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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 choices to select from.
In this guide, I ranked and reviewed the best website builders to make a website based on cost, reliability, web hosting services, technical support, website speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and much more.
We will also compare:
The best website builders for small businesses.
The best free and affordable options.
The ones with the best SEO.
The best platforms with online shop capabilities.
The best builders for agencies.
And the best choices 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 internet business. These tools simplify your website management by combining domain registrationhosting, and website design into one platform.
If you’re not too savvy with web design and development, you will want to go with a simple drag and drop editor.
The choice is up to you.
Here are my top picks for the best website builder to use this season.
Wix.
Best Site Builder for Small Business ($13/month)
Wix is the most popular website builder on the market, with over 100 million consumers.
They have 500+ ready-to-use templates to design your site 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 video and animation backgrounds.
If you already have a domain name on GoDaddy or want to register one at Wix.com, they make it super easy. Additionally, if you want to add e-commerce to your site so you could sell online, plans begin a $20/month.
If you are a small company, I recommend 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 get these excellent new features.
Wix is the most user-friendly website tool on the market. You can almost endlessly customize the look and feel of your website with no programming knowledge.
They also have a tool called 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 specific needs.
This tool leverages AI choosing from countless combinations of images, text, designs, and contact forms.
Finally, if you’re looking for the best site builder for small companies, Wix is your very best option.
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 help local companies to tell their unique stories on the web.
Overall, they’re best known for simplicity and speed.
With Zyro, you can create a business website fast and easily with no programming required. Your website also loads fast due to the light framework and looks great on all devices.
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 tool, mobile-readiness, and more than one million stock images to select 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 begin with this tool, you choose your type of organization, then write 2-3 sentences describing your brand and circumstance. Then you correct your AI settings and customize them based on duration, expertise, and creativity degree. Lastly, you click the Generate button and see your uniquely generated content.
Since content creation is a challenge for many website owners, this tool generates new paragraphs for you which 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 domains.
An AI-driven logo and slogan manufacturer.
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 various industries like creative agencies, startups, fashion brands, wellness businesses, bakeries, and much more.
Zyro offers three primary pricing plans — a free plan, a mid-tier”Basic” program at $1.99/month, and their high-tier”Unleashed” plan at $3.49/month.
Their free program does not include a custom domain name but does provide 99.9% uptime, an SSL certificate, 500MB of bandwidth and 500MB of storage.
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 really popular plan that is most acceptable for small and medium-sized companies.
Finally, their “Unleashed” program provides every Zyro feature and provides unlimited storage and bandwidth. At this affordable price of $3.49/month, it makes sense to go with this program and enjoy the unlimited features if you plan to have a great deal of content on your site.
Overall, Zyro is ideal for small businesses seeking to create and grow a website quickly, 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 platform, then upgrade to a paid program when you are ready to grow your internet 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 directly for their beautifully designed home page. They truly know how to make beautiful, high-quality websites that look great for both small businesses and personal websites alike.
With over 100 design templates to select from, they lead the pack when it comes to design. Squarespace templates appear excellent down to every detail. The fonts, color schemes, and imagery all mesh flawlessly for any website.
Besides design, their stage is wonderful for bloggers. I tested out their WYSIWYG blog editor, and it’s very intuitive.
You drag elements like pictures, headings, and text on the page and place it where you want. They also offer multiple user permissions, Google AMP performance, 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 in two versions of every page with and without a trailing slash”/.” This double indexing could potentially result in SEO and duplicate content problems down the road. They didn’t have a simple fix the last time I checked.
Secondly, your site headlines always become your meta titles, so be cautious when adding 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 onsite traffic if you are not using Google Analytics. Plus, it’s hard to go wrong with a beautifully-designed site for only $12/month.
Monthly prices range from $12/month for their Personal plan up to $40/month for their Online Store (Advanced) plan. Monthly prices are based on a one-year contract, and Squarespace includes a free domain. The Personal program provides a free domain name, unlimited bandwidth and storage, free SSL, and 24/7 customer support.
Overall, if you’re a small company that needs first-rate web design or a blogger that wants your content to look great, Squarespace is a trusted option.
Best Free Website Builder (Free — $25/month)
Weebly powers over 530,000 domains and is known as the simple site builder of choice for people without much technical experience. They offer a great deal of great features. If you are a blogger, you can use Weebly.com to select a domain name and use their editor to add your text, images, and articles.
