Top 10 church website builders

Launching a beautiful and engaging church website is the best way to introduce your church to visitors, your local community, and the rest of the world. And using a church website builder is the simplest, fastest, and most cost effective way to create a new website.

While some website platforms claim to be church friendly, they often lack important features that churches need. In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of using a church website builder, which features they offer, and how they can empower you and your team to reach more people, streamline communication, and get people more involved than ever before. Ready? Let’s get started!

Table of contents

5 big benefits of using a church website builder

Using a church website builder offers several benefits for religious organizations. Here are some of the key advantages:

1. Save time & money: Church website builders typically provide user-friendly interfaces and pre-designed templates tailored to the needs of churches. They require little to no coding knowledge, allowing even those without technical expertise to create a professional-looking website. Using a website builder is often more affordable than hiring a website developer and paying maintenance fees.

2. Increase your discoverability: Church websites allow people to find your ministry, learn about your beliefs, and access your resources regardless of their location or time constraints. 

3. Connect on mobile: In today's mobile-driven world, it is crucial for websites to be mobile-friendly and responsive. The best church website builders provide responsive templates that adapt to different screen sizes automatically to ensure your website looks and functions well on smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers.

4. Integrate with helpful church tools: Many church website builders offer integrations with online giving solutions, church management software, live streaming, and other tools. This allows you to streamline your operations by connecting your website with existing systems, enabling better communication and data management.

5. Better engage your community: Well-designed church websites serves as a central platform for sharing news, updates, and announcements with your congregation. You can use features like event calendars, online registrations, and volunteer sign-ups to facilitate participation. Additionally, you can share sermons, articles, and resources to foster spiritual growth and provide support to your congregation.

By leveraging a church website builder, you can enhance your online presence, improve communication with your community, and boost the growth and impact of your church.

Top 10 church website builders

1. Subsplash

Subsplash stands out from other websites for churches with special features that increase your church’s discoverability along with engagement tools to help foster online communities. This makes your content easier to share and simpler for search engines to discover—without additional work on your end. 

Subsplash’s custom church website templates and a powerful drag-and-drop editor allow you to build and publish a beautiful new website quickly and easily. Plus, special features like groups and messaging, events, and giving further expand your church’s reach and impact.

Top features:

  • Church website templates: Professionally designed templates that can be easily customized to match the unique branding and style of your church or ministry. This is particularly valuable for visitors seeking information before attending a service. Your team can easily create visually appealing and cohesive websites without the need for extensive design skills.
  • Drag-and-drop editor: Simple to use editor so anyone can quickly add images, content, and other elements to your website without needing to hire a web developer.
  • Mobile friendly: People depend on mobile devices for web browsing, so Subsplash Websites ensures their sites are fully responsive for mobile devices. This ensures a consistent and user-friendly experience across different screen sizes and devices, allowing visitors to engage with the content on the go.
  • Online giving: This specially designed church website builder makes it as easy as possible for your church to start receiving online donations through your website. 
  • SEO tools: Subsplash offers several different Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools to help make your website stand out. These include a website description, keywords, and an option to make your website searchable. Beyond these tools, its integration with Subsplash Media provides an SEO boost by creating a unique page for each of your media uploads!
  • Church video & audio: Subsplash Websites allow seamless integration of media content such as videos, podcasts, and images. This feature enables churches to create an immersive media experience with recorded sermons, worship music, event highlights, and other multimedia resources, increasing user engagement and accessibility to valuable content.
  • Automated website backups: Your website is automatically stored so that you can restore previous versions of your site at any time. 
  • Live streaming: Quickly and easily set up your church live streaming right through your website with Subsplash Live. You can also simultaneously stream to other platforms like your church app, YouTube, or Facebook Live. 
  • Event calendar: Keep everyone up-to-date with your church’s calendar of activities on your website. 
  • Hosting & storage: Subsplash’s church website builder handles hosting your website, as well as providing up to 5TB of storage. 
  • Blogging capabilities: Quickly create and share blog content with your church community.
  • Seamless integrations with a broader platform: Subsplash One users can easily integrate their website with other tools such as church management, Groups & Messaging, church apps, and online giving

Overall, Subsplash is the best church website builder with a powerful drag-and-drop editor with seamless integrations, plus a built-in media player, video library, church management, and much more—all managed from a single dashboard!

Discover why over 16,000 churches partner with Subsplash to reach, connect, and disciple their communities. [.blog-contact-cta]Schedule your free demo today![.blog-contact-cta]

2. WordPress

While not specifically designed for church websites, WordPress is a widely popular and versatile content management system that offers churches a robust platform for building websites. It provides a large library of themes and plugins, along with premium options for enabling even more customization and scalability. 

Pros: WordPress offers a huge platform that is highly flexible and has many community support channels. 

Cons: WordPress is very popular with professional web designers, so learning to use their tools will require a steep learning curve for many churches. It also lacks built-in integrations with many popular church tools, such as online giving, church management software, and others. 

Top features:

  • E-commerce functionality
  • Blogging capabilities
  • Large plugin ecosystem
  • SEO optimization
  • Mobile friendly

3. Squarespace

Squarespace is a visually appealing website builder known for its sleek designs and modern templates. It offers a range of features, including e-commerce functionality, blogging tools, and integrated analytics. 

