Weebly vs GoDaddy Website Builder Comparison – Which To Use?

In this post, I will compare Weebly vs GoDaddy Website Builder and briefly review their features and ease of use to help you pick the better option.

Weebly is a modern website builder boasting a suite of useful eCommerce features. Meanwhile, GoDaddy’s website builder is both simple and intuitive. Although Weebly provides more eCommerce features, GoDaddy’s site editor excels on the ease of use front.

NOTE: I have also compared GoDaddy vs. WordPress Website Builder, GoDaddy vs. Squarespace, Weebly vs. Wix, and Weebly vs. Squarespace.

 

Weebly vs GoDaddy Website Builder

Weebly has been an industry-leading website builder for years and has recently begun to focus more on online stores and eCommerce.

On the other hand, GoDaddy Website Builder is a relatively new player in the web building field. Still, it has quickly grown to become popular due to the beginner-friendliness it implements in its own interface.

I understand that it can be hard to choose between two very similar providers, which is one of the main reasons I’ve put together this GoDaddy vs Weebly comparison.

After spending hours researching both providers to find at least minimal differences between the two, I found a few highlights worth mentioning.

On the pricing front, Weebly offers the cheapest subscription and just comes ahead because of its free plan. However, GoDaddy Website Builder’s top eCommerce plan is cheaper than Weebly’s, which is worth keeping in mind.

 

Weebly vs Wix comparison.
Weebly editor dashboard.

 

GoDaddy Website Builder and Weebly offer attractive design templates and intuitive website editors. Weebly gives users more customization potential, while I found the latter’s competitor a bit easier to use.

 

GoDaddy website builder interface.
GoDaddy site builder editor interface.

 

Both providers have great marketing and eCommerce features that make them attractive for small business websites. Weebly does stand out here because of its growing focus on eCommerce, but GoDaddy Builder doesn’t back down with its easy-to-manage SEO tools.

Due to being a product of a powerful hosting provider, GoDaddy Website Builder takes the points when it comes to performance.

Let’s dive deeper into this Weebly vs GoDaddy comparison to find out which provider suits which site category.

 

Ease Of Use

Weebly and GoDaddy Builder have a reputation for offering great drag-and-drop website builders that are intuitive and beginner-friendly.

Of course, that beginner-friendliness has its cost, and that’s why freedom of design suffers while using these both builders. That’s mainly because both site editors are restricted by grid layouts while placing elements.

So, I went through the entire website creation process for both providers as part of this comparison, and here is some insight.

 

Getting Started

The sign-up and initial website creation steps are often the most important. If they’re too complicated, most people will likely take business elsewhere, choosing a provider that’s both straightforward.

Fortunately, GoDaddy Website Builder and Weebly make it easy to build your website.

The first thing I noticed about the GoDaddy website builder was that it claims to let you get online in under an hour.” At first, I thought this was too good to be true, but it’s a pretty close shot.

GoDaddy really is that simple, which is one of the reasons it has become a favorite among people who want to build an online presence without investing a lot of time or money.

It took me about 30 seconds to sign up for an account and start building my GoDaddy website. I didn’t have to provide personal information or payment details, and I was working on my site’s design before I knew it.

Weebly didn’t disappoint either. It did take me a little bit longer to sign up and work my way through the website creation process – but nothing more than a couple of minutes.

 

Weebly dashboard.
Weebly account dashboard.

 

First, I was asked what sort of website I wanted. I was then guided to a theme selection page, which let me choose an attractive design template based on my site. Once I had chosen my theme, it was time to get down and start editing.

In terms of getting started, it’s largely pointless to compare Weebly and GoDaddy as they offer very similar sign-up processes, and neither requires any special skills or information.

 

Website Editor

GoDaddy and Weebly provide easy-to-use website editors that give you enough design flexibility to create beautiful sites yet not enough to make them super unique. However, the “idiot-proof” tools work well with beginners and are a real timesaver.

To start with, Weebly’s website editor gives you access to a complete range of editing tools via the simple editor panel on the left of your screen. It lets you add various personalized elements to your website, including different types of media files, search boxes, and even eCommerce tools.

 

Weebly website builder.
Weebly website builder.

 

At the same time, Weebly makes it easy to edit every single element on your website. You can add or remove text, change the color and style of pretty much anything, and rearrange things by dragging and dropping them where you want.

 

Weebly drag and drop feature.
Weebly drag and drop feature.

 

Well, not exactly where you want. Unfortunately, Weebly doesn’t offer complete design flexibility and restricts its elements’ placements with a grid layout.

