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17 Best Website Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Choosing the best site builder can be hard, because there are 74 popular choices to select from.
In this guide, I rated and reviewed the best website builders to make a website based on price, reliability, web hosting services, technical support, site speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and more.
We’ll also compare:
The ideal website contractors for small businesses.
The best free and cheap options.
Those with the best SEO.
The top platforms with online shop capabilities.
The best builders for agencies.
And the best choices for photographers and artists.
What is the Best Website Builder?
Using a website builder is a quick and easy way to construct 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 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 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 advanced design features like animation and video backgrounds.
If 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 site so you could sell online, plans begin a $20/month.
If you’re a small business, 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 find these great 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 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 precise needs.
This tool leverages AI selecting from billions of combinations of pictures, text, layouts, and contact forms.
Ultimately, if you’re looking for the best site builder for small companies, Wix is the very best option.
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 website 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 business site quickly and easily with no coding required. Your website also loads fast because of the 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 grid tool, mobile-readiness, and more than one million stock images to select from.
One of their standout features is their AI Content Generator, which offers SEO-friendly content ideas based on your industry and specific business type.
To begin with this tool, you choose your type of business, then write 2-3 sentences describing your brand and circumstance. Then you correct your AI settings and customize them based on length, expertise, and creativity degree. Lastly, you click the Create button and see your distinctively created content.
Since content creation is a challenge for many site 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 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 predict visitor behavior.
Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website designs.
Free website design templates for different industries like creative services, startups, fashion brands, health businesses, bakeries, and 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 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 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 is most suitable for small and medium-sized businesses.
Finally, their “Unleashed” plan provides every Zyro attribute and gives unlimited bandwidth and storage. At such an affordable price of $3.49/month, it is sensible to go for this plan and enjoy the unlimited features if you plan 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 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 check out their stage, then upgrade to a paid program when you’re ready to grow your online business.
Get started with Zyro and start building your website 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 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 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 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. To begin with, my XML sitemap pulled 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 a simple fix the last time I checked.
Secondly, your blog headlines always become your meta names, so be careful when adding your headlines for SEO. You can read more in my whole Wix vs Squarespace review.
Other great features compensate for these drawbacks. Their ease of use is topnotch — sites are elementary to build with their editing tools. In-built analytics tools provide continuous data onsite traffic if you’re not using Google Analytics. Plus, it’s hard to go wrong with a beautifully-designed site for just $12/month.
Monthly prices range from $12/month for their private 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 plan provides a free domain name, unlimited storage and bandwidth, 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 articles to appear great, Squarespace is a reliable choice.
Best Free Website Builder (Free — $25/month)
Weebly powers over 530,000 domain names and is called the simple 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 select a domain name and use their editor to add your own text, images, and content.
They also have a mobile app to keep track of your site’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 comes with 500 MB of storage, a free SSL certificate, and a domain name with Weebly branding. You can use a custom domain name with this plan but are made to have Weebly branding throughout your website. Additionally, the free plan only includes chat and email support, but no phone service.
Weebly’s paid plans vary from $5 to $25 per month. On the high end, their Business Plan gets you advanced e-commerce performance, a free domainname, 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 through Square and other providers.
The degree of customer support you receive is based on your subscription level. You can find assistance yourself in many locations, including their blog, support centre, community discussion, social networking, and developer documentation. They also have live chat, email, and phone support.
If you’re looking for a simple site creator to get up and running, I recommend you begin using Weebly.
Best Site Builder for Ecommerce ($29/month)
Shopify is a popular 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 website owner needs product-selling performance, I added Shopify into 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 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 lot of features you’d come to expect from other tools on this list, including hosting, your own domain name, 70+ professional themes, a free SSL certificate, and promotion and SEO features.
They also supply mobile commerce, 100+ payment gateways, automated carrier shipping rates, automatic tax rates, and the complete checkout experience. Besides, you can enjoy omnichannel selling across Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Instagram, and much more.
If you’re setting up a new website and believe that you might choose to sell products online in the future, it is better to get started with Shopify instead of another instrument 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 want, including a full website, an online store with unlimited products, site 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 Designers ($16 per month).
Some of its other Important features include:
You can edit and add content to your live website.
Invite additional group 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 centre.
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.
Finest WordPress Themes for Photography and Creative Websites ($279 one-time).
Flothemes is a business that provides customizable WordPress themes. These templates enable you to build websites inside of WordPress without the need for custom coding. It’s powered by Flex block, a potent free stream page builder, providing limitless customization choices.
All the templates and themes include premade designs and content blocks. You may 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 website hosting. Fortunately, most hosting services offer a one-click WordPress setup.
Finally, pick a theme for your website or portfolio.
You’ll be able to watch several how-to tutorials by Flothemes or contact the customer support team.
If you need assistance setting up the entire website, you can drop a message, and their team will do everything for you.
Flothemes can help you set up your website for only $499-$1999. Besides setting up your website 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 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 more. You also get complete design freedom, SEO options, and a dash.
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 packs: $999
Pro Installation packs: $1,999
The Simple Setup Package can help 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, website 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 & colour scheme stylization, SSL implementation, speed optimization, etc..
Pro Setup Package includes all the features in the Advanced Setup Package along with the tailored mockup & implementation for your homepage.
Best Site Tool with Integrated CRM Tools
HubSpot is a top-notch CRM tool which 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 that will assist 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 broad assortment of marketing applications, including tools to manage email advertising, get found online, and catch, engage with and understand prospects.
By way of example, when you create a webpage, you can add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into prospects. Then, when you know your traffic, you can dynamically create content unique to site visitors based on their location, device, speech, traffic source, 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 customized messages to your prospects.
Their contact report builder, analytics tools, and record segmentation help you understand your prospects.
Personalized experiences, calls-to-action, and smart content turns leads into clients.
Overall, if you’re seeking a website builder that also includes a full-featured set of CRM and marketing tools, HubSpot is the best alternative.
The World’s Most Popular CMS
Easiest Free Website Builder for Small Websites
Best Digital Advertising 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 websites
Best Site Builder for Agencies and Multilingual Websites
What’s 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 program to help you build a website.
In the old days of the web, programmers needed to understand HTML and CSS to make a site. Today, if you wish to code a site, there is a steep learning curve — you want to have extensive knowledge of JavaScript and PHP. Not so with site builders.
These tools help everyone from small companies and bloggers to news 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 website 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 have condensed the listing down to the top so that you may choose the option that is right for your small business or online brand.
If you’re looking for the best site builder complete, I recommend you get started using 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 good choice.
What website builder do you use?