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17 Best Website Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Choosing the best website builder can be difficult, as there are 74 popular choices to select from.
In this guide, I rated and reviewed the best website builders to make a web site based on price, reliability, web hosting services, technical support, site speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and much more.
We’ll also compare:
The ideal website builders for small companies.
The best free and cheap options.
The ones with the best SEO.
The best platforms with online store capabilities.
The very best 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 effortless way to build a presence for your brand or internet business. These tools simplify your site management by combining domain registration, hosting, and site design into one stage.
If you are not too savvy with web design and development, you’ll want to go with a simple drag and drop editor.
The choice is all up to you.
Here are my top picks for the best site builder to use this season.
Wix.
Best Website Builder for Small Business ($13/month)
Wix is the most popular website builder available on the market, with over 100 million consumers.
They have 500+ ready-to-use templates to design your website in any business. 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 advanced design features like video and animation 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 want to add e-commerce to your site so you could 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 require a platform with more advanced options like BigCommerce and Shopify. Wix website owners that want 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 always customize the appearance and feel of your site with no coding 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 site tailored to your specific needs.
This tool leverages AI choosing from billions of combinations of images, text, layouts, and contact forms.
Finally, if you’re seeking the best website builder for small companies, Wix is your best choice.
Read my whole 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 site 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 may make a company website fast and easily with no programming required. Your site also loads fast because of its light framework 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 tool, mobile-readiness, and more than one million stock images to select from.
One of the standout features is their AI Content Generator, which offers SEO-friendly content ideas based on your industry and specific business type.
To get started 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 level. Last, you click the Generate button and see your uniquely generated 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 behaviour.
Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website layouts.
Free website design templates for various industries like creative agencies, startups, fashion brands, health businesses, bakeries, and much more.
Zyro offers three main pricing programs — a free plan, a mid-tier”Basic” plan 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.
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 like 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” plan 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 plan 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 looking to create and grow a website quickly, save money on writing 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 check out their platform, then upgrade to a paid plan when you are 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 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 select from, they lead the pack when it comes to design. Squarespace templates look excellent down to every detail. The fonts, color schemes, and vision all mesh perfectly for any site.
Besides design, their platform is great for bloggers. I tested out their WYSIWYG blog editor, and it is very intuitive.
You drag elements like pictures, headings, and text onto the page and place it where you want. They also offer multiple user permissions, Google AMP performance, and you can schedule your articles:
A few small search engine optimization limitations hold Squarespace back from being #1 on this list. To begin with, 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 problems down the road. They didn’t have an easy fix the last time I checked.
Second, your blog headlines always become your meta names, so be careful 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 topnotch — websites are elementary to assemble with their editing tools. In-built analytics tools provide continuous data onsite traffic if you are not using Google Analytics. Plus, it’s hard to go wrong with a beautifully-designed site 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.
In general, if you’re a small business that needs first-rate web design or a blogger that 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 expertise. They offer a great deal 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 website’s performance on the go. And email marketing tools allow you to send newsletters to your subscribers from within 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 with this plan but are forced to get Weebly branding throughout your site. Also, the free plan only includes email and chat 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 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 via 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 blog, service center, community forum, social media, and developer documentation. They also have live chat, email, and telephone support.
If you’re searching for a simple site creator to get up and running, I recommend you get started using Weebly.
Best Website 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 site owner needs product-selling performance, I added Shopify to the list because any small business could use them to set up their site.
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 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, such as hosting, your own domain name, 70+ professional topics, a free SSL certificate, and marketing and SEO features.
They also supply mobile commerce, 100+ payment gateways, automated carrier shipping rates, automated tax rates, and the full checkout experience. Plus, you can enjoy omnichannel selling across Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Instagram, and much more.
If you’re setting up a new website and think that you might choose to sell products online in the future, it is far better to get started with Shopify rather than another instrument 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 site owners everything they need, including a complete website, an internet store with unlimited products, blog features, 24/7 support, and much more.
If you want to give Shopify a try, they give a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
Best For Professional Designers ($16 a month).
Some of its other key features include:
You can edit and add content to your live site.
Invite additional team members to collaborate on a single dash.
Add up to 100 pages to your website.
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 like 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 is powered by Flex block, a powerful free flow 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 also check Flothemes cloud hosting services, starting at $26 a 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 website or portfolio.
You can watch several how-to tutorials by Flothemes or contact the customer care team.
If you need help setting up the whole site, you can drop a message, and their team will do everything for you.
Flothemes can help you set up your site for just $499-$1999. Besides setting up your site from the start, they also provide services like page loading speed optimization, SEO, styling, etc.. Plus, you get two screen sharing sessions of 45 minutes each with experts 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 find complete design freedom, SEO options, and a dash.
Pricing:
While their themes cost a one-time $279, Flothemes offers three pricing strategies for their site setup services, including:
Simple Installation Bundle: $499
Advanced setup packages: $999
Pro Setup packages: $1,999
The Easy Setup Package helps you skip the technical parts and jump directly to adding content and personalizing your motif. It provides features like WordPress installation, website layout setup, theme installation, WordPress transfer, site launching, etc..
The Advanced Setup Package includes full assistance with website setup, styling & launch, site speed optimization & an search engine optimization 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 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 either 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 wide assortment of marketing applications, including tools to manage email advertising, get found online, and capture, engage with and understand leads.
By way of instance, when you create a webpage, you can add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into leads. Then, when you understand your visitors, you can dynamically create content unique to website visitors based on their location, device, speech, traffic source, or some other detail you choose to capture in your HubSpot CRM.
This integrated marketing suite covers all parts of the customer lifecycle:
Types, live chat, and conversational chatbots capture leads.
Email advertising, retargeting, and messenger integrations send customized messages to your leads.
Their contact report builder, analytics tools, and record segmentation help you understand your own prospects.
Personalized experiences, calls-to-action, and smart content turns leads into customers.
Overall, if you’re looking for a website builder that also comes with a full-featured set of CRM and marketing tools, HubSpot is the best choice.
The World’s Most Popular CMS
Easiest Free Website Builder for Small Sites
Best Digital Marketing 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 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 that will help 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 want 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 help everyone from small companies and bloggers to information sites and ecommerce businesses easily create sites in minutes.
How much does it cost to construct 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. As there are 74 options out there, I’ve condensed the list down to the very best so you can choose the option that’s right for your business or online brand.
If you’re looking for the very best website builder complete, I recommend you begin using Wix.
For the best designs and templates, check out Squarespace.
If you need an e-commerce website to sell products online, Shopify is a fantastic choice.
What site builder do you use?