The platform matters less than what you judge it by
Most guides to building a website are written by whoever sells the tool. This one sets out the criteria, cost over three years, lock-in, accessibility, performance, who carries out the updates, so you can score any candidate yourself before you commit to one.
See what a UK website must show by lawFive ways to put a site together, and who ends up maintaining it
Every small site is built one of five ways underneath, whatever the marketing on top calls it. The categories matter more than the brand names within them, because the category decides who can make a change six months from now without hiring someone: you, a treasurer or volunteer, or a developer you have to find and pay.
Hosted site builder
A hosted site builder is a service where you assemble pages in a browser and the same company stores the files and serves them to visitors. Updating the text on a page later means logging back into that browser screen, so whoever set the site up can usually keep it running without writing any code. The design and structure stay tied to that one service for as long as you use it, which the section on lock-in covers separately.
Self-hosted CMS
A content management system (CMS) stores your pages as records in a database and gives you an admin screen for editing them, but the software itself sits on hosting you control and has to be kept up to date. A committee member can change a paragraph of text through the admin screen; keeping the CMS and its add-ons patched against security issues is a separate, ongoing job that usually needs someone with some technical grounding.
Static site generator
A static site generator builds finished HTML pages from plain text files and templates before anyone visits. There is no database and no login for someone to leave open, but changing a sentence means editing a text file and rebuilding the site, which most non-technical users will not do unassisted.
Hand-coded
A hand-coded site is written directly in HTML and CSS, sometimes with JavaScript, with no software layer managing it. It has the fewest moving parts to go wrong and the most flexibility to look exactly as intended, but every change, even correcting a typo, needs someone who can open the code and edit it correctly.
Hybrid
A hybrid site combines two of the above: a hand-coded or static main site with a small CMS-driven section for a blog or an events calendar, say, or a builder-made landing page sitting in front of a static site behind it. It suits a site where different pages get updated by different people at different rates, a committee that posts news weekly alongside a set of pages that never change.
The category to choose follows from who needs to update what, and how often. Decide that before comparing anything else, using the criteria set out on planning a small site, and revisit it again once the site is live, on keeping a small site alive, because the person who can update it today is not always the person who still can in two years.
The five categories, compared on who maintains what
Read this by matching the row to how the site will actually be kept up to date. The right category for a community choir's page is rarely the right category for a business that will add new services every few months.
| Category | Suits | Watch out for | Typical maintenance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hosted site builderA drag-and-drop editor where one company runs the software, the hosting and the domain link between them. Updates happen through their interface, so there is little to break but little to move elsewhere either. | Getting online fast with no code and low ongoing effort | Content is locked into that platform's own editor | You, occasionally, or nobody |
| Self-hosted CMSSoftware such as a content management system runs on hosting you choose separately, giving more control over design and structure. The trade is that you, or whoever built it, must keep it patched and backed up. | Sites that need to grow past a handful of pages | Plugin and theme updates are your responsibility, or your developer's | You, or someone you pay by the hour |
| Static site generatorThe pages are built once from templates and text files, then served as plain HTML with nothing to run on the server. There is very little to go wrong, but there is also no editor for a non-technical person to open. | Fast, simple sites that rarely change once published | Editing content usually means editing code | A developer, for each change |
| Hand-coded siteSomeone writes the pages directly. It gives full control over exactly what the site does, at the cost of needing a developer for anything beyond typing new text. | A design or a feature that off-the-shelf tools cannot do | Every change, however small, needs someone who can code | A developer, ongoing |
| HybridMost pages are built simply, static or through a CMS, while one part of the site runs separate code for a specific job. It suits a site that is simple everywhere except one place. | A mostly static site with one feature, like a booking form, that needs more | Two systems to understand instead of one | Mixed: some by you, some by a developer |
This is a general comparison of categories of building tool. Costs, and how well any individual product handles accessibility or export, vary by product and by month, so check the specific candidate against the criteria in this guide.
What happens to your content, domain and design if you leave
Lock-in is what happens when you want to leave a platform and find that part of your site cannot come with you. It shows up in three places: the domain name, the content itself, and the design and layout built around it. Each behaves differently depending on which of the five categories you chose, and it is worth checking all three before you commit.
