A facile, rapid, low-cost and low temperature sol-gel polymerization and atmospheric drying process was developed using commercial phenolic resin as raw material. Gels were prepared from three different phenolic resins (low viscosity barium phenolic resin，thermoplastic phenolic resin and boron phenolic resin) using ethanol and n-propanol as solvent, respectively. Scanning electron microscope (SEM), automatic specific surface area and porosity analyzer, Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FT-IR) were applied to analyses the synthesis mechanism, skeleton and pores structure of aerogels. The prepared aerogels have the density of 0.17~0.23 g/cm3, compressive strength of 0.68~0.80 MPa and low thermal conductivity of 0.039~0.046 W/(m·K) with porous nano structure. Results show that there is strong selective matching between phenolic resin and alcohol solvents. Low-density barium phenolic resin aerogels could only be synthesized in ethanol while homogeneous thermoplastic phenolic resin aerogels were easier to be prepared in n-propanol solvent. However, it is difficult to obtain boron phenolic resin aerogels for its high curing temperature via this method. This low-cost and facile aerogel preparation process is of great significance, which can promote the large-scale preparation and industrialization of organic phenolic aerogels.