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Building a website is no longer a particularly hard task—but it can be an annoying one. If you look at most sites, there’s a fair amount of text, images, and general organization to it all. Even with the best tools, it takes a few hours to put together something good. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just create a website from scratch in just a few minutes? That’s what AI website builders claim to do.
The idea is that by using artificial intelligence, AI website builders can streamline everything from designing a site, creating the content, organizing it into the appropriate pages and even getting it online. It’s a bold claim, but there are a few apps that pull most of it off with varying degrees of intelligence and success. (I refuse to accept that the AI-generated stock text is appropriate for a legitimate website.)
I’ve been building websites for almost 20 years and have used hard-coded HTML, WordPress, every site builder you can name, and even, on one regrettable occasion, Drupal. In that time, getting a site live has become a lot simpler and easier. It used to take an entire weekend to get a site up and running, but now, with the best theme-based site-building tools, you can get something great online in an afternoon.
So I was pretty curious to see how the AI website generators would stack up. After lots of testing and tinkering, here are my picks for the best AI website builders.
The best AI website builders
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Wix for most people
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Jimdo for a free AI website builder with affordable upgrades
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Framer for designers
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Chariot for vibe coding a website
What makes the best AI website builder?
How we evaluate and test apps
Our best apps roundups are written by humans who’ve spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. Unless explicitly stated, we spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it’s intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We’re never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.
For the past few years, AI (or some variation on the theme) has been the hottest marketing buzzword around. It should be no surprise then that there are now dozens and dozens of tools that claim to use AI to build websites. Unfortunately, of the more than 50 tools I tested, very few of them were usable, let alone good.
The problem is that building something that works kind of like an AI website builder is now fairly straightforward. Connect any of a dozen AI APIs to a white label or open source website builder, and you’re basically there. All you need is a front-end that takes a prompt, and you can have the AI fill in a standard, editable site template with AI-generated text. It won’t be any good, but it will allow anyone to create a website in just a few minutes—which looks great in demo videos and sounds awesome in marketing copy.
And this is kind of the crux of the issue. As far as I’m concerned, an AI website builder has to be a great website builder that happens to use AI, not a glorified tech demo that populates the same template with boring, AI-generated text.
AI website builders work in two main ways. Some apps had me fill in a survey about who I was and what my site was for, while others could build a rough site from a typed prompt like “I’m a professional landscape photographer based in Ireland. I need a visually striking, portfolio-style website to showcase my work, organized by location or theme (e.g., coastlines, mountains, rural scenes). The site should feature high-resolution galleries, an “About Me” section, and a blog for sharing stories behind the shots. The overall design should be clean, minimalist, and mobile-friendly, with a strong focus on the photography.” (This was the actual prompt I used, or a shortened version of it when it was too long.)
If my input genuinely made a difference to the end-product, I was happy to consider it AI-powered, regardless of if it was a form or a prompt. But if a so-called AI website builder took what I said and slotted it into the same generic theme or two it uses for everything, I was happy to write it off as a poor attempt to cash in on the current AI boom.
On top of actually feeling like an AI, I was looking for website builders that checked a few important boxes:
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Enable you to make a great-looking site. Theme-based website builders have set the bar really high here, so there’s no need for a website to look like it was built using Dreamweaver in 2005. This requirement actually tripped up some of the most AI-powered builders I considered: they could take a written prompt, but they somehow managed to make something awful from it.
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Make it easy to get the results you want. Picking a WordPress theme is pretty simple. No matter how AI-powered an app is, if you have to spend ages crafting prompts to get it to produce good, relevant results, or need to spend a lot of time tweaking things afterward in a mediocre site builder, it didn’t make this list.
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Truly build custom sites. The cynical way to make an AI website builder is to have it take a prompt and then slot that information into a single generic theme. Changing the prompt just changes the headers and maybe the images, not the actual layout of the site. I won’t link to them, but I ran into a huge number of tools like this. For an app to get featured here, it had to allow you to build genuinely custom sites. It should be an AI-generated website, but it shouldn’t feel like an AI-generated website.
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Offer a good overall experience. The whole point of AI tools is that they make things easy; if any app makes you battle with a bad interface, awkward AI, or anything else, there’s no point using it. There should also be solid documentation in case you do get tripped up.
There were also a few things I wasn’t looking for.
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Standard website builders with generative AI for content. This list is showing off AI-powered website builders, so the AI tools had to actually build the website. Some of these apps also use AI to generate content, but I wasn’t considering any apps that just had AI baked in to help you write copy.
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AI design apps. There are lots of apps popping up that help designers mock up websites using AI, but they don’t produce working websites with functional code. This list was narrowly focused on the kind of AI tools that allow you to build and launch a website.
