Despite not being a web developer, I’ve built websites since 2009 thanks to no-code website builders. And recently, I tested over 15 AI website builders to see if they made the process even better. For this article, I interviewed developers as well as non-developers who have used AI website builders to get their personal perspective on when (and when not) to use them.
Keep reading to get a:
- Comparison chart
- Decision framework
- List of FAQs
Table of Contents
- TL;DR: AI Website Builders vs. Traditional Web Development
- AI Website Builders vs. Traditional Web Development: A Quick Comparison
- How to Choose Between an AI Website Builder or Traditional Web Development
- AI website vs. custom website: Should you go hybrid?
- Frequently Asked Questions About AI Website Builders vs. Traditional Web Development
TL;DR: AI Website Builders vs. Traditional Web Development
AI website builders range from all-in-one website platforms with AI features to code-generating “vibe coding” tools. They use artificial intelligence to generate a website for you in minutes to seconds at a relatively low cost, but can present quality and security risks. Traditional web development involves human web developers who take into consideration your business goals, needs, and budget to bring your vision to life. The best business decision if you want to save time and costs while ensuring quality and security might be a hybrid approach.
Try HubSpot’s AI website generator for free to see what it can build for you.
AI Website Builders vs. Traditional Web Development: A Quick Comparison
Below, I’ll go over definitions, plus AI website builder versus. traditional web development pros and cons.
AI Website Builders
Let’s define “AI website builder.” There are basically two different categories — and the lines between them are increasingly blurred. Let me explain.
Category 1: All-in-one Website Platform with AI Features (No-code)
- Examples: Squarespace, HubSpot, Hostinger, and Wix
- Target audience: Non-technical professionals, such as marketers and small business owners
- Core capabilities: An all–in-one website platform combines website builder + hosting + CMS. You can use it to build a website from pre-vetted modules/themes, while AI helps with generating text and images. You generally cannot view, edit, or export the entire codebase and must build and host your site on that same platform.
- How the lines are getting blurred: Lately, some of these no-code AI website builders have introduced more powerful AI builders to their suite of products. For example, Wix recently launched Wix Vibe (Beta), which, unlike its original AI website builder, has a UI and UX more similar to Lovable, where you can chat with AI on the left, see it generate the website’s UI to the right, and even click on a code tab to view and edit the code.
- Additionally, Hostinger introduced Hostinger Horizons to the general public in March 2025. Horizons can build websites and web apps. It allows you to view, edit, and fully export the code if you’d like to deploy it elsewhere. But, normally, with Hostinger’s flagship AI website product, you could export the content to WordPress, but not the entire source code.
Category 2: Vibe Coding Website Builder (Code-generating)
- Examples: Lovable, Bolt, Replit, and v0
- Target audience: Web developers, or people who have some knowledge of coding
- Core capabilities: Much more robust capabilities of generating anything from simple brochure sites to complex web applications with code you can view, edit, and export to deploy your site on any platform you prefer. However, you typically get hosting and a CMS elsewhere.
- How the lines are getting blurred: Lately, some of these AI web app builders are introducing built-in hosting, so non-technical folks can easily launch the generated website on the same platform just by clicking a button (eliminating the need to deploy the code elsewhere). For example, Lovable and Bolt both introduced built-in hosting.
How AI Website Builders Work
If you’re familiar with ChatGPT or Claude, you’re already halfway to understanding how AI website builders work.
Step 1: Describe your website.
Much like your favorite LLM, you simply type a description of the website you want to see, and the AI website builder will take that description and generate a website based on it — layout, images, text, and all. If it’s a vibe coding tool, it will also generate code in a separate panel, which you can review and edit.
Step 2: Review the output and make edits.
With all-in-one platforms like Wix or HubSpot, you can edit the layout, colors, images, and text through a drag-and-drop editor. Often, these types of AI website builders come with AI-powered tools for text and image generation.
With a vibe coding builder like Lovable or Bolt, in addition to seeing the visual output, you can also review the code and make edits to it.
Step 3: Launch your site.
With an all-in-one platform, you usually just click a button that says “publish,” and the website will go live and be hosted on that same platform. You can also connect a custom domain.
