Free drag and drop website builder
A free drag and drop website builder is only as free as its plan: where the site goes live, whose name it shows, whether you can leave. We make Mobirise, whose free app publishes to any host, and we set its plan beside six others.
Free for personal and commercial sites.
app, blocks and self-hosted sites
The free plan covers the desktop app, 200+ blocks and three hosted sites. Everything you publish on it carries Mobirise branding.
What Mobirise gives you for $0
The Mobirise team went through the free plan line by line in October 2026. Here is what it gives you, limits included.
Nothing to pay for the desktop app, its basic theme or the 200+ blocks inside. A hobby page or a paying business may both run on it.
Every site you put on your own server is free: the app sends it by FTP or FTPES, publishes it to GitHub Pages, or leaves it as a local folder.
Each gets a mobirisesite.com subdomain with HTTPS. Putting your own domain on them takes BASE or GROW.
Mobirise branding appears on what you publish for free. KIT, $149 a year, takes it off.
Free does not lock your work in: the app hands over every page as HTML, with its CSS, scripts and images, for any server.
Each generation returns four designs, and Regenerate brings more variants without touching the allowance.
Which free builder fits your project
Asking for the best free drag and drop website builder really means asking which free-plan limit you can live with. Here are ten tools, each matched to the need its free or entry plan serves well, with the catch; nine of them are someone else's product.
Mobirise
The app is a free offline drag and drop website builder with code export, and it uploads any number of sites to hosting you already rent. The catch: free sites carry our branding, and you move whole blocks, not single elements.
Wix
Its free tier gives you the whole freeform canvas and a Wix subdomain, with Wix ads on the site. Your own domain starts at Light, $17 per month on annual billing, and the site cannot be exported.
Carrd
It works as a free drag and drop landing page builder: up to three one-page sites, each on a .carrd.co address and showing “Made with Carrd”. Pro Standard, $19 a year, connects your own domain.
WordPress.com
Free publishing with ads, on a platform built around posts. Personal, $4 a month, adds your domain; export carries posts and pages, not the design.
Square Online
Reviewers often rank it as the simplest builder, and it has a free plan. The trade-off is a narrower set of design choices.
8B AI
A one-line prompt yields a full site design, real HTML and CSS included, at no cost. Publishing, with hosting, SSL and your domain, waits for Pro at $9 per month paid annually; it all runs in a browser.
Squarespace
In reviews it is named the easiest builder overall more often than any rival, yet nothing goes live free: you get 14 days of trial. Then Basic runs $19 per month on yearly billing, $25 if you pay month by month.
Webflow
Free sites go live at a webflow.io address and carry a badge, and the Style panel teaches classes and breakpoints. Expect a slow start; putting your domain on it means a Basic site plan at $15 per month, paid annually.
Framer
The free plan publishes to a Framer address, shows a “Made in Framer” badge and caps bandwidth at 1 GB. Basic is $10 a month with annual billing; sites stay on Framer hosting, with no HTML export.
Hostinger
Quick AI first drafts, but nothing goes live without paying. The $2.99 monthly price needs four years paid up front and renews at $10.99.
This list comes from the Mobirise team, so discount our card as you see fit. Rival cards draw on their makers' plan pages and on points reviewers raise again and again; wherever a rival covers a need better, its card admits it.
Free drag and drop website builders, plan by plan
Seven builders, judged only on their free tier: going live, the address, what visitors see, and what your own domain or your files will cost.
| Free-plan check | Mobirise | Wix | Squarespace | 8B AI | Carrd | WordPress.com | Webflow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you drag | Ready blocks, stacked and tuned in a panel | Any element, to any spot on a canvas | Blocks on a snap grid inside sections | Nothing at first: AI writes the design | Elements in one list on a single page | Blocks in the WordPress editor | Elements styled with classes, per breakpoint |
| Live for $0 | Yes: 3 sites on our hosting, unlimited on yours via the app | Yes | No, a 14-day trial | No, design only | Yes, 3 one-page sites | Yes | Yes |
| Free address | mobirisesite.com subdomain with HTTPS, or your own host | Wix subdomain | None | None | .carrd.co | WordPress.com subdomain | webflow.io |
| Shown on free sites | Mobirise branding | Wix ads | No free site | No published site | “Made with Carrd” branding | Ads | Webflow badge |
| Your domain from | $0 through a web host you pay for; BASE, $199 a year, on our hosting | $17 monthly on Light, yearly bill | Basic: $19 monthly with a yearly bill, $25 paying monthly | $9 monthly on Pro, paid for a year | $19 yearly (Pro Standard) | $4 monthly on Personal | $15 monthly for a Basic site plan, paid annually |
| Your files | On Free, from the app (HTML, CSS, JS); browser projects need BASE or GROW | No export | Text content as XML, no design | HTML export comes with Pro | $49 a year (Pro Plus); forms break once exported | Posts and pages as XML | Export only on a paid workspace |
| AI at $0 | 3 generations a month, 4 designs each | AI agent drafts pages, free to start | Blueprint AI, but no free plan | A whole design from a sentence | None listed | Some free prompts | Up to 2 AI-made pages |
Commercial use is the one point we could confirm only for ourselves: the Mobirise free plan allows business sites. Read the terms of any other free tier before you run a business on it, and recheck prices before you pay.
