This year I needed to take a real website from "needs a redesign" to live, and I did what I'm about to recommend you do: lined up the field, weighed what each builder actually costs and actually produces, and picked one. I picked Framer, and it's now my standing recommendation for most people. Here's the comparison that got me there, with the honest cases for the others.
The field, at real prices
| Builder | Free tier | Cheapest real plan | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Framer | Yes, full editor, framer.website subdomain | $10/mo (annual) with a free custom domain the first year | Thinks like a design tool; 30-page cap on Basic |
| Wix | Yes, with a Wix ad banner on your site | Light, $17/mo (annual) to remove ads | No export, ever; costs climb plan by plan |
| Hostinger | No | $1.99/mo, but only on a 48-month commitment paid upfront | Renews at $10.99/mo, more than 5x the teaser rate |
| Durable | Trial | ~$12/mo | Fastest to "done," least control after that |
Prices as of mid-2026, annual billing. All four change their pricing regularly; the shape of the tradeoffs changes much more slowly.
What separates them
The first draft is the demo. The edit is the marriage.
Every AI builder produces a plausible first draft now; that stopped being a differentiator a year ago. The question is what happens when you try to change things. Wix gives you a friendly but crowded editor with two decades of accumulated features. Hostinger's editor is simple and a little thin. Durable barely wants you editing at all. Framer's editor is the real difference: it works like a design tool, which means the ceiling is dramatically higher, and the first hour is more confusing. That tradeoff is the whole decision for most people.
Pricing honesty
Framer's pricing is the most honest of the four: $0 to learn on a real project, $10 a month when you want your own domain, no teaser-rate games. Hostinger's $1.99 headline requires paying four years upfront and renews at over five times that. Wix's free tier is a demo with a banner ad, and the real price starts at $17. Durable is fair but you're paying for speed, not ownership.
The partner test
Here's the criterion that actually decided it for me, and that no listicle ever mentions: can a non-technical partner open the site and safely change things themselves? On my redesign project I first tried the leanest possible stack, AI-edited static files published straight to Netlify. It worked beautifully, right up until my partner on the project needed to edit something and couldn't. Every change had to go through me. Framer was the tool that passed the test: a visual editor a non-technical collaborator can actually use without breaking the site. If more than one human will ever touch your site, weigh this above almost everything else. (Framer charges $20-40 a month for extra editor seats; budget for it, it's the feature you're buying.)
Lock-in
None of these let you meaningfully take your site elsewhere, so go in with eyes open. The difference is what you lose: leaving Wix or Durable means starting over. Framer at least lets your design thinking, and your content in its CMS, transfer with less pain. If total ownership matters to you, the answer isn't any builder; it's the static-files path in the main guide, with the caveat above about partners.
Verdict
Framer for most people: the free tier is a real free tier, the paid tier is honestly priced, and the output looks designed instead of templated. Wix if you want maximum hand-holding and don't mind paying for it. Hostinger only if you understand the renewal math and want the one-bill bundle. Durable if the site just needs to exist by dinner.
Start where I'd start: Framer's free tier on a real project.
Try Framer freeWhich one should you pick?
- Most people, most sites: Framer — try the free tier, then read the full review
- Total beginner who wants training wheels: Wix — the review covers the lock-in tradeoff
- Tightest budget, one bill for everything: Hostinger — read the renewal-price warning first
- You might blog seriously later: skip all four, read the main guide for the WordPress path