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17 Best Website Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Picking the best website builder can be hard, because there are 74 popular options to choose from.
In this guide, I ranked and reviewed the best website builders to make a website based on price, reliability, web hosting services, technical support, website speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and much more.
We’ll also compare:
The ideal website builders for small businesses.
The ideal free and cheap choices.
The ones with the best SEO.
The best platforms with online store capabilities.
The very top builders for agencies.
And the best choices for photographers and artists.
What’s the Best Website Builder?
Using a website builder is a quick and effortless way to build a presence for your brand or online business. These tools simplify your website management by combining domain registration, hosting, and site design into one stage.
If you are not too savvy with web design and development, you will want to go with an easy drag and drop editor.
The choice is up to you.
Here are my top picks for the best website builder to use this year.
Wix.
Best Site Builder for Small Business ($13/month)
Wix is the most popular website builder available on the current market, with over 100 million users.
They have 500+ ready-to-use templates to design your website in any industry. These templates are mobile-optimized and have 100 fonts to choose from (or you can upload your own).
Their designs also look beautiful, with scroll effects, and innovative design features like animation and video backgrounds.
In case you already have a domain name on GoDaddy or need to register one at Wix.com, they make it super easy. Also, if you’d like to add e-commerce to your site so that you can sell online, plans start a $20/month.
If you’re a small business, I urge Wix as the best online store builder. You don’t necessarily require a platform with more advanced options like BigCommerce and Shopify. Wix website owners that are looking to bring an e-commerce store can find these excellent new features.
Wix is the most user-friendly site tool on the market. You can almost endlessly customize the look and feel of your site with no programming knowledge.
They also have a tool named Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) — the first artificial intelligence site builder. Wix ADI learns on your website and uses that information to design a website tailored to your precise needs.
This tool leverages AI choosing from countless combinations of images, text, layouts, and contact forms.
Ultimately, if you’re looking for the best website builder for small businesses, Wix is your very best choice.
Read my full Wix review for more in-depth analysis.
Get started with Wix.
Greatest Modern Website Builder with Free Plans (free — $3.49/mo)
Zyro is a website builder with a mission to assist local companies to tell their unique stories on the web.
Overall, they’re best known for speed and simplicity.
With Zyro, you may make a business website quickly and easily with no programming required. Your website also loads fast due to its light frame and looks great on all apparatus.
With a strong set of tools, Zyro helps grow your online business with pre-made design templates, AI-driven text, an intuitive drag-and-drop grid tool, mobile-readiness, and more than one million stock pictures to choose from.
One of the standout features is their AI Content Generator, which provides SEO-friendly content ideas based on your industry and specific business type.
To begin with this tool, you choose your type of organization, then write 2-3 paragraphs describing your brand and circumstance. Then you correct your AI settings and customize them based on duration, expertise, and creativity degree. Last, you click the Generate button and see your uniquely generated content.
Since content generation is a challenge for many website owners, this tool creates new paragraphs for you that can rank better in search and increase conversion rates.
Some other excellent features include:
Built-in SEO tools to increase your search rankings.
A free SSL certificate and custom domain names.
An AI-driven logo and slogan manufacturer.
24/7 customer support via email and live chat.
AI heatmaps to improve website conversions and forecast visitor behaviour.
Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website designs.
Free website design templates for various industries like creative services, startups, fashion brands, wellness companies, bakeries, and much more.
Zyro offers three primary pricing plans — a free plan, a mid-tier”Basic” plan at $1.99/month, and their high-tier”Unleashed” program at $3.49/month.
Their free plan doesn’t include a custom domain name but does provide 99.9% uptime, an SSL certificate, 500MB of bandwidth and 500MB of storage.
Next, their “Basic” plan permits you to connect your own domain name, increases bandwidth and storage, and includes extra features like ad removal and integrations with tools such as Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Facebook pixels. This is a really popular plan that’s most suitable for small and medium-sized businesses.
Finally, their “Unleashed” program provides every Zyro feature and provides unlimited storage and bandwidth. At this affordable price of $3.49/month, it is sensible to go with this plan and enjoy the unlimited features if you’re planning to get a great deal of content on your site.
Overall, Zyro is best for small businesses looking to create and grow a website fast, save money on composing and logo-making using their AI tools, rank higher on search engines, and increase conversion rates with high quality, mobile-friendly design templates.
You can get started with Zyro for free to test out their stage, then upgrade to a paid plan when you’re ready to grow your online business.
Get started with Zyro and start building your site today.
