Drag and Drop HTML Editor: Elevate Your Site With the Top Builders of 2024

Start Using HubSpot's Drag-and-Drop Website Builder

Harnessing the power of a drag-and-drop HTML editor can revolutionize the way you build websites. It's a game-changer for those who want to weave compelling digital experiences without getting entangled in the complexities of code.

I've personally discovered the convenience of using drag-and-drop builders in my professional journey. As a web developer, the transition to a drag-and-drop HTML editor was a pivotal moment. I recall working on a tight deadline for a marketing campaign's landing page. The traditional coding route was time-consuming, but switching to a drag-and-drop editor, like HubSpot Content Hub, was a revelation.

Let's delve into the benefits of using these builders and then explore the best options that can breathe life into your website.

Table of Contents

• What Is a Drag-and-Drop Page Builder?
• Benefits of Using Drag-and-Drop Page Builders
• Best Overall Drag-and-Drop Page Builder
• Best Drag-and-Drop Website Builders

With most drag-and-drop page builders, you'll see a full visual preview while you're designing. This means that you see your website exactly as your visitors will see it, which makes it very easy to tweak and adjust things.

Some drag-and-drop page builders are standalone hosted tools. That means you can make a website just by registering for an account and all of your data "lives" on that service's web servers.

Other page builders are based on open-source website software, most typically the open-source WordPress software. For these tools, you would first need to create a basic WordPress site on your own web hosting. Then, you could install the page builder as a plugin on your WordPress site.

In the list below, I'll include tools using both approaches so that you can choose the one that you prefer.

Benefits of Using Drag-and-Drop Page Builders

Let's say you have a marketing campaign going live in just a few days. You've worked hard on the messaging and content for the campaign. You've mapped out the user journey and know where you want to drive traffic. You have conversion rate goals, and all your content is approved.

Your final step is creating a campaign or landing page using your content management system (CMS). But once you start building your page, you realize the only option for where to add your call-to-action (CTA) is hidden at the bottom of the page. You know that to hit your goals, what you really need is a CTA above the fold. You ask your dev team to move the CTA up on the page, but the soonest they can do it is a week after your campaign goes live.

What seems like such a simple request can be difficult if your CMS doesn't have a non-developer-friendly drag-and-drop website builder. Here are some reasons why your CMS must offer drag-and-drop functionality:

You don't need coding experience to edit your site.

If you don't have a ton of coding experience (or any at all), a drag-and-drop website builder is your best option to make a site that's functional, visually attractive, and easy to get started creating.

With the help of drag-and-drop website builders, you can easily:

• Reorder existing elements of your page as you see fit. (Think: CTAs, blocks of text, images, video embeds, and beyond.)
• Add additional elements to your pages that didn't previously exist without your dev team's assistance.
• Edit how existing elements of your page appear. For example, you could adjust the width of a rich-text area to take up more or less space to meet your needs.

With a drag-and-drop website builder, you're in control of your content and campaign pages.

Get Started With the Free Drag-and-Drop Builder

Drag-and-drop page builders free up your developer's time.

The best drag-and-drop website builders streamline the website design process for your entire organization. Because team members without coding experience can easily navigate a drag-and-drop builder, this frees up your dev team for other crucial tasks.

Without asking your developer to rearrange a page template so you can publish a page, developers can focus on more mission-critical growth projects that can move your business forward.

Drag-and-drop page builders help you improve the user experience.

Although everyone benefits from drag-and-drop page editing, the real benefactor is your customer. If you're forced to build pages within a rigid template, your user experience ultimately suffers. Drag-and-drop page editing helps you create pages that give your website visitors the critical information they need to progress through the buyer's journey.

Drag-and-drop page builders can let you leverage AI in web design.

With the growth of AI over recent years, many drag-and-drop builders have started offering AI tools to generate a website. Some tools can generate entire websites from a text prompt while others give you tools to generate text, images, or code snippets to assist you in your efforts.

Personally, I don't think full AI website generation is quite there yet, but AI can still be a really useful tool to speed up the process of creating a website. You can use it to generate a jumping-off point for your site or to help with copywriting and image creation.

As AI continues to improve, it might even reach the point where you can just use an AI-generated website "as is," maybe with some minor tweaks that you make via the visual builder.

Best Overall Drag-and-Drop Page Builder

Choosing the best drag-and-drop page builder for you will depend on your unique situation, including your budget, feature needs, knowledge level, and so on.

