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17 Best Site Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Picking the best website 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 cost, reliability, web hosting services, technical support, site speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and much more.
We will also compare:
The best website contractors for small businesses.
The best free and cheap choices.
Those with the best SEO.
The best platforms with online store capabilities.
The best builders for agencies.
And the best choices for photographers and artists.
What is the Best Website Builder?
Using a site builder is a fast and effortless 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 knowledgeable about web design and development, you’ll 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 on the current market, with over 100 million users.
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 innovative design features like animation and video backgrounds.
If you already have a domain on GoDaddy or want to register one at Wix.com, they make it super simple. Additionally, if you’d like to add e-commerce to your site so you could 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 need a platform with more advanced options like BigCommerce and Shopify. Wix website owners that are looking to add an e-commerce store can find these excellent 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 programming knowledge.
They also have a tool named Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) — the first artificial intelligence website builder. Wix ADI learns about your site and uses that information to design a site tailored to your precise needs.
This tool leverages AI selecting from billions of combinations of images, text, designs, and contact forms.
Ultimately, if you’re seeking the best website builder for small companies, Wix is the very 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 assist local businesses to tell their unique stories online.
Overall, they are best known for simplicity and speed.
With Zyro, you may make a company website fast and easily with no coding required. Your site also loads fast due to the light framework and looks great on all apparatus.
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 grid tool, mobile-readiness, and more than one million stock pictures to choose 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 begin with this tool, you pick your type of business, then write 2-3 paragraphs describing your brand and context. Then you correct your AI settings and customize them based on length, expertise, and creativity level. Last, you click the Generate button and see your uniquely generated content.
Since content creation is a challenge for many website owners, this tool generates new paragraphs for you that can rank better in search and increase conversion rates.
Some other excellent features include:
Built-in SEO 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 improve website conversions and predict visitor behavior.
Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website designs.
Free website design templates for various industries like creative agencies, startups, fashion brands, health companies, bakeries, and much more.
Zyro offers three primary 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 plan 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 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 is most acceptable for small and medium-sized businesses.
Finally, their “Unleashed” plan provides every Zyro feature and gives unlimited bandwidth and storage. At such an affordable price of $3.49/month, it makes sense to go for this plan and enjoy the unlimited features if you’re planning to get a great deal of content on your website.
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 high on search engines, and increase conversion rates with high-quality, mobile-friendly design templates.
You can begin with Zyro free of charge to check 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 website today.
Best Website Design for Personal Sites ($12/month)
When I think of Squarespace, my mind goes directly for their beautifully designed home page. They truly know how to make 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 imagery all mesh flawlessly for any website.
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 functionality, and you can schedule your posts:
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 each page with and without a trailing slash”/.” This dual indexing could potentially lead to SEO and duplicate content problems later on. 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 whole Wix vs Squarespace review.
Other great 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 site for just $12/month.
Monthly prices 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 plan provides a free domain name, unlimited bandwidth and storage, free SSL, and 24/7 customer support.
In general, if you are a small company that needs first-rate web design or a blogger who wants your content to look great, Squarespace is a trusted choice.
Best Free Website Builder (Free — $25/month)
Weebly powers over 530,000 domains and is known as the easy website 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 website’s functionality on the go. And email marketing tools let you send newsletters to your subscribers from inside their tool.
They have a free plan which comes with 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 forced to get Weebly branding throughout your site. Also, the free plan only includes email and chat support, but no phone service.
Weebly’s paid programs range from $5 to $25 per month. On the high end, their Business Plan gets you innovative 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 via Square and other suppliers.
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 forum, social networking, and programmer documentation. They also have live chat, email, and telephone support.
If you are searching for a simple website creator to get up and running, I recommend you get started with Weebly.
Best Website 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 to the list because almost 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 blog, 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 listing, such as hosting, your own domain name, 70+ specialist themes, a free SSL certificate, and marketing and SEO features.
They also supply mobile commerce, 100+ payment gateways, automatic carrier shipping rates, automatic tax rates, and the full 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 think that you might want 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 Fundamental Shopify Plan should give site owners everything they need, including a full website, an online 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 Designers ($16 per month).
Some of its other key features include:
You can add and edit content to your live website.
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 support through email, Webflow community forum, and help centre.
Integration with Zapier lets you connect with tools such as 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 business 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 include premade designs and content blocks. You may also customize colors, fonts, the arrangement of the page, and more.
Flothemes help you build your website 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. Fortunately, most hosting services provide a one-click WordPress setup.
Finally, select a theme for your website or portfolio.
You can watch several how-to tutorials by Flothemes or contact the customer support team.
If you need assistance setting up the whole site, you can drop a message, and their team will do everything for you.
Flothemes can allow you to set up your website for just $499-$1999. Besides setting up your website from the beginning, they also offer services like page load 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. All in all, you get six rounds of implementations.
Additionally, Flothemes provides features like SSL implementation, WordPress installation, Typography, color scheme stylization, and more. You also find complete design freedom, SEO options, and a dashboard.
Pricing:
While their subjects 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 Setup packages: $1,999
The Simple Setup Package can help you skip the technical components and jump directly to adding content and personalizing your motif. It offers features like WordPress installation, site layout setup, theme setup, WordPress transfer, site launching, etc..
The Advanced Setup Package incorporates full assistance with website setup, styling & launching, 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 of the features in the Advanced Setup Package along with the tailored mockup & execution for your homepage.
Best Website Tool with Integrated CRM Tools
HubSpot is a topnotch CRM tool that also has a full-featured CMS and website builder. Using their platform, you can create website pages, blog posts, landing pages from scratch or with 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 list, HubSpot comes integrated with a broad range of marketing software, including tools to manage email marketing, get found online, and catch, engage with and understand prospects.
By way of example, when you create a webpage, you may add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into leads. Then, when you understand your visitors, you can dynamically create content unique to site visitors based on their location, device, language, traffic origin, or any other detail you choose to catch in 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 leads.
Personalized experiences, calls-to-action, and smart content turns leads into customers.
Overall, if you are looking for a site builder that also comes with a full-featured set 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 Marketing Website Builder for Local Firms
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’s a Website Builder?
A website builder is a tool that allows anyone to manage a website and domain name without manual programming. In other words, a site builder is a tool or software application that will assist you build a web site.
In the old days of the net, programmers needed to understand HTML and CSS to make a website. Today, if you want to code a site, there’s a steep learning curve — you need to have extensive knowledge of JavaScript and PHP. Not so with site builders.
These tools help 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 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 can choose the option that is right for your small business or online brand.
If you are looking for the very best site builder complete, I recommend you begin using Wix.
For the best designs and templates, check out Squarespace.
If you need an e-commerce site to sell products online, Shopify is a fantastic choice.
What site builder do you use?