With a vibe coding builder, you can either use the built-in hosting (if it offers it) or export the code and deploy the site on the host of your choice.
AI Website Builder Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Faster. AI website builders can generate websites in seconds to minutes.
- 24/7 availability. Unless a server is down or something, an AI website builder is available round-the-clock, allowing you to chat with it and build with it anytime.
- Easy to get started. It doesn’t take much time, energy, or money to create an account and experiment with AI website builders, especially as many of them have free plans or trials.
- Immediate and direct control for non-developers. You can make changes to your site as often as you want (so long as you have enough AI credits) by chatting with the AI or playing with the drag-and-drop editor.
- Low total cost. Some AI website builders cost under $10/mo. HubSpot’s AI website generator is free.
Cons:
- Struggles with complex websites. This is especially true of vibe coding tools, which may generate the UI of a feature, but the feature might not be functional.
- Relies heavily on your prompting skills. The AI gains context from your inputs. So if you don’t know what to ask for, the outputs may be unsatisfactory.
- Can introduce security vulnerabilities, bloated code, bugs, and broken things in the long term. This refers to vibe coding tools, not the no-code all-in-one builders. This is why AI outputs, especially AI-generated code, must always be reviewed by a human.
- Can create a generic-looking site. We all keep hearing about “AI slop” — and yes, it can happen with AI website builders. The design, images, and copy might come across as generic, especially if your prompts lack detail.
- Potential for vendor lock-in. If you use an all-in-one website platform, moving away from that platform could be difficult, and you won’t be able to keep the exact same design.
Traditional Web Development
How Traditional Web Development Works
With traditional web development, you typically work with a team, usually at least one web designer who handles the layout of the website and one web developer who translates that layout into code and builds the actual website.
Typically, the web design and development process has these steps:
- Discovery: This is where the agency, designer, or even developer sits down with you and asks questions to fully understand your vision for your new website.
- Wireframing: From discovery, designers create initial wireframes (barebones structure of your website design) and run them by you to review and approve.
- Design: Next, designers will take the approved wireframes and create full-fledged mockups with much more detail. Again, they’ll get these mockups approved by you before passing the designs onto the development team.
- Development: After you’ve approved the mockups, those get passed on to the development team who will write the code and build the fully functioning website.
- QA: Once the site is built, it needs to be tested. Quality assurance (QA) ensures that the website functions as intended. It might cover things like UI testing, content audit, functional testing, website security, and accessibility.
- Launch: After QA, your site is ready to launch. You can now share the domain with the public. Even after launch, developers typically monitor and maintain your site.
As you can see, traditional web development is a much more in-depth process, and it yields much more customized, complex results. As such, it also takes much longer than an AI website builder would take.
Note: Human web developers use AI too! It’s an assistant that helps many of them code faster and better than before.
Traditional Web Development Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Excels at complex, custom websites. Good web developers are true experts in their craft and can apply their expertise to more complex, custom sites, such as ecommerce sites or online portals.
- Leverages experience and internal processes to fully understand your vision. Instead of worrying about prompting an AI with enough information, you can rely on web developers to ask you the right questions and gather the information they need to build your site.
- Ensures quality through human oversight, code review, and QA testing. A good web developer will thoroughly review code and QA your site, ensuring it’s functional and secure.
- Accommodates long-term scalability. Human web developers will plan for the long-term growth, maintainability, and scalability of your website.
Cons:
- Takes longer. Traditional web development takes weeks to months.
- Limited availability. Agencies and developers might not have immediate openings for clients. Additionally, they can’t respond to you and generate revisions in seconds the way AI can.
- Harder to get started. Finding a good agency or developer takes time and energy, and you need to know how to vet them.
- Less immediate and direct control. While you’ll always have the final say, you hand over a lot of creative control to the developer. In addition, unlike with AI, you can’t iterate on the design instantly and frequently.
- Higher total cost. Traditional web development involves a greater total financial investment.
How to Choose Between an AI Website Builder or Traditional Web Development
To help you decide, answer the following questions.
1. What’s your budget?
If it’s less than $3,000: AI website builder.
You’re probably curious about the AI website builder versus web developer cost. Well, you’d be hard-pressed to find a web designer/developer who would build you a custom website for less than $3,000. However, you might find less skilled developers or ones who take a template-based approach, where they start with a premade template and customize parts of it for you.