However, if you're looking for the best overall place to start, I think Content Hub is a great jumping-off point.

It lets you get up and running by choosing a premade theme or using the AI website builder. Then, you can customize your site via the visual, drag-and-drop page builder tool.

Beyond the design flexibility, Content Hub also gives you lots of marketing tools to help you make your site a success. These include a built-in customer relationship manager (CRM), email marketing, live chat, AI writing for content marketing, A/B testing, and plenty more.

1.Content Hub: Best Overall Drag-and-Drop Page Builder

Get Started With Our Free Drag-and-Drop Builder

Content Hub's easy-to-navigate drag-and-drop page builder gives you total control over your content. Thanks to this feature, you have the ability to seamlessly change the color, fonts, and imagery on your website without ever touching a line of code. In addition, you can add custom modules to themes. Doing so is easy - just drag and drop them like you would with any other element.

For example, if you have a standard "events listing" module built out by a developer, you can reuse that same module across any page, making page-level edits as needed. Using that module - or any custom module - is just as easy as using a rich text or image module.

What I think makes Content Hub a truly powerful page builder where everyone wins is that it combines powerful tools that allow you to take ownership of your website while still providing developers the flexibility to leverage the tools and technologies they're accustomed to when building websites.

Because Content Hub is free to get started, you can give it a try to see how it fits into your overall digital content strategy. I think you'll love the ability to easily craft an entirely unique website that features your company's branding and can be updated efficiently without any coding experience.

Personal Insight: In my work, I've used Content Hub to transform complex design ideas into reality. Its intuitive interface allowed me to focus on creativity rather than coding.

Pros:

• You can build a site using the AI website builder or choose one of the pre-made templates and customize it yourself.
• Content Hub combines ease of use and power in an intuitive WYSIWYG editor.
• You can add custom modules to the drag-and-drop editor to give yourself even more flexibility when setting up your design.
• In addition to the official themes, there's also a large library of third-party themes that you can easily use for your website. Currently, there are over 500 listings in the HubSpot Template Marketplace.
• Content Hub includes built-in AI tools for content creation, which can help you create landing page copy and/or blog posts.
• You get access to lots of built-in marketing tools, including the free HubSpot customer relationship manager (CRM), email marketing, optimization testing, and more.
• There's also a built-in live chat tool that makes it easy to connect with your visitors.

Cons:

• While you can find thousands of apps in the HubSpot App Marketplace, most of those are for the HubSpot CRM. The app selection for the Content Hub page builder is a little more limited.
• It's probably not the best option if you want to include ecommerce functionality in your site.

Pricing:

• Get started for free
• $15 per seat/month (Starter)
• $450/month (Professional)
• $1,500/month (Enterprise)

2. Elementor: Best WordPress Drag-and-Drop Page Builder

When it comes to the best drag-and-drop website builders that integrate with WordPress, Elementor is at the top of the list. It's not just the most popular WordPress page builder plugin, but it's also just flat-out one of the most popular WordPress plugins in general.

It offers a 100% visual and drag-and-drop design interface to help you build everything, along with detailed design options and lots of advanced features like a form builder, pop-up builder, dynamic content, full WordPress theme building, and more.

You also get detailed design options to customize every element on your site without needing to use custom CSS (though you're allowed to do that too, if you want).

Elementor has also embraced AI, launching its own Elementor AI service to give you access to AI for text, images, and code snippets.

One thing I really love about Elementor, though, is that its developers built it in a way that allows third-party developers to extend Elementor. This, combined with its popularity, has led to an absolutely massive marketplace of third-party plugins and templates that further extend Elementor.

The result is that Elementor lets you do pretty much anything without needing to code a custom solution, which I think is the true spirit of a drag-and-drop website builder.

Pro Tip: Explore Elementor's massive third-party extension and template marketplace to unlock lots of new functionality and designs.

Pros:

• Elementor offers easy front-end editing and lots of design options.
• The builder interface includes true visual previews that look like exactly what your visitors will see.
• Elementor has useful built-in marketing tools like a form builder and pop-up builder.
• With Elementor Pro, you get deep support for dynamic data - for example, you can dynamically insert information from WordPress custom fields.
• With Elementor AI, you can access built-in AI tools for text, image, and code generation.
• There's a huge ecosystem of third-party Elementor add-ons and templates.
• While you can install Elementor on your own WordPress site, there's also an all-in-one hosted version.
• The free version is capable in its own right, though a lot of the best features require Elementor Pro.

