6 Website Builders for Food Blogs (Other Than WordPress) 2024

Are you thinking of channeling your culinary zeal into a food blog? Sure, versatile platforms like WordPress dominate the scene, but a specialized website builder might be a better choice. WordPress takes a while to get used to, and its free food blog themes don’t look that good. You’ll have to put a significant amount of effort into building and managing a standout food blog with all the features you need.

Of course, having a great-looking food blog isn’t enough. You’ll also need strong social sharing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools to get your food blog found by the right people. If you’re looking to make money from your food blog, there are a few other elements to look for so your path to monetization is clear and easy. A few WordPress competitors make it a lot easier to get these right from the start.

I extensively researched website builders and found the ones that can help you set up a successful food blog as quickly and efficiently as possible. Here, I’m including options for everyone, from the hobbyist blogger to the semi-professional cook and everyone in between.

From all of the builders I tested, Wix stood out. It combines ease of use with various appealing templates for food bloggers and offers a free plan to get you started without financial commitment.

What We Look For in the Best Website Builders for Food Blogs

While testing the best platforms for food blogs, I focused on crucial elements that make creating a beautiful (and functional) site simpler, cheaper, and more enjoyable.

• Ease of use. The goal is to focus on your content – not spending endless hours setting things up. The platforms I chose are known for their streamlined experience, letting you navigate and create content effortlessly.
• Affordability and free trials. Your food blogging journey shouldn’t be costly from the outset. I handpicked builders that offer cost-effective solutions, including free trials to let you test before you commit.
• Blogging templates and features. Specialized tools and layouts are crucial for displaying recipes and photos to their best advantage. My selections come equipped with templates and features suitable for food blogs.
• Customization and aesthetic appeal. Your blog should resonate with your unique culinary style. With a mix of customization options and eye-catching designs, the builders I recommend center your vision.
• SEO and monetization tools. Boosting visibility and potentially generating income is important for many bloggers. The website builders on this list include SEO tools for higher search rankings and features to help you turn your passion into profit.

1. Wix: Best for Extensive Customization Options

Wix is unparalleled when it comes to customization. It’s hard to beat the drag-and-drop interface that lets you customize down to the pixel, adjusting section sizes, fonts, and other aspects to your heart’s content. You can start your customization with one of the 15+ food-specific blog templates, but it’s easy to adjust another blog template to be food-focused if you don’t love one of the existing options.

The Wix Blog app will come pre-installed if you choose a blog template, but if you opt for a non-blog template, you can install it for free with just a couple of clicks in the App Market. Some find the Wix Blog too simple, but it covers all the basics and has plenty of extras.

Social sharing features and SEO optimization tools are built-in, and categories you create automatically appear in your blog menu. The Members Area helps you build a community following of your readers, allowing them to comment on posts and interact with others.

Features

• Wix Recipes App. This app was built for food bloggers. After adding your recipes, readers can search by ingredient, difficulty, and other criteria. You’ll need the premium version to add more than 2 recipes, but the advanced organization and search capabilities it offers are well worth it.
• Image storage and editing. Wix’s free plan offers up to 500 MB in storage, giving you space for hundreds of photos before having to upgrade to a premium plan. You can use the robust photo editor Wix Photo Studio to crop and adjust photos – or even add a watermark to preserve ownership.
• Free SEO Assistance. Answer just a few questions, and Wix SEO Wiz will create a personalized plan to help you rank on Google. You don’t even have to remember what SEO stands for – Wix labels this feature as “Get Found on Google” to make it easier to find.
• Social media feeds. If you’ve got a foodie Instagram, you can add your social feed directly to your website with just a few clicks via the Instagram Feed app. It has several layout options to match the feel of your blog, and other add-ons allow you to share your Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and other social feeds, too.

Read our expert Wix review for more details.

2. SITE123: Best Blog Comment System for a Website Builder

If you want feedback on your recipes or you’d like to empower your readers to share their own kitchen tips and tricks, SITE123 will help you do it. The standout feature of SITE123’s blog platform is its focus on helping you build a community through its commenting system, which is included in the free plan.

 Readers can start commenting as soon as your blog is live, and you can monitor comments and reply to your readers through the blog comment dashboard. You can also choose to allow comments through Disqus or Facebook commenting integrations, which can increase engagement from users with established accounts and reduce spam commenting.

The rest of SITE123’s blogging features are pretty standard – you won’t find any essential features missing. I like it because it is simple and has strong support channels, which is a plus if you’re new to blogging.

