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17 Best Site Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Choosing the best site builder can be difficult, 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 services, technical support, website speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and more.
We will also compare:
The ideal website contractors for small companies.
The ideal free and cheap choices.
The ones with the best SEO.
The top platforms with online shop capabilities.
The very 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 online business. These tools simplify your website management by combining domain registrationhosting, and website design into one stage.
If you are not too knowledgeable about web design and development, you’ll want to go with a simple drag and drop editor.
The choice is all 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 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 innovative design features like video and animation backgrounds.
If you already have a domain 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 site so that you can sell online, plans begin a $20/month.
If you’re 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 get 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 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 site tailored to your specific needs.
This tool leverages AI selecting from countless combinations of images, text, designs, and contact forms.
Finally, if you’re seeking the best website builder for small businesses, Wix is the very 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 site builder with a mission to help local businesses to tell their unique stories online.
Overall, they are famous for speed and simplicity.
With Zyro, you can create a business site fast and easily with no programming required. Your website also loads fast due to the light frame 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 over one million stock images 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 get started with this tool, you choose your type of organization, then write 2-3 sentences describing your brand and context. Then you correct your AI settings and customize them based on duration, expertise, and creativity level. Lastly, you click on the Generate button and see your distinctively created 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 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 forecast visitor behaviour.
Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website designs.
Free website design templates for different industries like creative services, startups, fashion brands, wellness companies, bakeries, and more.
Zyro offers three main pricing plans — 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 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” plan allows you to connect your 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 suitable 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 is sensible 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 best for small businesses seeking to create and develop 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 get started with Zyro free of charge to test out their platform, then upgrade to a paid plan when you are ready to grow your internet business.
Get started with Zyro and start 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 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 when it comes to design. Squarespace templates look excellent down to every detail. The fonts, color schemes, and imagery all mesh perfectly for any site.
Besides design, their stage is great for bloggers. I tested out their WYSIWYG blog editor, and it is very intuitive.
You drag elements like pictures, headings, and text onto the page and position it where you would like. They also offer multiple user permissions, Google AMP performance, and you can schedule your articles:
A few small SEO limitations hold Squarespace back from being #1 on this list. First, my XML sitemap pulled in two versions of every page with and without a trailing slash”/.” This double indexing may potentially result in SEO and duplicate content issues down the road. They didn’t have an easy fix the last time I checked.
Secondly, your site headlines 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 compensate for these drawbacks. Their ease of use is topnotch — sites are elementary to build with their editing tools. In-built analytics tools provide steady data on-site visitors if you’re not using Google Analytics. Plus, it’s hard to go wrong with a beautifully-designed website for just $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 domainname. The Personal program provides a free domain name, unlimited bandwidth and storage, free SSL, and 24/7 customer service.
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 domain names and is called the simple 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 content.
They also have a mobile app to track your site’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 plan which includes 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. Additionally, the free program only includes 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 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 receive is based on your subscription level. You’ll find assistance yourself in many areas, including their blog, support center, community forum, social networking, and programmer 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 because of their simple dashboard and integrations with thousands of app partners.
While not every website owner needs product-selling functionality, I added Shopify to the list because any small business could use them to set up 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 info, and appointment scheduling (with a program ), but you could 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 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 full 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’s better to begin with Shopify rather than another tool that doesn’t take online shopping as seriously.
They offer three plans ranging from $29/month to $299/month. The $29/month Basic Shopify Plan should give site owners everything they want, including a complete website, an online store with unlimited products, site 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 painters ($16 a month).
Some of its other key features include:
You can add and edit content to your live website.
Invite other team members to collaborate on a single dash.
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 support via 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 site with eCommerce support.
Best 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 without the 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 layouts 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 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 website hosting. Luckily, most hosting services provide 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 entire site, you can drop a message, and their team will do everything for you.
Flothemes can help you set up your site for only $499-$1999. Besides setting up your website from the start, they also provide 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. In general, you get six rounds of implementations.
Furthermore, Flothemes provides features like SSL implementation, WordPress installation, Typography, color scheme stylization, and much more. You also get complete design freedom, SEO options, and a dash.
Pricing:
While their subjects 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 Simple Setup Package helps you skip the technical components and jump directly to adding content and personalizing your theme. It provides features like WordPress installation, website layout setup, theme setup, WordPress transfer, site launching, etc..
The Advanced Setup Package includes full assistance with site 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 includes all the features in the Advanced Setup Package together with the tailored mockup & execution for your homepage.
Best Site Tool with Integrated CRM Tools
HubSpot is a topnotch 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 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 listing, 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 example, when you make a webpage, you can 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, speech, traffic origin, or any 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 leads.
Their contact report builder, analytics tools, and record segmentation help you understand your leads.
Personalized experiences, calls-to-action, and smart content turns leads into customers.
Overall, if you are seeking a website builder that also comes with a full-featured pair 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 Advertising 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 create bootstrapped sites
Best Site Builder for Agencies and Multilingual Websites
What is a Website Builder?
A website builder is a tool that allows anyone to manage a site and domain name without manual programming. In other words, a site builder is a tool or software application that will assist you build a website.
In the old days of the web, programmers needed to know HTML and CSS to make a website. Today, if you wish to code a website, there is a steep learning curve — you need to have extensive knowledge of JavaScript and PHP. Not so with website builders.
These tools assist everyone from small businesses and bloggers to information 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 website builder?
Can I get a free site for my company?
There you have it — my list of the greatest website builders. Because there are 74 options out there, I have condensed the list down to the very best so that you may choose the option that’s perfect for your business or online brand.
If you’re looking for the best website builder overall, I recommend you begin with 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 good choice.
What site builder do you use?