How to create a website: what to use

How do you create a website? Where do you start? Who can you trust? So many questions and a sea of possibilities. The internet offers a vast range of options from which to choose the one that best suits your needs. In this article, we will discover some useful basics to help you get started.

Dear reader, whether you want to create a website for your business or you are a promising young web designer, here are some tips. It takes years of work to learn everything the world of the web has to offer developers and designers, but there are some very useful basics to get you started.

I will provide you with an excellent introduction to help you take your first steps in this world, but I won’t make any false promises: it is a springboard for further study. Let’s say that if you don’t know where websites come from, this summary will give you a better understanding of how they are created. You may already know some of these tips, but other information will enrich your knowledge. It’s up to you to decide which path to take, based on what you can do, what you want to learn, or what you want/can commission from a freelancer, agency, or software house.

Before we begin, a few clarifications:

• Regardless of the technology, if you are not a designer, you may still need some help to achieve an appealing and intuitive result.
• Our selection of pros and cons is a summary and is not 100% exhaustive.

CMS (Wordpress, Wix, Joomla, Drupal, Squarespace, etc.)

Content Management Systems (CMS) have been around for many years, are a well-established technology, and remain the top choice for many websites. If you are not familiar with this name, you will surely know Wordpress, one of the most famous CMSs.

Pro

• You don’t need a developer.
• You don’t need to know web development basics.
• No graphic design software is required.
• They already integrate the content management tools for administrators.

Cons

• The website may not meet your scalability needs.
• If you modify the code, maintenance and updates may cause problems.
• The best template graphics often come at a price.
• Websites often have long loading times.
• Customization may be less straightforward than you anticipate.

Although WordPress is the leading example of this technology, there are alternatives. Wix has become quite popular, and Google Trends searches over the last twenty years indicate that interest in WordPress has declined while interest in Wix has grown, increasingly approaching the former’s numbers. There are also other CMSs such as Drupal and Joomla, but they are becoming less influential and may be overtaken by Squarespace.

With limited budgets and zero web development skills, a CMS is definitely the most reliable option. If you are specifically interested in e-commerce, there are other options, but we will not cover them in this article.

No-code platforms (Framer, Webflow, Siter.io, Builder.io, Anima, ecc.)

The no-code approach as we understand it today has been around for years, and began to emerge more prominently around 2016. These tools offer more freedom than a CMS in terms of graphics, but are less reliable when the site becomes more complex.

Pro

• You don’t need a developer.
• You don’t need to know web development basics.
• Sometimes you don’t even have to worry about the procedures for publishing the site (known as deployment).
• The level of customization of the graphics is quite high.

Cons

• The website may not meet your scalability needs.
• It is a “closed” approach, which may prove impervious to the integration of other technologies that you may need in the future.
• Some solutions are not portable, meaning they restrict your hosting to specific infrastructures (e.g., Framer).
• It is a system mainly suited to small sites with few ambitions.
• You may also need to learn how to use Figma graphics software.

It is a type of technology that we do not adopt because it has never fully convinced us, but since it exists and has not yet disappeared, there are certainly some areas where it makes sense to use it.

As for solutions, there is no shortage of options. Leading the pack are Framer and Webflow, followed by Siter.io, Builder.io, Anima and Bubble. The first two are the most well-known. In any case, carefully compare their offers before choosing one.

Since AI is trendy, these platforms also offer features to integrate vibe coding. But we’ll talk more about this method below.

HTML, CSS, and Javascript

It’s the ABCs of web development, the basic skills’ trio you need to create a website. They allow you to create the page structure, give it a graphic style, and add more complex features. If you want to do things your way, this is the real back-to-basics approach.

Pro

• Enjoy maximum freedom.
• It is quicker to learn than a framework (see the next section).
• No graphic design software is required.

Cons

• You still need to learn web development basics, and that takes time.
• It does not have the advantages offered by frameworks.
• If you want admin management tools, you have to build them from scratch.

In many cases, this approach has been superseded, for a variety of reasons. It hasn’t disappeared, but if you want to do things better and more professionally, there are frameworks to help you. Frameworks manage this same trio, but they do a lot of things for you and make your life easier. Please note: if you want to do it yourself, you may encounter difficulties and it could take a very long time.

Framework

We have already discussed frameworks in the past. If you don’t know what they are, you can read our article What is a framework?

Pro

• Each project is highly customizable.
• They optimize many aspects of basic web development.
• Very often they are open source technologies.

Cons

• You must know the basics of web development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript).
• You need to study the framework documentation to learn how it works.
• Completing the work may take longer than with a CMS (read our article to learn about the differences).
• If you want management tools for administrators, you need to create them from scratch or integrate a headless CMS (this is not a CMS like those already described).

There are many frameworks, each with its own specific features. For example, we specialize in Quasar, Vue.js, and Angular. Another widely used framework is React, but the list is long. Based on what you need, you will have to choose the right framework for you.

In the short term, a website built with a framework may cost more than other options, but the freedom it offers is unmatched, and maintenance is less likely to reveal unpleasant surprises than with CMS (if developed by an experienced programmer). If you want complete control over the design of your interface without having to start from scratch, a framework is often the best choice.

On a related note, have you ever wondered What are the advantages of open source software for companies?

Vibe Coding

The new frontier of web development could be vibe coding. In short: use artificial intelligence software (LLM) to generate your website from scratch. You write a detailed prompt with the features the site should have. The AI will take care of creating everything you need.

Pro

• The result is ready quickly.
• Access to AI is often free or inexpensive.
• If managed correctly, no other design or development tools are needed to create the structure.
• Allows you to choose from many frameworks for the codebase.

Cons

• Without experience, it is less simple and straightforward than it seems.
• If you don’t know where to start, you may get poor results and spend as much time as with other technologies (if not more).

At present, some of the most suitable technologies are Lovable, Claude Code by Anthropic, and Gemini 2.5 Pro by Google. Keep in mind that, depending on the type of project you need to carry out, you may also need to use other technologies.

This method could become increasingly common in the coming years, but at the moment, it has several drawbacks. Bugs, confusing source code, potential security flaws, unexpected functionality… This isn’t the place to go into detail, but as tempting as it may be, this solution isn’t for everyone.

It is a valid solution to experiment with, but it can hide unpleasant surprises and can only perform at its best if you have a minimum understanding of the code you are using. Are you familiar with the story of Replit’s AI, which deleted venture capitalist Jason Lemkin’s production database in July? Many people have talked about it, partly because the AI lied to the user and broke some rules designed to control development activities. Here is one of several articles. Unfortunately, you still can’t completely do without developers and designers :P

If your website involves serious business matters and there are sensitive issues at stake (payments, personal data, etc.), we recommend the other alternatives.

Please note that Dreamonkey’s technical department remains skeptical about this approach, and we have also encountered other professionals who share this view. If you are not convinced by this position, experiment and draw your own conclusions.

Conclusions

We’ve only scratched the surface, but this overview is enough to give you an idea of what’s out there. No choice is wrong, if you know what you’re doing. But don’t underestimate the impact that one technology could have over another. Do your research thoroughly, especially if you have to invest your money or don’t have time to waste.

If you want consultancy, we are available. Contact us.