The Website Builder Showdown: What 20 Platforms Revealed (and Why Squarespace Came Out on Top)

If you’ve ever wondered which website builder is actually worth your time, money, and sanity… you’re not alone. Steve from Steve Builds Websites put this question to the ultimate test by building the exact same website on 20 different website builders. His full video, I built one website 20 times — to find the BEST website builder, is on YouTube and absolutely worth watching if you want the full breakdown:

YouTube Channel: Steve Builds Websites

Video: I built one website 20 times – to find the BEST website builder

After hundreds of tiny frustrations, surprises, design limitations, and pricing quirks, Steve came to a clear conclusion: Squarespace delivered the best overall experience and the best final result.

Here’s a summary of his findings, platform by platform, and why Squarespace ended up on top.

Platforms That Struggled: Limited, Confusing, or Just Not Ready

Many builders made a promising first impression and then immediately tripped over their own constraints.

Square, Jimdo, Site123, Google Sites, Mailchimp, Web.com, Yola, 1&1, Zoho Sites

Steve kept running into the same recurring issues:

• No real control over typography or layout

• Cookie-cutter sections that couldn’t be customized

• Inconsistent or broken mobile layouts

• Headers and footers behaving unpredictably

• “Upgrade to unlock basic features” paywalls

• Design quirks that couldn’t be fixed

• Missing core components like galleries or adjustable menus

Some tools had even bigger red flags — confusing or misleading pricing, required upsells, or cancellation barriers that made them feel more like traps than tools.

These builders can work for extremely simple sites, but they struggled even with a modest multi-page site.

Builders That Had Potential but Fell Short on Flexibility

Hostinger, Carrd, Tilda, Canva

These platforms had a few strengths, especially for smaller or one-page projects:

• Hostinger’s editor is simple and clean

• Carrd is absurdly affordable

• Tilda offers a massive library of blocks

• Canva is great for static design work

But once Steve tried to build a real website with navigation, consistent headers, and responsive layouts, they quickly hit their ceilings. Most had missing global styles, no fine control, or odd workflows that slowed everything down.

They shine for niche use cases — not for a full website.

The “Overpowered” Builders: Incredible, but Too Complex for Most

Webflow, Framer, Duda, WordPress.com

These platforms are undeniably powerful, but the learning curve is steep. Steve found:

• Webflow required 3x the build time and demanded real CSS knowledge

• Framer had beautifully modern tools but still needed design fundamentals

• Duda felt structured for agencies, not casual users

• WordPress.com felt disjointed and confusing without the flexibility of full WordPress

These tools are great when you need custom interaction design or granular CSS-level control — but not when you want to build a clean site efficiently.

The Big One: Wix

Wix is everywhere… and yet Steve’s experience was far from smooth.

The builder constantly threw pop-ups, warnings, rulers, gridlines, and responsiveness “help” that felt more like obstacles. Basic layouts behaved unpredictably, mobile elements broke, and the editor felt overly complicated for beginners but not reliable enough for pros.

The verdict: powerful, but chaotic.

The Surprise Disappointments

GoDaddy and Mailchimp both hit early dealbreakers:

• GoDaddy immediately pushed unwanted add-ons and hid essential page features behind paywalls

• Mailchimp signed him up for spam and charged earlier than promised — then revealed a builder so restrictive that even a simple navigation button wouldn’t resize properly

These two didn’t even make it past the homepage.

The Top Performer: Why Squarespace Won

After 20 builds, Steve called Squarespace the best balance of design freedom, ease of use, and professional results.

Here’s what stood out:

• Clean, intuitive editing experience without clutter

• Thoughtful design system that keeps sites consistent and responsive

• Beautiful mobile navigation with polished animations

• Robust section options that don’t feel restrictive

• Smart defaults that make layouts look good with less effort

• Customization where it matters — fonts, spacing, image focal points, gallery styles

• Reliable responsiveness across breakpoints

• Sites simply look better on Squarespace with less manual fixing

It wasn’t perfect — image cropping on mobile still caused minor quirks — but compared to every other builder, Squarespace delivered the most professional-looking result with the least frustration.

Final Takeaway

Steve’s massive 20-platform experiment makes one thing clear: most website builders either limit you too much, overwhelm you with complexity, or fall apart on mobile.

Squarespace hits the sweet spot:

• simple enough for beginners

• powerful enough for professionals

• polished enough to make a site look intentional, not improvised

If you want the full, highly entertaining deep-dive, definitely watch the original video from Steve Builds Websites. He did the internet a real service by saving everyone else dozens of hours of trial and error.