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17 Best Site Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Choosing the best website builder can be hard, as there are 74 popular choices to choose from.
In this guide, I ranked and reviewed the best website builders to make a website based on cost, reliability, web hosting solutions , technical assistance, site speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and much more.
We will also compare:
The ideal website builders for small companies.
The best free and affordable choices.
The ones with the best SEO.
The best platforms with online store capabilities.
The top builders for agencies.
And the best options for photographers and artists.
What is the Best Website Builder?
Using a site builder is a quick and easy way to build a presence for your brand or online business. These tools simplify your site management by combining domain registrationhosting, and website design into one stage.
If you’re 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 site builder to use this season.
Wix.
Best Site Builder for Small Business ($13/month)
Wix is the most popular website builder available on the current market, with over 100 million consumers.
They have 500+ ready-to-use templates to design your website 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 name on GoDaddy or want to register one at Wix.com, they make it super simple. Also, if you’d like to add e-commerce to your site so you could sell online, plans start a $20/month.
If you’re a small company, I urge Wix as the best online store builder. You don’t necessarily require a platform with more advanced options like BigCommerce and Shopify. Wix website owners that are looking to add 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 look 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 on your website and uses that information to design a site tailored to your specific needs.
This tool leverages AI selecting from billions of combinations of pictures, text, designs, and contact forms.
Ultimately, if you’re looking for the best site builder for small companies, Wix is the 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 help local companies to tell their unique stories online.
Overall, they’re famous for speed and simplicity.
With Zyro, you can create 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 devices.
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 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 pick your type of organization, then write 2-3 sentences describing your brand and circumstance. Then you adjust your AI settings and customize them based on duration, experience, and creativity level. Lastly, you click the Create button and see your uniquely generated content.
Since content creation is a challenge for many website owners, this tool generates 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 increase website conversions and forecast visitor behavior.
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 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.
Next, their “Basic” program permits 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 attribute and gives unlimited storage and bandwidth. At this affordable price of $3.49/month, it is sensible to go with this plan and enjoy the unlimited features if you’re planning to have a great deal of content on your website.
Overall, Zyro is best for small businesses seeking to create and develop a website fast, save money on composing and logo-making using 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 program when you’re ready to grow your online 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 to their beautifully designed home page. They truly know how to create 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 when it comes to design. Squarespace templates appear excellent down to every detail. The fonts, color schemes, and imagery all mesh perfectly 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 on the page and place it where you want. They also offer multiple user permissions, Google AMP functionality, and you can schedule your articles:
A few small SEO limits hold Squarespace back from being #1 on this list. First, 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 a simple fix the last time I checked.
Second, your site headlines always become your meta titles, so be careful when adding your headlines for SEO. You can read more in my whole Wix vs Squarespace review.
Other terrific 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 hard to go wrong with a beautifully-designed website 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 domainname. 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 business that needs first-rate web design or a blogger who wants your articles to look great, Squarespace is a reliable option.
Best Free Website Builder (Free — $25/month)
Weebly powers over 530,000 domains and is known as the simple website builder of choice for people without much technical experience. They offer a lot 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 articles.
They also have a mobile program to track your site’s performance on the go. And email marketing tools let you 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 forced to get Weebly branding throughout your site. Also, the free program only comes with email and chat support, but no phone support.
Weebly’s paid plans vary from $5 to $25 per month. On the high end, their Business Plan gets you innovative e-commerce performance, a free domain, 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 providers.
The degree of customer support you receive is based on your subscription level. You’ll find assistance yourself in several locations, including their blog, support centre, community forum, social media, and developer documentation. They also have live chat, email, and phone support.
If you’re searching for a simple site creator to get up and running, I recommend you begin using Weebly.
Best Website 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 site owner needs product-selling functionality, I added Shopify to the list because 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 site including a blog, 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 company.
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+ specialist themes, a free SSL certificate, and promotion and SEO features.
They also offer 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 more.
If you’re setting up a new website and think that you may want to sell products online in the future, it is far better to begin with Shopify rather than another tool that doesn’t take online shopping too.
They offer three plans ranging from $29/month to $299/month. The $29/month Basic Shopify Plan should give website owners everything they want, including a full website, an internet store with unlimited products, site 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 a month).
Some of its other key features include:
You can add and edit 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 centre.
Integration with Zapier enables you to connect with tools such as Slack, MailChimp, and Asana.
You can add up to 3000 products on your website 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 websites inside of WordPress with no need for custom coding. It’s powered by Flex block, a powerful 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 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 even check Flothemes cloud hosting services, starting at $26 per month.
Install WordPress.org and join it to your website hosting. Fortunately, most hosting services provide a one-click WordPress setup.
Finally, select a theme for your site or portfolio.
You’ll be able to 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 will help you set up your site for just $499-$1999. Besides setting up your website from the start, they also offer services like page load speed optimization, SEO, styling, etc.. Plus, you get two screen 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 dashboard.
Pricing:
While their subjects 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 components and jump directly to adding content and personalizing your motif. It provides features like WordPress installation, website layout setup, theme setup, WordPress transfer, website launching, etc..
The Advanced Setup Package incorporates full assistance with website setup, styling & launch, site speed optimization & an search engine optimization consultation. Additional features include typography & color scheme stylization, SSL implementation, speed optimization, etc..
Pro Setup Package includes all of the features from the Advanced Setup Package together with the tailored mockup & execution for your homepage.
Best Site 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 either from scratch or using 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 wide range of marketing applications, including tools to manage email marketing, get found online, and catch, engage with and understand prospects.
For instance, when you create a webpage, you may add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into leads. Then, when you know your visitors, you can dynamically create content unique to site visitors based on their location, device, speech, traffic source, or any 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 personalized messages to your prospects.
Their contact report 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’re looking for a site builder that also includes a full-featured pair of CRM and marketing tools, HubSpot is your best choice.
The World’s Most Popular CMS
Easiest Free Website Builder for Small Sites
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 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 site and domain name without manual coding. In other words, a website builder is a tool or software application that will help you build a web site.
In the old days of the net, programmers needed to understand HTML and CSS to make a site. Today, if you want to code a site, there is 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 sites and ecommerce companies easily create sites 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 website for my business?
There you have it — my list of the greatest website builders. As there are 74 options out there, I have condensed the list down to the very best so you may 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 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 site builder do you use?