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17 Best Website Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Choosing the best site builder can be difficult, as there are 74 popular options to select from.
In this guide, I ranked and reviewed the best website builders to create a website based on price, reliability, web hosting services, technical assistance, website speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and more.
We’ll also compare:
The best website builders for small companies.
The best free and affordable choices.
The ones with the best SEO.
The top platforms with online shop capabilities.
The very top builders for agencies.
And the best options for photographers and artists.
What’s the Best Website Builder?
Using a site builder is a fast and easy way to build a presence for your brand or online business. These tools simplify your site management by combining domain registration, hosting, and site design into one stage.
If you’re not too knowledgeable about web design and development, you will want to go with an easy drag and drop editor.
The choice is all up to you.
Here are my top picks for the best site builder to use this year.
Wix.
Best Site Builder for Small Business ($13/month)
Wix is the most popular website builder 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 appear beautiful, with scroll effects, and innovative design features like animation and video backgrounds.
In case you already have a domain name on GoDaddy or want to register one at Wix.com, they make it super simple. Additionally, if you want to add e-commerce to your website so that you can sell online, plans start a $20/month.
If you are a small company, I recommend Wix as the best online store builder. You don’t necessarily need a platform with more advanced options like BigCommerce and Shopify. Wix website owners that are looking to bring an e-commerce store can get these excellent new features.
Wix is the most user-friendly website tool on the market. You can almost always customize the look and feel of your website with no coding 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 site tailored to your precise needs.
This tool leverages AI selecting from billions of combinations of pictures, text, designs, and contact forms.
Ultimately, if you’re looking for the best website builder for small companies, Wix is your very best choice.
Read my full Wix review for more in-depth analysis.
Get started with Wix.
Best Modern Website Builder with Free Plans (free — $3.49/mo)
Zyro is a website builder with a mission to assist local businesses to tell their unique stories on the web.
Overall, they’re best known for simplicity and speed.
With Zyro, you may make a company site fast and easily with no coding required. Your site also loads fast due to the light framework and looks great on all apparatus.
With a powerful 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 over one million stock images to choose from.
One of their standout features is their AI Content Generator, which provides SEO-friendly content ideas based on your industry and specific business type.
To get started with this tool, you choose your type of organization, then write 2-3 paragraphs describing your brand and circumstance. You then correct your AI settings and customize them based on duration, expertise, and creativity degree. Last, you click on the Create button and see your distinctively created content.
Since content generation is a challenge for many website owners, this tool generates new paragraphs for you that can rank better in search and increase conversion rates.
Another excellent features include:
Built-in search engine optimization tools to increase your search rankings.
A free SSL certificate and custom domains.
An AI-driven logo and slogan maker.
24/7 customer support via email and live chat.
AI heatmaps to increase website conversions and forecast visitor behavior.
Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website designs.
Free website design templates for different industries like creative services, startups, fashion brands, health companies, bakeries, and much more.
Zyro offers three main pricing plans — a free plan, a mid-tier”Basic” plan at $1.99/month, and their high-tier”Unleashed” plan 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 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 very popular plan that’s most acceptable for small and medium-sized companies.
Finally, their “Unleashed” plan provides every Zyro attribute and provides unlimited bandwidth and storage. At this affordable price of $3.49/month, it makes sense to go for this plan and enjoy the unlimited features if you’re planning to get a great deal of content on your website.
Overall, Zyro is ideal for small businesses seeking to create and develop a site quickly, save money on composing and logo-making with their AI tools, rank higher on search engines, and increase conversion rates with high quality, mobile-friendly design templates.
You can begin with Zyro free of charge to check out their stage, then upgrade to a paid plan when you’re ready to grow your internet business.
Get started with Zyro and begin building your website 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 create 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 look excellent down to every detail. The fonts, color schemes, and imagery all mesh perfectly for any website.
Besides design, their stage is wonderful 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 posts:
A few small SEO limits hold Squarespace back from being #1 on this list. First, my XML sitemap pulled two versions of every page with and without a trailing slash”/.” This dual indexing may potentially result in SEO and duplicate content issues down the road. They didn’t have a simple fix the last time I checked.
Second, your blog headlines become your meta titles, so be cautious when incorporating your headlines for SEO. You can read more in my full Wix vs Squarespace review.
Other terrific features compensate for these drawbacks. Their ease of use is top-notch — sites are elementary to build with their editing tools. In-built analytics tools provide steady data on-site visitors 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 Personal 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 plan provides a free domain name, unlimited storage and bandwidth, free SSL, and 24/7 customer support.
Overall, if you are a small company that needs first-rate web design or a blogger that wants your content to look great, Squarespace is a trusted choice.
Best Free Website Builder (Free — $25/month)
Weebly powers over 530,000 domains and is called the easy site builder of choice for people without much technical experience. They offer a lot of great features. If you’re a blogger, you can use Weebly.com to select a domain name and use their editor to add your text, pictures, and content.
They also have a mobile app to track your website’s functionality on the go. And email marketing tools let you send newsletters to your subscribers from within their tool.
They have a free plan which comes with 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 get Weebly branding throughout your site. Also, 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 Strategy gets you advanced e-commerce performance, a free domain, and $200 of Google ad credits.
