https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K16P9qKW9pI
17 Best Site Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Choosing the best site builder can be difficult, as there are 74 popular options to choose from.
In this guide, I rated and reviewed the best website builders to create a website based on price, reliability, web hosting solutions , technical assistance, website speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and much more.
We’ll also compare:
The best website contractors for small businesses.
The ideal free and affordable choices.
The ones with the best SEO.
The best 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 website builder is a fast and easy way to build a presence for your brand or online business. These tools simplify your website management by combining domain registration, hosting, 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 year.
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 advanced 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. Additionally, if you want to add e-commerce to your website so you could sell online, plans start a $20/month.
If you’re a small business, 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 great new features.
Wix is the most user-friendly website tool on the market. You can almost endlessly customize the appearance and feel of your website with no coding knowledge.
They also have a tool called Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) — the first artificial intelligence site builder. Wix ADI learns about your website and uses that information to design a website tailored to your precise needs.
This tool leverages AI selecting from countless combinations of images, text, designs, and contact forms.
Ultimately, if you’re seeking the best website builder for small companies, Wix is the best option.
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 site builder with a mission to help local companies to tell their unique stories online.
Overall, they are best known for speed and simplicity.
With Zyro, you may make a company website fast and easily with no coding required. Your site also loads fast because of its 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 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 pick your type of business, then write 2-3 paragraphs describing your brand and context. Then you adjust your AI settings and customize them based on duration, expertise, and creativity degree. Last, you click on the Generate button and see your distinctively created content.
Since content creation is a challenge for many site owners, this tool generates new paragraphs for you which can rank better in search and increase conversion rates.
Another 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 maker.
24/7 customer support via email and live chat.
AI heatmaps to improve website conversions and predict visitor behavior.
Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website layouts.
Free website design templates for different 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” program at $1.99/month, and their high-tier”Unleashed” program at $3.49/month.
Their free program 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 like 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” program provides every Zyro feature and provides unlimited bandwidth and storage. At this affordable price of $3.49/month, it makes sense to go for this program and enjoy the unlimited features if you plan to have a lot of content on your site.
Overall, Zyro is ideal for small businesses seeking to create and develop a website quickly, save money on writing 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 get started with Zyro for free to test 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 site today.
Best Website Design for Personal Sites ($12/month)
When I think of Squarespace, my mind goes directly to 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 choose from, they lead the pack when it comes 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’s very intuitive.
You drag elements like images, headings, and text on the page and position it where you want. They also offer multiple user permissions, Google AMP performance, and you can schedule your posts:
A few small SEO limitations hold Squarespace back from being #1 on this list. To begin with, my XML sitemap pulled in two versions of every page with and without a trailing slash”/.” This dual 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.
Second, your site headlines become your meta names, so be careful when adding your headlines for SEO. You can read more in my full Wix vs Squarespace review.
Other great features compensate for these drawbacks. Their ease of use is top-notch — sites are elementary to assemble with their editing tools. In-built analytics tools provide continuous data on-site visitors if you’re not using Google Analytics. Plus, it’s hard to go wrong with a beautifully-designed website for just $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 domainname. The Personal plan provides a free domain name, unlimited bandwidth and storage, free SSL, and 24/7 customer service.
Overall, if you are a small company that needs first-rate web design or a blogger who wants your articles to appear great, Squarespace is a trusted option.
Best Free Website Builder (Free — $25/month)
Weebly powers over 530,000 domain names and is called the simple website builder of choice for people without much technical experience. They offer a great deal 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 own text, images, and articles.
They also have a mobile app to keep track of your site’s functionality on the go. And email marketing tools allow you to send newsletters to your subscribers from inside their tool.
They have a free plan which includes 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 made to get Weebly branding throughout your website. Also, the free program only includes chat and email support, but no phone support.
Weebly’s paid plans range 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, inventory management, a shipping calculator, shipping labels, and the ability to accept payments via Square and other providers.
The degree of customer support you get is based on your subscription level. You’ll find assistance yourself in many areas, including their site, support centre, community discussion, social networking, 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 begin with Weebly.
Best Site Builder for Ecommerce ($29/month)
Shopify is a favorite ecommerce platform used by over 800,000 online businesses 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 site owner needs product-selling functionality, I added Shopify to the list because almost any small business could use them to install their site.
Have a salon for example.
With Shopify, not only could you set up a quick site including a blog, a map of your location, contact info, 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 lot of features you’d come to expect from other tools on this listing, such as 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 complete checkout experience. Besides, you can enjoy omnichannel selling across Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Instagram, and more.
If you’re setting up a new website and believe that you may want to sell products online in the future, it is far better to get started with Shopify rather than another tool that does not take online shopping as seriously.
They offer three plans ranging from $29/month to $299/month. The $29/month Fundamental Shopify Plan should give site owners everything they need, including a complete website, an internet store with unlimited products, blog features, 24/7 support, and more.
If you’d like 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 edit and add content to your live site.
Invite other 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 support through 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 company that provides customizable WordPress themes. These templates help you build websites inside of WordPress with no need for custom coding. It’s powered by Flex block, a powerful free stream 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 measures, 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 connect it to your web site hosting. Fortunately, most hosting services offer a one-click WordPress installation.
Finally, select a theme for your website or portfolio.
You’ll be able to see several how-to tutorials by Flothemes or contact the customer support team.
If you need assistance setting up the entire site, you can drop a message, and their staff will do everything for you.
Flothemes can allow you to set up your site for just $499-$1999. Besides setting up your website 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.
Furthermore, Flothemes provides features like SSL implementation, WordPress setup, 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 plans for their website setup services, including:
Simple Installation Bundle: $499
Advanced setup packs: $999
Pro Installation packs: $1,999
The Easy Setup Package helps 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 installation, WordPress transfer, website launch, etc..
The Advanced Setup Package incorporates full assistance with site setup, styling & launching, site speed optimization & an SEO consultation. Additional features include typography & colour scheme stylization, SSL implementation, speed optimization, etc..
Pro Installation Package includes all of the features from the Advanced Setup Package along with the tailored mockup & execution for your homepage.
Best Site Tool with Integrated CRM Tools
HubSpot is a topnotch CRM tool which also includes 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 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 broad assortment of marketing software, including tools to manage email marketing, get found online, and capture, engage with and understand leads.
For instance, when you make a webpage, you can add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into leads. Then, when you understand your traffic, you can dynamically create content unique to site visitors based on their location, device, speech, 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 prospects.
Email advertising, retargeting, and messenger integrations send personalized messages to your leads.
Their contact builder, analytics tools, and list segmentation help you understand your prospects.
Personalized experiences, calls-to-action, and smart content turns leads into customers.
Overall, if you’re looking for a site builder that also includes a full-featured pair of CRM and marketing tools, HubSpot is your ideal alternative.
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 create 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 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 net, programmers needed to know HTML and CSS to make a website. Today, if you wish to code a website, there’s a steep learning curve — you need to have extensive knowledge of JavaScript and PHP. Not so with website builders.
These tools assist everyone from small businesses and bloggers to news 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 business?
There you have it — my list of the greatest website builders. Because there are 74 options out there, I’ve condensed the listing down to the top so that you may choose the option that is perfect for your business or online brand.
If you are looking for the very best site builder overall, I recommend you get started 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 website builder do you use?