License & Deployment Mix: 21 tools – 6 OSS, 13 SaaS. (OSS and SaaS counts can overlap when an open-source tool also offers a vendor-hosted edition.)

Overview

Website builders enable users to create and publish websites without extensive coding knowledge. They range from full CMS platforms with plugin ecosystems to drag-and-drop visual editors targeting small businesses, portfolios, and landing pages.

Key Capabilities

• Visual editor – drag-and-drop page design with responsive preview
• Templates/themes – pre-built designs for quick launches
• Hosting – integrated or self-hosted web serving
• SEO tools – meta tags, sitemaps, structured data
• E-commerce – product catalogues, cart, checkout (some platforms)
• Forms & integrations – contact forms, CRM, email marketing hooks
• Custom code – HTML/CSS/JS injection for advanced customisation
• Collaboration – multi-user editing, roles, staging environments

Evaluation Criteria

1. Ease of use – learning curve for non-technical users
2. Design flexibility – template quality, custom CSS/JS support
3. Self-hosted option – can it run on own infrastructure?
4. E-commerce – built-in or plugin-based storefront
5. SEO & performance – page speed, SSR/SSG, Core Web Vitals
6. API & headless – REST/GraphQL for headless use cases
7. SSO integration – SAML/OIDC for enterprise admin access
8. Pricing – free tier, per-site, per-user

The information on these pages was researched by a combination of human review and large language models. To suggest an addition or correction, please contact us. Prepared by Rhodium Systems Inc., author of the ResorsIT platform — a unified IT operations management platform for IT teams and MSPs that integrates a curated suite of open-source, commercial, and SaaS applications into a single system with shared identity, single sign-on, access control, and a common audit trail. Use this catalogue only as a starting point for your own research, and review any tool carefully against your own requirements before relying on it. Catalogue data version 2026.197.

Comparison

Deployment Model

Editor & Design Features

Best visual editor: Webflow (CSS-level control), Framer (React components), WordPress Gutenberg (extensible blocks).

E-Commerce & SEO

Best e-commerce: Shopify (dedicated), Wix (integrated), WordPress + WooCommerce (extensible).

Performance & Hosting

Best performance: Grav (flat-file), Framer (SSG), Webflow (optimised CDN).

SSO / OIDC Detail

Self-hosted tools (WordPress, Grav, Craft CMS) support SSO via plugins/packages. For Authentik integration, WordPress miniOrange SAML and Grav OIDC plugins are the most mature paths.

Pricing

Best value: Carrd ($9/year for simple sites), Framer ($5/mo), WordPress (free self-hosted). Best free tier: WordPress/Grav/Silex (full OSS), Carrd (3 sites), Webflow (1 site).

Recommendation Summary

Tools

21 tools.

Carrd

Carrd is a minimalist one-page website builder designed for landing pages, personal profiles, link-in-bio pages, and simple promotional sites.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

Concrete CMS

Concrete CMS (formerly concrete5) is an open-source content management system focused on in-context editing, where users edit pages directly as they appear to visitors rather than through a separate admin panel.

License: MIT (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native · SSO: none

Website · Source

Craft CMS

Craft CMS is a content management system designed for developers and content teams who need flexible content modelling beyond what WordPress provides.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: native · SSO: SAML

Website

Duda

Duda is a website builder platform designed specifically for agencies, SaaS platforms, and hosting companies that build websites at scale for clients.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: SAML

Website

Emdash

Emdash is an open-source CMS built by Cloudflare, positioning itself as “the spiritual successor to WordPress.” It is a ground-up rebuild of the CMS concept using modern serverless architecture and TypeScript rather than WordPress’s PHP/MyS…

License: MIT (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website · Source

Framer

Framer is a design-to-website platform that leverages React components under the hood to produce high-performance, interactive websites.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

GoDaddy Website Builder

GoDaddy Website Builder is a simple website creation tool integrated with GoDaddy’s domain registration and hosting ecosystem.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

Grav

Grav is a modern flat-file CMS built on PHP that eliminates the need for a database entirely. All content is stored as Markdown files in the filesystem, making it fast, easy to back up, and ideal for Git-based content workflows.

License: MIT (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native · SSO: none

Website · Source

Jimdo

Jimdo is a German website builder that offers two distinct creation paths: Jimdo Dolphin (AI-powered builder) and Jimdo Creator (manual drag-and-drop editor).

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

Shopify

Shopify is the leading e-commerce platform and website builder, powering millions of online stores worldwide.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: OIDC, SAML

Website

Silex

Silex is an open-source website builder that provides a visual drag-and-drop editor for creating HTML, CSS, and JavaScript websites without a database.

License: AGPL-3.0-only (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native · SSO: none

Website · Source

Squarespace

Squarespace is a design-focused website builder known for its high-quality templates and polished editorial experience.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

Statamic

Statamic is a modern CMS built on the Laravel framework that supports both flat-file and database storage backends.

License: LicenseRef-Statamic (source-available) · Kind: web · Deploy: native · SSO: none

Website

Strikingly

Strikingly is a one-page website builder optimised for mobile-first design. The platform focuses on simplicity, enabling users to create clean, responsive single-page websites quickly.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

Tilda

Tilda is a block-based website builder that provides over 550 pre-designed content blocks that users arrange to compose pages.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

Typedream

Typedream is a website builder that adopts a Notion-like editing experience, where users build pages using a block-based interface similar to writing in a document.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

Webflow

Webflow is a professional visual web development platform that bridges the gap between design tools and production websites.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: SAML

Website

Webstudio

Webstudio is an open-source visual website builder positioned as a self-hostable alternative to Webflow.

License: AGPL-3.0-only (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native · SSO: none

Website · Source

Weebly

Weebly is a drag-and-drop website builder that was acquired by Square (now Block, Inc.) in 2018. The platform provides a straightforward editor for creating business websites, blogs, and online stores.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

Wix

Wix is one of the largest website builder platforms, offering a drag-and-drop editor that enables users to create websites without coding knowledge.

License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none

Website

WordPress

WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system and website builder, powering approximately 43% of all websites on the internet.

License: GPL-2.0-or-later (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: native · SSO: OIDC, SAML

Website · Source