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, 30 pages, framer.website subdomain | $10/mo (annual) with a free custom domain | Thinks like a design tool; 30-page cap on Basic too |
| Wix | Yes, with Wix branding on your site | Light, $17/mo (annual) to remove the branding | No export, ever; costs climb plan by plan |
| Squarespace | No, a 14-day trial only | Basic, $19/mo (annual), free domain year one | Priciest entry of the mainstream five; no free tier to linger on |
| Hostinger | No | $2.99/mo, but only on a 48-month commitment paid upfront | Renews at $10.99/mo, about 3.7x the teaser rate |
| Durable | Yes, but you can't publish to your own domain on it | Launch, $22/mo (annual) | Fastest to "done," least control after that |
Prices verified against each vendor's own pricing page on September 22, 2026, annual billing. All five change their pricing regularly; the shape of the tradeoffs changes much more slowly. Multi-year totals: the true-cost calculator.
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. Squarespace gives you the most opinionated templates in the business, which is a feature until you want something they didn't anticipate. 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.
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 a month for each extra editor seat; 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, Squarespace, 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.
The credit meters nobody mentions
One 2026 wrinkle worth knowing before you compare monthly prices: the AI features are increasingly metered rather than unlimited. Framer allots AI credits by plan (500 on free, 1,000 a month on Basic, 3,000 on Pro), and Durable meters AI image generation the same way (5 a month free, 50 on Launch). Nobody hits these limits building one small site, but if your plan is to have the AI regenerate everything twenty times, price that in.
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. Squarespace if you want beautiful defaults and will pay a premium to never fight a layout. 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
- You want it to look good without design decisions: Squarespace: the profile, or the head-to-head
- Tightest budget, one bill for everything: Hostinger: read the renewal-price warning first
- You might blog seriously later: skip all five, read the main guide for the WordPress path
Keep reading
Framer vs Wix: the head-to-headFramer vs Squarespace: the head-to-headThe true-cost calculator