youtube.com/watch?v=bOX1Gwm73Oo
17 Best Website Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)
Choosing the best site builder can be difficult, as there are 74 popular choices to select from.
In this guide, I rated and reviewed the best website builders to make a website based on price, reliability, web hosting solutions , technical assistance, site speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and more.
We’ll also compare:
The ideal website builders for small businesses.
The best free and cheap options.
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 site builder is a fast and easy way to construct a presence for your brand or internet business. These tools simplify your website management by combining domain registrationhosting, and site design into one platform.
If you’re not too knowledgeable about web design and development, you will 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 year.
Wix.
Best Site Builder for Small Business ($13/month)
Wix is the most popular website builder on the current 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 animation and video 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 want to add e-commerce to your website so you could sell online, plans begin a $20/month.
If you are 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 find these excellent new features.
Wix is the most user-friendly site tool on the market. You can almost always 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 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 images, text, designs, and contact forms.
Finally, if you’re seeking the best website builder for small businesses, Wix is your 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 website builder with a mission to assist local businesses to tell their unique stories online.
Overall, they are famous for simplicity and speed.
With Zyro, you may make a business site quickly and easily with no coding required. Your website also loads fast due to its light frame and looks great on all devices.
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 get started with this tool, you pick your type of business, then write 2-3 sentences describing your brand and context. You then correct your AI settings and customize them based on length, experience, and creativity level. Last, you click on the Create button and see your uniquely generated content.
Since content generation is a challenge for many site owners, this tool creates new paragraphs for you that can rank better in search and increase conversion rates.
Some other excellent features include:
Built-in SEO tools to increase your search rankings.
A free SSL certificate and custom domain names.
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 designs.
Free website design templates for various industries like creative services, startups, fashion brands, wellness businesses, bakeries, and much more.
Zyro offers three main 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 does not 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 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 attribute and gives unlimited bandwidth and storage. At such an affordable price of $3.49/month, it makes sense to go for this plan and enjoy the unlimited features if you’re planning to have a lot of content on your site.
Overall, Zyro is ideal for small businesses seeking to create and grow a website quickly, save money on writing 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 get started with Zyro for free to check 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 site 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 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 imagery all mesh flawlessly for any site.
Besides design, their stage is wonderful for bloggers. I tested out their WYSIWYG blog editor, and it is very intuitive.
You drag elements like images, headings, and text onto the page and position it where you would like. They also offer multiple user permissions, Google AMP functionality, and you can schedule your posts:
A few small search engine optimization limits 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 may potentially lead to SEO and duplicate content issues later on. They didn’t have a simple fix the last time I checked.
Secondly, your site headlines always become your meta names, so be cautious when adding your headlines for SEO. You can read more in my whole Wix vs Squarespace review.
Other terrific features compensate for these drawbacks. Their ease of use is top-notch — 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 tough to go wrong with a beautifully-designed site for only $12/month.
Monthly prices range from $12/month for their private plan up to $40/month for their Online Store (Advanced) plan. Monthly prices 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 service.
In general, 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 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’re a blogger, you can use Weebly.com to select a domain name and use their editor to add your text, pictures, and articles.
They also have a mobile program to keep track of your site’s performance 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 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 programs range from $5 to $25 per month. On the high end, their Business Plan 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, inventory 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 can find assistance yourself in several areas, including their site, service center, community forum, social networking, and programmer documentation. They also have live chat, email, and telephone support.
If you are searching for a simple site creator to get up and running, I suggest that you get started with Weebly.
Best Site Builder for Ecommerce ($29/month)
Shopify is a favorite 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 into the list because any small business could use them to install their website.
Take a salon for instance.
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 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 listing, including hosting, your own domain name, 70+ specialist topics, a free SSL certificate, and marketing and SEO features.
They also supply mobile commerce, 100+ payment gateways, automated carrier shipping rates, automated tax rates, and the full checkout experience. Besides, you can enjoy omnichannel selling across Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Instagram, and more.
If you’re establishing a new website and believe that you might want to sell products online in the future, it’s far better to get started 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 Fundamental Shopify Plan should give site owners everything they want, including a complete website, an internet 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 Designers ($16 a month).
Some of its other key features include:
You can edit and add content to your live website.
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 support through 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 business that offers customizable WordPress themes. These templates enable you to build sites inside of WordPress with no need for custom coding. It is powered by Flex block, a potent free stream 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 structure 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 a month.
Install WordPress.org and join it to your web site hosting. Fortunately, most hosting services offer a one-click WordPress installation.
Finally, pick 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 entire website, you can drop a message, and their team will do everything for you.
Flothemes can help you set up your website for only $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. In general, you get six rounds of implementations.
Additionally, 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 themes cost a one-time $279, Flothemes offers three pricing plans for their site setup services, including:
Simple Installation Bundle: $499
Advanced setup packages: $999
Pro Setup packages: $1,999
The Simple Setup Package helps you skip the technical components and jump straight to adding content and personalizing your motif. It offers features like WordPress installation, website layout setup, theme setup, WordPress transfer, site launch, etc..
The Advanced Setup Package includes full assistance with website setup, styling & launching, site speed optimization & an SEO consultation. Additional features include typography & colour scheme stylization, SSL implementation, speed optimization, etc..
Pro Setup Package contains all of the features in the Advanced Setup Package together with the tailored mockup & execution 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, you can 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 listing, HubSpot comes integrated with a wide assortment of marketing applications, including tools to manage email advertising, get found online, and capture, engage with and understand prospects.
For instance, when you make a webpage, you can add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into leads. Then, when you understand your visitors, you can dynamically create content unique to site visitors based on their location, device, language, traffic origin, or some other detail you choose to catch on your HubSpot CRM.
This integrated marketing suite covers all parts of the customer lifecycle:
Forms, live chat, and conversational chatbots capture leads.
Email marketing, retargeting, and messenger integrations send personalized messages to your leads.
Their contact report builder, analytics tools, and list 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 site builder that also includes a full-featured set of CRM and marketing tools, HubSpot is the best alternative.
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 Large Online Stores
Great for Photographers and Artists
Best for startups that want to create bootstrapped sites
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 programming. In other words, a website builder is a tool or software program that will help you build a website.
In the old days of the net, programmers needed to know HTML and CSS to create a website. Today, if you want to code a website, there is a steep learning curve — you want to have extensive knowledge of JavaScript and PHP. Not so with website builders.
These tools assist everyone from small businesses and bloggers to news 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 website for my company?
There you have it — my list of the greatest website builders. As there are 74 choices out there, I have condensed the listing down to the top so you can choose the option that is perfect for your business or online brand.
If you are looking for the best site builder complete, I recommend you begin with Wix.
For the best designs and templates, take a look at Squarespace.
If you need an e-commerce site to sell products online, Shopify is a fantastic choice.
What website builder do you use?