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17 Best Site Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Picking the best website builder can be difficult, as there are 74 popular options to select from.
In this guide, I ranked and reviewed the best website builders to create a website based on cost, reliability, web hosting solutions , technical assistance, website speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and much more.
We’ll also compare:
The best website builders for small companies.
The ideal free and affordable choices.
The ones with the best SEO.
The top platforms with online shop capabilities.
The very top builders for agencies.
And the best choices 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 online business. These tools simplify your site management by combining domain registration, hosting, and website 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 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 market, with over 100 million consumers.
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 advanced design features like video and animation backgrounds.
If you already have a domain name on GoDaddy or need to register one at Wix.com, they make it super simple. Also, if you’d like to add e-commerce to your site so that you can 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 require a platform with more advanced options like BigCommerce and Shopify. Wix website owners that are looking to bring an e-commerce store can get these excellent new features.
Wix is the most user-friendly site tool on the market. You can almost endlessly customize the look and feel of your website with no programming knowledge.
They also have a tool called Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) — the first artificial intelligence website builder. Wix ADI learns about 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, layouts, and contact forms.
Ultimately, 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.
Greatest Modern Website Builder with Free Plans (free — $3.49/mo)
Zyro is a website builder with a mission to help local businesses to tell their unique stories online.
Overall, they are famous for simplicity and speed.
With Zyro, you can create a company site quickly and easily with no programming required. Your website also loads fast because of its 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 grid tool, mobile-readiness, and more than one million stock pictures 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 begin with this tool, you pick your type of organization, then write 2-3 sentences describing your brand and context. You then adjust your AI settings and customize them based on duration, expertise, and creativity level. Last, you click the Generate button and see your uniquely created content.
Since content generation is a challenge for many site owners, this tool creates new paragraphs for you which can rank better in search and increase conversion rates.
Another excellent features include:
Built-in search engine optimization tools to improve your search rankings.
A free SSL certificate and custom domain names.
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 layouts.
Free website design templates for various industries like creative agencies, startups, fashion brands, wellness businesses, 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 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 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 is most suitable for small and medium-sized companies.
Finally, their “Unleashed” program provides every Zyro attribute and gives unlimited storage and bandwidth. 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 get a great deal of content on your site.
Overall, Zyro is best for small businesses seeking to create and develop a site quickly, save money on writing and logo-making with 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 check out their stage, then upgrade to a paid program 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 websites that look great for both small businesses and personal websites alike.
With over 100 design templates to select 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 flawlessly 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 position 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. First, 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 a simple fix the last time I checked.
Second, your blog headlines become your meta titles, so be careful when incorporating your headlines for SEO. You can read more in my full Wix vs Squarespace review.
Other terrific features make up for these drawbacks. Their ease of use is topnotch — sites 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 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 bandwidth and storage, free SSL, and 24/7 customer service.
Overall, if you’re a small company that needs first-rate web design or a blogger who 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 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 website’s functionality 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 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 get Weebly branding throughout your website. Also, the free plan only comes with chat and email support, but no phone support.
Weebly’s paid programs range from $5 to $25 per month. On the high end, their Business Plan gets you innovative e-commerce functionality, 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 through Square and other providers.
The degree of customer support you receive is based on your subscription level. You can find assistance yourself in several locations, including their blog, support centre, community forum, social networking, and developer 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 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 app partners.
While not every site owner needs product-selling functionality, I added Shopify into the list because almost any small business could use them to install their site.
Take a salon for instance.
With Shopify, not only could you set up a quick website including a blog, 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 list, such as hosting, your own domain name, 70+ specialist 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. 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 may want to sell products online in the future, it is better to begin with Shopify instead of another instrument that does not take online shopping as seriously.
They offer three plans ranging from $29/month to $299/month. The $29/month Basic 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 want to give Shopify a try, they give a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
Best For Professional Designers ($16 per 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 support 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 website with eCommerce support.
Finest WordPress Themes for Photography and Creative Websites ($279 one-time).
Flothemes is a business 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 the templates and themes come with premade layouts and content blocks. You can also customize colors, fonts, the structure of the page, 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 also check Flothemes cloud hosting services, starting at $26 a month.
Install WordPress.org and join it to your web site hosting. Luckily, 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 help setting up the entire site, you can drop a message, and their team will do everything for you.
Flothemes will allow you to set up your site for just $499-$1999. Besides setting up your site from the beginning, they also offer services like page loading speed optimization, SEO, styling, etc.. In addition, you get two display sharing sessions of 45 minutes each with specialists 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 setup, 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 plans for their website setup services, including:
Simple Installation Bundle: $499
Advanced setup packages: $999
Pro Setup packages: $1,999
The Easy Setup Package can help you skip the technical components and jump straight to adding content and personalizing your theme. It provides features like WordPress installation, site layout setup, theme setup, WordPress transfer, website launch, etc..
The Advanced Setup Package includes full assistance with website setup, styling & launch, site speed optimization & an search engine optimization consultation. Additional features include typography & colour scheme stylization, SSL implementation, speed optimization, etc..
Pro Setup Package contains all the features from the Advanced Setup Package along with the tailored mockup & implementation for your homepage.
Best Site Tool with Integrated CRM Tools
HubSpot is a topnotch 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 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 listing, HubSpot comes integrated with a wide 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 prospects. Then, when you understand your visitors, you can dynamically create content unique to website visitors based on their location, device, speech, traffic origin, or any other detail you choose to capture in your HubSpot CRM.
This integrated marketing suite covers all parts of the customer lifecycle:
Types, live chat, and conversational chatbots capture leads.
Email marketing, retargeting, and messenger integrations send personalized messages to your leads.
Their contact builder, analytics tools, and record segmentation help you understand your own leads.
Personalized experiences, calls-to-action, and smart content turns leads into clients.
Overall, if you are seeking a website builder that also includes 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 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 create bootstrapped websites
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 website builder is a tool or software application to help you build a website.
In the old days of the web, programmers needed to know HTML and CSS to make a site. Today, if you wish 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 businesses and bloggers to information sites and ecommerce businesses 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 website for my business?
There you have it — my list of the greatest website builders. Because there are 74 options out there, I’ve condensed the list down to the very best so that you may choose the option that is perfect for your small business or online brand.
If you’re looking for the very best website builder overall, I recommend you get started using Wix.
For the best designs and templates, take a look at Squarespace.
If you will need an e-commerce site to sell products online, Shopify is a fantastic choice.
What website builder do you use?