They also have a mobile program to track your website’s performance 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 name with this plan but are forced to get Weebly branding throughout your website. Additionally, the free program only includes email and chat support, but no phone support.
Weebly’s paid plans range from $5 to $25 per month. On the high end, their Business Strategy gets you innovative e-commerce functionality, 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 through Square and other suppliers.
The level of customer support you receive is based on your subscription level. You’ll find assistance yourself in several locations, including their site, support center, community discussion, social media, and programmer documentation. They also have live chat, email, and phone support.
If you are looking for a simple site creator to get up and running, I recommend you begin with Weebly.
Best Website Builder for Ecommerce ($29/month)
Shopify is a favorite 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 because of 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 almost any small business could use them to install their website.
Take a salon for instance.
With Shopify, not only could you set up a quick website including a blog, a map of your location, contact information, and appointment scheduling (with a program ), 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 themes, a free SSL certificate, and marketing and SEO features.
They also offer mobile commerce, 100+ payment gateways, automatic carrier shipping rates, automatic tax rates, and the full 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 might choose to sell products online in the future, it’s better to get started with Shopify instead of another tool that does not take online shopping as seriously.
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’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 edit and add content to your live site.
Invite additional group 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 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 website with eCommerce support.
Finest WordPress Themes for Photography and Creative Websites ($279 one-time).
Flothemes is a company that offers customizable WordPress themes. These templates help you build websites inside of WordPress without the need for custom coding. It is powered by Flex block, a potent free stream page builder, providing limitless customization choices.
All the templates and themes come with premade designs and content blocks. You can also customize colors, fonts, the structure of the page, and more.
Flothemes help you build your site in a few steps, including:
Register a domain name and hosting service provider for your website. You can even check Flothemes cloud hosting services, starting at $26 per month.
Install WordPress.org and join 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 watch several how-to tutorials by Flothemes or contact the customer support team.
If you need assistance setting up the whole website, you can drop a message, and their team will do everything for you.
Flothemes can help you set up your website for just $499-$1999. Besides setting up your site from the beginning, they also provide services like page loading speed optimization, SEO, styling, etc.. Plus, you get two display 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 find 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 Setup Package: $499
Advanced setup packages: $999
Pro Installation packs: $1,999
The Simple Setup Package can help you skip the technical components and jump straight to adding content and personalizing your motif. It offers features like WordPress installation, website layout setup, theme setup, WordPress transfer, site launching, etc..
The Advanced Setup Package includes full assistance with website 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 of the features from the Advanced Setup Package along with the tailored mockup & execution for your homepage.
Best Website Tool with Integrated CRM Tools
HubSpot is a top-notch CRM tool which also has a full-featured CMS and website builder. Using their platform, it is possible to create website pages, blog posts, landing pages either 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 list, HubSpot comes integrated with a wide range of marketing software, including tools to manage email marketing, get found online, and catch, engage with and understand prospects.
For instance, when you create a webpage, you may add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into prospects. Then, when you understand your traffic, you can dynamically create content unique to site visitors based on their location, device, language, traffic origin, 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 advertising, retargeting, and messenger integrations send customized messages to your leads.
Their contact 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’re looking for a site builder that also comes with a full-featured set of CRM and marketing tools, HubSpot is your ideal choice.
The World’s Most Popular CMS
Easiest Free Website Builder for Small Sites
Best Digital Advertising Website Builder for Local Businesses
A Personalized Website with the Power of AI
Best for Large Online Stores
Great for Photographers and Artists
Best for startups that want to make bootstrapped websites
Best Site 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 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 make a site. Today, if you wish to code a site, there is a steep learning curve — you need to have extensive knowledge of JavaScript and PHP. Not so with site builders.
These tools help everyone from small businesses and bloggers to information sites and ecommerce businesses easily create sites 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 website builder?
Can I get a free site for my company?
There you have it — my list of the greatest website builders. As there are 74 choices out there, I have condensed the list down to the top so you can choose the option that is right for your business or online brand.
If you are looking for the best site builder complete, I recommend you begin with Wix.
For the best designs and templates, take a look at Squarespace.
If you will need an e-commerce website to sell products online, Shopify is a good choice.
What site builder do you use?