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Vibe coding tools. Vibe coding is the term of the moment, and while it’s a quick way to build apps, it’s overkill for building a website. Why badly build a WordPress knockoff from scratch when you could just use WordPress?
Do you actually need an AI website builder?
Website builders are already really easy to use and have approximately a zillion templates, one of which will definitely work for you.
This list is now on its third update, and I’m not convinced that you need artificial intelligence to make a great site, or that using an AI-powered website builder will get you better results faster. I’m also 100% convinced that launching a site in 30 seconds from a written prompt will never be more than a party trick—or a tool for spammers.
You can’t launch a legitimate site without doing some customizing yourself. That’s why I’d suggest finding an AI website builder that’s backed up by a solid non-AI website builder. It’s the best of both worlds.
The best AI website builders at a glance
Best for |
Standout feature |
Pricing |
|
---|---|---|---|
Wix |
Most people |
A balance of AI and a mature website builder |
Free with Wix branding and domain; from $17/month |
Jimdo |
A free option |
Affordable upgrades |
Free with Jimdo branding and domain; from $11/month |
Framer |
Designers |
Great design features |
Free with Framer branding for hobby projects; from $10/month/site |
Chariot |
Vibe coding a website |
AI design from a prompt |
From $17/month |
Best AI website builder for most people
Wix (Web)
Wix pros:
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Effective, easy-to-use AI site designer
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Backed up by Wix’s mature site builder ecosystem
Wix cons:
Wix is one of the best website-building tools across the board. It’s on Zapier’s lists of the best free website builders, the best blog sites, and the best eCommerce platforms. So it’s no wonder that it also tops our list of the best AI website builders.
Wix’s AI site builder manages to balance usability and functionality. You start by chatting with a chatbot, answering questions about what kind of site you want to build. It’s effective, and despite one or two missed requests, it genuinely seems to affect how your site looks when you move on to the AI site builder. There, you can use an AI tool to create new sections or the Theme Assistant chatbot to help you change the look and feel of it—though it can only open menu panels for you to make the changes rather than do it directly. Of course, you’ll always have to change the AI-generated stock text and images to your own content, but I was able to spin up a functioning photography portfolio in less than 10 minutes.
Crucially, Wix makes it easy for you to change any of the decisions it’s made, both when you’re configuring things with AI or when you’re editing the site it’s built using the great drag-and-drop builder. If the AI totally misses the mark, you aren’t stuck.
Now, Wix’s AI doesn’t give you that jaw-dropping feeling of using ChatGPT for the first time, but I feel it’s still the right option for most people. Wix gives you the choice to use its AI site builder or select from a list of themes, and the AI site builder is the faster option. The fact that you then have a top-notch website builder to tweak the content is a good thing, not a downside. You get the speed of an AI site builder plus Wix’s mature feature set.
And, really, if you’re trying to build a real website, that’s what matters more than anything. You can use Wix to start a blog, sell digital and physical products, take bookings, and anything else you could want. It even integrates with Zapier, so you can automatically create contacts or update a spreadsheet based on form submissions. Learn more about how to automate Wix, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.
There aren’t many other AI-powered site builders that can match Wix on practicality.
Wix pricing: Free with Wix branding and domain; from $17/month for the Light plan, including a custom domain for one year.
Best free AI website builder with affordable upgrades
Jimdo (Web)

Jimdo pros:
Jimdo cons:
Jimdo, like Wix, is a long-running site builder—and it was also one of the first AI website builders. It launched its AI editor, called Jimdo Dolphin, in 2017, though it seems to have moved away from that branding.
When you build a site, you can select from a theme or have Jimdo build one for you—that’s the AI-powered option. After you describe the purpose of your site (and, if you want, link it to your Google Business listing to get contact information or your Facebook and Instagram accounts to pull images), Jimdo will suggest a style, color palette, and what pages you need. Once you’ve given everything the ok, it’ll take a few moments to create two starting points. Select the one you want, and you’ll have a draft site ready to go.
Like with Wix, you then use the site editor to upload content, configure things like booking modules, and generally tweak your site. It feels less AI-y than Wix, to be honest, but it does work really well. And it’s also more affordable, with paid plans starting at $11/month.
All in all, Jimdo is another great AI website creator if you’re building a personal or business site. It has an AI-powered site builder with enough power to get you started quickly, plus all the features you need to run a real website. Yes, most of the customizing will happen through the regular site editor, but that’s the tradeoff if you want to quickly build a modern website.
Jimdo pricing: Free with Jimdo branding and domain; from $11/month for the Start plan that includes a custom domain.