Features

• Social media integrations. Share all your posts directly to your preferred social media platforms. You can also set up social share buttons to encourage readers to share your posts and spread the word.
• Mobile-responsive templates. Every template is responsive, meaning you don’t need to edit the mobile version of your site separately. Since more and more people are following recipes on their phones, this is one less thing you have to worry about.
• Free SEO tools. To help your blog posts appear in Google search results, SITE123 has SEO optimization fields available on each page, allowing you to include keywords in your page title, description, and URL.
• Useful free plan. You get 250 MB of storage on SITE123’s free plan, which should be enough to get you started. If you want 3GB of storage and extra features, like the Google AdSense app and a free domain for a year, you’ll have to upgrade to a paid plan.

Read my colleague’s detailed SITE123 review for more details.

3. Squarespace: Best Web Builder for Newsletter Subscriptions

If your main goal is to build a premium, professional-looking food blog, Squarespace will deliver. While there isn’t a free plan, the investment is worthwhile if you have the budget or aim to generate income from your food blog ASAP. You can also use the 14-day free trial to test its features before committing to a subscription.

Squarespace has stunning blog layouts, and while there are few dedicated food blog layouts, it’s simple to adapt any template to your needs. The category and tag system allows you to organize your posts and add blocks featuring related posts based on the tags. You can even create a recipe index to serve as a central reference point for everything you post – and it’s easy to make it searchable, too.

You can also modify your SEO elements directly from the editor, and you’ll get a preview of what users will see in the search results. Blog content can be scheduled and pushed directly to social media accounts once connected, so you won’t have to worry about your readers missing a post.

Features

• Built-in email campaigns. Squarespace comes with an email campaign integration, and you can draft a newsletter directly from your post once it’s published. You don’t need other integrations or tools to send new posts to your email subscribers.
• Integrations for monetization avenues. If you want to monetize your food blog, it only takes a few clicks to integrate with Google AdSense and Amazon affiliate tracking.
• Built-in SEO assistance. Adding SEO titles and meta descriptions via the editor is easy with Squarespace. It even automatically generates more advanced SEO help, such as schema markups. Squarespace’s SEO help guide is comprehensive, and you can hire an SEO expert if you need more assistance.
• Culinary online courses. Squarespace helps you monetize your expertise with its user-friendly Courses platform. It offers a tailored course layout to match your brand, multimedia video integration for engaging lessons, flexible pricing options for students, and a feature to track their learning progress in real time.

Read our expert Squarespace review for even more on the available features.

4. Webador: A Solid Choice for Beginner Food Bloggers

Starting a food blog is simple with Webador’s user-friendly editor. It requires no technical know-how, making it easier to share your recipes and culinary stories if it’s your first time creating a digital presence or if you find tech-heavy platforms intimidating.

Webador provides a range of design options, allowing for customization to match your brand. This includes choosing between minimalist or vibrant layouts and changing color schemes to reflect your brand’s identity. There are several templates you can customize by adding your own images and tweaking the colors. Plus, you don’t lose your content if you ever want to change your design completely.

However, there are no specific templates for food blogs. In the example above, I took a blog template from Webador’s library that I assume was for restaurants and added free stock images showing food from the gallery. It was quick, but you can see it doesn’t compare to the beautiful presets of Squarespace or Wix.

Features

• Affordable start. With Webador, you can enjoy the perks of a free tier or opt for budget-friendly paid plans starting from $4.00 per month.
• Blog element flexibility. You can add the Blog element to any Webador template to transform it into a blog. All you need to do is drag it from the menu and drop it into your website when you’re in the editor, which makes it super easy to start your blog even without a special food blog template.
• Audience engagement. You can let readers leave comments on your posts and easily share your content on social media by using the customizable Social – Share element. You can even add a WhatsApp button for mobile visitors.
• Free basic SEO. Your blog is optimized for search engines right from the get-go, helping food enthusiasts find your recipes with ease. However, other platforms provide more advanced SEO tools and plugins for better search engine visibility if that’s your priority.

Read our expert Webador review for more details.

5. IONOS Website Builder: Best Integrated Hosting

IONOS Website Builder is great for food bloggers, particularly with its unique RSS feed import capability. This allows you to integrate diverse content like recipes, reviews, and travel diaries. The platform’s support for multiple authors, with adjustable permissions, also caters to collective food blogging initiatives.

The builder’s layout and post modes significantly ease blog setup and content management. By setting design foundations in layout mode, you can create a consistent aesthetic for your blog. The IONOS post mode’s advanced tools include tagging, custom URLs, and scheduled publishing. These can help you maintain a dynamic content schedule that keeps the blog fresh and engaging for readers.

