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17 Best Site Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Picking 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 cost, reliability, web hosting services, technical assistance, site speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and more.
We’ll also compare:
The ideal website contractors for small businesses.
The ideal free and affordable choices.
The ones with the best SEO.
The top platforms with online store capabilities.
The best builders for agencies.
And the best choices for photographers and artists.
What’s the Best Website Builder?
Using a website builder is a fast and easy way to build a presence for your brand or online business. These tools simplify your site management by combining domain registrationhosting, and site design into one stage.
If you are 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 season.
Wix.
Best Site Builder for Small Business ($13/month)
Wix is the most popular website builder on the 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 appear beautiful, with scroll effects, and innovative design features like video and animation backgrounds.
In case you already have a domain name on GoDaddy or want to register one at Wix.com, they make it super easy. Additionally, 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 bring 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 appearance and feel of your website with no coding knowledge.
They also have a tool named Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) — the first artificial intelligence site builder. Wix ADI learns about your site and uses that information to design a site tailored to your specific needs.
This tool leverages AI choosing from billions of combinations of pictures, text, designs, and contact forms.
Ultimately, if you’re seeking the best site builder for small companies, Wix is your very best option.
Read my full 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 website builder with a mission to assist local companies to tell their unique stories on the web.
Overall, they’re best known for speed and simplicity.
With Zyro, you may make a company website quickly and easily with no programming required. Your website also loads fast because of the 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 tool, mobile-readiness, and more than one million stock images to select from.
One of their 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 pick your type of organization, then write 2-3 paragraphs describing your brand and context. You then adjust your AI settings and customize them based on duration, experience, and creativity degree. Last, you click the Generate button and see your distinctively created content.
Since content creation is a challenge for many site owners, this tool generates new paragraphs for you which can rank better in search and increase conversion rates.
Another 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 maker.
24/7 customer support via email and live chat.
AI heatmaps to improve website conversions and predict visitor behaviour.
Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website designs.
Free website design templates for different industries like creative services, startups, fashion brands, wellness businesses, bakeries, and much 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 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” plan permits 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 very popular plan that’s most acceptable for small and medium-sized companies.
Finally, their “Unleashed” program provides every Zyro feature and provides unlimited storage and bandwidth. At this affordable price of $3.49/month, it is sensible to go for this plan and enjoy the unlimited features if you plan to have a great deal of content on your site.
Overall, Zyro is best for small businesses looking to create and grow a website fast, 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 get started with Zyro free of charge 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 right to 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 choose from, they lead the pack in regards to design. Squarespace templates look excellent down to every detail. The fonts, color schemes, and imagery all mesh flawlessly 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 on 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 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 could 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 names, so be careful when adding your headlines for SEO. You can read more in my full 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 on-site visitors if you’re 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 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 program provides a free domain name, unlimited bandwidth and storage, free SSL, and 24/7 customer support.
In general, if you are a small business that needs first-rate web design or a blogger that wants your content to appear great, Squarespace is a reliable option.
Best Free Website Builder (Free — $25/month)
Weebly powers over 530,000 domains and is called the easy site builder of choice for people without much technical expertise. They offer a great deal of great features. If you are 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 website’s functionality 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 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 site. Additionally, the free program only comes with email and chat support, but no phone support.
Weebly’s paid plans range 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, stock management, a shipping calculator, shipping labels, and the ability to accept payments via Square and other suppliers.
The degree of customer support you get is based on your subscription level. You’ll find assistance yourself in many locations, including their blog, service centre, community discussion, social media, and developer documentation. They also have live chat, email, and telephone support.
If you are looking for a simple site creator to get up and running, I suggest that you get started using 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 program partners.
While not every website owner needs product-selling functionality, I added Shopify to the list because almost any small business could use them to set up their site.
Have a salon for example.
With Shopify, not only could you set up a quick site including a site, a map of your location, contact information, 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 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, automated 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 believe that you might want to sell products online in the future, it is far better to get started with Shopify instead of 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 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 offer a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
Best For Professional painters ($16 per month).
Some of its other Important features include:
You can add and edit content to your live site.
Invite other team 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 through email, Webflow community forum, and help center.
Integration with Zapier lets you connect with tools such as Slack, MailChimp, and Asana.
You can add up to 3000 products on your site with eCommerce support.
Best 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 with no need for custom coding. It’s powered by Flex block, a powerful free stream page builder, providing limitless customization choices.
All of the templates and themes include premade designs and content blocks. You may 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 site. You can also check Flothemes cloud hosting services, starting at $26 per month.
Install WordPress.org and connect it to your web site hosting. Luckily, most hosting services provide a one-click WordPress setup.
Finally, select a theme for your website 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 team will do everything for you.
Flothemes will 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 loading speed optimization, SEO, styling, etc.. Plus, you get two display 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 much more. You also find complete design freedom, SEO options, and a dash.
Pricing:
While their themes cost a one-time $279, Flothemes offers three pricing strategies for their site setup services, including:
Simple Setup Package: $499
Advanced setup packs: $999
Pro Setup packages: $1,999
The Easy Setup Package helps you skip the technical parts and jump straight 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 search engine optimization consultation. Additional features include typography & color 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 which also includes a full-featured CMS and website builder. Using their platform, you can create website pages, blog posts, landing pages either from scratch or with their pre-built templates.
Their drag-and-drop editor uses responsive design to 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 marketing, get found online, and capture, engage with and understand leads.
By way of instance, when you create a webpage, you may add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into prospects. Then, when you understand your traffic, you can dynamically create content unique to site visitors based on their location, device, speech, traffic origin, or some other detail you choose to catch in your HubSpot CRM.
This integrated marketing suite covers all parts of the customer lifecycle:
Types, live chat, and conversational chatbots capture prospects.
Email advertising, retargeting, and messenger integrations send customized messages to your prospects.
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 looking for a website builder that also comes with a full-featured pair 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 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 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 website. Today, if you want to code a site, there is 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 companies and bloggers to news sites 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 website 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’ve condensed the list down to the top so that you can choose the option that is right for your small business or online brand.
If you’re looking for the best site builder complete, I recommend you get started 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 website builder do you use?