A Brief History of Website Builders

In this post, we’ll explore the history of website builders, from the code-based tools of the late 90s to the drag-and-drop editors of today. Let’s get started!

📚 Table of contents:

The early history of website builders (mid-1990s to early 2000s)

In 1991, computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee launched the world’s first website. This was a very basic page, with a white background and black text, that contained information about the World Wide Web (WWW) Project.

The first websites were coded manually, using HTML. In fact, they were created primarily by professional programmers. Sites were built on computers and uploaded to servers using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) clients.

However, the introduction of website builders soon opened up new possibilities. Let’s look at some of the first tools to hit the market.

GeoCities

Launched in 1994, GeoCities enabled users to build their sites online. It provided a limited amount of server resources for free:

This server space was organized into “neighborhoods,” each one dedicated to a particular niche, like technology or entertainment. Users could create websites on their preferred topics without being fluent in programming.

In 1999, GeoCities was acquired by Yahoo!, which introduced a premium hosting service. Ten years later, the company terminated its United States GeoCities service. By that point, it had hosted over 38 million pages ^[1].

FrontPage

First released by Vermeer Technologies in late 1995, FrontPage became a Microsoft product through an acquisition announced in January 1996, and it let users create and manage rich web documents without programming:

It was one of the first website builders with a “What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG)” interface. This format meant users could lay out pages visually and see roughly how they would look in a browser, while FrontPage generated the HTML behind the scenes.

In 2006, Microsoft decided to discontinue FrontPage. It was replaced by two other products: Microsoft SharePoint Designer, which enabled users to design SharePoint-based applications, and Microsoft Expression Web, which helped web designers create sophisticated sites. These two HTML editors were also later discontinued.

Dreamweaver

Another HTML editor that emerged in the nineties was Dreamweaver. Released in 1997, this website builder enabled developers to edit their sites’ files on their computers, and then upload them to web servers via FTP:

Adobe acquired Dreamweaver in 2005, and the tool is still available today. It now supports other programming languages, including CSS and JavaScript, and has a more visually-focused interface.

The rise of no-code website builders (mid-2000s to early 2010s)

As the internet became more accessible, more individuals wanted to create sites for their businesses or personal projects. This led to a growing demand for accessible and user-friendly solutions, which marked a big shift in the history of website builders.

As a result, a new wave of hosted, template-based website builders emerged, building on the code-free editing that visual tools like FrontPage had offered for years. These tools made it easier for users to create their own websites without the need to learn code or hire programmers.

Here are some of the website builders that dominated the 2000s:

Squarespace

Squarespace launched in January 2004 as a hosted website builder, built to bring the scattered tools needed to make a website under one roof. By the time founder Anthony Casalena graduated from college, it was making more than $1 million in revenue ^[2]:

Using Squarespace, you could build and publish a website without writing code. Plus, the websites were hosted on Squarespace’s servers, so there was no need to transfer the content to the web.

Squarespace is still popular today. It’s used by approximately 2.4% of all websites ^[3].

Wix

Wix was founded in 2006 and launched its Flash Editor in 2008, and it went on to reshape the website builder market:

Its user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface helped it rise to fame quickly. By 2010, Wix had 3.5 million users ^[4]. Today, it remains one of the most popular website builders: BuiltWith’s September 2025 snapshot ranked it as the most used technology in the simple website builder category, with 8.6M+ sites detected ^[5].

From the start, Wix offered an all-in-one solution, enabling users to create a website and host it on the company’s servers. Upgrading to a Premium plan removes Wix ads and lets you connect a custom domain; the initial purchase of an annual Premium plan includes a custom domain free for one year.

Shopify

Shopify grew out of Snow Devil, an online snowboard store its founders started when none of the existing ecommerce solutions gave them the flexibility they wanted, and it became one of the largest players in online store building:

It used (and still uses) an open-source template language called Liquid, written in Ruby. In 2009, Shopify launched an Application Programming Interface (API) platform and an app store. These new features let developers build applications for online stores and sell them on the Shopify App Store.

By 2012, Shopify had over 40,000 active stores ^[6]. In 2013, it launched its own payment processor, Shopify Payments, which lets store owners accept credit cards.

Webflow

In 2013, Webflow was created specifically for web designers and agencies. It enabled them to create fully-customized sites with a drag-and-drop editor:

The Webflow UI was different from most other website builders at the time because it offered advanced customization capabilities beyond simple tweaks to font and color.

With Webflow, users were able to customize page layouts and components using a vast selection of settings. They could also style elements visually instead of writing CSS by hand.