Cons:

• While Elementor has worked a lot to improve its performance, it can still add a bit of weight to the page (which affects performance).
• It's not a standalone tool - Elementor requires the free WordPress software to function. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, I just want to make it clear that it's not a standalone tool like some other page builders on this list.
• Elementor is a bit more expensive than other WordPress-based page builders.

Pricing:

• Free; $59/year (Essential); $99/year (Advanced); $199/year (Expert); $399/year (Agency).
• If you want the all-in-one plans that include hosting, those start at $11.99 per month.
• If you want to use Elementor AI, that's an additional fee starting at $3.99 per month.

3.Beaver Builder: Best Alternative Page Builder to Elementor

If you have a WordPress site and are seeking a page builder that isn't Elementor, look no further than Beaver Builder. It lets you make tweaks to your site rapidly, and page editing is done on the front end, so the editor is truly a "what you see, is what you get" experience.

For a visual page builder plugin, Beaver Builder is actually pretty lightweight. It's one of the most performant page builder plugins that I've tested, so I think it can make a great option if you're looking for a lightweight tool that won't slow down your site.

It doesn't give you quite as many bells and whistles as a page builder like Elementor, but it does nail the basics. I find that Beaver Builder is especially popular with "power users" who value having a lightweight foundation more than extra fees.

Pro tip: Don't even bother trying the free version of Beaver Builder. I only recommend it if you're willing to pay for the premium version.

Pros

• It has a true visual preview - you see what your visitors will see when you're designing.
• Beaver Builder offers a really fast drag-and-drop interface - I almost never experience lag when building designs.
• It's one of the most lightweight and performant WordPress-based page builder plugins.
• The drag-and-drop interface supports really easy column creation - just drag a column next to another.
• There's a large ecosystem of third-party add-ons and templates (not as big as Elementor, but still more than most other tools).
• It has full support for theme building and dynamic content (with the developer's Beaver Themer extension, which is included with paid licenses).

Cons

• It doesn't have as many advanced features and design options as some other tools. For example, there's no pop-up builder or custom form builder like Elementor.
• It's not a standalone tool - Beaver Builder requires the free WordPress software to function. Again, this isn't a bad thing, it's just something you need to understand.
• The free version is very limited - you pretty much need the paid version to build anything worthwhile.
• The core plugin doesn't include as many templates as other drag-and-drop builders, though you can easily fix this because you can find so many third-party templates.

Pricing:

• Free (Lite Version)
• $89/year (Standard)
• $299/year (Professional)
• $546/year (Unlimited)

4.Wix: Best Drag-and-Drop Page Builder for Beginners

Wix is one of the most popular web page builders available. Its drag-and-drop interface doesn't rely on columns like many page builders. Instead, the editing experience is very similar to editing a Google Slide, which is ideal for those who don't want to tackle a learning curve or have limited technical experience.

Out of the box, Wix provides you with a long list of modules and styling options so you can quickly create the exact website you're looking for. For more advanced users, Wix also gives you some access to your site's underlying code via tools like Velo.

Beyond the built-in features, I appreciate that Wix also offers a large library of official and third-party extensions that you can use to add new features and integrations to your site.

Wix has also really embraced AI, even giving you an option to generate your site using AI. If you're searching for an AI page builder tool, I think Wix is one of the best options for you to consider.

Pro Tip: Dive into Wix's app market to extend your site's functionality with ease.

Pros:

• Wix has really embraced AI and it's one of the best AI website builders out there.
• You have multiple options for launching a site - you can choose a template and customize it or let Wix's AI generate a site for you.
• The design interface is truly visual and 100% drag-and-drop, which gives you lots of flexibility.
• You get tons of modules and design options to customize your site.
• Even though it's a hosted website builder, Wix still has a pretty large marketplace of third-party apps.
• Wix offers built-in tools for ecommerce, membership sites, appointments, and more.

Cons:

• If you ever want to change platforms, Wix makes it difficult to fully export your site's content, which adds a degree of "lock in."
• The Wix interface can feel a little bit overwhelming at first because there are so many options.
• Wix changed its pricing in 2023 and it can now be a bit more expensive than some other hosted website builders, depending on the specific features that you need.
• You can't change your Wix template after you launch your site. If you ever want to change the base design, you need to start over from scratch.