You could also start with an AI website builder, such as Lovable, and then hire a developer for cheap on Fiverr to have them review, edit, and fix any code for you. However, if you do this, use caution: Vet the developer to ensure they’re skilled and trustworthy.
Regardless, with a small budget, you might be better off with an AI website builder that’s an all-in-one website platform, such as Wix or Squarespace.
Jen Street is the founder and creative director of Forged Flare, an online store selling handcrafted ornaments. She used Shopify to build her site and uses AI tools to tweak it, tapping a developer whenever she has more complex needs.
“If you’re using AI, especially a native AI builder that, say, WordPress or Shopify would offer, a lot of times they’re included in the fees that you pay,” Street says. “So it's pretty cost-effective to go that route.”
Just how cost-effective? Using AI, Martin Cox spent only three days building the website for his B2B marketing agency, Postino. He says, “The website went live — super fast, nicely optimized, and does the things I want it to do — and it took three days and about $50 in AI credits.”
If it’s greater than $3,000: web developer.
A GoodFirms 2025 survey of over 100 web development companies found that the average cost to develop a business website ranges from $3,000 to $60,000+.
For $3,000 to $15,000, according to GoodFirms, you could get a simple business website. It also found that 60% of web development companies charge from $1,500 to $4,000 for a small business website, which ranges from a basic brochure site to a “content-rich website.”
2. What’s your timeline?
If you need a website this week: AI website builder.
In my multiple tests (I’ve tried at least 15 AI website builders), the AI takes anywhere from a few seconds to maybe 10 minutes to generate the site. What takes the most time is personally reviewing and editing the output. But you could get it all done and ready to launch as fast as the same day, especially if you use an all-in-one builder like HubSpot’s AI website builder or Wix.
If you can wait at least four weeks: web developer.
With a web developer, you’re going to have to wait much longer than one day. First, remember you’re not that developer’s only client.
“Most good developers have some sort of a waiting list,” says Street. “And so if you need something yesterday, chances are, unless you hire a full-time developer for your company, you're not going to get that quick turnaround. Maybe in an emergency, but sometimes a lot of developers have emergency fees that you will have to pay.”
Second, when you work with a professional web developer, they have a thorough process. They interview you to find out your business goals; they might review or create brand style guides and design systems; they’ll need to write code for the site (though many use AI to assist — they’ll still review the code and tweak it as needed). That type of expertise and care takes time.
3. How complex is the website you want to build?
If you want a simple, static website: AI website builder.
AI website builders excel at creating simple, static websites. This is especially true of all-in-one website builders like Squarespace, which start with a template and use AI to generate the content to fill it.
If you want a complex site (ecommerce, online portal, large-scale content production, etc.): web developer.
Once you introduce complex features, such as a shopping cart or an online portal, the standards for safety and security are much higher. For instance, an ecommerce site will have lots of sensitive information (think customer names, addresses, and payment methods).
You’ll want to ensure this information is kept safe. You can do so by using established website builders with AI features, such as Shopify, or by hiring a developer to write, review, or edit the code.
4. Do you have enough knowledge of websites to guide and check the AI outputs?
If you have some website and coding knowledge: AI website builder.
Whether you’re using an all-in-one platform or a vibe coding tool, AI website builder outputs rely heavily on your inputs (prompts). Therefore, you need to know what you want and how to describe it.
“If you don‘t know what it is you’re looking for, then it won't necessarily build you the functionality of the features you look for,” says Cox. He was able to ask the AI for the right features for his Postino website, even though he’s not a developer, because he gained experience from building multiple WordPress, Shopify, and Squarespace sites using templates.
Similarly, Jen Street of Forged Flare successfully uses AI tools to help with her website, even though she’s not a developer, because she has an extensive background in web design. She knows HTML and CSS and has worked with web developers before.
That means that when she experimented with Shopify's AI assistant Sidekick, she was able to recognize that it generated some bloated code that could be cleaned up.
“But I don't think that the average person that would be using that would even know the difference or even care about the difference,” Street adds. “But for me, keeping my code clean and the website running quickly are very high priority.”
