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17 Best Website Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Choosing the best website 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 create a website based on price, reliability, web hosting solutions , technical support, site speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and much more.
We will also compare:
The best website builders for small businesses.
The best free and affordable choices.
The ones with the best SEO.
The top platforms with online store capabilities.
The top builders for agencies.
And the best choices for photographers and artists.
What is the Best Website Builder?
Using a website builder is a fast and effortless way to construct a presence for your brand or internet business. These tools simplify your site management by combining domain registration, hosting, and site design into one stage.
If you are not too savvy with 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 website builder to use this season.
Wix.
Best Website Builder for Small Business ($13/month)
Wix is the most popular website builder available on the 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 look beautiful, with scroll effects, and advanced design features like video and animation backgrounds.
If you already have a domain name on GoDaddy or want to register one at Wix.com, they make it super simple. Also, if you want to add e-commerce to your site so you could sell online, plans start a $20/month.
If you’re 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 want to add an e-commerce store can get these excellent 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 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 billions of combinations of images, text, designs, and contact forms.
Finally, if you’re looking for the best website builder for small companies, Wix is the best choice.
Read my whole Wix review for more in-depth analysis.
Get started with Wix.
Greatest Modern Website Builder with Free Plans (free — $3.49/mo)
Zyro is a site builder with a mission to assist local companies to tell their unique stories online.
Overall, they are best known for speed and simplicity.
With Zyro, you can create a company website 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 grid tool, mobile-readiness, and over one million stock pictures to select from.
One of the standout features is their AI Content Generator, which provides 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 paragraphs describing your brand and context. Then you correct your AI settings and customize them based on duration, experience, and creativity level. Last, you click on the Generate button and see your uniquely created 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 domains.
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 behaviour.
Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website layouts.
Free website design templates for various industries like creative services, 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 program 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 really popular plan that’s most suitable for small and medium-sized companies.
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 with this program and enjoy the unlimited features if you’re planning to have a great deal of content on your site.
Overall, Zyro is ideal for small businesses looking to create and grow a site 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 free of charge to test out their stage, then upgrade to a paid plan when you’re ready to grow your internet 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 to 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 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 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 pictures, 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 articles:
A few small SEO limits hold Squarespace back from being #1 on this list. To begin with, my XML sitemap pulled in two versions of every page with and without a trailing slash”/.” This dual indexing could potentially lead to SEO and duplicate content problems down the road. They didn’t have an easy fix the last time I checked.
Second, your blog headlines always become your meta names, so be cautious 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 — websites are elementary to build with their editing tools. In-built analytics tools provide continuous data on-site visitors if you are not using Google Analytics. Plus, it’s hard to go wrong with a beautifully-designed site 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 costs 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 support.
Overall, if you are 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 domains and is known as the easy site builder of choice for people without much technical expertise. They offer a great deal 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 text, pictures, and articles.
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 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 get Weebly branding throughout your website. Also, the free plan only includes email and chat support, but no phone service.
Weebly’s paid programs vary from $5 to $25 per month. On the high end, their Business Strategy gets you innovative e-commerce functionality, a free domainname, 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 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, service center, community forum, social media, 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 begin using 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 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 almost 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 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 company.
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 supply mobile commerce, 100+ payment gateways, automatic 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 think that you may want 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 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 complete website, an online store with unlimited products, blog features, 24/7 support, and much 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 a month).
Some of its other key features include:
You can edit and add content to your live site.
Invite other group members to collaborate on a single dashboard.
Add up to 100 pages to your site.
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 center.
Integration with Zapier enables you to 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 websites inside of WordPress with no need for custom coding. It’s powered by Flex block, a potent free stream page builder, providing limitless customization choices.
All of the templates and themes include premade layouts and content blocks. You can also customize colors, fonts, the arrangement of the webpage, and more.
Flothemes help you build your website 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 a month.
Install WordPress.org and join 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 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 site for just $499-$1999. Besides setting up your website from the beginning, they also provide 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.
Furthermore, Flothemes provides features like SSL implementation, WordPress setup, Typography, color scheme stylization, and much 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 plans for their site setup services, including:
Simple Installation Bundle: $499
Advanced setup packs: $999
Pro Setup packages: $1,999
The Easy Setup Package helps you skip the technical parts and jump directly to adding content and personalizing your motif. It offers features like WordPress installation, website layout setup, theme installation, WordPress transfer, website launching, etc..
The Advanced Setup Package incorporates full assistance with site setup, styling & launch, 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 along with the tailored mockup & implementation for your homepage.
Best Website Tool with Integrated CRM Tools
HubSpot is a top-notch CRM tool that also has 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 list, 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 prospects.
For example, when you make a webpage, you may add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into leads. Then, when you understand your traffic, you can dynamically create content unique to site visitors based on their location, device, language, 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:
Types, live chat, and conversational chatbots capture prospects.
Email marketing, retargeting, and messenger integrations send customized 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’re looking for a site 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 Sites
Best Digital Advertising 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 make bootstrapped websites
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 coding. In other words, a site builder is a tool or software application to help you build a website.
In the old days of the net, programmers needed to know HTML and CSS to make a website. Today, if you want to code a site, there’s 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 websites and ecommerce businesses 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 business?
There you have it — my list of the top website builders. Because there are 74 options out there, I’ve condensed the list down to the very best so that you can choose the option that is perfect for your small business or online brand.
If you’re looking for the best website builder overall, I recommend you begin using Wix.
For the best designs and templates, take a look at Squarespace.
If you will need an e-commerce website to sell products online, Shopify is a fantastic choice.
What website builder do you use?