30 April 2025
Today, I’m reviewing Sitely, an incredibly powerful visual website builder app for Mac. In modern times, not having an identity on the internet can leave you feeling like you’re in a ghost town, especially for anyone looking to start their own business or personal project. Having a website that provides a stylish and functional user experience is a great way to find yourself becoming the King or Queen of the internet, and the features and services Sitely provides offer intuitive controls and a minimal learning curve. Continue reading to get my take on this creatively simple yet powerful design tool.
Building Your Web Empire: Working with The App
Building a website can be pretty tough, especially if you don’t have any experience working with HTML, CSS or lack coding skills in general. Back in my youth, I remember building pages on Angelfire and Geocities with HTML I found around the web. It was a different time I tell you, and thankfully Sitely is here to leave all that in the past.
Sitely is a great design tool for Mac users looking to help build an online brand or identity. Specifically designed with non-coders in mind, Sitely is great for anyone looking to craft a lasting impact on the web without the need for years of experience. Whether it’s your first day on the internet or you think you’re the ultimate webmaster, Sitely has all the right tools for all the right productivity. Need to open a webstore for your pet project? Sitely has what you need.. Need to build a webpage to show your collection of novelty lighters? Sitely has you covered better than a friend during a bar fight.
What really makes this product so intuitive is that it helps you create without holding your hand while still providing the tools and resources to succeed like a boss. Offering a truly freeform website layout, Sitely succeeds where other web-building programs may falter. Don’t think of it as hand-holding, but think of it more as a guiding light. For example, Sitely won’t punish you if you don’t sequence certain items, such as putting boxes in specific places. Whereas other visual tools may expect you to know certain things, like a CSS grid or selectors, Sitely gets you moving faster than the Roadrunner without any hurdles getting in the way.
If you can drag-and-drop, you can build with Sitely. However, for the complete noobs, I would recommend having some experience with layers; like what you would expect from Photoshop or Canva. For those truly new to creating, this may be a bit of a learning curve, though this is a fantastic segue into my next section.
Out of Sight! Sitely Has Your Web-Building Back with Support
Right out of the gate, I think one of my favorite aspects about Sitely is the amount of support it provides. Remember when I said building a website is hard? Well, even if you’re the type that finds converting a .DOC to a .PDF terrifying, the amount of support documentation Sitely makes available is staggering. The team behind the app built a valuable library of resources, ensuring you’re never left shaking your head.
Along with a plethora of video tutorials to help get you started, Sitely also provides documentation for virtually every one of its features. In my time, I’ve reviewed a lot of applications and tech, and while most offer some sort of guide to get you started, it really impresses me to see the lengths Sitely goes to document everything to ensure you never get lost in your own work. I particularly like that they have a whole section dedicated to Design for Non-Designers. Super helpful!
Once you’ve finished designing it, one cool feature that adds a nice twist to things is the ability to preview your site through the eyes of different browsers. Ensuring your site looks good with Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome and more can ensure brand consistency. But what about the rest of the features?
Talking Features: Metrics, AI Tools, and More
Keeping that in mind, let’s talk about some of the features of Sitely. If you’re new to building websites, one of the things you may find most difficult is keeping your website’s navigation in order. Sure, building one page can be easy, but what happens when you need to keep everything together? What makes Sitely so intuitive is that it helps manage your pages for you, which only becomes more beneficial the larger your website grows. As someone who has written over 1,000 articles on Mac products, trust me when I say this is incredibly useful for keeping things organized.
In terms of other features, the amount of benefits Sitely provides made me feel like I hold the power of Thanos. From being able to manage cookies to tracking your SEO metrics to even offering payment and social media options, Sitely is your one-stop shop for all your web-building needs. Even better, as a native Mac app, it can act similarly to iWeb, in that it serves as a natural web extension for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. Meaning you can work on something in one application and easily export it online without things getting messy.
Of course, this doesn’t even look at Sitely’s AI tools, which can really make things a breeze if you feel like you’re in a creative slump. Personally, I’m still on the fence about artificial intelligence (y’know, with it trying to steal my job and all), so I’ll leave it up to you to determine whether or not you like it. I will say this: AI can be good when you need a creative jolt.
With the ability to work online or offline, built-in content to help you start, web video embedding, and a native Mac app, there’s so much material to help you get started, it’s unreal. And that’s without diving into the free, editable templates, free fonts, and royalty-free images that come baked directly into the app.
Community and Pricing: Staying Connected with Sitely
When it comes to building a website, it can be rather easy for things to become muddled and difficult to navigate. This applies not only to those browsing the site, but for those creating it as well. Something that I really like about Sitely is that in addition to providing a vast amount of resources towards getting started on your first project, the company also has a fantastic community where you can go should you need further assistance.
Of course, when it comes to any product, I have to talk to you about price. Right off the rip, one thing I largely appreciate is the fact that Sitely offers a free option. While many of the features are removed in the free version, Sitely’s offerings are certainly meatier than what you would get from the free sample guy at Costco.
Those looking to make a personal site can buy the product outright for $79.99, while those looking to further expand their options for features can do so through a $6.67/mo subscription or buying it outright for $119.99. There’s also a 14 day free-trial for the Pro version, and you don’t even need to enter a credit card. This isn’t subscription-based shenanigans, as Sitely allows you the option to build unlimited websites for a fixed fee.
At the end of the day, Sitely is the perfect tool for anyone looking to build but doesn’t have time to code. Considering there’s more than one way to start a trial, give it a shot today to see how you can build your online empire and lord over it with ease.
Digital Content Specialist
Nick deCourville is a Digital Content Specialist dedicated to the Apple ecosystem. He believes that fixing something can be just as straightforward as breaking it, which fuels his exploration of iPhone and iOS settings. As the owner of an iPhone 15 Pro, Apple Watch SE, and MacBook Pro, Nick is constantly honing his expertise in Apple’s products. With a Master’s degree in English Literature and Composition from The University of Akron, he has a strong foundation in writing and communication.