Pros: Squarespace offers beautiful design options and analytic tools to better understand who is coming to the website and what pages they are visiting. 

Cons: Like most larger website builders, Squarespace is primarily focused on e-commerce sites rather than church websites, so learning to effectively use their platform may take a while. This means it lacks seamless integrations with important church tools like online giving or church management. 

Top features:

  • Drag-and-drop editor
  • E-commerce functionality
  • Blogging capabilities
  • Integrated analytics
  • SEO optimization

4. Wix

Wix is a popular website builder that provides churches with a range of visually striking templates and an intuitive drag-and-drop editor. It offers a variety of features, such as e-commerce tools, forms, and third-party app integrations.

Pros: Wix has a reputation for being user-friendly, and they offer an extensive template and app library. Their apps can be used to integrate tools for social media, business, and more. 

Cons: Because Wix is not specifically a church website builder, it may fall short on providing important tools and feature integrations a church needs, such as church website templates, online giving or church live streaming, as well as community building features like group messaging and church apps. 

Top features:

  • Drag-and-drop editor
  • Apps for social media and business integrations
  • Blogging capabilities
  • Customizable templates
  • AI design assistant

5. SnapPages

When it comes to simplicity, SnapPages gives churches a drag-and-drop website builder that streamlines the process of creating and editing websites. As a standalone website builder, its intuitive interface makes it accessible to users of all skill levels. They offer professionally designed templates that are customizable, allowing churches to make their website look and feel like their brand.

Pros: SnapPages is beginner-friendly, so even someone with little to no website skills can create a new website. They also offer attractive templates that make it simple to get started. 

Cons: Because their platform is tailored to keeping things simple, there are some limitations for more highly advanced features and customizations. 

Top features:

  • Drag-and-drop editor
  • Customizable templates
  • SEO tools
  • Mobile friendly
  • Blogging capabilities
  • Easy coded integrations
  • Form builder

6. Sharefaith

Sharefaith specializes in providing church-focused solutions, including a church website builder. It offers customizable templates, sermon management tools, event calendars, and media libraries.

Pros: ShareFaith can create church websites with some features that churches are looking for, such as church-focused templates, graphics, and a drag-and-drop editor. 

Cons: ShareFaith websites depend on integrations with tools from WordPress for editing websites, video platforms like Vimeo for hosting media, and third-party online giving platforms, which can make it complicated to set up and manage. 

Top features:

  • Customizable templates
  • Drag-and-drop editor
  • Media graphics library
  • Form builder
  • Prayer requests
  • Blogging capabilities

7. Ministry Designs

Another church website builder is Ministry Designs. They cater to churches seeking visually appealing and modern websites, offering a range of customizable templates and user-friendly editing tools. 

Pros: Ministry Designs offers a website builder with church-focused tools and features such as customizable templates, a block editing tool, integrations with online giving, and live stream embeds. 

Cons: Ministry Designs relies heavily on third-party integrations for their tools. Having to use multiple dashboards, logins, and integrations can make the admin side of things more complicated. 

Top features

  • Customizable templates
  • Block editing tool
  • Media graphics library
  • Mobile friendly 
  • SEO tools
  • Form builder
  • Hosting

8. Clover Sites

Clover Sites offers a website builder with 20 church templates, a drag-and-drop editor, and integrations with other ministry-related tools like online giving and live streaming. 

Pros: As a church website builder, Clover Sites provides a simple-to-use platform with church-focused templates, tools, and features that may be simpler to use than some of the bigger, business-focused website builders. 

Cons: Like most of their competitors, church websites built on Clover Sites rely on integrations with many third-party platforms to effectively engage visitors, such as live streaming, church management software, church apps, and more. 

Top features

  • Customizable templates
  • Drag-and-drop editor
  • Event calendar
  • Media integrations
  • Form builder

9. Aboundant

Aboundant is a church website builder that offers customizable page layouts through a WordPress theme editor, as well as integrations for features like events, online giving, and forms. 

Pros: For pastors wanting to create a church website, Aboundant provides some features and tools such as customizable page layouts, event calendars, and integrations with third-party tools. 

Cons: Aboundant does not offer their own website editor tool. Other tools offered by their church website builder require integrations with non-church related platforms like PayPal, YouTube, and others. 

Top features

  • Events calendar
  • Online giving (through PayPal)
  • Mobile friendly
  • Form builder
  • Blogging capabilities

10. Church123

Church123 can create simple church websites for ministries to create an online presence. 

Pros: Churches using Church123 can add images, documents, and different fonts to their new website. 

Cons: Church123 has limited customization choices and lacks important features such as on-demand video,  live streaming capabilities, online giving, and other integrations. 

Top features

  • Page templates
  • Add images and audio

Build an amazing church website

Choosing the best church website builder is crucial for creating an impactful online presence. Subsplash Websites stands out as a comprehensive solution with powerful media management and seamless integration with other church tools like church management, live streaming, and church apps. 

Ready to elevate your church's online presence? [.blog-contact-cta]Schedule a personalized demo now [.blog-contact-cta]and discover how Subsplash Websites can transform your ministry's digital experience.

Author

Jeff Harvey, Guest Author
www.subsplash.com

Jeff lives in Austin, TX and is a husband, father, and bonsai enthusiast. He’s served churches for over 20 years as a pastor, teacher, and missionary. He also holds a MBA from George Fox University and is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish.

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