What Makes SiteDrawer Different from Other Website Builders?

I've been developing and designing websites for over a decade now. I've done everything from hand coded HTML and PHP sites to custom wordpress themes and plugins. I've also used site builders like Wix, Weebly and Squarespace. I've used the page builder plugins like Divi, Elementor, Oxygen and WPBakery.

They all have their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their pros and cons.

However, I'm a professional web developer. My ultimate preference is to hand code, from scratch, so I can have control over every detail, every integration, and every behaviour of the website.

I find that site builders, while designed to make it easy for the average user, actually make it quite difficult to build websites. I've always found their pre built components are not cohesive the rest of the website. The drag and drop interface builder actually makes placing elements quite time consuming, especially for larger websites. The responsive formatting is clunky and too restrictive. You also actually require some development knowledge to use things like classes to keep elements looking consistent and not styling per element (which is terrible for scalability),

I;ve very often rebuilt websites with custom wordpress themes that were originally built in Wix and Squarespace because it would take me less time to rebuild it from scratch than to try and fix the mess that it was when it was built or add a new feature or function.

I also don't like the lack of portability (no export) or the subscription models that lock you in.

On the other hand, hand coding websites comes with its own challenges. Building forms, keeping up with external libraries and best practices for things like security and spam prevention are challenging with vanilla html.

Empowering the user to make basic website changes with custom HTML is a non-starter. The experience of making changes that actually make the site look professional like when it was built is also challenging. Users don't understand basic website design concepts, and why would they? They're not web designers. So the websites begin to look disjointed and perform poorly. So the user gets frustrated and the website doesn't reflect the perceived quality from the start.

I use wordpress because it merges the two worlds (non-dev vs experienced dev) and creates a relatively simple experience to get a website built.

You could use WordPress page builders but I find that you run into alot of the same issues as with Wix and Squarespace, just with a way more complicated interface for the average user.

Page builders also introduce bloat and don't actually make the editing experience any easier for the layman. They can be complicated and overwhelming, or too simple and restrictive - so they have to end up calling a developer anyway.

My goal with SiteDrawer is to merge the best of both worlds. I want to make the basics as simple as possible. I want to empower the user to update and maintain their own website without paying for external help. I want all of the basics taken care of so if they truly want a unique custom feature, they can be excited about the potential of implementing it instead of being frustrated by just getting their site back to zero before outlaying a bunch of money to then implement a new feature.

SiteDrawer doesn't lock users into a subscription, unless for very specific features that have ongoing costs. The foundation is set to allow the user to quickly build and update their site. They don't need to make complicated edits to have their site work for them.