The domain usually travels with you
A domain name is normally registered separately from wherever your site is hosted, through a registrar, the company that holds the name on your behalf. As long as you are listed as the owner (the registrant) and you keep the login for that registrar account, the domain moves with you if you change builder or host later. Problems arise when a designer or agency registered the domain in their own name for convenience. Ask who the registrant is before you sign anything, and see domains, DNS and hosting for how a registrar differs from a host.
Content and design do not move the same way
A hosted site builder typically lets you download page text and images, though rarely the layout that arranged them. A self-hosted CMS, software installed on server space you control, usually gives you a full database export, so pages, images and structure can move to another install of the same system with less rebuilding. A static site, HTML files written or generated once and served as they are, is the easiest of the three to move, because the files are the whole site and there is nothing separate to export.
What an export actually hands you
An export rarely produces a working website on the other end. More often it gives you raw text, a spreadsheet of form entries, or a folder of images, and the layout, styling and any custom features still have to be rebuilt on the new platform. The rebuilding is where the cost of switching sits.
Questions worth asking before you commit
- Who is registered as the domain's owner, and can you get hold of that login yourself?
- Does the platform offer a full export, and in what format: files, a database, or just text and images?
- If you stopped paying tomorrow, what would disappear immediately?
- Is your content stored in a format another system could read, or only inside this one?
These questions matter as much a year after launch as they do beforehand. Keeping a small site alive covers what changes once the site is live and you are the one responsible for it day to day.
When it makes sense to pay someone else to build it
Building the site yourself is the cheaper route in almost every case, but it costs time you may not have and skill you may not want to acquire. Paying someone else is the right call when the site needs more pages than you can plan in an afternoon, when the design has to carry a brand you already spent money developing, or when the accessibility standard the site must meet (WCAG 2.2 at level AA is the usual benchmark for a small commercial or public-facing site) needs someone who checks against it.
What actually tips the decision
A community choir putting up a five-page site with a booking form and a gallery of past concerts can usually manage it with a hosted site builder and an afternoon's planning, covered in Planning a Small Site in an Afternoon. A sole-trader wedding photographer whose entire booking pipeline depends on the site loading fast on a phone at a venue with poor signal is a different case: the cost of getting it wrong is higher, so the cost of paying someone to get it right the first time is easier to justify.
What to ask whoever does the work
The criteria that apply to a platform apply just as much to a person or agency building on your behalf, because the site outlives the relationship with whoever built it.
- Who registers the domain, and in whose name: yours, or theirs on your behalf
- What happens to the content and design if you stop paying them for ongoing support
- Whether the site can be exported to a different host without a rebuild, and what that would cost
- How they test for accessibility, and against which WCAG criteria specifically
- What the ongoing update cost looks like over three years
A written scope that answers these before work starts saves a difficult conversation later. Verbal assurances about being able to leave whenever you like are worth exactly as much as the export process turns out to be, so ask to see it rather than hear it described.
What good practice looks like
A builder or agency worth paying will explain the lock-in position without being asked, the same way a good accountant explains their fee structure before you sign anything. If they cannot say plainly what happens to your domain and your content the day you leave, that is the answer to whether you should hire them.
What to check before you commit to a platform
Run any candidate, whatever it is called, against these checks before you commit money or time to it.
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Total cost over three years
Add the recurring platform or hosting fee, any transaction charges, and the cost of the time someone spends maintaining it.
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What you can take with you
Check whether your content, images and design can be exported in a usable format, or whether leaving means starting again from nothing.
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Who actually does the updates
Name the person who will change a price or add an event next year, and check the platform matches what that person can realistically do.
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Accessibility support built in
Check whether the platform helps you meet WCAG requirements such as alt text and colour contrast, or leaves it entirely to you to remember.
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Where the domain sits
Confirm the domain is registered in your name with a registrar you control, separately from whichever platform hosts the site.
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What happens if the platform closes or changes its terms
Look for a stated route to move your site elsewhere.
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Page speed on an ordinary phone connection
A heavy platform can make even a simple page slow to load, which matters more on mobile data than on office wifi.
This list checks a candidate against the criteria in this guide. It does not tell you which platform to choose, and it is not a substitute for reading the platform's own terms before you sign up.
Once it's built, the data questions start
The build decision is only the first one. Whatever platform you settled on, the form on your contact page still has to handle people's data properly.