However, enabled restrictions are also an excellent solution for fool-proof editing, so even the biggest beginners in website building could give it a go without spending hours acquiring disposable information.

The rest of the Weebly editor is just as simple. You can switch between different tabs via the menu at the top of the page. You can even change between mobile and desktop versions of your website, allowing you to edit and preview each separately.

Like Weebly, GoDaddy’s website editor is intuitive and easy to use. However, it doesn’t offer much design flexibility or customization potential, and you will be restricted even more by the template you use.

 

GoDaddy website editor.
GoDaddy website editor is easy to use.

 

GoDaddy Website Builder remains an excellent choice for people who want to get a simple website online without spending much time or money. Because of its simplicity, I actually found it easier to use than Weebly.

 

GoDaddy website builder theme settings. GoDaddy website builder settings.

GoDaddy website builder offers good amount of features and customization options.

 

To start with, you can edit your site’s content, appearance, and navigation from the menu on the right of the screen. The Theme tab lets you switch themes and modify the colors and fonts of your existing theme, while the Content and Site Navigation tabs let you adjust your site’s content and menus.

Adding new sections to each page of your website is also easy, and there is a wide range of elements to choose from.

 

GoDaddy builder sections feature.
GoDaddy editor Sections feature.

 

I particularly like that GoDaddy offers specialized content blocks like menus and reservation buttons for niche websites.

 

EASE OF USE WINNER: Weebly and GoDaddy excel on the ease of use front. Both are great choices for beginners and make building a website straightforward. If I were choosing based on ease of use alone, I’d probably put GoDaddy Editor ahead of Weebly.

 

Templates

Weebly and GoDaddy are modern website builders with a reputation for keeping up with the latest design trends.

They both offer a range of attractive design templates that you can base your website on, which is good considering the limitations of their website builders.

However, as modern and unique these templates may be, the variety of choice also plays a major role in your website’s design.

GoDaddy offers a lot of templates compared to most other website builders. Templates are divided into categories, and there are many available templates to choose from.

 

GoDaddy website builder templates.
GoDaddy website builder templates example.

 

Unfortunately, GoDaddy’s themes are a little bit simplistic. Although they are well designed, they certainly aren’t suited to large sites with a lot of content.

Weebly doesn’t offer very many themes. Around 57, which I would say is a smaller selection. For example, if you want to build an event website, you will only have six different templates to choose from. Weebly’s editor is also quite limited, making it hard to truly personalize your chosen template.

 

Weebly builder templates.
Weebly template library.

 

On the other hand, the relatively small number of themes that Weebly offers also works in its favor. Every single template is regularly updated, maintaining the modern look that it’s famous for.

 

Weebly theme customization options.
Weebly theme customization.

 

Weebly’s designs are also fully responsive and mobile-optimized – something worth remembering when picking a website builder for yourself.

 

WINNER: Weebly offers fewer templates but slightly better quality, while GoDaddy gives you more designs to choose from but less customization potential.

 

Business Features

Weebly and GoDaddy Website Builder offer a range of business-specific features. Weebly has increased its focus on eCommerce, while GoDaddy makes it easy for people to create a simple online store.

Both offer a range of digital marketing tools, and both perform well on the SEO front.

 

eCommerce

I looked closely at GoDaddy and Weebly in terms of their eCommerce offerings. I expected Weebly to excel because of its focus on online stores, but GoDaddy didn’t fall behind too much either.

Weebly partnered with Square, one of the world’s leading eCommerce payment software providers. It provides great eCommerce solutions for online stores of all shapes and sizes and has grown to become an industry-leading online store builder.

 

Weebly adding products.
Weebly managing store products.

 

I particularly like Weebly because of its attractive online store design templates. It doesn’t provide a lot of themes for you to base your store on, but the ones it does have are well made and in line with modern trends.

Weebly offers comprehensive eCommerce tools, making it easy for small to medium-sized stores to manage their inventory and orders. Although it doesn’t quite compete with the popular dedicated eCommerce platforms, I’ve always been happy with the online store features that Weebly provides.

 

Weebly eCommerce features.
Weebly eCommerce features.

 

GoDaddy has a simple approach to eCommerce. Sure, it lets you build a basic online store, but that’s about it.

It doesn’t have the same level of features as Weebly, which could make it hard to scale and manage your store if you plan to grow your business using this platform solely for eCommerce.

I like GoDaddy’s online store building because it lets you sell anything you want, virtual products included.