Three kinds of drag and drop, as a beginner meets them
Every drag and drop website editor lets you rearrange a page by hand. What you actually pick up, though, shapes your first session.
Freeform canvas
You pick up a single button, photo or line of text and drop it anywhere, even over something else. Wix is the familiar example. It feels natural at first; then lining things up becomes your job, and phones need their own pass in a mobile editor.
Sections on a grid
You add a section, then drag blocks into the cells of a snap grid inside it. Squarespace works this way. You get freedom inside a tidy frame, and the phone view can be rearranged separately if you want.
Ready blocks
You choose a finished block, such as a header, a price list or a contact form, and drop it between the others. Mobirise is built on this. There is little to align and each block brings its phone layout, but no single element moves to an exact spot.
For a first site, ready blocks ask the least of you and a canvas the most. If ease matters most, blocks come out ahead; if you want freedom, a canvas does. Visual CSS tools such as Webflow are a fourth path: more control, and a slower first page.
Free-plan traps and how to step around them
They turn up on most free tiers, ours included. Check each one before you put weeks into a site.
Someone else's name on your site
Nearly every free plan that publishes shows ads or a badge: ads on Wix and WordPress.com, branding on Mobirise, Carrd, Webflow and Framer. Find out what removes it, and the yearly cost, before you build.
An address you will outgrow
Free sites live on the builder's subdomain. If the address will go on cards, signs or invoices, use your own domain from the start, so you never have to announce a new one.
A free plan that never goes live
Some tiers design but do not publish: 8B AI holds the site back until Pro, and Squarespace gives you 14 trial days, then a bill. Fine for testing ideas, not for running a site at $0.
No way out with your files
Wix has no export, and Squarespace and WordPress.com export content without the design. If leaving matters, pick a tool that hands over HTML: Mobirise does it on Free; 8B AI, Carrd and Webflow on paid plans.
Moving means rebuilding
Builders rarely open each other's projects, and Mobirise is no exception. Switching means redoing the pages, so choose with the next few years in mind. Exported HTML keeps the old site running on any host meanwhile.
Allowances that run out
Free tiers have caps: Framer limits bandwidth to 1 GB, Carrd stops at three sites, and Mobirise allows three hosted sites and gives three AI generations a month. Read them before launch day, not after it.
Your first page in Mobirise, without paying
Mobirise is a free no-code website builder, and every step below stays on the free plan.
Choose where to build
Open the builder in a browser, or install the app for Windows, macOS or Debian-based Linux. Both are the same Mobirise; the app also edits offline.
Start from a theme or a prompt
Open the basic theme that ships free, or type a line about the site and choose one of four AI designs. The AI also takes a drawn sketch or a screenshot as its starting point.
Drag, type, adjust
Drag blocks out of the block panel onto the page, replace the sample words by typing, and click any photo to pick your own. Spacing, background and column count live in each block's parameters. Flip the preview to phone before you finish.
Publish for $0
Choose a free mobirisesite.com subdomain, or have the app send the files by FTP to your hosting, to a GitHub Pages site, or to a local folder.
Without internet the app still edits and previews; AI drafts, sign-in and publishing wait until you reconnect. Read what the app does offline for the full list.
When paying is worth it
Free is enough for a real site. Upgrade when one of these becomes true, and not before. Every Mobirise plan is billed yearly.
The branding has to go
When a business page should not show our name, KIT drops the branding for $149 a year. It also unlocks the premium library of 220+ themes and extensions, with Smart Cart and the Code Editor in the set, but covers the desktop app only, without AI or online sites.
Hosting and domain in one place
BASE, $199 a year, runs three hosted sites under domains you own, adds 100 AI generations a month with premium AI designs, and lets the browser builder export.
AI is how you work
GROW, $249 a year: everything in BASE, ten hosted sites, and an AI allowance of 1,000 generations monthly.