Best AI website builder for designers
Framer (Web, macOS, Windows)

Framer pros:
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AI Wireframer is a useful tool
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The rest of the app is great, so you can build a real site
Framer cons:
Framer’s AI features no longer seem to be a major focus. Instead, it’s all in on offering a Figma-like design experience that allows you to directly publish a website. As part of this, it has a great AI-powered wireframing tool, as well as an AI workshop for creating assets like scrolling progress bars and CSS effects, and an AI-powered translator. But it isn’t a standalone AI app—and this isn’t a bad thing.
The big difference between Framer and a lot of other AI website generators is that Framer actually works. You start with a prompt (the more descriptive, the better), and it will create a rough website, including generating some draft copy. If you want to add or remove something, just use the Wireframer in the sidebar, and tell it what you need. It’s a really quick way to mock up a site.
The catch? You’re miles away from a finished website. I don’t know if it’s a bug or if the feature has changed, but Framer no longer even added stock photos to my designs. If you create another page, you need to manually add links. With Framer’s AI, you literally just get a really nice wireframe. Or with the Workshop, an asset to add somewhere.
If you’re a designer who wants the level of control and customizability that Framer brings to the table, it’s well worth using. The AI tools are a nice bonus and speed up the process of creating an initial design. But don’t think you’ll be able to enter a prompt and quickly have a functioning site anymore.
Framer pricing: Free with Framer branding and domain for hobby projects; from $10/month/site for the Mini plan, with 2 pages and 10GB of bandwidth per month.
Best AI website builder for vibe coding a website
Chariot (Web)

Chariot pros:
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Create a website in moments using a chatbot
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Seriously, the chatbot works
Chariot cons:
Chariot is the purest AI website builder currently available—and it shows the pure folly of an all-AI approach. Chariot allows you to use a chatbot to vibe code your site. Tell it what you want, and wait a few minutes while it spins up a fully functioning site that meets your brief. It’s by far the most impressive tool on this list.
But then it comes to editing your site. How do you change the home page text? Ask the chatbot to do it. Add an image? Upload it to the chatbot and ask it to do it. Rearrange some content? Chatbot. Add a cookie banner? Chatbot. Build a contact form? Would you believe, you have to ask the chatbot to create a form that sends an email to you. Is this an absolutely ridiculous way to build a site? 100%.
If Chariot had a better free plan, there’d be an argument for using it to create simple sites quickly. I once made a website for a goldfish while sitting in a bar to prove a point. But the 50 credits you get per month isn’t really enough to build a site, and at $17/month, Chariot is competing with real tools like Wix and Squarespace. But hey, give Chariot a spin. It’s super fun—and maybe next year you’ll be able to edit text.
Chariot pricing: Free for 50 credits per month; from $17/month for 1,000 credits and web hosting.
10Web has a similarly ambitious website building platform, though it doesn’t stick the landing quite as well as Chariot. It’s worth a look too.
Other AI website builders (and some more options)
Over the past year or two, public expectations of what AI can do have drastically changed. This complicates things when it comes to website builders.
The AI website builders that have been around for a few years—like Wix and Jimdo—work really well and allow you to build functional sites, but they don’t really have the same wow factor as ChatGPT or Loveable. Both have added more powerful AI features, but at their core, they’re still traditional website builders. Framer, on the other hand, is a great design tool, but its AI still leaves you some distance from a functioning site. And while Chariot works as advertised and brings the wow factor, it’s far from a practical product.
So if none of these tools are what you’re looking for, there are a few other options worth considering.
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If you really want to launch a site quickly, check out Carrd or one of the other best landing page builders. While they don’t use AI, you’ll still be able to get something solid up and on the web in an hour or two.
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Relume is a nice AI-powered website design tool, but you have to export your design to Webflow if you want to turn it into an actual website.
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Elementor is a design plug-in for WordPress (amongst other things). If you already use it or are happy to add it to your WordPress site, its AI features are worth a look—but it’s not really a standalone AI website builder.
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ZipWP is an AI-powered WordPress site creator. It doesn’t do a whole lot of AI, however, which is why it isn’t on the main list.
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Shopify, Squarespace, and all the other big names in website building are adding various AI-powered features. Most don’t really help with designing your website, but that may change.
So, if you came to this list hoping to find a great all-in-one AI-powered website builder that’s as effective as ChatGPT or Midjourney, then I’m sorry to disappoint. While AI tools have been part of website builders for almost a decade, no app has yet put together the full package. The best AI website builders are website builders first, and AI-powered second. Still, they’re a very effective way to launch a new website.
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This article was originally published in June 2023. The most recent update was in June 2025.