Plus, you were able to make site-wide changes directly within the visual editor without installing add-ons or widgets. Webflow later added ecommerce features, so users could build a fully functional shop without code. Its native gated-content feature, User Accounts, was retired on January 29, 2026, and Webflow now recommends third-party membership tools such as Outseta and Memberstack.

WordPress.com

Of course, no history of website builders would be complete without a look at WordPress.com. Launched publicly by Automattic on November 21, 2005, after a beta that August, WordPress.com offered a hosted version of WordPress that anyone could use:

Users could set up a blog for free and interact with others through comments. Since then, WordPress.com has evolved into a powerful hosting solution for all types of websites, not just blogs.

From its inception, WordPress.com enabled users to select themes for their sites and customize their appearance. However, it would take more than a decade before WordPress.com users were able to take advantage of the WordPress plugin ecosystem.

Moving towards a more user-friendly interface (history of website builders in the mid to late 2010s)

During the 2010s, website builders underwent a significant transformation. While they had always provided an easy way to create websites, they now offered a more intuitive interface that further simplified the process.

For example, here’s what Squarespace looked like in 2014, ten years after it was launched:

This version streamlined the website-building process. While users were once required to create accounts first, they could now get started by choosing templates:

Likewise, Wix had a massive makeover, replacing its old flash technology with HTML. It also enabled users to start designing their sites straight away, giving them a selection of website templates to choose from:

Most website builders started to focus on responsiveness, enabling users to customize their sites for different devices, including mobile phones. Some, like Shopify, even introduced mobile apps, so users could manage their websites on the go:

Meanwhile, in 2017 WordPress.com began letting Business plan users install third-party plugins, and today plugin installation is available on every paid plan, starting with Personal. This allowed for page-building tools like Elementor to bring more customization options to their users. Like Shopify, WordPress.com launched an app that enabled users to design and update their sites from their phones:

This flexibility has made WordPress.com one of the most popular website builders of all time. It hosts blogs written in over 120 languages, and users on WordPress.com and externally hosted blogs in its Jetpack network produce about 70 million new posts each month ^[7].

Website builders today

So far, we’ve looked at the history of website builders from the 90s to the late 2010s. Today, drag-and-drop builders still dominate the market: as of BuiltWith’s September 2025 snapshot, Wix and Squarespace were the two most detected technologies in the simple website builder category ^[5]. The newest chapter is AI: Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress.com have each added an AI website builder that generates a complete starter site from a short written description.

Some digital marketing companies have even tried their hand at website builders. Constant Contact, for example, offered a website builder to its email marketing customers until September 2023, when it transferred those sites to its partner Web.com.

Meanwhile, some website builders, such as Wix, have evolved beyond simple building tools. In 2021, Wix launched Editor X, a fully responsive website creation platform made for designers, shown below. It has since transitioned to Wix Studio, which offers advanced layout capabilities, including custom breakpoints and custom CSS, and new Editor X sites can no longer be created.

Wix has also introduced a full-stack development platform called Velo, which lets developers build and launch their own applications. These tools present a new world of possibilities, enabling users with advanced knowledge to create unique apps via a combination of drag-and-drop and code editors.

Squarespace has also maintained its popularity through various evolutions. The addition of built-in ecommerce tools, including Squarespace Payments for accepting multiple payment options, and developer options for injecting custom CSS and JavaScript has expanded its appeal to different types of users, including artists and creatives. Additionally, Squarespace sells its own domain names, enabling it to compete with domain registrars such as GoDaddy. We can help you decide whether GoDaddy or Squarespace is the right choice for you.

As we have seen in this post, website builders have come a long way since the days of code-based editors. Drag-and-drop interfaces have made website building far more accessible. Plus, a user can typically manage all aspects of their site from one account, including web hosting and email marketing.

Conclusion 🧐

That wraps up our brief guide to the history of website builders!

Web development has undergone tremendous changes since its inception in the early 90s. The earliest tools, like FrontPage and Dreamweaver, paired visual editing with HTML. Later hosted builders, such as Squarespace and Wix, simplified the process further by bundling in hosting and publishing, and expanded users’ options.

All-in-one solutions like Wix and WordPress.com remain popular among individuals and businesses. These website builders are now more flexible than ever and come with advanced functionality, including ecommerce features and email marketing integration. They also offer advanced tools for web developers and designers, enabling them to create their own designs and apps.

Learning about the history of website builders is both fascinating and entertaining, and we hope you enjoyed reading about it as much as we enjoyed writing about it. If it happened to spark your interest in creating a website 👨‍💻 then you’re going to need a modern day website builder to get the job done. For that you definitely want to check out 👉 our detailed comparison of the best website builders.

Do you have any questions about the history of website builders? Let us know in the comments section below!