Stay on Free when
Your domain already points at a host you rent, and Mobirise branding on the page is acceptable. Then the free app and an FTP upload give you a complete site under that domain.
Changed your mind after paying? A refund is available within 14 days of your first order. For more on what the no-cost app includes, read our free website builder software guide.
Who should start free with Mobirise
The free plan suits some sites and not others. If ease matters more than price, our easy website builder comparison sorts ten tools by need.
A good fit
- You want your own domain without a monthly builder fee, on hosting you already have
- You want to own your site's code at no cost, to host it or hand it over as you like
- A small business, club, portfolio or event site built from ready sections
- You sometimes work with no connection, on Windows, macOS or Linux
- You like starting from an AI draft and finishing by hand
Pick something else if
- Pixel-exact placement of every element matters to you: Wix's canvas allows it
- You need a phone layout that differs from desktop: Wix and Squarespace allow one
- Your current site was made in another tool and you hoped to keep editing it: Mobirise cannot import it
- A free blog with many posts and categories is the goal: WordPress.com
- You sell a large catalogue with stock and shipping rules: Shopify
- You build only on an iPhone or iPad and want an app: there is none, though the browser builder works there
Questions about building for free
What does a free drag and drop website builder usually leave out?
Usually three things: your own domain, a site without ads or badges, and a download of the files. In our October 2026 table, every free plan that publishes showed ads or branding, and only Mobirise let you use your own domain at $0, by uploading to your host.
What is a drag and drop website builder?
It is an editor in which you build pages by mouse rather than by typing HTML: you pull elements or ready sections into place, replace the sample text and choose colors in panels, and the editor produces the code. Builders differ mainly in what you drag, from a single button on a free canvas to a whole block, as the three kinds above show.
Is the Mobirise free plan allowed for business sites?
Yes. A shop, a studio or a client's site may run on Free just like a personal page. In return, the published pages show Mobirise branding until you move to KIT or a higher plan.
Can a free site have my own domain?
Yes, if you host the site yourself: upload it from the desktop app by FTP to any host where your domain points. Mobirise charges nothing for that, though you still pay the host and the registrar. On Mobirise hosting, a custom domain needs BASE at $199 a year.
Is any drag and drop website maker free of ads and badges?
Not among the free plans we checked. Wix and WordPress.com show ads, while Mobirise, Carrd, Webflow and Framer add their own branding. Removing it takes a paid plan; with Mobirise, that is KIT at $149 a year.
Can I take the site to a different host later?
With Mobirise, yes, and on Free it costs nothing: the desktop app writes your pages with their styles, scripts and images into files any server accepts. Sites kept in the browser builder need BASE or GROW to export. Here is what that exported HTML looks like.
Can Mobirise open a site I built in Wix or WordPress?
No. Mobirise reads only its own project files, so a Wix or WordPress site, or an HTML template you bought, gets rebuilt block by block. Leave the old site up while the new one takes shape.
Will I have to touch code on the free plan?
No. On Free you work by dragging blocks, typing straight into them and choosing options in panels, and the app writes the Bootstrap 5 code underneath. Editing markup is a paid extra: the Code Editor, included from KIT up, opens a block's HTML and styles. To see how Mobirise compares as a Bootstrap page builder, read our guide.
Is Mobirise an open source drag and drop website builder?
No. Using Mobirise costs nothing on Free, but its source code is closed, so you cannot change the editor itself; what you keep is the HTML, CSS and JavaScript it exports. Open-source editors hand you the source to modify and run on your own server, and in return the setup, updates and security become your job. Many of them are code libraries for developers, not finished apps with ready designs.
How many AI designs do I get without paying?
Three generations a month, each returning four designs. Pressing Regenerate for more variants does not use up another one, and BASE raises the allowance to 100 a month and GROW to 1,000. To make each attempt count, our AI website maker guide covers what to write in the prompt.
Is there a drag and drop website builder free download that works offline?
Yes. Our desktop app costs nothing on Windows, macOS and Debian-based Linux, and once installed it edits, previews and uses its blocks with no connection. You go online only for AI drafts, publishing, signing in or paying, and fetching new themes or app updates. On a Mac, the right build depends on the chip, Apple Silicon or Intel, and our free website builder for Mac guide shows how to tell.
Can I build the site on my phone?
Yes, in a phone browser. Android users can also install the Mobirise AI app from Google Play, while iPhones and iPads have no Mobirise app, so you work in the mobile browser there. Blocks adjust to small screens automatically, but you cannot keep a separate phone layout.
Make your first page today
Start with AI in the browser or download the free app. It is the same Mobirise either way.