebly it’s been a long time since anything new was introduced.
Layout and design
The four tools all let you start from handy templates which they present in different searchable categories geared to a wide variety of sectors and purposes. You can fully customise them by moving the components around, adding elements, uploading your own content, integrating your company logo, etc. In terms of layout and design, we think that Squarespace scores best.
Note. Wix has an extensive templates catalogue, but unfortunately not all of them are equally “responsive” - this means that websites automatically adapt themselves to the type of screen on which they are viewed. This unresponsiveness is not acceptable these days.
Assistance
For assistance, Wix has a clear edge over the others, thanks to its own ADI function ( http://www.wix.com/about/adi-try-it-now ). By using Artificial Design Intelligence ( ADI), it smartly creates a design for your website automatically. This option is definitely worth a try if you’re not sure what you want your website to look like. We were pleasantly surprised by the result.
E-commerce
Do you want a fully-fledged webshop where your customers can buy products or services and pay for them online and where delivery costs are calculated automatically, depending on the location? Wix offers most options in this respect, followed by Weebly.
Price
Free. Squarespace is the only of the four tools not to offer a free plan (there’s only a 14-day free trial). The other tools let you compose a website free of charge, be it with fewer functions than in the paid version, and/or with advertising. The ads are most prominent in Wix. We think Jimdo offers most functions in its free version.
Paid. Are you looking for a paid for subscription for professional purposes? Minimum prices start from £4 per month with Wix (all the prices stated are if billed annually). Weebly and Jimdo start from £5 and £5.75 per month respectively, while Squarespace is the most expensive at £10 per month. The four tools also have more expensive plans with more options, e.g. for e-commerce purposes.
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