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17 Best Site Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Choosing the best site builder can be difficult, because there are 74 popular options to choose from.
In this guide, I rated and reviewed the best website builders to make a web site based on price, reliability, web hosting solutions , technical assistance, site speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and more.
We will also compare:
The ideal website builders for small businesses.
The best free and affordable choices.
The ones with the best SEO.
The best platforms with online shop 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 fast and effortless way to build a presence for your brand or internet business. These tools simplify your site management by combining domain registrationhosting, and website design into one stage.
If you’re not too knowledgeable about web design and development, you’ll want to go with an easy drag and drop editor.
The choice is all 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 current market, with over 100 million users.
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 innovative design features like video and animation backgrounds.
If you already have a domain name 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 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 add 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 look 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 precise needs.
This tool leverages AI choosing from billions of combinations of images, text, designs, and contact forms.
Finally, if you’re seeking the best site 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 website builder with a mission to help local businesses to tell their unique stories on the web.
Overall, they’re famous for simplicity and speed.
With Zyro, you may make a business website fast and easily with no programming required. Your website also loads fast due to its light framework and looks great on all devices.
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 pictures to choose 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 get started with this tool, you choose your type of business, then write 2-3 paragraphs describing your brand and circumstance. Then you adjust your AI settings and customize them based on length, experience, and creativity degree. Lastly, you click the Create button and see your uniquely generated content.
Since content generation is a challenge for many website owners, this tool creates new paragraphs for you which can rank better in search and increase conversion rates.
Some other excellent features include:
Built-in search engine optimization tools to improve 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 behavior.
Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website designs.
Free website design templates for various industries like creative services, startups, fashion brands, health companies, bakeries, and 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” program allows 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” plan provides every Zyro feature and provides unlimited storage and bandwidth. 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 grow a website quickly, save money on writing and logo-making using their AI tools, rank high on search engines, and increase conversion rates with high-quality, mobile-friendly design templates.
You can begin 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 for 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 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 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 two versions of every page with and without a trailing slash”/.” This double indexing may potentially result in SEO and duplicate content problems later on. They didn’t have an easy fix the last time I checked.
Secondly, your blog headlines always become your meta titles, so be careful when incorporating 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 topnotch — sites are elementary to assemble 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 website 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 costs are based on a one-year contract, and Squarespace includes a free domainname. The Personal program 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 look great, Squarespace is a trusted choice.
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 lot of great features. If you’re a blogger, you can use Weebly.com to pick a domain name and use their editor to add your own text, images, and content.
They also have a mobile app to track your site’s performance on the go. And email marketing tools allow you to send newsletters to your subscribers from inside their tool.
They have a free program 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. Also, the free program only comes with email and chat support, but no phone service.
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 providers.
The level of customer support you receive is based on your subscription level. You can find assistance yourself in several areas, including their blog, support centre, community forum, social networking, and developer documentation. They also have live chat, email, and phone support.
If you’re looking for a simple website creator to get up and running, I suggest that you get started using Weebly.
Best Website 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 due to their simple dashboard and integrations with thousands of program partners.
While not every website owner needs product-selling functionality, I added Shopify into the list because any small business could use them to install their site.
Have a salon for instance.
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 list, 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, automated tax rates, and the complete checkout experience. Plus, you can enjoy omnichannel selling across Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Instagram, and much more.
If you’re establishing a new website and believe that you might want to sell products online in the future, it is 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 website owners everything they need, including a complete website, an online store with unlimited products, site features, 24/7 support, and 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 per month).
Some of its other Important features include:
You can add and edit content to your live website.
Invite additional group 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 through 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 offers 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 potent free flow 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 measures, including:
Register a domain name and hosting service provider for your website. You can also check Flothemes cloud hosting services, starting at $26 per month.
Install WordPress.org and connect it to your website hosting. Fortunately, most hosting services offer a one-click WordPress installation.
Finally, select a theme for your site or portfolio.
You can see 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 will help you set up your site for just $499-$1999. Besides setting up your site from the beginning, they also offer services like page loading speed optimization, SEO, styling, etc.. In addition, you get two screen sharing sessions of 45 minutes each with experts 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 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 site setup services, including:
Simple Installation Bundle: $499
Advanced setup packages: $999
Pro Installation packs: $1,999
The Easy Setup Package can help you skip the technical components and jump straight to adding content and personalizing your theme. It offers features like WordPress installation, website layout setup, theme setup, WordPress transfer, website launch, 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 contains all of the features in the Advanced Setup Package together 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, 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 broad range 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 create a webpage, you can add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into leads. Then, when you know your visitors, you can dynamically create content unique to site visitors based on their location, device, language, 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 marketing, retargeting, and messenger integrations send personalized messages to your prospects.
Their contact 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 are seeking a site 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 Marketing 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 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 web, programmers needed to know HTML and CSS to create a site. Today, if you wish to code a site, 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 businesses 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 site for my business?
There you have it — my list of the top website builders. Because there are 74 choices out there, I’ve condensed the listing down to the top so you may choose the option that is perfect for your business or online brand.
If you are looking for the best site builder overall, I recommend you begin with Wix.
For the best designs and templates, take a look at Squarespace.
If you need an e-commerce website to sell products online, Shopify is a good choice.
What site builder do you use?