Website builders are tools that typically allow the construction of websites without manual code editing. They fall into two categories:

• Online proprietary tools provided by web hosting service companies. These are typically intended for service users to build their own website. Some services allow the site owner to use alternative tools (commercial or open-source) — the more complex of these may also be described as content management systems.
• Application software that runs on a personal computing device used to create and edit the pages of a web site and then publish these pages on any host. (These are often considered to be "website design software", rather than "website builders".)

History

The first website, manually written in HTML, was created on August 6, 1991.^[1][2]

Over time, software was created to help design web pages. For example, Microsoft released FrontPage in November 1995.

By 1998, Dreamweaver had been established as the industry leader; however, some have criticized the quality of the code produced by such software as being overblown and reliant on HTML tables. As the industry moved towards W3C standards, Dreamweaver and others were criticized for not being compliant. Compliance has improved over time, but many professionals still prefer to write optimized markup by hand.

Open source tools were typically developed to the standards and made fewer exceptions for the then-dominant Internet Explorer's deviations from the standards.

The W3C started Amaya in 1996 to showcase Web technologies in a fully featured Web client. This was to provide a framework that integrated many W3C technologies in a single, consistent environment. Amaya started as an HTML and CSS editor and now supports XML, XHTML, MathML, and SVG.^[3]

GeoCities was one of the first more modern site builders that didn't require any technical skills. Five years after its launch in 1994 Yahoo! purchased it for $3.6 billion. After becoming obsolescent, it was shut down in April 2009.^[4]