So, no, you don’t need to be a web developer to use AI — but it’s extremely useful to have some knowledge of websites to use it effectively.
If you have no knowledge of websites: web developer.
AI isn’t as skilled at getting necessary details from you as a human web developer can, leading to the risk of “context blindness,” as Rich Barrett, a developer who’s CTO and cofounder of Parcel Monkey, puts it.
“Although the AI can write the code, it doesn't necessarily understand the broader context of the project, constraints, things like that,” he says.
A good developer or development agency has a process in place. They’ll onboard you, ask questions about your business, collect information such as brand style guides, and ensure that they have all the information they need to build the best website possible.
Unlike AI, which puts the onus on you to do quality prompting, human developers take accountability for interviewing you, showing you prototypes, and ensuring they completely understand what you want built.
5. Do you have a developer who can review and QA the site before launch?
Do not push AI-generated code to production without skilled human review. It is risky — and very frowned upon in the developer community.
In a study by the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, nearly half of the AI-generated code snippets the researchers evaluated contained “bugs that are often impactful and could potentially lead to malicious exploitation.”
If you or a developer can review the AI-generated code: vibe coding tool.
This question isn’t relevant if you’re using an all-in-one website platform with AI features (again, Wix, HubSpot, Squarespace, etc.).
This question only applies if you’re “vibe coding,” as Barrett explains, “where you're using tools like v0 or Lovable to build entire apps or large sections of apps and not really looking at the code itself at all.”
Barrett says the biggest risk with vibe coding is introducing security vulnerabilities. “So, classic example is putting sensitive information like credentials in client-side code, where they can be leaked or even in GitHub repositories that are publicly available and, again, can be leaked,” he says.
If you do plan to use Lovable, Bolt, or other code-generating/“vibe coding” tools, then it’s crucial that a skilled web developer reviews the code before you launch. In addition to potential security risks, you also risk bugs and poor performance.
If no one can review the AI-generated code: web developer.
If you hire a good developer, you don’t need to worry about security vulnerabilities, poor performance, or bugs sneaking into your website. The developer will handle code review and testing to ensure nothing breaks.
6. How much content production and updates to the site do you plan to make?
If you don’t plan to make many changes or have a blog: vibe coding tool.
If you want to use a code-generating AI website builder, be careful. They are not CMSs. Making changes might mean chatting with the AI each time and having it make changes for you, or implementing a headless CMS.
“The hard part is when you want to start scaling content production,” warns Wyatt Mayham, cofounder of Northwest AI Consulting. “Maybe this is a personal preference, but I find using these headless CMSs a giant pain in the butt to integrate, specifically with these AI website Builders.”
If you plan to build a brochure site, which is a static site with maybe four pages (homepage, services page, about, contact), then using a code-generating AI website builder is fine. These types of sites only need to be updated lightly and rarely (for instance, if you add a new service to your marketing agency or if your published email address changes).
If you do plan on making a lot of changes and having a blog: all-in-one website platform.
All-in-one platforms like Wix, WordPress.com, and Squarespace are also powerful blogging platforms with CMSs that simplify publishing and updating blog posts and other pages on your site.
If you plan to do programmatic SEO: web developer.
If you’re doing programmatic SEO (automated generation of hundreds to thousands of pages to target keywords), Mayham advises that you hire a developer.
“If you have any programmatic dreams at all for auto-created pages based on data inputs into your database, I would never ever build something like that on an AI website builder,” says Mayham. “You really need to work with a developer on getting those proper guardrails in place.”
7. How much immediate and direct control do you want to have?
If you want a lot of control and like to iterate frequently: AI website builder.
One thing is for sure: AI is available round-the-clock, and humans are not. When I prompt an AI website builder chat, it responds in seconds. The same cannot be said for a human web developer. So, if you plan to ask a lot of questions or request frequent changes, you’ll have a better experience if you use AI.
If you don’t want a lot of control and are happy to review one to three versions before it gets built: web developer.
Now, with a web developer, you cannot expect instant answers or instant revisions based on your requests. It will take time for them to get to your request and then actually build it.