 

GoDaddy website builder selling options.

GoDaddy website builder store features.
Adding store product in GoDaddy editor.

 

Many eCommerce providers don’t let you sell digital downloads and other non-physical products, but GoDaddy gives you a lot of freedom on this front.

Ultimately, I’d recommend Weebly over GoDaddy for most online stores. However, GoDaddy could be useful for people who want to build a small store without many products.

 

Marketing

Weebly and GoDaddy Site Builder offer a range of marketing tools. It’s hard to pick a winner here, but I wouldn’t recommend choosing either of these providers based on their marketing features alone.

Weebly lets you easily integrate your social media profiles with your online store. You can use cross-platform selling and marketing and easily promote your products on sites like Facebook and Instagram.

Weebly lets you build great marketing emails through the Weebly Promote interface ($8/month, but free with the Business Plus plan). You can customize your email templates to create personalized messages if you want to. Similarly, Weebly offers some powerful SEO tools to help you boost your website’s search engine ranking.

 

Sending email in Weebly.
Weebly email marketing.

 

GoDaddy Website Builder offers a suite of marketing tools. It also lets you create customized email marketing campaigns. Unlike Weebly, it includes a great automatic email designer to help you save time and work more efficiently.

GoDaddy lets you integrate your social media platforms similarly to Weebly and offers SEO tools to boost your site’s search engine ranking.

Ultimately, Weebly and GoDaddy offer similar marketing features, and neither provider stands out above the other.

BUSINESS FEATURES WINNER: I’d recommend Weebly for most online stores because it focuses more on eCommerce and GoDaddy to users who want to build promoting landing pages using great marketing tools.

 

Pricing

GoDaddy’s web builder starts at €3.99 per month to €9.99/month for personal sites, and the eCommerce plans from €19.99/month to €29.99/month.

Weebly’s plans appear very similar to GoDaddy’s. The main difference is its Free Forever plan. Although basic, it will let you test the Weebly website builder before paying for advanced features.

However, as with many free website building plans in this industry, it comes with its own limitations. These include the inability to connect a custom domain, hosting Weebly’s ads on your website, and having limited access to premium features.

The Connect plan ($5/month) brings some additional basic features, Pro ($12/month) plan offers slightly more features, including the ability to accept online payments.

Weebly’s higher-end plans are Business ($25/month) and Business Plus ($38/month). Business Plus plan offers more advanced eCommerce features such as abandoned cart recovery and real-time shipping rates calculator.

 

WINNER: Weebly provides cheaper pricing plans.

 

GoDaddy vs Weebly Verdict

The results of my GoDaddy Website Builder vs Weebly comparison weren’t surprising. As two very similar website builders, both are suited to people who want to build a simple site without investing many resources.

Weebly is a better choice for eCommerce, but websites built with GoDaddy tend to perform better and can be great promotional landing pages.

GoDaddy and Weebly stack up very evenly on most fronts. Weebly probably just takes the edge regarding their subscriptions, but only because it offers an attractive Free Forever plan.

Both website builders are very intuitive, easy to use, and beginner-friendly. However, Weebly does offer a bit more design flexibility.

The only place where Weebly stands out clearly is on the eCommerce front, while GoDaddy offers superior marketing features, hosting, and website performance.

I’d recommend both Weebly and GoDaddy for most small websites. Neither is the best choice if you want complete design flexibility, but both have the tools and features to let you build a simple website in the space of a couple of hours.

 

Alternatives

Although GoDaddy and Weebly are great website builders, there are plenty of alternatives that you might find more suited to your needs.

 

Wix

Wix is famous for its extremely powerful drag-and-drop website builder, which gives you true, pixel-level design flexibility. It’s a good GoDaddy and Weebly alternative for people who want to create a completely personalized website.

 

Site123

If you want to build a simple website in the space of a couple of hours, then SITE123 is a good choice. It’s super beginner-friendly, easy to use, and offers a very intuitive editing interface similar to GoDaddy’s.

 

Shopify

Shopify is a good choice if you want access to a more powerful store builder and stronger eCommerce features than either Weebly or the GoDaddy website builder offer.

 

Squarespace

If you’re looking for design templates that are at least as good as Weebly and GoDaddy’s, Squarespace is a great alternative. It has been an industry leader on the design front for years and continues to excel with many in-house features that apply to all users’ needs.


DISCLOSURE: Posts may contain affiliate links. If you buy something through one of those links, I might get a small commission, without any extra cost to you. Read more about it here.

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