Despite these powerful features, you may find the IONOS interface dated and less intuitive than other modern website builders like Wix. If you prioritize a sleek user experience and a high degree of customization in your site design, this could be a limiting factor, especially since it lacks Wix’s drag-and-drop functionality.

Features

• SEO Tools. The platform includes AI-driven SEO tools that generate optimized titles and meta descriptions for your blog posts. This feature helps your food blog get found on search engines, potentially increasing your readership.
• IONOS provides detailed analytics, giving crucial information about how visitors interact with your blog. These insights can help you refine your content strategy to better meet the interests of your audience.
• Booking tool. For food bloggers who host events or offer services, IONOS includes an online booking tool. This allows you to manage appointments and bookings directly through your blog.
• Domain and email integration. With IONOS, you can secure a free domain name for the first year, giving your food blog a professional and memorable web address. Plus, an associated email account that matches the domain enhances your blog’s professional image – for sending newsletters, for instance.

Read our expert IONOS review for more details.

6. Shopify: Top Choice for Food Bloggers Into E-Commerce

Shopify shines for food bloggers with its dynamic content capabilities. Using meta fields, you can update essential details like ingredient lists across multiple posts at once, a real timesaver for those frequent tweaks to recipes. The improved text editor also means your posts, from mouth-watering recipes to foodie reviews, will be both beautiful and reader-friendly with minimal effort.

If you want to sell anything from unique spices to your own cookbooks, Shopify’s self-serve return feature is a real treat. It makes the whole return process easy for your customers, so you can spend more time engaging with your community and less time figuring out online sales logistics. This smart feature blends right into Shopify’s platform.

However, Shopify’s e-commerce features might not mean much if your primary goal is content creation rather than sales. Website builders that are more content-oriented, like SITE123, might offer greater flexibility and a broader range of design and plugin options for bloggers. That’s especially true for those prioritizing rich storytelling and community engagement over e-commerce.

Features

• Shopify flow. This is an automation tool that can automatically update inventory levels, send out restock alerts, or even tag and sort orders, allowing you to focus on the creative side of your food blog rather than day-to-day operations.
• Customizable checkout. With Shopify, you can personalize the checkout experience to align with the style and branding of your food blog. You can design the checkout page to feel like a natural extension of your site, providing a smooth and consistent shopping experience that reassures customers and reflects the quality of your content.
• App integrations. The Shopify App Marketplace is full of gadgets for your blog. For example, the Foodee app simplifies order management for deliveries and pickups, while Nutrition Facts displays key nutritional information on products for health-focused shopping.
• AI commerce. Shopify is now incorporating AI directly into its platform, which can be a game-changer for food bloggers. With AI assistance, you can automate various aspects of your business, from content creation to customer service.

Read our expert Shopify review for more details.

I Found the Best Website Builders for Food Blogs

To succeed with a food blog, you need a scalable website builder that matches your food passion and growth potential. The best choice depends on your specific goals.

For the best combination of ease of use and advanced customization, try Wix. Your customization options will be limitless, and it’s easy to add more storage, features, or whatever you need to keep growing your food blog.

For simplicity and functionality, SITE123 is an excellent option. It features an intuitive design and a robust commenting system ideal for interactive food blogs. Plus, its straightforward interface means focusing more on your passion and less on technicalities.

For a professional quality site that still has a user-friendly setup, look into Squarespace. Its templates are the perfect backdrop for your food photography, and expert help is abundant if you need assistance at any stage.

FAQ

What is the best website builder for a food blog?

I highly recommend Wix for food blogs. Its ready-made food blog templates and intuitive design tools create a captivating space for food enthusiasts. Wix also has a free plan, which is excellent for budding food bloggers.

How do I create a food blog website?

Starting with Wix is a good choice. Choose a food-centric template, customize it to your liking, and begin sharing your culinary adventures and recipes.

Can you make a living as a food blogger?

Yes, you can make a living as a food blogger. Platforms like Wix and SITE123 are both easy to get started with food blogging and have a free plan to help you make more money. Simply sign up, pick a template tailored for food blogging, and start populating it with your delicious content.

Which is the best website builder for recipes when it comes to aesthetics?

Squarespace’s aesthetics are hard to beat. Its templates are elegantly designed, ensuring that recipes and food photographs are presented in the most visually pleasing manner. If you want even more options, you can check out our list of the best website builders in 2024.