With a web developer or a web development agency, they’ll generally show you wireframes (rough drafts of your website’s layout) at the start that you must approve before they move on to the next phase (prototypes, which are interactive mockups of your website). Then, they’ll actually build your website. So, you’ll see fewer versions overall.
8. Do you plan to migrate your site to a different platform or tech stack later?
If you’re happy to stay on the same platform: all-in-one website platform.
Here’s where we need to talk about “vendor lock-in.” When you use an all-in-one platform like Wix, for example, you are “locked into” that platform. The website has been built on a proprietary platform — it cannot truly be migrated to another platform (like Squarespace, for example) or to a self-hosted solution (such as WordPress + Bluehost).
If you did try to migrate your Wix site away from the platform, you could transfer the content (text and images) and the domain — but not the entire layout and design of the site. You’d essentially have to rebuild the website manually on a different platform.
All this to say: If you use an AI website builder, try to stick with it. Migrating it later will be a headache, and you won’t end up with exactly the same site.
If you plan to migrate your site later: vibe coding tool and/or web developer.
If you really want freedom and portability, then go with a self-hosted solution and/or a web developer. Vibe coding tools like Lovable allow you to export your code and deploy it on the web host of your choice, giving you portability.
That's why Martin Cox used Same.new, a vibe coding tool, to build the Postino website.
“We built our site in React and Next.js, and it just means that whatever we do, it is transferable outside of that specific project, outside of that building environment,” Cox explains. “So any work we do can be downloaded, can be put somewhere else. It's not locked in to whoever the vendor was originally.”
Alternatively, if you work with a developer, let them know that you’re worried about lock-in, and they’ll devise a solution that lets you move as you please.
Having said that, it’s generally not advisable to migrate your website frequently. You should only migrate if you have a very good reason, as migration can affect SEO and takes time and resources.
The TL;DR?
If you just need a simple website up fast to start selling a product or proving a concept, go with an all-in-one AI website platform like Content Hub. But if you need a more complex site with everything secure and just the way you want it — go with traditional web development or a hybrid approach.
In summary, in terms of total cost of ownership, SEO, and security, a hybrid approach might be best, where you use AI to generate and iterate on the UI (the way the website looks), complete rote tasks and simple fixes, and then have a developer review and test the website as well as custom build any complex features you want to add.
So, let’s talk more about cases in which you should take a hybrid approach.
AI website vs. custom website: Should you go hybrid?
What are some concrete examples of cases where you might use both an AI builder and custom development?
Use Case 1: Launch an MVP site asap, perfect it later with a developer.
If you need a website as fast as possible, go with an AI website builder (or a drag-and-drop website builder like Content Hub). Then, if you need to perfect it later or add customizations, you can hire a developer to bring your vision to life.
Use Case 2: Scale content production rapidly.
You could use a vibe coding AI website builder to quickly generate a website that you like visually. But if you plan to scale content production, such as publishing lots of blog posts, you’re going to run into issues when you don’t have a CMS. That’s when you can hire a developer to help.
That AI-website-builder-to-developer process is what Wyatt Mayham chose. He used Replit to quickly generate a website. Then, he paid $200 to a developer on Fiverr to completely write it in PHP so he could move it to WordPress (which has a CMS built for blogging).
“Paying the two hundred bucks to replicate the site from Replit to then, go to WordPress, and then just be kind of more comfortable with that content production environment was worth it for me,” Mayham says.
Use Case 3: Use an AI website builder so you can iterate anytime; hire a developer as needed.
This is similar to Jen Street’s use case. She built her website using Shopify, an all-in-one website builder that has AI features. She uses the AI features to make small tweaks to the site and hires a developer occasionally.
"I use a developer on Shopify primarily for the more complex needs that I need addressing,” she says. “So if they need to get in there and really start tweaking the Liquid code, that‘s their Forte, that’s not so much mine.” Liquid refers to Shopify’s proprietary template language.
Martin Cox likes that an AI website builder is available 24/7, allowing for a “faster turnaround” than with a human developer. “You can iterate on ideas in minutes rather than hours, days, or even weeks,” he says of AI.
Use Case 4: Save money without compromising security.
Another benefit of an AI website builder? Lower costs. For instance, a subscription to Lovable starts at $25 per month, billed monthly. But hiring a Lovable Partner (a human developer who builds on that platform) runs anywhere from $50 to $200 per hour the last time I checked.
