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17 Best Website Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Choosing the best site builder can be hard, as there are 74 popular options to choose from.
In this guide, I ranked and reviewed the best website builders to make a website based on cost, reliability, web hosting services, technical assistance, website speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and much more.
We will also compare:
The best website builders for small companies.
The best free and cheap options.
The ones with the best SEO.
The top platforms with online store capabilities.
The very top builders for agencies.
And the best options for photographers and artists.
What’s the Best Website Builder?
Using a website builder is a quick and easy way to build a presence for your brand or internet business. These tools simplify your site management by combining domain registrationhosting, and site design into one platform.
If you are 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 on the current market, with over 100 million users.
They have 500+ ready-to-use templates to design your site 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.
In case you already have a domain 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 that you can sell online, plans begin a $20/month.
If you are a small business, I urge 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 want to add an e-commerce store can find these excellent new features.
Wix is the most user-friendly site tool on the market. You can almost always customize the appearance and feel of your website with no programming knowledge.
They also have a tool called Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) — the first artificial intelligence site builder. Wix ADI learns about your site 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, designs, and contact forms.
Finally, if you’re looking for the best website builder for small companies, Wix is the 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 assist local businesses to tell their unique stories online.
Overall, they are famous for speed and simplicity.
With Zyro, you may make a business site quickly 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 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 get started with this tool, you pick your type of organization, then write 2-3 paragraphs describing your brand and circumstance. 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 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 SEO 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 behaviour.
Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website designs.
Free website design templates for different industries like creative agencies, startups, fashion brands, wellness companies, bakeries, and much more.
Zyro offers three main pricing programs — a free plan, a mid-tier”Basic” program 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” program allows 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’s most suitable for small and medium-sized businesses.
Finally, their “Unleashed” plan provides every Zyro feature and provides unlimited bandwidth and storage. At this affordable price of $3.49/month, it makes sense to go for this plan and enjoy the unlimited features if you plan to get a lot 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 begin with Zyro for free to test out their platform, then upgrade to a paid plan when you’re ready to grow your internet business.
Get started with Zyro and begin building your site 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 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 look excellent down to every detail. The fonts, color schemes, and vision all mesh perfectly for any site.
Besides design, their platform is wonderful for bloggers. I tested out their WYSIWYG blog editor, and it’s 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 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 may potentially result in SEO and duplicate content problems down the road. They didn’t have an easy fix the last time I checked.
Secondly, 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 terrific features compensate for these drawbacks. Their ease of use is top-notch — sites are elementary to build with their editing tools. In-built analytics tools provide steady data on-site visitors 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 domain. The Personal plan provides a free domain name, unlimited storage and bandwidth, free SSL, and 24/7 customer support.
In general, if you’re a small business that needs first-rate web design or a blogger who wants your content to appear great, Squarespace is a reliable choice.
Best Free Website Builder (Free — $25/month)
Weebly powers over 530,000 domain names and is known as the simple site builder of choice for people without much technical experience. They offer a great deal of great features. If you’re 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 program to keep track of 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 with Weebly branding. You can use a custom domain name with this plan but are made to have Weebly branding throughout your site. Also, the free program only comes with email and chat support, but no phone service.
Weebly’s paid plans range from $5 to $25 per month. On the high end, their Business Strategy 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 through Square and other providers.
The level of customer support you get is based on your subscription level. You’ll find assistance yourself in many areas, including their blog, support center, community forum, social media, 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 with Weebly.
Best Site 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 because of their simple dashboard and integrations with thousands of app partners.
While not every website owner needs product-selling functionality, I added Shopify into the list because any small business could use them to set up their site.
Take a salon for example.
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 promotion and SEO features.
They also supply mobile commerce, 100+ payment gateways, automated carrier shipping rates, automatic tax rates, and the complete checkout experience. Plus, you can enjoy omnichannel selling across Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Instagram, and more.
If you’re establishing 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 tool that doesn’t take online shopping too.
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 full website, an internet store with unlimited products, blog 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 Designers ($16 a month).
Some of its other Important features include:
You can add and edit content to your live site.
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 center.
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 enable you to build sites inside of WordPress with no need for custom coding. It’s 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 arrangement of the webpage, 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 even check Flothemes cloud hosting services, starting at $26 a month.
Install WordPress.org and join it to your website hosting. Luckily, most hosting services offer a one-click WordPress setup.
Finally, pick a theme for your site or portfolio.
You can see several how-to tutorials by Flothemes or contact the customer support team.
If you need assistance setting up the whole website, you can drop a message, and their staff will do everything for you.
Flothemes can help you set up your site for only $499-$1999. Besides setting up your site from the start, they also provide services like page loading speed optimization, SEO, styling, etc.. In addition, you get two screen sharing sessions of 45 minutes each with specialists and one SEO consultation call of 45 minutes. In general, you get six rounds of implementations.
Additionally, Flothemes provides features like SSL implementation, WordPress setup, Typography, color scheme stylization, and more. You also find complete design freedom, SEO options, and a dashboard.
Pricing:
While their themes cost a one-time $279, Flothemes offers three pricing plans for their site 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 straight to adding content and personalizing your motif. It offers features like WordPress installation, website layout setup, theme setup, WordPress transfer, site launching, etc..
The Advanced Setup Package incorporates full assistance with website setup, styling & launch, site speed optimization & an SEO consultation. Additional features include typography & color scheme stylization, SSL implementation, speed optimization, etc..
Pro Setup 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 top-notch CRM tool which 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 help 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 software, including tools to manage email advertising, get found online, and capture, engage with and understand leads.
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 know your traffic, 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:
Forms, live chat, and conversational chatbots capture leads.
Email advertising, retargeting, and messenger integrations send customized 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 clients.
Overall, if you’re seeking a website builder that also includes a full-featured set of CRM and marketing tools, HubSpot is your ideal choice.
The World’s Most Popular CMS
Easiest Free Website Builder for Small Websites
Best Digital Advertising Website Builder for Local Firms
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 Website Builder for Agencies and Multilingual Websites
What’s a Website Builder?
A website builder is a tool which allows anyone to manage a website and domain name without manual coding. In other words, a site builder is a tool or software program that will assist you build a web site.
In the old days of the web, programmers needed to understand HTML and CSS to create a site. Today, if you wish to code a site, there is 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 information sites and ecommerce companies easily create websites 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 company?
There you have it — my list of the top website builders. Because there are 74 options out there, I have condensed the list down to the top so you can choose the option that’s perfect for your business or online brand.
If you are looking for the best site builder complete, I recommend you get started with Wix.
For the best designs and templates, check out Squarespace.
If you need an e-commerce site to sell products online, Shopify is a good choice.
What site builder do you use?