Pricing:

• Free (with Wix subdomain)
• $17/month (Light)
• $29/month (Core)
• $36/month (Business)
• $159/month (Business Elite)

5.Squarespace: Best Drag-and-Drop Page Builder for Freelancers

Squarespace is another hosted page builder tool that gives you full control over your website. It has a long list of templates you can use to start your website in no time. Or, you can even let Squarespace's Blueprint AI service design the site for you, which is a great feature if you're in the market for an AI website builder.

Plus, there are plenty of premade, visually appealing modules you can place wherever you prefer on your website. It's as easy as the click of a button - no code necessary.

I absolutely love Squarespace's new Fluid Engine, too. Unlike some other page builders, the Fluid Engine doesn't limit you to dragging elements inside of a preset grid. Instead, you can literally drag an element anywhere on your page, which gives you pixel-perfect control.

Much like other page builders in this list, Squarespace doesn't have many options for developers to customize your site, but it provides you with a long list of web elements that you can use to build your web pages.

The only thing I don't like about Squarespace is that it doesn't really have a third-party extension marketplace. While this won't affect most sites, it does mean you can't access as many integrations.

Personal Insight: As a freelancer, I leveraged Squarespace for quick website setups with a professional look.

Pros:

• You have multiple options for launching a site - you can choose a template and customize it or let Squarespace's Blueprint AI tool generate it for you.
• Squarespace's Fluid Engine gives you a truly free-form drag-and-drop design experience, whereas many other drag-and-drop tools still make you adhere to a basic grid system.
• The Squarespace interface is clean and minimal - I find it to be very easy to use.
• Squarespace offers built-in tools for ecommerce, appointments, forms, and more.
• Unlike Wix, Squarespace makes it fairly easy to export all of your site's data.

Cons:

• Squarespace doesn't offer as many templates as some other tools, though the templates do generally look great.
• While Squarespace does now offer some extensions, the collection is still very limited when compared to other tools.

Pricing:

• $16/month when paid annually (Personal)
• $23/month when paid annually (Business)
• $28/month when paid annually (Basic Commerce)
• $52/month when paid annually (Advanced Commerce).

6.Hostinger Website Builder: Best Page Builder with AI

Hostinger Website Builder is a comprehensive website-building platform. Its standout feature is the AI site builder, which lets you create a website instantly by entering your business name, description, and website type. Hostinger Website Builder also offers other useful AI tools, including the AI Writer, AI Image Generator, AI Heatmap, and AI Logo Maker.

You can also create a website using one of its 150 pre-made templates. Feel free to customize the template further by dragging and dropping any website element without content block restrictions.

The basic plan offers other perks like a free custom domain for one year, 100 free email accounts, and 24/7 live chat support. If you upgrade to the higher-tier plan, you can also access built-in ecommerce functionality and more advanced AI tools.

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Overall, I think that Hostinger Website Builder can be great for non-technical users looking to build simple websites, such as a portfolio, business brochure site, blog, or very basic ecommerce store. But for more complex websites, I would probably recommend choosing a different tool.

Personal Insight: I found Hostinger Website Builder's editor easy to use even on mobile.

Pros:

• The drag-and-drop design interface is very simple and easy to use, which is great for beginners building simple websites.
• You get access to lots of AI tools, especially if you choose the Business Website Builder plan (which includes AI for text, images, and SEO).
• It offers over 150 different templates, which gives you a good amount of flexibility for finding a design that you like.
• You can edit your site on both desktop and mobile devices.
• The Business Website Builder plan includes built-in ecommerce functionality to sell products and/or accept payments.
• It's one of the cheapest hosted website builders that you'll find.

Cons:

• The builder doesn't offer as many advanced design options as a tool like Elementor or Wix. Beginners probably won't miss anything, but more advanced users might.
• There's no third-party app marketplace, which means you're limited to the built-in tools.
• You can't create a membership site where other users can register on your site, which is something most of the other builders on this list support.
• The prices increase after your first billing period, so you need to consider the renewal price when making your decision. You can lock in low prices for up to four years if you pay it all upfront, though.

Pricing:

• $2.99/month initial; $11.99/month renewal (Premium Website Builder)
• $3.99/month initial; $13.99/month renewal (Business Website Builder)

7.Divi: Best Unlimited Use WordPress Drag-and-Drop Page Builder

Divi is another popular page builder you can use to craft your WordPress site. With Divi, you can make edits in a WYSIWYG page editor, and drag and drop custom elements to meet your needs.