To cut costs without compromising on security, you could build with an AI website builder, then hire a developer to do a code review and make any security fixes before you launch.
Pro tip: AI isn’t limited to just building a website. Be sure to check out our post on how to weave AI into your website strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions About AI Website Builders vs. Traditional Web Development
When should a business not use an AI website builder?
As Mayham of Northwest AI Consulting advised earlier, if you want to build programmatic SEO pages, it's best to work with a developer.
Additionally, if you have complex needs or want to ensure security, you should not use a vibe coding AI website builder unless you have a developer who can review the code and ensure quality. Using the AI website builder of an established all-in-one website platform like HubSpot or Squarespace, however, is fine.
In general, AI website builders are best for straightforward, simple websites. The more complexity you throw in, such as CRM integrations and payment processing, the trickier an AI-generated website becomes. (If you’re worried about CRM integrations, however, I suggest Content Hub because the website builder is built on the same platform as HubSpot Smart CRM, avoiding the hassle of integrating.)
How hard is it to migrate from an AI website builder to a custom stack later?
It depends on the type of AI website builder you use. If you generate a website using a vibe coding tool like Lovable or Bolt — which generates code that you can export and deploy on another host — then migrating to a custom stack later isn’t particularly difficult, so long as you have the developer support. You own the code.
However, if you use the AI website builder of an all-in-one website platform like Squarespace or Wix to generate your site, then it is very hard to migrate to a custom stack later and retain the exact design. That’s because these are proprietary platforms — you can’t export the source code. You’d have to manually rebuild a lot of the site on a custom stack.
Can an AI website builder match traditional development for SEO and performance?
Maybe, but with a human developer in the loop. It also depends on the type of AI website builder you’re using. All-in-one website platforms like HubSpot, Squarespace, and Wix have vetted proprietary code and templates that will perform well. They even have SEO tools to ensure you optimize for search. Vibe coding tools, on the other hand, are more of a wildcard. Their code outputs need to be vetted.
Regardless of what type of AI website builder you use, SEO and performance will depend a lot on whether you know what to look for. For example, do you know how to check Core Web Vitals on Google PageSpeed Insights? Do you know how to optimize based on that data? If so, you’re in a good position to ensure your site loads fast.
Pro tip: Run your website through HubSpot’s free Website Grader to get a report with optimization suggestions.
How do we protect security and compliance with either option?
Whether you hire a web developer or use an AI website builder, you’ll still need to ensure that you protect security and compliance. Here are some ways to do just that:
- If you choose to use AI, read AI website builder reviews, including on G2 and Capterra.
- Use AI testing tools to check for security vulnerabilities, bugs, UI issues, and bad code. These tools still need human oversight, though.
- Hire a web developer to review and edit code before deployment.
- If you choose to hire a developer, vet them thoroughly, ask to see their prior work and testimonials, or obtain a referral from a friend or colleague.
- Conduct thorough QA testing.
What’s the best way to blend both approaches without redoing the site later?
To take a hybrid approach where you use both AI and a web developer while preserving portability and saving money:
- If you don’t plan to ever migrate your site, use an all-in-one website builder to quickly build your site with templates and AI-powered features. Hire a developer only for small fixes and customizations that you can’t do on your own.
- If you want ultimate portability, use a vibe coding tool to rapidly build your website idea — then hire a developer to review, edit, and deploy the code. Be sure to self-host your website. Avoid vendor lock-in by avoiding all-in-one website builders. Read the developer’s contract before signing, and ensure you will own the code.
AI website builder vs. traditional web developer: Why not both?
As you can see, there are a lot of different considerations to weigh before deciding whether to use an AI website builder for your business or work with a developer. Doing a blend of both, in my opinion, is a good balance between cost savings and high quality.
However, I’d like to propose a third option: Why not just use an all-in-one website platform, which HubSpot offers for free? These platforms package a website builder, CMS, and web host into one place and provide dozens and sometimes hundreds of templates (designs made and tested by professionals). It’s how I’ve built websites since 2009.
Give HubSpot’s website builder a try for free today.
This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure to learn more about how we use AI.
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