Their e-commerce features include product options/variants, coupon codes, inventory management, a shipping calculator, shipping labels, and the ability to accept payments via Square and other suppliers.
The level of customer support you get is based on your subscription level. You can find assistance yourself in many locations, including their site, support center, community discussion, social media, and developer documentation. They also have live chat, email, and phone support.
If you’re searching for a simple website creator to get up and running, I recommend you get started with 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 program partners.
While not every website owner needs product-selling performance, I added Shopify into the list because any small business could use them to set up their website.
Take a salon for instance.
With Shopify, not only could you set up a quick website including a site, a map of your location, contact info, and appointment scheduling (with an app), but you could also sell hair care products online. This creates not only a website but another online source of revenue for your business.
Shopify has a lot of features you’d come to expect from other tools on this listing, including hosting, your own domain name, 70+ specialist topics, a free SSL certificate, and marketing and SEO features.
They also offer mobile commerce, 100+ payment gateways, automated carrier shipping rates, automated tax rates, and the complete checkout experience. Plus, you can enjoy omnichannel selling across Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Instagram, and more.
If you’re establishing a new website and think that you may choose to sell products online in the future, it’s far better to begin with Shopify instead of another tool that does not 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, blog features, 24/7 support, and much more.
If you’d like to give Shopify a try, they offer a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
Best For Professional painters ($16 per month).
Some of its other Important features include:
You can add and edit content to your live site.
Invite additional group members to collaborate on a single dash.
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 through email, Webflow community forum, and help center.
Integration with Zapier lets you connect with tools like Slack, MailChimp, and Asana.
You can add up to 3000 products on your site with eCommerce support.
Best WordPress Themes for Photography and Creative Websites ($279 one-time).
Flothemes is a company that provides customizable WordPress themes. These templates enable you to build websites inside of WordPress with no need for custom coding. It is powered by Flex block, a potent free flow page builder, providing limitless customization choices.
All of the templates and themes come with premade layouts and content blocks. You can also customize colors, fonts, the structure of the webpage, and more.
Flothemes help you build your website 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 per month.
Install WordPress.org and connect it to your web site hosting. Luckily, most hosting services provide a one-click WordPress installation.
Finally, select a theme for your site or portfolio.
You can see several how-to tutorials by Flothemes or contact the customer support team.
If you need help setting up the entire website, you can drop a message, and their team will do everything for you.
Flothemes can allow you to set up your site for just $499-$1999. Besides setting up your site from the beginning, they also offer services like page load speed optimization, SEO, styling, etc.. Plus, you get two screen sharing sessions of 45 minutes each with specialists and one SEO consultation call of 45 minutes. In general, you get six rounds of implementations.
Additionally, Flothemes provides features like SSL implementation, WordPress installation, Typography, color scheme stylization, and much more. You also get complete design freedom, SEO options, and a dash.
Pricing:
While their subjects cost a one-time $279, Flothemes offers three pricing plans for their website setup services, including:
Simple Setup Package: $499
Advanced setup packs: $999
Pro Installation packs: $1,999
The Simple Setup Package helps you skip the technical components and jump directly to adding content and personalizing your theme. It provides features like WordPress installation, website layout setup, theme installation, WordPress transfer, site launch, 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 Setup Package contains all the features from the Advanced Setup Package along with the tailored mockup & implementation for your homepage.
Best Website Tool with Integrated CRM Tools
HubSpot is a topnotch CRM tool that also includes a full-featured CMS and website builder. Using their platform, you can create website pages, blog posts, landing pages from scratch or with their pre-built templates.
Their drag-and-drop editor uses responsive design that will help you create webpages that look great on any device. Where HubSpot stands out is its personalization and integrations.
Unlike other tools on this listing, HubSpot comes integrated with a wide range of marketing software, including tools to manage email advertising, get found online, and catch, engage with and understand leads.
For example, when you create a webpage, you can add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into prospects. Then, when you know your visitors, you can dynamically create content unique to site visitors based on their location, device, language, traffic origin, or some other detail you choose to catch on your HubSpot CRM.
This integrated marketing suite covers all parts of the customer lifecycle:
Forms, live chat, and conversational chatbots capture leads.
Email advertising, retargeting, and messenger integrations send personalized messages to your prospects.
Their contact report builder, analytics tools, and list segmentation help you understand your prospects.
Personalized experiences, calls-to-action, and smart content turns leads into clients.
Overall, if you are looking for a site builder that also comes with 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 Marketing Website Builder for Local Businesses
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 sites
Best Website Builder for Agencies and Multilingual Websites
What is a Website Builder?
A website builder is a tool which allows anyone to manage a site and domain name without manual coding. In other words, a site builder is a tool or software application to assist you build a web site.
In the old days of the web, programmers needed to know HTML and CSS to create a site. Today, if you want to code a website, there is a steep learning curve — you want to have extensive knowledge of JavaScript and PHP. Not so with website builders.
These tools assist everyone from small businesses and bloggers to information sites and ecommerce companies 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 company?
There you have it — my list of the top website builders. Because there are 74 choices out there, I have condensed the list down to the very best so that you may choose the option that’s right for your business or online brand.
If you’re looking for the best website builder complete, I recommend you get started with Wix.
For the best designs and templates, check out Squarespace.
If you need an e-commerce website to sell products online, Shopify is a good choice.
What site builder do you use?