If you install Divi, you can make custom design changes, and developers can also combine Divi's visual design controls with their own custom CSS. It also provides a number of filters and design options to make designing a web page more of a creative process.

Divi has also embraced AI with its new Divi AI service, which lets you use AI to generate text, images, code snippets, and Divi layouts.

Because Beaver Builder no longer offers unlimited site usage on all of its plans, Divi is now the cheapest option on this list if you need support for unlimited sites. For example, if you're looking for a page builder to build client websites, Divi will be the cheapest option on this list.

Divi also offers a lifetime license, which is another unique pricing detail that can make Divi very affordable over the long term.

Basically, if cost is one of your primary concerns, I think that Divi can be one of the cheapest drag-and-drop builders over the long term.

Personal Insight: I leveraged Divi's A/B testing feature to optimize site elements effectively.

Pros:

• You can use it as a standalone WordPress plugin (Divi Builder plugin) or an integrated theme (Divi theme).
• It includes built-in A/B testing, which is an advanced marketing feature that most other page builders don't offer.
• The Divi AI service lets you use AI to generate text, images, code snippets, and even Divi layouts.
• It offers full WordPress theme-building support, along with support for dynamic data insertion.
• There's a large marketplace for third-party Divi extensions and layouts, which gives you lots of flexibility for adding new features and integrations.
• Divi offers unlimited site usage on all plans, along with a one-time payment lifetime plan. These two things can make it very cost-effective over the long term, especially if you're building multiple websites.

Cons:

• Personally, I don't find Divi's interface to be as easy to use as other WordPress page builders like Elementor or Beaver Builder. You might feel differently, though, so I encourage you to test it for yourself.
• Divi can add a bit of weight to the page, which can affect performance. However, the Divi team has really worked on improving this so the performance drag is now pretty minimal (whereas it was a lot more prior to 2022 or so).
• There's no free version.

Pricing:

• $89/year (Yearly Access)
• $249 One-time fee

8.Weebly: Best Drag-and-Drop Page Builder for Ecommerce Sites

Weebly is another popular drag-and-drop website builder that's worth considering. Back in 2018, Weebly was acquired by Square, the popular payment processing company.

I mention this acquisition because it's relevant to what Weebly excels at - offering an excellent drag-and-drop page builder for ecommerce stores.

While you can certainly use Weebly to build other types of sites as well, I think it's one of the best tools for building lightweight ecommerce stores (whereas I would recommend something like Shopify for more heavy-duty ecommerce stores).

You can get started by choosing one of Weebly's pre-made themes. Then, you can customize everything using Weebly's drag-and-drop page builder interface. While Weebly's interface lacks some of the advanced design options that other tools offer, I think that it's very easy to use. If you don't need advanced design options, I think that could be a point in Weebly's favor over other tools.

For example, instead of needing to customize your button style from scratch, you can just choose from the list of premade styles. Advanced users might want more control, but I think beginners will prefer how simple this is.

Personal Insight: I found its integrated shopping cart and inventory management tools incredibly useful for online stores.

Pros:

• The Weebly page builder interface is very simple and easy to use. I think it's great for beginners who value simplicity.
• Weebly excels when it comes to building ecommerce stores.
• You can find around 350 apps in the Weebly App Center, which gives you a decent amount of flexibility.
• Because it's owned by Square, you can be confident that Weebly has a lot of resources behind it and is in it for the long term.
• Weebly is cheaper than other hosted website builders like Squarespace and Wix.

Cons:

• Weebly doesn't offer as many design customization options as some other page builders.
• Weebly's theme designs are a bit basic when compared to many other tools.
• While you can use Weebly for non-ecommerce sites, that's not its strong suit and I would recommend a different page builder for those use cases.

Pricing:

• Free (with Weebly subdomain)
• $10/month (Personal)
• $12/month (Professional)
• $26/month (Performance)

Choosing a Drag-and-Drop Page Builder

A drag-and-drop page editor can empower website owners to control their content and campaigns without needing developer intervention. My advice? Choose the one that aligns best with your project's goals and audience needs.

The best page editors, however, combine ease of use for marketers and flexibility for developers, who might want to add custom modules or set global settings. Selecting the right editor for your business can help you create, manage, and optimize your website for your unique audience. Remember, in the world of web design, the right tool can make all the difference.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in June 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Topics:Content Management System

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