Best Website Design for Personal Sites ($12/month)
When I think of Squarespace, my mind goes right for their beautifully designed home page. They truly know how to make beautiful, high-quality sites that look great for both small businesses and personal websites alike.
With over 100 design templates to select from, they lead the pack in regards to design. Squarespace templates appear excellent down to every detail. The fonts, color schemes, and vision all mesh perfectly for any site.
Besides design, their stage is great for bloggers. I tested out their WYSIWYG blog editor, and it is very intuitive.
You drag elements like images, headings, and text onto the page and place it where you would like. They also offer multiple user permissions, Google AMP functionality, and you can schedule your articles:
A few small search engine optimization limitations hold Squarespace back from being #1 on this list. First, my XML sitemap pulled in two versions of each page with and without a trailing slash”/.” This dual indexing could potentially result in SEO and duplicate content problems later on. They didn’t have an easy fix the last time I checked.
Secondly, your site headlines become your meta titles, so be careful when incorporating your headlines for SEO. You can read more in my full Wix vs Squarespace review.
Other great features make up for these drawbacks. Their ease of use is topnotch — sites are elementary to build with their editing tools. In-built analytics tools provide steady data onsite traffic if you’re not using Google Analytics. Plus, it’s tough to go wrong with a beautifully-designed site for only $12/month.
Monthly costs range from $12/month for their private plan up to $40/month for their Online Store (Advanced) plan. Monthly costs are based on a one-year contract, and Squarespace includes a free domain. The Personal program provides a free domain name, unlimited storage and bandwidth, free SSL, and 24/7 customer service.
Overall, if you’re a small business that needs first-rate web design or a blogger who wants your content to appear great, Squarespace is a trusted option.
Best Free Website Builder (Free — $25/month)
Weebly powers over 530,000 domain names and is known as the easy site builder of choice for people without much technical experience. They offer a lot of great features. If you are a blogger, you can use Weebly.com to pick a domain name and use their editor to add your own text, images, and articles.
They also have a mobile app to track your site’s functionality on the go. And email marketing tools let you send newsletters to your subscribers from inside their tool.
They have a free program which includes 500 MB of storage, a free SSL certificate, and a domain with Weebly branding. You can use a custom domain with this plan but are forced to have Weebly branding throughout your site. Additionally, the free plan only includes chat and email support, but no phone support.
Weebly’s paid plans vary from $5 to $25 per month. On the high end, their Business Plan gets you innovative e-commerce performance, a free domain, and $200 of Google ad credits.
Their e-commerce features include product options/variants, coupon codes, stock management, a shipping calculator, shipping labels, and the ability to accept payments via Square and other providers.
The level of customer support you receive is based on your subscription level. You can find assistance yourself in many locations, including their blog, service centre, community forum, social media, and developer documentation. They also have live chat, email, and phone support.
If you are looking for a simple website creator to get up and running, I recommend you get started using Weebly.
Best Site Builder for Ecommerce ($29/month)
Shopify is a popular ecommerce platform used by over 800,000 online companies so sell products online. They were founded in Canada in 2004 and quickly became a powerhouse due to their simple dashboard and integrations with thousands of app partners.
While not every website owner needs product-selling performance, I added Shopify to the list because any small business could use them to install their site.
Take a salon for example.
With Shopify, not only could you set up a quick site including a site, a map of your location, contact information, and appointment scheduling (with an app), but you might also sell hair care products online. This creates not only a website but another online source of revenue for your business.
Shopify has a great deal of features you’d come to expect from other tools on this listing, including hosting, your own domain name, 70+ professional themes, a free SSL certificate, and marketing and SEO features.
They also offer mobile commerce, 100+ payment gateways, automated carrier shipping rates, automatic tax rates, and the complete checkout experience. Plus, you can enjoy omnichannel selling across Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Instagram, and much more.
If you’re establishing a new website and believe that you might want to sell products online in the future, it is far better to begin with Shopify rather than another instrument that doesn’t take online shopping too.
They offer three plans ranging from $29/month to $299/month. The $29/month Basic Shopify Plan should give website owners everything they need, including a complete website, an online store with unlimited products, site features, 24/7 support, and more.
If you want to give Shopify a try, they give a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
Best For Professional painters ($16 a month).
Some of its other Important features include:
You can add and edit content to your live site.
Invite other team members to collaborate on a single dashboard.
Add up to 100 pages to your site.
99.9% uptime guaranteed and SSL certificate.
Automated backup.
Custom fonts available.
Create custom 404 pages.
Customer care via email, Webflow community forum, and help center.
Integration with Zapier enables you to connect with tools such as Slack, MailChimp, and Asana.
