Boxmode

What Boxmode is

Boxmode is a drag and drop website builder. Its homepage calls it "a free website builder for businesses, creatives, and web developers" and says it can power a site "in a variety of niches" regardless of tech skills. A separate landing page makes the same pitch to education: a school, college, university or student organization. The reader it is written for is a small business owner, a creative professional presenting a portfolio, a freelancer building a site for a client, or a school that wants a site without hiring a developer. The pages do not say where the company is based. The homepage says "More than 12,000 users" have built sites with it, for home-made goods, professional services, college projects and resumes. That is the company's own claim.

What you build and how

The editor. You build pages in a drag and drop editor. The education page describes it as "Necessary elements, specific settings, and helpful tooltips" in one place, and the homepage says you drag basic elements such as images, text and buttons onto the page and add your own content. The editor has a preview option so you can check the pages' design before going live, and view modes for smartphones and tablets in the top bar.

Templates. You start from a ready-made template or a blank theme. The education page points to templates for a business learning center, a kindergarten, a school and a university, and the homepage lists business types such as real estate agencies, medical centers, travel agencies, law firms, hotels and yoga studios. The company says all its templates and widgets are mobile-responsive. If no template fits, the FAQ says you can start from a blank canvas, or contact the company to discuss a template made for your requirements.

Widgets. The named widgets are Navigation Menu, Slideshow, Form, Maps, Footer, PayPal Button and Gallery. A PayPal Button widget plus a PayPal integration is the page's answer to accepting payments, and a Gallery covers portfolios. The only other integration named is Unsplash, the stock photo site, so you can drop free images into a page.

Domains. Every site can have a free address ending in .boxmode.io. You can connect a domain you already own or buy one in the builder. The education page says you can buy a unique domain with one of "30+" extensions, including .org.com.net.cc and .club, from third-party providers.

SEO and marketing. Each page takes a meta title, meta description, relevant keywords and a canonical link. The Starter plan description adds robots.txt and sitemap.xml settings. The FAQ says Boxmode sites are indexed correctly by search engines "given that your site is properly optimized." The Growth plan adds advanced SEO, marketing and project analytics tools.

Hosting. All Boxmode sites sit on the company's own servers, so you do not pay a separate host. Storage is set per plan, from 500MB on Starter up to 5GB on Growth, with unlimited bandwidth listed for Starter.

Projects and structure. The education page says you can build an unlimited number of projects on the platform, and that a site can be one landing page or a multipage site you add pages to and delete pages from as it grows.

Getting started. The company lays out five steps: create an account, pick a template or blank theme, customize pages and content, set the general and SEO settings, and publish. Publishing is described as one click. The FAQ says an email address is enough to open a free account and no card details are needed. There is a Facebook community you can join.

What the pages say about plans, limits and support

Boxmode lists three plans.

• Starter is "our free forever plan." It includes a free Boxmode domain, ready-to-use templates, an SSL certificate, email support, 500MB storage and unlimited bandwidth, plus the SEO settings above.
• Lite is called the low-cost plan. It has everything in Starter plus a free custom domain for one year (on annual plans), domain mapping, removal of ads and Boxmode branding, live chat support with a real person, and 1GB storage.
• Growth matches Lite but with 5GB storage, advanced SEO, marketing and project analytics tools, and the ability to embed custom code in your pages. It also includes a live session with the Boxmode product manager.

Paid plans can be billed monthly or annually. The text on the pages names no dollar amounts for Lite or Growth, so check the pricing page before budgeting. The company's FAQ says the free plan is "not just a free trial version but the entire set of tools" for creating and managing a site.

On security and compliance, the pages mention an SSL certificate on the Starter plan and nothing else. They name no compliance standard, no code export and no open-source license. The pages do not describe a built-in database, user accounts, a store catalog or a workflow engine, and the education page lists no limit on form submissions.

Who it suits and who it does not

Boxmode suits a person who wants a site live quickly and cheaply. A small business owner, a freelancer with a portfolio, a teacher, or a student organization can start on Starter without a card and move to Lite when they want their own domain and no Boxmode branding. An agency or freelancer can use it for a client's small site, because the account can hold an unlimited number of projects, and the Growth plan's custom code embedding gives some room for client-specific tweaks.

The caveats are about scope. This is a site builder with templates and widgets, not an app platform. The widget list has a Form widget and a PayPal Button, but the pages say nothing about where form entries go or how many a site can collect, and nothing about a catalog or order management. Someone who wants a full online store, a member area or data-driven pages will need something else. The pages also describe no shared editing or team roles, so a multi-person team has little here. Finally, the free plan carries Boxmode's ads and branding, which are removed only from Lite upward, so a business site that needs a clean look belongs on a paid plan.