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17 Best Website Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Picking 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 cost, reliability, web hosting solutions , technical support, site speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and much more.
We’ll also compare:
The best website contractors for small companies.
The best free and affordable options.
The ones with the best SEO.
The top platforms with online store capabilities.
The best builders for agencies.
And the best options for photographers and artists.
What’s the Best Website Builder?
Using a site 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 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 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 available on the current 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 appear beautiful, with scroll effects, and innovative design features like animation and video backgrounds.
In case you already have a domain on GoDaddy or need 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 begin a $20/month.
If you’re 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 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 site with no coding knowledge.
They also have a tool called Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) — the first artificial intelligence website 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 countless combinations of images, text, layouts, and contact forms.
Ultimately, if you’re looking for the best website builder for small businesses, Wix is the 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 site builder with a mission to help local businesses to tell their unique stories online.
Overall, they’re famous for simplicity and speed.
With Zyro, you can create a company website quickly and easily with no programming required. Your site also loads fast due to 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 grid 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 choose your type of organization, then write 2-3 paragraphs describing your brand and context. Then you correct your AI settings and customize them based on length, experience, and creativity degree. Lastly, you click the Generate button and see your distinctively generated content.
Since content generation is a challenge for many site owners, this tool creates 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 improve your search rankings.
A free SSL certificate and custom domain names.
An AI-driven logo and slogan manufacturer.
24/7 customer support via email and live chat.
AI heatmaps to increase website conversions and predict visitor behaviour.
Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website designs.
Free website design templates for various industries like creative agencies, startups, fashion brands, wellness companies, 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” 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” program allows 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 very popular plan that’s most suitable for small and medium-sized companies.
Finally, their “Unleashed” plan provides every Zyro feature and gives 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 best for small businesses looking to create and develop a site quickly, save money on composing and logo-making with their AI tools, rank high on search engines, and increase conversion rates with high-quality, mobile-friendly design templates.
You can get started with Zyro free of charge to test out their platform, then upgrade to a paid program when you’re 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 directly to their beautifully designed home page. They truly know how to create beautiful, high-quality websites that look great for both small businesses and personal websites alike.
With over 100 design templates to choose from, they lead the pack in regards to design. Squarespace templates appear excellent down to every detail. The fonts, color schemes, and vision all mesh perfectly for any website.
Besides design, their platform is great for bloggers. I tested out their WYSIWYG blog editor, and it’s 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 performance, and you can schedule your articles:
A few small SEO limitations hold Squarespace back from being #1 on this list. First, 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 titles, so be cautious when adding your headlines for SEO. You can read more in my full Wix vs Squarespace review.
Other terrific features make up for these drawbacks. Their ease of use is topnotch — websites are elementary to build with their editing tools. In-built analytics tools provide continuous data onsite traffic if you are not using Google Analytics. Plus, it’s tough to go wrong with a beautifully-designed website 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 prices are based on a one-year contract, and Squarespace includes a free domain. The Personal program provides a free domain name, unlimited storage and bandwidth, free SSL, and 24/7 customer service.
In general, if you’re a small company that needs first-rate web design or a blogger who wants your content to look great, Squarespace is a reliable 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 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 own text, pictures, and content.
They also have a mobile app to keep track of your site’s functionality on the go. And email marketing tools let you send newsletters to your subscribers from inside their tool.
They have a free program 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 made to have Weebly branding throughout your website. Also, the free program only includes chat and email support, but no phone support.
Weebly’s paid programs range from $5 to $25 per month. On the high end, their Business Plan 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, stock management, a shipping calculator, shipping labels, and the ability to accept payments through Square and other suppliers.
The degree of customer support you get is based on your subscription level. You can find assistance yourself in many locations, including their site, service center, community forum, social networking, 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 suggest that 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 due to their simple dashboard and integrations with thousands of app partners.
While not every site owner needs product-selling performance, I added Shopify into the list because any small business could use them to set up their website.
Have a salon for instance.
With Shopify, not only could you set up a quick site 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 company.
Shopify has a great deal of features you’d come to expect from other tools on this listing, including hosting, your own domain name, 70+ professional topics, a free SSL certificate, and promotion and SEO features.
They also offer 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 establishing a new website and believe that you may choose 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 Basic Shopify Plan should give website owners everything they need, including a full 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 a month).
Some of its other Important features include:
You can edit and add content to your live website.
Invite additional team members to collaborate on a single dashboard.
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 website with eCommerce support.
Finest WordPress Themes for Photography and Creative Websites ($279 one-time).
Flothemes is a company that provides customizable WordPress themes. These templates help you build sites inside of WordPress without the need for custom coding. It is powered by Flex block, a powerful free stream page builder, providing limitless customization options.
All of the templates and themes come with premade designs and content blocks. You may 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 site. 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 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 care team.
If you need help setting up the entire site, you can drop a message, and their staff will do everything for you.
Flothemes will allow you to set up your site for just $499-$1999. Besides setting up your site from the start, they also provide services like page load 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 installation, Typography, color scheme stylization, and more. You also get 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 Installation Bundle: $499
Advanced setup packages: $999
Pro Installation packs: $1,999
The Simple Setup Package can help 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 setup, WordPress transfer, site 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 contains all the features in the Advanced Setup Package together with the tailored mockup & execution for your homepage.
Best Website 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, it is possible to create website pages, blog posts, landing pages 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 listing, HubSpot comes integrated with a wide assortment of marketing applications, including tools to manage email advertising, get found online, and catch, engage with and understand prospects.
By way of instance, when you make a webpage, you can add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into prospects. Then, when you understand your visitors, you can dynamically create content unique to website visitors based on their location, device, speech, traffic origin, or any other detail you choose to capture on your HubSpot CRM.
This integrated marketing suite covers all parts of the customer lifecycle:
Types, live chat, and conversational chatbots capture prospects.
Email marketing, 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 are seeking a website 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 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 sites
Best Website 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 website builder is a tool or software application to help you build a website.
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 help everyone from small companies and bloggers to news websites and ecommerce companies easily create websites 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 website for my company?
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 very best so that you can choose the option that’s right for your small business or online brand.
If you’re looking for the very best website builder complete, I recommend you get started using Wix.
For the best designs and templates, take a look at Squarespace.
If you need an e-commerce site to sell products online, Shopify is a fantastic choice.
What website builder do you use?