You can add up to 3000 products on your website with eCommerce support.
Best WordPress Themes for Photography and Creative Websites ($279 one-time).
Flothemes is a business that offers customizable WordPress themes. These templates enable you to build sites inside of WordPress with no need for custom coding. It’s powered by Flex block, a potent free flow page builder, providing limitless customization choices.
All of the templates and themes include premade layouts and content blocks. You can also customize colors, fonts, the structure of the webpage, and more.
Flothemes help you build your site in a few steps, including:
Register a domain name and hosting service provider for your site. You can also check Flothemes cloud hosting services, starting at $26 a month.
Install WordPress.org and join it to your web site hosting. Fortunately, most hosting services provide a one-click WordPress installation.
Finally, select a theme for your website or portfolio.
You can watch several how-to tutorials by Flothemes or contact the customer care team.
If you need assistance setting up the entire site, you can drop a message, and their team will do everything for you.
Flothemes will allow you to set up your site for only $499-$1999. Besides setting up your site from the start, they also provide services like page loading speed optimization, SEO, styling, etc.. In addition, you get two display sharing sessions of 45 minutes each with specialists and one SEO consultation call of 45 minutes. All in all, you get six rounds of implementations.
Furthermore, Flothemes provides features like SSL implementation, WordPress setup, Typography, color scheme stylization, and much more. You also get complete design freedom, SEO options, and a dashboard.
Pricing:
While their themes cost a one-time $279, Flothemes offers three pricing strategies for their website setup services, including:
Simple Installation Bundle: $499
Advanced setup packs: $999
Pro Installation packs: $1,999
The Easy Setup Package can help you skip the technical parts and jump straight to adding content and personalizing your theme. It offers features like WordPress installation, website layout setup, theme setup, WordPress transfer, website launching, etc..
The Advanced Setup Package incorporates full assistance with site setup, styling & launch, site speed optimization & an SEO consultation. Additional features include typography & color scheme stylization, SSL implementation, speed optimization, etc..
Pro Installation Package contains all the features in the Advanced Setup Package together with the tailored mockup & implementation for your homepage.
Best Website Tool with Integrated CRM Tools
HubSpot is a top-notch CRM tool that also has a full-featured CMS and website builder. Using their platform, you can create website pages, blog posts, landing pages from scratch or using their pre-built templates.
Their drag-and-drop editor uses responsive design to assist you create webpages that look great on any device. Where HubSpot stands out is its personalization and integrations.
Unlike other tools on this list, HubSpot comes integrated with a broad range of marketing applications, including tools to manage email advertising, get found online, and catch, engage with and understand leads.
For example, when you make a webpage, you can add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into prospects. Then, when you understand your visitors, you can dynamically create content unique to site visitors based on their location, device, language, traffic source, or any other detail you choose to capture in your HubSpot CRM.
This integrated marketing suite covers all parts of the customer lifecycle:
Forms, live chat, and conversational chatbots capture prospects.
Email marketing, retargeting, and messenger integrations send personalized messages to your leads.
Their contact report builder, analytics tools, and record segmentation help you understand your own leads.
Personalized experiences, calls-to-action, and smart content turns leads into customers.
Overall, if you are looking for a website builder that also includes a full-featured set of CRM and marketing tools, HubSpot is the ideal alternative.
The World’s Most Popular CMS
Easiest Free Website Builder for Small Websites
Best Digital Advertising Website Builder for Local Firms
A Personalized Website with the Power of AI
Best for Enormous Online Stores
Great for Photographers and Artists
Best for startups that want to make bootstrapped websites
Best Website Builder for Agencies and Multilingual Websites
What’s a Website Builder?
A website builder is a tool that allows anyone to manage a website and domain name without manual programming. In other words, a site builder is a tool or software application to assist you build a website.
In the old days of the web, programmers needed to know HTML and CSS to create a website. Today, if you wish to code a site, there’s a steep learning curve — you want to have extensive knowledge of JavaScript and PHP. Not so with website builders.
These tools help everyone from small companies and bloggers to news websites and ecommerce businesses easily create websites in minutes.
How much does it cost to build a website?
Is Wix better than WordPress?
How much does a website cost monthly?
Does Google have a site builder?
Can I get a free site for my business?
There you have it — my list of the greatest website builders. Because there are 74 options out there, I have condensed the listing down to the very best so you can choose the option that is perfect for your small business or online brand.
If you are looking for the best website builder overall, I recommend you begin with Wix.
For the best designs and templates, check out Squarespace.
If you will need an e-commerce website to sell products online, Shopify is a fantastic choice.
What website builder do you use?